Cultural Exchange Ch. 04

I took my hand out of the pocket and opened the box to show her the ring, "See? A Blue Planet with its White Moon. This way, every time you look at it you'll remember that now you are my world, and that my universe revolves around you."

She jumped at me, and she was about to let herself go when we heard snickers and Errom's coughing. "It is getting late and we should go back. Ralya, tonight you come with us. I don't think that a locked door could stop you from visiting him in the middle of the night." Oner laughed at that and we bid our farewells and I went up to put my new robe in the wardrobe while my new family waited for their carriage outside with Merita.

I was looking out the closed window when the clouds fulfilled their promise and it started raining. A lightning bolt fell close by, illuminating the room. That was the first thing that saved my life that night. Thanks to the reflection on the glass of the window, the light revealed the dark figure with short and spiky white hair behind me. I dove down to my left and the wrinkling carpet slid me under the bed, where I could get my sword. I wouldn't have made this if I tried to do it on purpose. That, and my enemy's sword getting stuck in the wooden frame of the bed, was the second thing that saved me. The weapon in her right hand looked like a ninja sword.

I stood up with my scimitar in my right hand, keeping the sheath in the left. By the shape of her studded leather armor, it was obvious I was facing a woman, but she had stone-gray skin. I caught a glimpse of black horns curving back over her head. Curved lines of an almost glowing radioactive green color with sharp ends adorned her around the eyes and on her bare shoulders like tribal tattoo.

With my sword pointing at her, I asked, "Who are you?" No answer. "Who sends you?" Her expression remained unchanged. "Why are you doing this?" Not even the slightest smirk on her thin, pale gray lips. Her golden eyes were fixed and hard. Her triangular ears stood straight up, not moving.

She threw a knife at me with her left hand and threw herself to the attack when I dodged. Too close, she had changed the trajectory of her sword in mid-blow and stabbed through the sleeve of my shirt, scratching my left arm. She easily evaded my first sword attack and forced me to block her counter with the sheath of my weapon. She saw my move coming and kicked me away to throw a knife at me again. This time, I couldn't evade because she had thrown three of them in an arch movement. One of them stabbed deep my right leg in the middle of the thigh. My mind was convulsing between the thoughts of "Did she get my femoral artery?" and "How many knives does she have?"

She slid her sword over my next block, piercing my left shoulder front to back. One of the things Oner had taught me struck my heart like an icy dagger, the realization that I was in front of an opponent I couldn't beat. She passed to a full offensive with a series of blows that I was almost unable to block or evade. They left cuts and superficial stabs over my chest and sides. Her face an impassive mask all the time. Had my mind tricked me or did I really see a tear rolling down her cheek?

I was panting and my vision starting to get blurry at the sides because of the blood loss. Then I heard Yalgir's voice in my mind. "Why don't you use all of your weapons?" I made my plan. Now I had a chance at survival, if not at victory. Gritting my teeth to withstand the pain I threw at her the sheath of my sword. She almost didn't have to move to evade it, but she wasn't my target. The metal-ornamented leather impacted the window, breaking the glass and letting in a dark figure that flew to my right arm. "Turak, Transfer!" I screamed, and then unleashed my new power on her.

Turak's lightning struck her, but she didn't open her mouth. My enemy wasn't moving, and then I saw the glow. She was wearing a golden chain around her neck, and the blue crystal hanging from it was absorbing the electrical charge that engulfed her body. She had been prepared for it. I felt Turak leave my arm and fly back outside to recharge from the lightning storm, leaving me feeling more vulnerable than ever.

I suddenly realized that Tierra had not been this assassin's target, it was me all along. She had been following me. She knew I had Turak's help and she had brought some kind of magic amulet to protect herself from lightnings. I was doomed, I had nothing left.

The door of my bedroom burst open and Merita came in screaming and wielding her training sword against the assassin's head. The gray assassin had no problems overcoming my maid, but that move left an opening I took. I jumped at the woman and, grabbing the crystal at her cleavage, I pulled it hard, screaming, "Turak, Discharge!" My Familiar streaked in through the window and glowed almost white for a second and threw his lightning at my enemy's back.

