Page 11 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded (Rogue Bonds #2)

Dax

B y the stars, shopping centres were crowded! I ducked around a young Denzogal child, then stopped in my tracks as a Solof woman cut in front of me, then I had to hurry to catch up to my master, as he charged ahead up the walkway between long rows of shops.

This morning, once my master and I were both dressed and fed, I’d suggested going for a walk. “It’s a pleasant day,” I’d said, aiming for casual nonchalance. “It might be as well to get a walk in early, before it gets too hot.” I’d woken up anxious, wondering how to get my master out of the house, and bracing myself for all manner of obstructions to the simple act of putting on shoes and walking through the front door.

And for a moment, I’d thought my fears had been realised. “I have a better idea,” my master said, and I waited for him to suggest watching the wall screen, or going back to bed. But then he surprised me. “We need to go shopping. I need to get you some more clothes.” He gave me a quick once-over, and I had to maintain a strict level of self control to not glance down at the threadbare clothing I was wearing. I’d done my best to look after the clothes I’d been sent here with, but a year of wear and tear was taking its toll, no matter what efforts I extended.

So the news that I was to have some new things was welcome. But at the same time, the awareness that my physical presentation was not up to my master’s standards caused a wave of shame.

But in terms of achieving my aim of getting my master out of the house, a shopping trip would serve just as well as a walk to the local park. “Yes, sir,” I said, mentally cataloguing things we would need. Shopping bags. Water bottles. “Should I make some sandwiches to take with us?”

My master seemed amused by that, and I wondered if I’d just committed some faux pas. “If we’re still there at lunch time, we can get some food from a café,” he said. Was that a comment on my sandwich making skills? He’d seemed happy enough with the food yesterday. Or was this just a nuance of human culture that I hadn’t caught up with yet?

Either way, I nodded my agreement, and half an hour later, we were right in the thick of it, bright overhead lights, music drifting out of every store entrance that we passed, and myriads of people of all shapes, colours and sizes. I was notionally aware of the other species who inhabited Rendol 4, along with the humans, but I’d only ever seen them on the wall screen before. To have them all so close was overwhelming. The Denzogals were huge! They towered above me head and shoulders, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, I kept having to be careful not to bump into a Derelian, the short creatures so easy to miss when they only came up to mid-thigh.

I was a domestic companion, I kept reminding myself, as my master made various comments about the stores that we passed. I was not just a domestic servant. My role here was to respond to his attempts to engage me in conversation, and to help him enjoy the social atmosphere. I wasn’t just here to carry his bags and memorise which store was the cheapest for which item.

He paused in front of a shop filled to the brim with art supplies. “I don’t think painting is really my thing,” he muttered, and I realised that somewhere along the way, he’d moved off the topic of clothing and onto a hobby for himself. “Drawing maybe,” he went on. “But… Nah, that’s too much like sitting still and thinking. I want to get out of my head, not get more stuck inside it.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d never had a hobby, nor known anyone who did. The dimari spent all our time training, learning, practicing our skills. There was never idle time for doing something just because we thought it might be interesting. So I had nothing to suggest about what my master might enjoy spending his time doing. Perhaps I should do some research on popular hobbies when we got home?

The next shop we stopped at was a clothing store. My master stared at the racks of clothing, then gave me that same once-over again. “So, um… What sort of clothes do you want?”

What? What sort of clothes did I want? I didn’t understand the question. I was here to serve my master’s wishes. I would wear whatever clothes he wanted me to wear…

Oh. This was one of those companion things, I realised with a start. A domestic companion did not simply wear clothes. They discussed fashion, and fabrics, and the suitability of clothing for warmer or cooler weather.

Except that I knew nothing at all about Alliance fashion, having had no warning about this outing and no time to prepare for it. But I could do this, I counselled myself. I could learn.

Maybe the best place to start would be with what I should not be wearing, and move on from there. “Are there any particular taboos about clothing choices for different species?” I asked, looking around at the people filling the area. The Denzogals tended to choose baggy, comfortable clothing. The Solofs opted for bright colours, to highlight their purple skin.

On that note, I realised that I was getting a few curious stares, and it occurred to me that I was the only person I’d seen today with blue skin. Well, actually, I had scales, not skin, but the effect was the same. And even Kade had been wearing his scales as brown when I’d seen him. I’d thought at the time that it was likely just a response to a request from his master. Humans were brown, and some masters liked their dimari to look like them. I’d dismissed it, since my master had never asked me to change colour… but now it occurred to me that perhaps Kade did it to blend in on a planet where blue was not a colour commonly associated with people .

“Would you like me to be brown, instead of blue?” I asked my master, then realised that I’d interrupted him before he could answer my last question. That was bad manners, and I braced myself for a reprimand.

