Infall Ch. 09 - END

"I can do these things," she said, breathing fast. "I'm strong. Please?"

Zen was behind her, his arm slipping around her waist, bringing himself close.

"Don't leave me here," she said, shaking. "I don't want you to go without me."

She felt Zen's forehead rest on the top of her head, Kythe's knuckles on her cheek.

"It's too dangerous, nina," Zen said behind her.

"Then it's too dangerous for you, if it's too dangerous for me."

"You don't fight, alea," Kythe said gently.

She looked down. "You could teach me," she said in a small voice, but she knew she couldn't do it, her eyes filling, looking up. "There's nothing for me here without you."

"You have our father, who loves you like a daughter. Mavia is coming back in a few weeks. You have Olivine and Danela and Zozo and Saba. You have your work you do. You still have us. We will come back, alea."

"No," she said, crying now. "You don't go. I don't want you to go." She was backing away from them and she ran into her rooms and went to her bed, curling up on it.

After a time, she felt Zen's hand on her back, Kythe's hand brushing her hair back. She knew their touches, would have known them in the dark. One of them handed her a handkerchief.

Some time later, she heard them.

"She's so upset, Kythe," Zen said.

"She was when Mavia went too, remember? You have to think how she was raised, brother," Kythe said. "I don't think people on a ship with no land go very far from one another in their lives. I think that when they went into the sea was the first time she'd been separated from her family. Even then, it seemed to take her time to realize they were gone."

"I didn't think of that. It always sounds so unlikely, this ship. Remember when she ran away? I don't think she had a destination."

"She didn't have one the first time she ran from me, either. I'm not sure she really understands distances. Just near and missing."

She barely heard them.

"Alea," Kythe said after a time, that way he did, drawing it out, picking her up in his arms. "We're not going away forever. We will return."

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on.

"Here, brother. Take her. I'll run a bath so we can wash."

He gave her to Zen, and she held onto him, too. After a time, Kythe came back and Zen left. She felt numb again now, her eyes still leaking.

Zen came back, Indya feeling his large self weighting the bed on her other side. Kythe's hand rounded her hip, and he sat her up and they undressed her.

When she was naked, she rose and went into the bathroom, washing her face, her eyes swollen, feeling awful, her chest aching. They would leave in the morning for months. Not days, not weeks, but months away from her. She came back, curling up between them, her hair messy, feeling like she'd turned to wood.

Zen's large hand was on her hip, tracing the curve, Kythe touching her shoulder. She hadn't felt this way since she'd been lost in the woods, but this time they were leaving her.

"We will write to you, Indya," Kythe said.

She looked at his face, her eyes filling again. "All right," she said, nodding.

"We will make sure people come here to visit you, nina," Zen promised.

She turned and looked at him, sniffing, nodding. "Okay."

"While we're gone," Kythe said, "you will have to pleasure yourself. I know you don't like it as much."

"Yes," she said, nodding and sniffing again and wiping her nose, setting the handkerchief aside.

"What?" Zen said.

Kythe turned to him. "One night, I caught one of the men slosting outside her tent," Kythe said. "After I'd dealt with him, I came back in and she says, 'Men do that? Not just women?'"

"She gives herself pleasure?" Zen said, Indya turning to look at him. He looked so surprised.

"She said she didn't need to because I was there," Kythe said, laughing, Zen joining him.

"Why is that funny?" she said, her voice nasal.

"When was the last time you did that?" Zen said.

Indya frowned a little, sniffing again, her eyes going up. "Yesterday."

They both went still. "You still do that?" Kythe said.

"Yes," Indya said. "Don't you?"

Kythe's expression turned strange. "Not as much, nina, as before I met you, no," Kythe said casually. "How often do you do so?"

She shrugged. "Some days I don't."

"Some days," Zen echoed. "When do you do so? Where?"

Her eyes went up, listing. "In bed in the morning after you leave. In the bath. On the sofa after lunch. On my stool at my workbench, anytime. In the--"

She was on her back, Zen over her.

"Show me, nina."

This was Zen, unpredictable. "What?"

"I want to watch," Zen said, leaning down and sucking her nipple, Indya's hips squirming.

"When you're leaving tomorrow, you want me to pretend you're not here?" she said, staring.

"Yes," Zen said. "I want to imagine it when I'm away from you, when I'm pleasuring myself." He released her, both of them getting up off the bed, looking down at her, waiting.

