Take A Sad Song
Page 2

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Chiana's black eyes lifted from the path before her and cast out around the valley, blurred from her stress but still holding an unquenchable openness. The dirt path was gradually ridged with whatever weeds and lichens could survive with less than usual light and the soil darkened. Between those changes and damaged wooden fence lining one side, Chiana had figured that she was among farm land and possibly approaching a town if there was one lurking in this dizzying and currently intimidating valley. The occasional bleets of live stock could be heard, only some sounding healthy. Now and then some distant sounds could be heard from some creatures that she fervently hoped she would never see.

A few farm houses could be seen, all but one almost lost in the purple haze. Beyond them only shades were visible. Lands tumbled away in hills to great depths, lost in the mist, and the horizons on all sides were bordered with a cutout of a drastic jagged mountain range in darker shades of purple.

A light was visible spilling from one window. Most of the people she had seen so far were either cloaked or so sickly that she wished they had been cloaked. So she didn't want to venture off the trail to visit the farm house no matter what she needed.

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"Thirty five hundred Litras?!" Dominar Rygel XVI wailed his outrage in the presence of several impressed Hynerian subjects and one unimpressed Nebari. "After you stole over eight hundred? And which by the way you may consider yourself indebted seven fold as I will be forced to require the Royal largess debit rate upon your debts. If I decide to consider it largess instead of outright thievery!"

"I didn't steal anything" Chiana insisted with a tight jaw and glare at the hovering and lecturing old er, friend. "And I want another five."

"And why would I lend you thirty five hundred Litras?" Rygel argued. "Never mind for such a profitless venture? Frivolous venture. You have perfectly good new eyes already." After a quiet moment of thought he sniffed loudly and quietly feigned some suspicion "Although I have to wonder if you aren't seeing my hm, energy through my royal garments...."

"Power sources" Chiana tossed her hands out, "I see power sources with these eyes. Big energy annnd nnnot slimy little toads."

"So you say." Rygel waved his stubby little hand and told the others, "We have trifling matters to discuss. Leave us."

"Aah Rygel" Chiana pointed out "we're in a one room transport."

"Yes. They can cover their ears!" Rygel bellowed, "My loyal subjects know how to conduct themselves!" His subjects hobbled away to do other things and supposedly not listen. Rygel then picked up, moving his hover chair closer, leaning forward and telling her "It's not worth thirty five hundred Litras no matter the reasons. They're ripping you off. No. They're ripping me off. And that's outrageous!"

"It's taken time to generate eyes from my genetics" Chiana explained, not for the first time, "and that costs."

"I never agreed to pay those costs" Rygel argued.

"You said" Chiana argued hotly "I would be handsomely rewarded for my loyal-"

"That again!" Rygel baulked. "Why must you brow beat me with that out of context-"

Chiana shot back, "Because it's the only nice thing you ever said to me!"

Rygel sniffed in and in an affronted tone he insisted, "Was not. Besides. I was speaking figuratively in a more post-mortal context. Furthermore, I have allowed you in my service for some cycles of your youthful life and that should speak for itself."

"It should" Chiana agreed, "but since you misspoke it, what it said was you were forced to live with it and I deserve way more than that for living with you."

"Ha!" Rygel claimed, "The fact that you're alive is evidence enough."

"That I'm alive?" Chiana was appalled. "I could take out every one of your slimy hineys now." A strangled release of air warned that a Hynerian had just outgassed. "And maybe I should" Chiana said in a rapidly lightening voice as the helium wafted past them, "but it so happens it's better to let live unless there's a reason not to. So you were uh, wise not to. Right?"

"Obviously" Rygel agreed. "And you have been useful on occasion. Especially with your new sight. Is there not the possibility that replacement eyes of your own type, least of all your own genetics, might result in a repeat of the same problems that caused you to replace them with those disgusting, er er novel and useful new eyes in the first place hm? All so you can feel as though you were more yourself. As though you were anything else. As though you should be wanting to be more like you. Nothing good could come of that. Worse it's a waste of money. For your irrational, confounding feelings? Unnecessary. Completely unnecessary." Rygel released a long sigh then asked, "And what is this other five hundred?"