My master looked surprised… and then looked around, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the stares we were getting. “No,” he said firmly, sounding a little pissed off about it, and I ducked my head, ready to apologise for having asked something inappropriate. But then he continued. “If other people have a problem with what you are, then they can take it up with me. Other than that, they can fuck off.” He said it just loud enough for a nearby human woman to hear, and she swiftly averted her eyes, pretending to take great interest in the clothing rack in front of her.

Lowering his voice again, he said, “As for the clothing, no, not really. There are a few ceremonial things for each species, but you’re not likely to find those in a shop like this.” It was a relief that my questions hadn’t annoyed him, but his answer didn’t give me much to go by in terms of clothing choices, either.

“Do you have any particular preference for colours?” I asked next.

My master shrugged. “No. Choose whatever makes you happy.”

Whatever made me happy? What made me happy was serving my master. If he was happy, then I was happy. But he was ill, suffering from stress and trauma and alcoholism, unable to figure out what food to buy or what to eat for dinner, never mind choosing colours and styles of clothing. So where did that leave me?

I began moving through the racks of clothing, trying to imagine what it would feel like to wear each item. “There’s a changing room at the back, if you want to try anything on,” my master said.

That would help a great deal. “Do we have a time limit?” I asked next. Should I be trying on only a few things, or a lot? And how many items did he want to buy for me?

“So long as we’re home before dark, it’s all good,” he said, a terribly vague statement that gave me no indication as to what else we needed to fit into the day. I was supposed to clean one of the rooms in his house thoroughly, and that could take several hours. And I should check the house-comm to see if there was any new mail. And I’d resolved to keep a brief diary of our activities for Aiden, in case he had any comments about what would be most suitable for helping my master recover.

I gathered up an armful of things that looked like they would be suitable for cleaning – loose enough to move in, nothing too fancy lest it get dirty – and went off to the changing room. Without any further instructions as to what I should be looking for, I figured I would pick a few things and ask my master if they were appropriate. If he didn’t like them, he could always say no.

Or was that being presumptuous? But on Aiden’s advice, I’d been rather presumptuous the night before, and all things considered, it hadn’t turned out badly. My master had rejected my attempt at dinner, and I’d floundered for a moment, unable to think of anything to say that wouldn’t have come out as an order to him to eat something. But then he’d changed his mind. He’d eaten, and asked for some ketchup to accompany the meal. I’d taken note of that, not having known much about human food customs. He’d taken his pill without any protest. He’d chosen one of my suggestions for something to watch. He’d brushed his teeth at my prompting, though I was aware I’d been skirting rather close to annoying him with that one. Expecting a dimari to make decisions for their master was a monumental challenge, completely the opposite of everything we were taught.

And yet, for the few minor decisions I’d nudged him about, things had gone surprisingly smoothly.

I returned to him, some seven or eight minutes later, with two pairs of trousers and three shirts. “Would these be suitable?” I asked, showing him my selections.

“Yeah, not a bad start,” he said. “Anything else you like in here, or shall we look at a different shop?”

I was not equipped to be a companion, I thought helplessly, as I floundered for a reply. How many things did he want me to choose? What sorts of events were we going to be attending, now that Aiden was nipping at my master’s heels to get him out of the house? How many questions could I ask before he lost patience with me? And was I supposed to just be choosing clothes, or the usual add-ons – belts, shoes, jackets? Hats? Socks and underwear?

While I was struggling to come up with an appropriate response, a Solof woman moved down the aisle next to my master and bumped into him with her bag. My master jumped, tensing and spinning around. His hand came up, and I moved without thinking, latching onto his wrist before he could hit the woman. She wandered on, her back to us, not even having noticed his reaction.

I let go of my master’s arm, feeling a hot rush of fear and shame surge through me. This was why I was going to be a terrible companion. Regardless of any good intentions on my part, it was absolutely not my place to be putting my hands on my master.

My master froze, his breathing coming quickly. He clenched his hands into fists and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket. He swallowed, then took a slow breath. And then he said, “Thank you. She startled me.”

I blinked, trying to work out what the hell had just happened. I had physically disciplined my own master, and he was thanking me for it? What strange parallel universe had I just wandered into?

His gaze drifted around the shop, and he seemed completely at a loss as to what to do next. “Perhaps we should go to another shop,” I said, carefully making it a suggestion, not an order. “I would like to look for some new shoes, if that’s okay with you?”

My master brightened, though I could tell it was forced. “Yeah, absolutely,” he said, attempting a smile. “You’ll need some boots for walking. And some dress shoes, in case we end up going out to dinner, or something. And some sandals for summer.”

Hm. It sounded like he was intending on buying me an entire new wardrobe. I was happy to work with that, so long as I understood what he was aiming for. I smiled and led the way out of the shop, gratified when my master fell into step beside me.

