The Musing of R. L. Frymire

THE CREATURE KICKED at Aimor’s face while he lay trembling from fatigue, and petrified by fear under the weight of large, inhuman eyes. Unable to move. Unable to dodge or defend himself—when a large form tackled the beast from the side.

Aimor stared, disoriented, as the two lumbering bodies rolled, until a familiar form gained the dominant position. He blinked in surprised horror as his father ripped off the malevolent monster’s face. But no blood spurted from the vicious wound.

Aimor blinked again, confused, until Ernesh’s meaty fist cracked against a human jaw, and Aimor realized the hairy beast was actually one of the natives of the planet, hiding behind a wooden mask and a thick, animal pelt.

“What are you doing laying around, boy? Quite lazing about and help me!”

Only vaguely registering the belittling term against his manhood with his blood rushing through his ears, Aimor was slow to rise, and there he stood, frozen, his body locked within the confusing impulse to fight or bot.

His hesitation gave another native the opportunity to slam into his father. Eyes bulging, Aimor glanced around frantically. They were surrounded by nearly a dozen of whooping and hollering natives, their angry shouts no less intimidating had they been monsters in truth.

A weapon. He needed a weapon! But he was nothing but a menial laborer turned simple farmer. Though they trapped small game, they were not hunters. Simple laborers were not allowed access to even the crudest of weaponry, such as those the natives wielded. A squad of soldier should have gone with Aimor’s trapping party, but after months of peace between the settlers and the native inhabitants, complacency manifested.

Only the soldiers were authorized to carry anything more dangerous than the tools of Aimor’s recently acquired trade, and even that was gone, abandoned in his mad flight.

Instead, Aimor’s eyes darted around for escape, before catching movement in his peripheral. Fearfully, he tracked the long, black tresses that fluttered gently in the wind. Following those flowing strands to the source, he nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of perfection.

There she stood a few yards distance. A woman. A stranger.

A beauty.

With high cheekbones and an angular jawline that narrowed to form a delicate chin, her features would have been seen as too sharp, too severe, if not for her softly rounded cheeks. Bold, dark eyebrows arched over wide eyed innocence as the unknown woman stared back at him with a sweet shyness that stole his breath, and made him forget anything and everything. Including the danger from the attacking natives. Instead, he hyper focused on her bewitching eyes, trying to glean their exact color, but she was too far away. A shade of brown, perhaps, though much lighter than his own dark brown eyes.

The sun had tanned his skin, but nothing like the bronze of her legs that were indecently exposed from wearing a too short dress. Her bronze thighs seemed to glow, capturing his attention, and his imagination. Only to realize they were glowing.

Red and orange flames licked at her feet. His eyes flared at the thick tendrils of black smoke he hadn’t noticed before as dark whisps climbed her body, before obscuring her striking features.

Why wasn’t she running, he thought wildly.

As if in answer, the woman jerked to the right, then the left, but she was held fast. Trying to peer through the smoke, Aimor saw a long pole rising above her head, and gasped. She’d been tied to the wooden beam! She bent over as far as her restraints would allow, and began coughing, choking on smoke.

With a full body jolt, he cried out, lunging forward, only to stumble to a stop at the agony flaring in his ankle. He looked down, confused by the injury, before turning back to the woman, and his heart nearly stopped.

The hem of her dress caught fire. Finally, she made a sound beyond hacking coughs A scream. One filled with fear, and agony.

He couldn’t let her burn!

Aimor hobbled as fast as his feet would carry him. When he finally reached her, he ineffectively bat at her tan dress with his bare hands, only succeeding in burning his hands in the process. The fire was too hot, eventually forcing him back. Helpless, his brain threatened to lock up.

Think. Think!

Her eyes caught his, stilling the chaos in his mind. Inanely, he noted that they weren’t brown at all, but a strange yellow. But deeper. A bewitching amber.

Her screams stopped. When she next opened her mouth, she spoke words in a language he could not understand, before falling to another coughing fit. Galvanized by her suffering—her beauty, Aimor hobbled behind the tall pole and saw her bound wrists. Unsheathing the small knife the soldiers allowed the workers to carry, Aimor sawed at the rope desperately.

A fiendish shriek came from his right, and Aimor turned on instinct, dagger raised, and grunted when the native smacked into him, shoving him against the pole. He didn’t have time to think, to react. His attacker went slack. Unwittingly, Aimor released the knife’s hilt to wrap his arms around the other male, but his assailant was too heavy. Foolishly, he followed the man down, only to stare into glossy eyes. Empty. Dead.

Rattled, Aimor jerked back with a shout, arms pinwheeling to keep from falling on his backside. Only the agony of his ankle prevented him from scampering further away.

Another scream, this one feminine.

Hers.