She finally opened her mouth, but she made no sound. The reason she hadn't moved a face muscle was now visible: she had been hiding a needle in her mouth and now she gripped it with her teeth to pierce my eye with it. I saw it coming, so I was able to move my face and make it puncture my cheek instead. The electric explosion threw us to opposite sides of the bedroom, finally breaking the chain. I slumped to the floor, my consciousness fading. I knew in that state she would finish me.

My consciousness was coming and going when I heard voices in the bedroom. Errom had ordered their carriage to come back when they saw the lightning hit my house. When I asked about the assassin, Merita answered me. She was bleeding, but it didn't seem to be something life-threatening. Merita said that since I had been the one who held the stone of the amulet, I was completely protected. But the assassin was still wearing the chain around her neck, which saved her from the worst of the discharge. She had regained consciousness before I did and swayed to the window, fleeing into the night. Maybe it was because I wasn't thinking straight, but I told them to let her go. It would take me months to know that she heard me because she was resting on the roof of my house.

Ralya's voice whispered in my ear. It looked like she was crying. "I have never been scared of the dark, I have never been scared from the storms. I have never been scared of monsters or enemies. But now I am scared of losing you. Iloveyou." My cheek was burning. Probably the needle was poisoned. I fell in the darkness.

*******

In the middle of the darkness, I was looking at myself in a black mirror. I had a glowing green spiderweb stuck to my face and neck, and it was growing to cover my whole body. I couldn't move and I don't know how long I was looking at myself, until I saw my reflection blink my eyes when I hadn't done so. Then my reflection started moving without any synchronization with me and got out of the mirror with the spasmodic moves of an insect, but it was no longer my reflection. He still had the same body and face as me, but his hair was long, silvery and waved in the air as if he was under the sea, and his eyes overflowed with something that looked like black fire engulfed in golden electric bolts. If it wasn't for the state I was in, I would have been terrified at that sight.

With a sleepy voice, I asked him, "Who are you?"

He just answered, "Strictly speaking, I'm someone who needs your help, but I'd like it if you could think of me as a friend. Here, a proof of good will." Saying that, he pinched my left cheek and took off the spiderweb, which crackled and vanished.

"What... have you done to me?" I was starting to think more clearly.

"I have rid you of the poison. To be true, I have saved your life because I have seen that one day you will be the only one in the right position to save one of my daughters. Saving her will be good for this world, but it will set in motion events that may end in a second War of the Worlds. No matter your choice, you'll have to fight the consequences."

My mind wasn't getting clearer fast enough to keep up with this. "What? You have seen the future?"

He chuckled and stretched a finger towards my head. "It doesn't matter now. I'll contact you again when the moment is right." He touched my forehead and I lost consciousness once again.

*******

Do you remember when I told you that my mind works in odd ways sometimes? Well, if the conversation before didn't leave it clear enough, the next part should show it even more.

The next blurry vision I had was of me, unable to move in my bed and my assassin getting undressed in front of me. Some parts of her body were bandaged, but her slim and toned figure was completely appreciable. Her breasts were round and firm, but not big, with a clearer tone of gray at her nipples. She had shapely hips and well-toned thighs, with a small tuft of white hair between them. She said something I couldn't hear and covered my body with hers to start kissing me fiercely nipping at my lips.

She was in complete control of me during this dream, and she started going down my body, making me feel her tongue and teeth along my chest, belly and navel until she got my clothes off to start nibbling my manhood. She looked at me dead in the eyes while sticking out her tongue to lick my shaft top to bottom over and over, lashing at the head with an almost furious rhythm, her eyes never parting from mine. She opened her mouth to swallow my girth and she started bobbing her head up and down at a fast pace. Her teeth, specially her slightly long canines, were grazing at me, but the glint in her eyes told me that she knew and she didn't care. She took my member to rub it against her face from time to time, or to do other kinds of games. She reached an almost frantic rhythm until she suddenly stopped.