???

Three hours later, I led my master out of the café where we’d had a light lunch, wondering how the heck I was going to convince him that it was time to go home. Just before we’d stopped for lunch, he’d had his third incident of being startled, when a Wasop teenager had run into him, not watching where he was going, and I’d had to physically step between them to prevent an altercation. I’d suggested going home then, but my master had stubbornly refused. I’d suggested getting something to eat as a distraction, but I could tell that we were running out of time before his temper frayed entirely. It had been a long time since he’d been out in public, and the noise and crowds were clearly wearing on him.

By now, I had a large bundle of clothes I’d selected, all of them packaged up and sent off to be delivered to my master’s house this afternoon. That, I had discovered, was one of the ingenious wonders of this city. It was designed so that the vast majority of products and services were accessible locally, and a delivery service transported goods to the buyer’s home anything up to four times a day, allowing people to leave their purchases at the shop, rather than having to lug them all around the shopping centre. It would certainly be more convenient than trying to squeeze all those bags onto the already crowded trains that ran on regular schedules around the city.

“Perhaps we should head home now,” I said, hoping that my master would be more cooperative now that he’d eaten.

“No, I’m fine. This is good,” he said, though I could see that he was gritting his teeth as he said it. “We haven’t got you a jacket yet. And there’s a great shoe store down the next row of shops.

That might be true, but we weren’t going to get there without my master ending up punching someone. “But I… Um… Maybe…” Oh, fuck it. I was going to lie to him, and tell myself it was for his benefit. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been around so many people,” I said, doing my best to look meek and overwhelmed. “Perhaps we can do some more another day?”

He stopped in his tracks, turning to look me over with a more studied expression. “Oh. Yeah, of course,” he said, suddenly all concern and sympathy. “Sorry, Dax, I… I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised.”

Did this make me a terrible dimari? I’d always been taught that obedience was paramount, that nothing but my master’s wishes mattered. But that had been before I’d been bought by a man who was drowning in his own pain so much that he didn’t know what he wanted. Or what was good for him.

“Let’s go back to the train station then,” he said, switching direction, and I followed, keeping an eye on the shops to make sure we were going in the right direction. I’d been memorising the way around the shopping centre all day – my one act of diligence, as a good dimari should know which shops his master favoured, and where to find them.

Was I a good dimari? After all the twists and turns of the last few days, I really wasn’t sure.

We got halfway towards the exit when a bright display in a shop window caught my master’s eye, and before I could stop him, he’d darted off, his attention captivated by what appeared to be a children’s toy shop. I followed, frowning.

“I want one of those,” he declared as I arrived, pointing to a colourful box in the display. I peered through the glass, then had to pull up my comm to get a translation of the writing on the box. And when the Eumadian script popped up, I blinked in surprise. It was a jigsaw puzzle.

“Okay…” I said, not sure what the sudden fascination was. But as odd as the request might have been, there was nothing objectionable about the game, so I headed for the shop entrance. After a moment, my master followed.

“Do you like any particular picture?” I asked him, once we’d arrived in front of the shelf that housed the puzzles. I was familiar with the concept of these, though I hadn’t done one myself since I was a young child. But with upwards of two thousand pieces each, these were clearly not children’s toys.

There were dozens of them, some with images of cities, some of space, some of animals or nature scenes. My master took his time letting his gaze wander over the pictures, finally settling on one of a beach scene, gentle waves lapping at a sandy shore, with some kind of tree I wasn’t familiar with growing further back from the water.

“This one,” he said, picking up the box and cradling it. Another check of the box with my comm told me that this one had three thousand pieces in it. It would certainly keep him occupied for a fair amount of time. I hadn’t intended to ask why he wanted it – I was curious, but a good dimari did not question their master – but before I could head to the counter to buy it, my master said, “I’m supposed to be finding a hobby. I don’t know what to do at the moment but… Fuck…” He glanced around with a hunted look. “Sitting around doing nothing is gonna drive me crazy. So this will…”

“It will give you something to do,” I said, when he didn’t continue. “Something moderately interesting, while you look for a more permanent solution.” I hoped I didn’t sound patronising by saying that.

Clearly, I hadn’t been very convincing. “It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?” he said, his shoulders drooping.

Had I been rude in saying that? Or had I just been entirely unconvincing? Or maybe…

Maybe it wasn’t actually about me at all. The dimari were taught from a very early age that if our master was displeased with us, it was our fault, and we had to find a way to fix whatever the problem was.

But when I’d first met my master, he’d been attacked by a fearsome alien species. That was most certainly not my fault. Yes, I’d wanted to help him recover from it – I still did – but there had to be a line somewhere between being responsible for causing a problem, versus simply wanting to help solve it.