Aimor jerked, head swiveling to the post, to the frayed yet still intact rope, to the hellish flames, and back to the fallen native. To his knife protruding from the man’s stomach. And the blood.

So much blood.

He felt sick. Faint.

Another scream.

Where he gained the courage, Aimor never knew, but he was yanking his dagger from his attacker—his victim—and jumped to his feet. Wincing, he ignored the twinge in his ankle and returned to sawing at the woman’s bonds, panicked. Kindling encircled the front of the post at the woman’s feet but not the back, allowing him to work without fear. For himself.

Sweat slickened his brow. Nerves. Any moment, he expected to feel a spear shove into his unprotected back.

At last, the rope gave way. With an elated cry, he took a step around the post, intending to pull the woman from the flames, when a powerful blow struck the left side of his head. As he fell towards the fire, darkness stealing across his vision, his last thought was of his beloved mother, but her eyes were all wrong. In life, they had been brown—like his, but as awareness faded, he swore he saw amber.

AIMOR WOKE, FEELING as though his left arm was being wrenched from its socket.

To all that is holy, they’ve got me!

Seconds later, as the fog cleared from his sluggish brain, Aimor realized he wasn’t being tortured. Rather, the girl he’d been trying to save was pulling him from the inferno. Luckily, he’d fallen on the outer edge of the bramble. But his tunic smoldered. Before the flames could grow, tiny hands beat at him none too gently, until the fire was completely out.

She knelt beside him, and when their eyes met, she smiled. Which brought attention to her mouth, the bottom lip plump and glistening, as though she’d wet it with her tongue. Heat flooded him.

Desire. Embarrassment.

All gangly arms and long legs, Aimor jerked to his feet, and nearly fell over when he put his weight on his bad ankle. The burning in his face had nothing to do with the fire crackling merrily nearby and everything to do with the bewitching beauty who’d been witness to his incoordination.

Too weak. Too feminine. Voices taunted him. His own. His father’s. And countless others. The Vostroyan’s soldiers. His fellow laborers.

Vostroyan’s were a proud bunch, all the way from the influential, to the dregs of their society.

The ‘bare faced’, the ‘boys’, were never truly accepted. Ever. At least, not in the region Aimor had been born and raised.

A moustache was a sign of maturity. Of virility. The longer, the thicker, the better. Unfortunately, in all of Aimor’s two and twenty years, the most he’d ever been able to grow were a few, pathetic hairs only he noticed.

You’ve a face as soft as a woman’s! A familiar taunt.

You cry like a woman. New mockery.

To add fuel to the fire, the tears he’d shed at his mother’s death had sealed his fate as forever being known as ‘boy’.

Dark emotions clutched Aimor’s belly and twisted. He hated that he’d come off weak—inferior—in front of this woman. Unknowingly, a scowl pulled down the corners of his mouth, anger surging. When the female raised her arms defensively and stepped back as if expecting a blow—from him, he blinked, surprised.

At her. At himself.

Why had he..? Shame choked him.

Aimor raised his hands helplessly, palms out. “Please don’t be afraid—”

“So this is the reason you left me for dead, eh, boy?”

Aimor stiffened. Suddenly, his father was there.

“No time to dawdle.” Ernesh’s strong arms easily picked up the smaller woman, and for a moment, Aimor felt a stab of jealousy, deep and vicious.

He had saved the girl. If anyone was to carry her, it should be him, his sprained ankle be damned.

A rock smashed into his shoulder, distracting him from his primal urges. Another struck his back. The natives were throwing stones and pointing their spears at them threateningly.

His father ran, calling over his shoulder, “We’re out of here!”

Needing no further encouragement, Aimor tried to follow, but his ankle nearly gave out. His cry went unheard under the wailing of the natives. Ignoring the agony, Aimor stumbled after his father, who did not wait for him. Despite the woman’s added weight, Ernesh began to outdistance Aimor, causing fear to clutch his chest at the thought of being left behind.

Nothing he didn’t deserve, he reminded himself, feeling renewed shame for abandoning his father when they’d first been chased by the natives. That understanding did nothing to prevent him from feeling sorry for himself, or stop a sob from lodging high in his lungs as his anxiety escalated.

He was breathing too hard, too loudly, and failed to notice when the whopping and hollering became distant, until it ceased.

Glancing over his shoulder fearfully, he saw no one. Somehow, he was even more afraid. A threat unseen was worse. Unease gripped him and refused to release him until the settlement came in sight. Just ahead, his father finally stopped, waiting for him.

Ernesh scowled at him. “Took you long enough.”

“We should warn the settlement,” Aimor stammered shakily. Then he remembered. “The others! We got separated.” After you ran away. He pushed the self-recriminating thought aside.“Those…savages tried to kill us! Did they..?” Kill the others? He couldn’t say it. His stomach cramped.