"Know how you say I wouldn't have anything without push-ups?" Chiana asked. From her arm guard she pulled out a roll of some material and unrolled it, presenting an illustration of what would be her breasts after they were remade to suit her fancy. Despite his bored position, Rygel's brows seemed to climb as he looked at the illustrated objects pointing back at him. "I'll ahh, let you have first look when they're done."

"Well" Rygel pondered with a stern voice, "that at least makes sense. It's also confoundingly contradictory to your problem with your eyes. Which considering it's you, also makes a certain sense."

Chiana rolled the illustration and tucked it away, stood and walked over. "Thanks" she said and leaned over to give him a peck of a kiss.

He looked into her eye at close distance and shuddered. In a quiet voice he consented. "Perhaps it would be best if one must look at you to be looking at your own eyes." Waving her off with his hand he loudly insisted, "Not a Lita more! And don't keep coming back, you'll wraggle my ears from me."

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A cloth glove crushed the stiff leather of Chiana's jacket sleeve to grip one of her upper arms underneath, tugging her from her progress down the path, swinging her aside and pressing her back against a tall post at the corner of a fence. Startled from her memory and doubly startled since it was the first native she'd seen to take action, Chiana stared at her arrester with wide eyes and a small mouth.

"Are you even hearing me?" the man repeated.

Chiana now realized he had been speaking to her, that she had been ignoring him to spare herself another nightmare and that she had been wrong because he wasn't too scary. Not that he was good looking, with a hatchet nose, plain long face, long chin and none of the prettiness in his gray eyes that she had loved seeing in John's blue eyes. Plain looking or not, the man was young and had some obvious feeling in the way he seemed abashed once she responded. Her tense mouth spread and warmed slightly.

The young lady's arm was very small and hard in his grip and Drep released her with some concern he might have been too rough with the delicate lady and bruised her. How wonderful, he thought, to see beauty again. Especially in the looks of this young alien woman. Full of character, exotic, cute, lovely, sexy, he actually couldn't find anything but positive descriptions. Besides the fact that she was the first attractive person he'd seen in monens, he decided he didn't mind her faults of being monochrome and skinny. His eyes lingered on sensuous lips and cute animated cheeks and a warmth he'd forgotten spread in his loins at the feel of her presence.

"Deaf" she responded to him. "Deaf annnd dumb" she tapped her forehead a few times, "I'll let you decide which, but you name it I've been it a time or ten." Giggling at her own humor and moving her head in a strange twist, she seemed a little stressed and crazed. Drep was so pleased to hear someone talk he didn't mind and even liked the exuberant personality. With the young man just standing there and smiling, Chiana felt awkward. She smiled, looked down at his dull brown cloth shirt and scratched her forehead. Once she thought of something to say she asked "What were you saying?"

"I asked where you were bound in these times" he explained. "There is little ahead and nowhere to find supplies you would need. Beyond here there are only some half dead farms like mine, a deserted village by the pass and anyway the climb to Rhumatt is probably impassable now." His lips were left parted when he saw the slightly side-long stare she returned. Clearly she didn't want to hear what he'd said but there was so much feeling in her vast black eyes that it touched him without knowing why.

Chiana thought somewhere in her mind that it was just like her luck to go through all this just to find out she can't make the climb but the reality was much worse. She felt helpless to the need. If what he said meant that she was riding on a track that ended prematurely at the edge of a cliff, then she feared that was her fate. Fear grew and tears began to fill her eyes. Perhaps this would be her last chance at feeling alive and the last person she would meet. Struggling to keep her thoughts afloat she asked the first thing she thought of. "Who are you?"

"I am Drep of the Mountain." That earned him a blank stare from the fascinatingly impressive but definitively unimpressed young lady so he explained, "That is my mountain. Mount Drep!" Gesturing back over his shoulder. "The uh. The one behind us."

"The big one?"

"No the uh. The other one. That doesn't matter. No other original families have living descendants on their lands!" the young man proclaimed. But then quietly added "Not that I blame them." She was trying not to act like it but it was obvious she was crying. He didn't know why. It made him feel very silly talking but he explained "The mountains were named for original settlers and carried from father to son, I'm the last one around here that carries the same name as the mountain over my land. It's mine now my parents are dead. I wasn't going to be though, I was going to live a better life off world somewhere. Except that went bad so I returned and. If I knew it'd be like this...." Drep stopped his story telling and asked, "Who are you?"