The woman started rising along my body again and straddled me, her knees at both my sides letting me have a good view of her most intimate places. I saw that the excitement had brought a flush to her nipples and lower lips, making them a shadow of grayish blue, shiny with moist down between her legs. She started lowering her hips and I saw a drip of her juices trickle down my member when its head started to open her labia. Once the head was in, she started to move her hips in circles, enjoying the sensation until she looked at my eyes again and smirked devilishly. She stopped putting strength in her legs and her weight came down on me, impaling herself on me to the bottom. She screamed in ecstasy and started rocking her hips without raising or lowering herself until she started to move up and down without stopping her sidewards movements. I was not far from my climax after the treatment she had given me, and her increasing pace made me think she was almost there too. She grabbed my shoulders with her hands, increasing to a maniacal rhythm with her perky little tits bouncing around.

She moved one hand to grab at my hair, moving my head to rub her breasts against my face. I felt her pert nipples on my lips and I opened my mouth to try suck them. She stopped moving her chest, moving only her hips up and down to let me enjoy her breasts. I was nibbling her nipples when her lower body started convulsing. I felt her inner walls tighten and vibrate around my shaft and that made me cum uncontrollably inside her. My gray she-devil closed her eyes tightly and screamed her orgasm to the top of her lungs, sticking out her blue tongue and her whole convulsive body clinging to mine.

The next thing I could see was the woman, dressed again, leaning to me for a farewell kiss. That's when I heard her caressing voice for the first time. "That has been delicious, my Lord, but as things stand right now, I can't stay here. I have business to resolve here and at my home, but I'll be back when you need me. This is my oath to you: I am yours from now on and until forever." This time, she kissed me more slowly, as if she was trying to engrave my taste on her memory.

*******

The dream ended and an undefined amount of time later, I woke up to see Ralya over me.

She was scrubbing the sweat from me with a warm wet towel. I tried to say, "Watch out where you put that thing," or some other funny line, but I was able to just squawk because my throat was so dry. Ralya flinched, looked at my open eyes and then she bear-hugged me while crying and screaming. When Merita got to convince her that she was choking me, Ralya left me on the bed with a glass of water and started talking to me about the recent events while my maid went to the kitchen to prepare me something nutritious.

It seems that I had been out for a day and a half. Ralya told me the woman that attempted murder on me had been identified as a Deyima from the Snake Clan because of her physical traits and the tattoos on her skin, but there was no trace of her except for the amulet they found in my hand and the knives stabbed on my furniture and body. Somebody had sent the chain to be repaired to add it to my arsenal since it still retained its powers.

Ralya, with bags under her eyes and an exhausted expression, was fidgeting about telling me something. I softly told her to take it out and she explained me that the poison had left a scar on my face, handing me a mirror with insecure hands. There was a slight depression on my left cheek, and the skin at the bottom of it had turned black. It was as if I had a black tear tattooed under my left eye. Perfect, now I looked like a gangster.

I learned that it had been Maiella, Errom's A'Jin wife, who had spent a long time using her Natural Magic abilities to make me recover the lost blood, as well as helping me to regenerate tissues. Even with that, both the wounds on my left shoulder and right thigh had left scars. Whenever I tried to move too fast or too suddenly I could feel the pain of the magically healed muscles that had been cut. Because of her delicate condition, the task had exhausted her, but given the situation she was the best and probably the only choice.

I learned through Ralya that the Snake Clan was a Sub-Race inside the Deyimas that specialized mostly in breeding the most skilled assassins for hire of this world. They had a complex and strict Code of Conduct that guided them through life, and murder for personal reasons very few times was seen as something acceptable, outside of self-defense of course. Then the explanation for the attacks was that somebody inside the city had hired her. That had been the reason why Errom would think it was the best choice not to trust anyone outside of his Household at that moment and call for his wife despite her sickly condition.