His father surprised him by saying in an uncommonly soft tone, “No harm done.”

Turning wide eyes to the bigger man, Aimor spoke without thinking. “Are you mad? We need to tell the soldiers! Gather a search party!”

The distant look in his father’s gaze disappeared, to be replaced with a glare. Aimor take a quick step back when he saw a vein throb angrily in his forehead, and Ernesh’s bulging muscles contracting in leashed aggression around the stranger he held.

“What did you say to me?”

“N-nothing! I just…the others…”

Ernesh made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “You worry like a woman.”

Aimor flinched. Face burning, he didn’t dare look at the stranger.

“They’re all probably back inside, safe and sound,” Ernesh continued with a careless shrug towards the closed wooden gate in the distance.

As though under compulsion, Aimor glanced at the woman. Suddenly, he forgot about his father and the missing men. He had eyes only for her. “Let me carry her,” he found himself saying. “You’ve carried her a long ways. Surely, you’re tired.”

Ernesh’s arms tightened around the woman, holding her protectively. Possessively.

“You?” Ernesh scoffed, then chuckled, his tension leaving him. He repeated, amusement, “You.” And shook his head. “My son. The strong, brave warrior.”

It was at this moment Aimor remembered the disharmony between father and son. He’d never gained this man’s respect, and suspected after today, he never would.

And who could blame him, Aimor thought miserably, lowering his gaze. Submitting, as always.

Then talking slowly as if to an imbecile, Ernesh continued, “What do you think the Firstborns will do if they were to learn the native’s meant to burn her alive, eh? Do you ever think, boy? They won’t call us heroes for helping her. They’d have our heads! By interfering with their customs, we might have just instigated bad blood between the entire settlement and them.”

The soldiers. The Firstborn regime of the Astra Militarum.

Vostroyan society was divided by two classes, the high-born and the low-born. While the ruling high-born prospered, the low-born toiled. With nothing but a dismal future ahead of them, many low-born were thankful to escape the drudgery of the assembly with the draft, but only the first born were blessed with such luxury. High or low-born, all first born children were sworn to the Astra Militarum in perpetuity. There, the otherwise unheard of equality between the classes ended. Whereas the high-born were made to serve as officers in the Imperial Guard, rarely was a low-born granted a rank beyond a non-commissioned officer.

The custom was founded thousands of years ago, and little was remembered of that time, but one truth remained constant. When the Emperor had called them to arms, the Vostroyans had failed to answer.

Honour demanded they expunge their ancestors’ shame—or die in the attempt.

The Firstborn were rigid in their views. They demanded excellence from themselves, from others, and expected complete and utter obedience. The settlers were to keep the peace with the natives, to foster continual harmony. By saving the woman, Aimor and Ernesh gone in direct violation to those rules.

Fear slithered down Aimor’s spine, but when he looked into amber pools, he simply… forgot.

“You can’t mean to give her back?” he demanded of his father, aghast.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We just… can’t tell them what happened. Say nothing. To no one. Nothing happened,” Ernesh iterated, voice hard. “Look at her. She’s fine. And if the savages try to reclaim her, not one will understand them. Not even our best equipment has been able to unravel their foreign tongue. We’re safe. And so is she. If we keep quiet. Understand?”

“But—”

“You dare disobey me, boy?”

The real threat in his father’s voice made Aimor cower. Upon his back, concealed by his tunic, were old scars he’d received while working in the manufactory when he’d been perceived as being ‘too slow’, while other had been given to him by Ernesh. His father could be mean, and unreasonable.

Seeing his reaction, Ernesh nodded, satisfied. “We’ll tell the others we found her wandering around, lost. Nod if you understand.”

Biting his tongue, Aimor nodded shamefaced, unable to look at the woman who was witness to the entire scene. Even if she didn’t know what they were saying, she couldn’t fail to understand his father’s dominant body language and Aimor’s submissive one.

Abruptly, she was shoved into Aimor’s arms, surprising him so much, he nearly dropped her.

“Take her home. Show her where she can bathe—in private,” Ernesh stressed with a glare, as if Aimor were a voyeur—which he most certainly was not! “Then find one of your mother’s old dresses.” Ernesh eyed the woman’s curves and Aimor saw something in his sire’s gaze he’d never seen before. Lust. “The fit will be tight.” He coughed on the last word, before clearing his throat. “It’ll have to do until I can find her something better.”

Then Ernesh dismissed him to go speak to the Firstborn, obviously not trusting Aimor to tell their modified version of the day’s events, Aimor was left with the woman. She was in his arms, staring up at him with wide, curious eyes.

Blushing, he set off for the hut he shared with his father, wincing with each painful step, while trying to ignore another discomfort rapidly growing at his hips.