Those black eyes just stared at him and he had to look away. So he took a closer look over her clothes. Most women wore dark full length clothing in this region. Despite being cut shorter and being more revealing, this lady's clothes were uglier, tougher and more utilitarian than the usual woman's clothes. But he immediately had a burning interest to know what she looked like without the clothes.

Suddenly that stare was too much and he grabbed her upper arms shook her a little and tried to get a response, "Who are you? Say something!" She only half shook her head and looked away. "Sorry, sorry" he apologized "um. I don't mean to push you, why don't you have a microt and I'll be near if you have any questions? Just ask hm?"

Traumatized or not, the young lady was captivating and exciting. Drep hurried for the farm house at the end of a dozen yard path to this trail and tried to think of a good strategy for approaching this lady for some company.

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His strong hands were hurting her. The man with the pretty blue eyes she loved. John Crichton. She loved more than his eyes, but now that love hurt. It often did. Only a few precious times had it felt good.

Those hands had earlier restrained her in their grip against her will when she instinctively went to attack someone. Perhaps she had been right. Although she doubted John Crichton noticed or remembered, she was in fact proven right eventually. But it didn't fit his way to allow the other person, even the willful if not arrogant double or triple agent Sikozu in this case, to be physically attacked. It wasn't Chiana's way either. Besides she understood Sikozu more than she would ever hate her. Another time, another place, Chiana might have been fast friends with the wily Sikozu. As usual Chiana had no opportunity for anything much. Besides Sikozu had hurt her with a typical lack of tact and respect. That too might not have been any problem except that Chiana was a wounded animal now.

The abuses she suffered at the Casino were slowly blurring in her mind but they still seared in her heart. Rygel had encouraged her to use her mysterious vision abilities to cheat the games of chance. No he expected her to and she did care about keeping a friendship with the deposed royal toad. So as usual she threw herself into having fun. Drank too much, took too many chances. Finally the pain that came with using her vision abilities became overwhelming and at the same time, their luck ran out. Caught, punished, imprisoned, raped and beaten, Chiana barely escaped. Rygel didn't have a good time either. He never spoke of it again, which was fine by Chiana.

But John Crichton was demanding that she talk about it. Get it out, he demanded, holding her forcibly up by her arms against a hard metal wall. It wasn't because he cared. He did care in his way but he had little room in his hardening heart and no time to spare her. As always Chiana understood more than he might have thought. Their situation was critical as usual. He was assuming the active role. He needed her to be a compliant companion or just to stay out of his way. It didn't seem to matter anymore which way it went as long as she didn't complicate his situations. If she would spit out what was making her inconvenient and causing him to have to restrain her, she would probably feel better for sharing her grief. Quickly. Then be useful or disappear again.

The pain seared and she was also struggling to resist accepting their current relationship, but she couldn't fight forever. She spit enough out to satisfy him. Enough to make herself settle for now. In place of the love she needed she was in an empty situation, an exchange with no mutual interaction. Her body mended soon enough but the wounds inside were left to bleed her to death or scar. Chiana was never the type to scar.

Now she needed to mend. Despite her body's distress and the unrelenting drive, she felt better in many ways than she had for some time. Her eyes seemed to be mended. Nebari eyes again at last, if she had to arrange a fix herself, which she had. Nothing inexplicable was happening besides her usual expansive senses. She had made some peace with the loss of her surrogate lover, D'Argo and with having been wrong for his dreams. She couldn't remember exactly what D'Argo's son Jothee really looked like anymore. At least not right now. Her would-be relationship turned surrogate brother turned nothing, John Crichton, had his own life to live with his wife and child. Rygel had been made to pay up and she knew he understood in his way. There was no one else left that had actually seemed to notice her much.

But that also meant she was alone again. So much of her spirit had bled. But that at last was a sense that placed a rope in her hands, a line to pursue to bring herself to some point where she could stop the blood letting of herself and be able to invest herself in a future. Maybe a future most would probably find extreme or at least strange but would be more like the born non-conformist she was. Without needing a relationship or any other kind of need. If she had a future.

For now, her slightly bruised arms could still feel the grip of John Crichton's hands. His face with its long suffering eyes scowled in her mind's eyes. But above and beyond his head she could also see the stormy gloom of the Rhobos mountains. What was pain and what was her current reality was slowly becoming more distinct. However weary and spent, she knew she would have to keep going. Keep trying to see clearly again.

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