After that, the moment came when they finally explained the things that had been happening behind my back the previous days. Trying to keep a calm and expressionless facade, I heard how everyone around me, even Merita, had been aware of the threats that lurked in the darkness around me. Had it been the best choice to keep me ignorant of the danger? Now that I thought about it, Zirilla had tried to hint at it the day before... no, two days and half before, the day before I was victim of two murder attempts in one day. In a certain sense, I felt ashamed that they thought so lowly of me as to try and protect me without my knowledge like a little kid.

When they explained to me that the same assassin had probably been behind my first encounter with Turak, I asked my Familiar, "What can you tell me of what they have just said?"

Turak did his peculiar move of tilting his head and said, "I vaguely remember a dark place too small for me to spread my wings and then the intense smell of copper fruit coming from your skin. The rest is all blurry because I went a little crazy for not having been fed in several days and because I don't have the best memory in this world. You know the expression 'bird brain' right?"

So Turak had been used as a weapon to murder me discreetly, and as it had failed, they tried again with the boxes. Then what had changed for them to try directly after such complicated indirect attempts?

Errom came to visit me as soon as he was informed that I was awake, and he told me that the assassin had escaped and the most probable thing is that she was still hiding inside the city while she recovered and waited for the right chance to escape the country. "That part of the threat is mostly under control," he explained to me. Then, pointing to his eye-patch he continued, "Not many people know, but if you defeat a Snake Clan assassin you don't have to fear future attempts from them, although that doesn't save you from former members that now live as Outcasts."

Without looking at him directly, I answered, "Well, the servant may not be a problem anymore, but what happens with the master behind her?"

"That is a much more difficult task," sighed Errom. "The change in tactics between discreet attempts and direct confrontation implies that the one behind this is getting nervous. With the assassin gone our only hope to bring him to justice is to wait for him to commit another mistake. If he is so keen on getting rid of you, we can hope he will lose control and try to murder you personally during the wedding, the day after tomorrow. You don't have to worry, Son, that will be a multitudinous event and there will be almost an army of guards."

He stood up to go back to his house and let me rest, but I stopped him, "You didn't even tell me my life was in danger. You thought I couldn't even care for myself? Am I really such an untrustworthy person?"

Errom punched lightly the frame of the door and answered with a hard tone, "It wasmewho took that decision. This wasn't just about you, Brandon, even if you were at the center of it. Would you have stayed with us if you knew there are people aiming for your life? If you had insisted on leaving us because of such a grave matter, it could have damaged the Cultural Exchange program irreparably."

He turned to stare at me with steel in his gaze. "Don't take this as if I am threatening you, just think about the repercussions at a bigger scale. What if other people did the same thing as you and the program broke? What if all this lead to another War of the Worlds? Can you think about the people who would die? In my personal opinion, there must be something very wrong inside you if you can say all of that is of no matter to you after the bonds you have created here, especially with my daughter and the lancer girl of the House of the Blue Tree."

I had been in trouble since the day I arrived in this world. I had been close to death more times than I was aware of. It is true, I had been thinking about quitting and demanding to be taken back home. But the problem is that I had done the same way too many times: starting endeavors halfheartedly just to quit at the first sight of hardship; moving on while caring for almost anything, even myself; living just on the easy choices and blaming everyone and everything for my failures when the problem had beenmeall the time.

I felt tired. Not only physically tired, but in a spiritual way too. I was tired of running. I was tired of hiding behind other people or behind excuses. I was tired of not taking responsibility for my actions and letting others pick up my messes. But over any other thing, I wasreally sick and tiredof losing the things I really cared for just for not fighting enough for them.

With my new found resolve, I stared back into Errom's eye and answered, "Let them try on me whatever they want, I won't let them live enough to regret their mistake." I lifted my right hand to show my Household ring. "I swear as the Head of the Household of the Black Star."

Errom bowed his head without losing an apex of his majestic air and said, "I like the look in your eyes, Son. I knew you had potential, but now I am firmly convinced that you will make me proud. In fact I am already impressed at your resistance against verbal abuse."