Indya's brows went up. "What do you want me to do?"

"What you evidently do all the time, alea," Kythe said, gesturing. "Don't let us slow you."

"I don't do it all the time," she said, her voice sharp. "Sometimes I can't because people want me to get up and go riding to walk in a field and get attacked by a boar."

"That's what you were doing when we came to get you?" Zen said.

"Right before the front hall," Kythe said to him, shaking his head. "She got exactly what she wanted."

Indya had, and she smiled at him and put two fingers in her mouth to wet them, arching and opening her legs, running the fingers of one hand down her belly and up her thigh and to her sex as the fingers of her other hand went to her nipple, squeezing. She shifted her head, looking at them.

Kythe's brows had gone up, Zen becoming expressionless. She began to stroke, her hips moving, that pleasure beginning. She realized she didn't mind them watching her, that she liked it. She raised her fingers and licked them again, running them up and down the soft puffy pink flesh, the tender lips inside, avoiding her clitoris just yet.

She liked them watching her, she decided, getting more sensitive, wedging her fingers against her clitoris and moving, back and forth motions, leaving it and pulling up, showing them, pushing down again and pushing her center finger into herself.

"Fata," Zen said.

Her hips were squirming, enjoying the movement, arching again. She rubbed her clitoris in short bursts and swept down, pushing two fingers into her sex. Indya jerked, her sex spasming, their eyes between her legs, pinching her own nipple.

But in bed, there was only one way she liked it, what they'd interrupted her doing this afternoon. She buried her fingers in her sex and rolled over, down on her shoulders, keeping her legs closed but raising her butt, rubbing and wiggling, letting friction do its work, humping her own hand.

She forgot about them, a little. The build was slow, but she was getting slippery, taking her time, her legs still together, when she felt a man's sex at her entrance, slowly pushing into her, filling her. Her eyes opened.

Indya went still, because that made everything so much better. She wanted to open her legs, but he didn't let her, and the new friction that created, with her fingers just right for it, made things urgent. She knew it was Zen by the way he thrust, a small lift he did sometimes, pushing hard, the way he sounded. The way he chased pleasure like it was going to run from him. He was aroused, to hear him.

"Don't climax until I say, nina," Zen grunted, getting faster.

She didn't think she could do that, too close. Her pleasure was rising, the burning sensations, prickly, so good. The pumping of her hips got faster.

Zen grabbed her hair, pulling her to one side, looking at her face in profile, thrusting into her. "Don't come yet, you sexy bihen, or you'll be sorry."

She stopped her fingers, grimacing, painfully close. But what he was doing felt so good, and her fingers were right there, Indya a breath away and she wanted it very much now. She whined.

"Wait, nina," Zen breathed, planting his arm and stabbing into her, almost sending her over.

Yes, it was going to happen. "Zen, I can't. I'm going to--" She couldn't stop it. Her fingers started again because she was coming anyway. It felt so good as Zen grunted deeply.

"Oh, nina," he said, and came in her. Soon was the part where she was supposed to be sorry, but it didn't feel that way now.

She jerked, straining and crying out, burning pleasure, jutting completely as he ground on her butt, a hard thrust. He made the noise that Zen did in his pleasure, so different from Kythe that Indya didn't understand how he could have persuaded her he was his brother that first time.

His hand on her hair relaxed, Indya panting, still small aftershocks. Her eyes flew open as Zen drew out of her and Kythe thrust in, his hand going to her hair in the same place.

"No," she said, squirming, trying to get away, Kythe grunting.

He was so big and she was terribly sensitive. She needed a moment and yes, she was sorry. He came back on his knees and pulled her up in front of him, her legs spread, on her knees, his arms crossed in front of her, lifting her a little and thrusting fast, Indya voicing it, so much worse. She couldn't escape him at all. "I can't, please, Kythe," she whimpered.

Kythe grunted deeply, his voice in her ear, holding her still to thrust. "It's not our fault, is it, alea? So greedy with your pleasure. You are hot, your pula you like to touch so much, arousing us, and you're swollen and slick." He grunted again, his movements sharp.

She closed her eyes and shook her head when she found Zen on his knees in front of her, his eyes on her body and then his fingers between her legs, on her clitoris. She cried out, long strings of whimpering.

Kythe grunted again. "I like it, alea, all your wiggling."

