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And coming closer.
8
SILAR
Icannot believe I tried to give her to Fallon.
There were few times I’d ever been truly grateful to the warden. This was one of them. He could have accepted my morning request. Right now, this very moment, Fallon could have been walking around the side of the building towards the door and the woman inside instead of me. I would never have known what I’d missed out on, what I’d lost, until I saw them together one day in the future and I was knocked just as senseless with wonder as I’d been a mere moment ago glimpsing her little face through the window.
What a face. An odd, pale, wide-eyed face, with rounded cheekbones and a soft pink mouth and eyes gone white ’round the edges. Whatever emotion she’d experienced, she’d felt it keenly. I knew my own eyes had been bright white in return.
I could not remember the last time my heart had pounded so hard. It was unlikely my eyes would return to their normal colour for the next two days at this rate. Maybe not even the next two cycles, the way things were going.
After opening the window, I’d nearly vaulted right through it just so that I could stand beside her, to be with her instead of being on the outside looking in. The only thing that had stopped me was the fact that the window was too small for me to fit, and getting stuck halfway through an opening on the warden’s wall, tail foolishly up in the air, was not an ideal way to begin a marriage ceremony.
So I’d closed it against the outside dust as quickly as I could and now I was nearly at the porch. Cherry’s human voice drifted out of the warden’s office, high and trilling, the words parsed by my inner ear translator.
“I’ll marry someone else,” she said, her words slicing through the air like a stunner’s beam and sealing me to the spot. “Anyone else. It doesn’t matter who.”
I mentally ran through our interaction, trying to figure out just where I’d already gone wrong. She’d seen me with my trousers off and had apparently decided that she would now marry someone else. I frowned down at my body, wondering what she’d expected. I did not know how I stacked up against most decent Zabrian males of status – I only had the other convicts and the warden to compare myself too – and I knew even less of what she’d prize in a human male. But if she wanted a human male, surely she could just go out and get one and would have no reason to seek a husband here.
So. Perhaps it was something else, then. Maybe, as the warden had said, I should have worn a shirt for the ceremony. Only, I’d read about human grooms and their specific wedding outfits and nothing I owned seemed anywhere near the descriptions. It had seemed better to come as I was – bare-chested as I’d been when I’d received the warden’s call – than to wear something that was not right. But maybe this had displeased her.
Or perhaps she had noticed my lack of covered wagon. Maybe she assumed I did not have one at all, therefore I was an unworthy male who could not provide for her. In all honesty, I was an unworthy male, and I still was not sure I could provide for her. Her bedroom was not even ready, after all. But I did have a blasted wagon, at least, and curse me to Zabria and back for not bringing it with me now!
It was odd how quickly things could change. This morning, in my panic, I had not wanted her. Now, she did not want me, and I…
I now found myself entirely unwilling to lose her. The thought of her flitting off to marry Fallon or one of the others had my eyes burning so white I could see the glow of them reflected on the porch as I stepped up onto it.
There was nothing for it. I’d just have to go in there, find out what I’d done wrong, and somehow try to convince them both that I could fix it.
The warden stepped aside to let me pass, and he was frowning, but it did not exactly seem that his frown was directed at me. If anything, he looked uncertain about something.
“Silar,” he snapped, exasperation or maybe confusion making a quick bit of white zip through his eyes, “Do you still wish to marry Cherry Dawson?”
Was this about earlier? When I’d told him to give her to Fallon? I’d shown up here to claim her, hadn’t I? Surely that was answer enough.
I allowed myself a glance over at Cherry. Her eyes looked even larger now, and shiny. I hadn’t noticed the shininess before. Still white, but only at the edges, not in the centre. Her small hands were clenched into fists together and she pressed them what looked to be quite hard against her abdomen. I wondered if it hurt to press that hard. Or, alternatively, if something inside was hurting and that was why she was pressing. What did one even do for a human with a stomach ailment? My tail tightened around its hook.
“Silar,” growled the warden. “Now is not the time for your usual silence. I need to hear it verbally. Do you consent to this marriage?”
At this point I’d consent to a tail amputation if it meant I got to keep her. Not that I had a single cursed clue what it was I’d even do with her. Probably start by making her something for her stomach, which she seemed to be clutching at even harder now while she awaited my answer.
“Yes,” I rasped, my voice sounding oddly loud, booming in the space. “As long as she also… That is… Do you…” She tensed as I addressed her. “Do you also consent? Now that you’ve seen me… Will you still have me?”
She looked at me a moment and then moved her head rapidly up and down. I guessed I hadn’t read far enough in my human manual because the gesture meant absolutely nothing to me. I could only stare at her helplessly, guts twisting, because surely that was this tiny creature’s way of saying no.
She only just got here. She’s only just seen me. I haven’t even gotten to show her my wagon yet. And now-
“Yes! I consent! I’m in if you’re in.”
Oh.
That was… good? She consented. And she was in… something. What she was “in” was any man’s guess.
“Thank you!” she said and made a high, watery sound. A laugh? “Is it weird to say, ‘thank you?’ I’m just… I’m very grateful. And happy to be here. I promise I will be the best wife ever, Silar! I’ll work very hard and-”
I stared in silent confusion at this little female rattling off all the ways she planned to make my life better, as if she somehow owed me anything. As if she had to earn her place here, such a pure little thing among the rejected males of our Empire.