"No, Kythe, please. Zen," she said, and then cried out again when Zen's mouth went to her nipples, his fingers still fast on her clitoris, Kythe pumping into her. It wasn't going to stop, Indya caught between rising pleasure and discomfort, making helpless sounds.

"Don't you want to come, nina?" Zen said, watching her face.

She shook her head and then nodded, crying out.

His mouth moved to her nipples again, rough now, pain and pleasure. She began to meet Kythe, going with it, her own efforts driving herself toward pleasure, since there was only one way out of their hold.

Then it felt so good. It felt so good that she went still, her head dropping back, her eyes closing.

"Come on me, alea," Kythe said, grunting, his thrusts becoming urgent stabs, irregular.

It was on her too fast, rising and breaking, Indya going rigid, straining, crying out sharply. She opened her eyes, Zen watching her face, that cruel, beautiful expression they both got when they gave her andikstat pleasure. They had known she wouldn't be able to hold back. They'd done it on purpose, as Kythe brought her down on himself and held her there, his sex moving in her, yelling between his teeth.

She was spasming, releasing, her voice still helpless, still looking into Zen's eyes. Zen grabbed her hair and kissed her as she pulsed out the last of her pleasure, her mouth trying to follow his but unable to, Indya shuddering in his hold.

Coming down from it, Indya was exhausted, emotionally as much as sexually, her body going limp.

"Nina," Zen said, his voice gentle as Kythe pulled her down onto their sides, Zen taking her and wrapping her in his strong arms, her face buried in his chest, her hand finding his braid.

She was already spiraling down into sleep when she felt Kythe cleaning between her legs, and then he was there, his strong arms and his gentle voice.

"Alea," he said the way he did.

They both were there, her sweet men, and she was warm and safe.

Indya woke, reaching for Zen, turning over, looking for Kythe, and she felt it. A paper. She sat up, looking at it. She was still learning to read, not awake yet, puzzling it out slowly. Kythe had kept it to simple language.

Alea. This note is our goodbye. To wake you is cruel. Zen and I write to you. We think of you. We come home to you. Be safe.

Her bed was empty, her rooms, all their home. Indya burst into tears, lying on her side, and Zozo was suddenly there. Zen must have let him into her rooms when he left. She didn't tell him to get down, and he lay down next to her, Indya curling around him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Indya stepped into the common room of their home, finding the scrolls in the front hall. From Kythe and Zen, every two weeks, wrapped in leather to protect them.

"Constant as sunrise, daughter," the kah-rí had remarked. "I wasn't sure Zen could even write."

Indya took them back to her work room, Zozo coming with her. At first, she had thought she could have Elsie read them to her, but the woman was barely literate, reading with excruciating slowness, and then had gotten to parts of the letter where Indya's husbands had spoken of some of the ways they missed her and Elsie had blushed and stammered through them as if saying the words would somehow implicate her in the rí's perversions.

When Elsie had paused, unable to continue, her cheeks scarlet, Indya had thanked her politely and said she could stop, and apologized, and told herself she had to learn to read Edion fast somehow.

Olivine, who was terrorizing her husband and the court by wearing pants like the lí, wasn't an enthusiastic reader, and while Indya knew she was affectionate and well intentioned, Indya wasn't sure Olivine had the self-control to keep the contents private. There was friendship, certainly, but Zen and Kythe were the rí.

Indya knew she could trust Danela to be discreet, but Indya was afraid to embarrass her after the bizarre reactions of a woman who had given birth to two children, and Danela was unmarried. So Indya made lists of words she didn't know.

"Do you have an Edion dictionary, Father?" she'd finally asked the kah-rí.

"Are you going to teach yourself to read their letters?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you have someone read them to you?"

"The contents are sometimes about sex, Kah-Rí, and it embarrassed the person I asked to do that. If you would be willing--"

"I have a dictionary in my chambers. I will have it sent over."

"All right, Kah-Rí." Evidently writing about sex was a shock to these people. Kythe and Zen could have warned her.

And so the tome had arrived, a great monster of a book, handwritten, that Indya was almost afraid to touch, and she was further frustrated by the fact that Kythe and Zen would spell the same words differently from letter to letter, spelling a long way from being standardized in Edion, considering there wasn't even a mass printing press yet. She was working on that, too.

"My sons tell me you have a very pretty singing voice," the kah-rí said one day, Indya sitting at his feet. "Will you sing something for me?"

"Yes. What would you like me to sing, Kah-Rí?"

"Do you know any songs in Edion?"

"Many songs in Edion, Kah-Rí," she said, nodding.

"Choose one."

"All right, Kah-Rí," she said, beginning to sing, her eye caught when the man by the door in the Throne Room, the only other person in the room with her and the kah-rí, looking at her for the first time since she'd been here in Averdine and then his face snapped forward.

The kah-rí put his hand up before the second line of the first stanza, and she stopped. "Your voice is very pretty, Indya. I know that song. I'm going to have a singer come to your rooms and teach you some others. People won't want to hear those here."

Indya's brows went up. "All right, Kah-Rí," she said. "I won't sing them aloud outside my rooms. It's because they're about sex?"

"Yes, Indya."

"I'm sorry, Kah-Rí," Indya said, glancing at the guard, aware she'd done something that had surprised these people. She felt her face getting hot, embarrassed to have embarrassed them, not meeting the kah-rí's eyes. "The soldiers liked them. For me, it's just a song. I didn't realize they are forbidden. Please think of it as a difference in our ways. I don't mean to offend you."

"You didn't offend me, Indya. Zen taught you these songs, didn't he?" the kah-rí said.

"Yes," she said reluctantly, seeing the kah-rí's face.

Their first letters had been like a code, they were so baffling, Indya guessing at shapes because she didn't recognize a flourish from an actual meaningful mark. She had laboriously copied the words she didn't recognize to look up until she understood all of them. Well, most of them.

She'd spent the last month studying, only going out to exercise Zozo.

"You're pale, Indya," the kah-rí observed. "They tell me you work too much. You don't eat enough."

"I feel better when I'm busy. I'll try to eat more, Father."

She read Kythe's letter sitting on his bed in his rooms, Zozo beside her. She was sure Zozo missed Ashka, although she wasn't sure the reverse was true, the dogs very different in temperament, Ashka full of standoffish and regal dignity and her dog clumsy and crazy and he didn't always think things through first.

Alea,

All it does is rain. The rumors of war are more real the farther we move south. We are now riding through a strange land full of ruins from the ancestors and Zen's answer to this is to ignore them out of respect. You could probably tell me what they are and the purpose they serve, but they puzzle me. Of what use are long transparent tubes winding as far as the eye can see? I conjecture that they brought wind to the ancient cities, but this is only a guess, as you say.

I wish aloud that you were here to ask. My journal is full of sketches and my questions. We found a place leading underground on the edge of one of the great cities with ruins of more recent, primitive habitations. I took a torch and followed it down and Zen was angry, but I found things I'm bringing back to show you. Little things, perhaps nothing. I won't tell you what else I found, but I think that our ancestors weren't peaceful, in the end, after the sun killed their mechanisms.

Indya read, the scroll covered with Kythe's small script, graceful letters, careless precision, sometimes sketches. Kythe's letters were always longer than Zen's, but they both ended up in the same place, words that she couldn't find in the kah-rí's dictionary and had to infer from context.

When she had read Kythe's several times, she moved on to Zen's and found the words in her work room and read Zen's letter in Zen's rooms.

Nina,

It's raining all the time. We follow the coastline and have met different people, but nobody challenges so many armed men. The rumors of Chusan grow louder the closer we get to Gastor, and we are now meeting refugees fleeing from the coastal cities.

Kythe was foolish and followed a deep hole that went down into the ground on the edge of one of the ancestor's cities, disturbing their peace, which I told him not to do and he did anyway, and we fought, but it's because we're both wet and irritable and we miss you.

One of the men cut himself on his weapon and it festered. He was afraid to lose the hand, but I gave him the elixir you made, which I brought with me, and have continued to give it to him, as you said. I had to persuade him, and then threaten him a little, but his hand has healed with only a scar to show for his carelessness, and now he has nothing but wonderful things to say about the Lí of Matise and is loud in his allegiance to you and challenges any man who looks like he might say otherwise. The men have decided you are a noita, but that you are Averdine's noita, and ours. Kythe says it's superstition, but he says it quietly where our men can't hear him.

We talk of you and don't tire of the topic. At night, I lie in my bunk looking at the top of the tent and think of the place where your lanvi meets your nelta and your red niveniti and the feel of them under my tongue...