“I think the puzzle is an excellent idea,” I said. My heart rate kicked up as the words left my mouth. A good dimari did not contradict his master. But here I was, openly disagreeing with what he’d said. I was saying what I believed he needed to hear, rather than blindly agreeing with him. There was a monumental sort of arrogance in that, thinking I knew better than my master.

He grimaced. “Sorry, I’m… I used to fly ships and explore uncharted corners of the galaxy. And now I’m…”

“Recovering from a large amount of trauma,” I finished his sentence again – another display of bad behaviour, according to my training. “I believe the orderly thinking required for a puzzle would be mentally soothing.”

His brow creased as he stared down at me. “God, you’re a nerd,” he muttered. I wasn’t overly familiar with the term. Was that an insult? Or a compliment? I couldn’t tell from his tone which way he’d meant it. But either way, he took the box over to the counter, letting me complete the purchase. I’d started doing that partway through the morning, when the endless questions about packaging and delivery times had started to get the better of him.

“We’ll take it with us,” I said to the cashier, placing the box neatly into one of the shopping bags I’d brought with us. There were only a handful of things we were carrying home, but I suspected that my master was going to need a distraction the instant we got there, and if I was lucky, then this puzzle would provide the required entertainment.

We made it the rest of the way to the train station without incident, and then boarded the train. We travelled to the first stop uneventfully. The train was busy, but not excessively crowded. We had to stand up, and I glanced warily at my master, wondering how his leg was feeling after a busy morning of walking around.

At the second stop, a large human got onto the train. He was tall and bulky, unshaven, middle aged, dressed in a flannel shirt with holes in the elbows, and he stank of piss. He took a slow look around the carriage, then stepped towards us.

“You want to get out of my way?” he asked my master, standing over him and glaring down at us. I tensed, uncertain as to how my master was going to respond.

“There’s plenty of room to go around,” my master said, calmly but firmly. I could only assume that the man was trying to get to a row of seats behind us. But my master and I were standing neatly against one wall. There was plenty of room for him to go around.

The man took a step fractionally closer to my master. “How about you fucking well move.”

I rapidly but subtly assessed the man. Was he drunk? On drugs? Or just trying to pick a fight? Was there any security on these trains? Cameras? I didn’t know, never having been on one before, and aware that now was not the right time to be asking.

“I’m not moving,” my master replied, and I recognised that tone. It was the same one he’d used when we’d been coming in to dock at the Delaville Space Station and he’d had to bully the docking controller into letting them jump the queue. It was a voice that said ‘I’m not taking any bullshit and I will get what I want’. But in this case, the other human, his eyes bloodshot, his pupils too narrow, also wasn’t going to back down. He was on some kind of drug, though I had no idea what it might have been.

Thinking fast, I stepped in front of my master, having to tilt my head way back to look up at the other man. He was taller than my master, and my master was a good head taller than me. “You don’t want to do that,” I said to the man, dropping my voice to as deep a tone as I could manage. It wasn’t particularly impressive, but letting my master get into a fist fight in an enclosed space would be a disaster.

The man sneered down at me. “Oh look. The little puppy’s defending his master.”

I was expecting the jab. We’d all been warned, during our training, that there were people in all corners of the galaxy who looked down on the dimari, who judged us for being slaves, and I’d had extensive practice at ignoring the insults. So it was easy to brush it off now. “I’m not protecting him,” I told the man. “I’m protecting you. Because he’s fought creatures barehanded that would give you nightmares for a month. He’s won battles while wounded that would kill you if you were in full body armour and armed with an assault rifle. He’s a Captain in the Alliance Military. You don’t want to mess with him.” I said it with all the confidence I could muster, aided by the very real knowledge that at least half of what I’d said was actually true. My master had fought nightmares – though perhaps not barehanded. He’d won some kind of fiendish battle to get his comrades out of Ixralia, though I didn’t know the full details of the fight. And I was very certain that if this man succeeded in triggering my master’s panic reflexes, then my master could and would break and/or remove some of this man’s body parts.

None of us needed that kind of mess.

The train pulled into the next stop and I said loudly, “This is our stop. Would you let us past, please?”

I didn’t expect the man to move. But by now, we had the attention of some of the other passengers. A Denzogal stood up from his seat and meandered over, looking down at the human. The Denzogal probably weighed twice as much as the man – and three times as much as me. “How about you let them past,” he said to the man, entirely calmly, like he was telling a young child to put his toys away.

Thankfully, some semblance of either good sense or self-preservation made it past the man’s addled brain, and he stepped aside with a sneer. I tugged lightly on my master’s wrist, careful not to hold him roughly or tightly, and we stepped off the train. The doors closed and the train left the station.

Now, it was equally possible that my master was going to thank me for helping, or curse at me for thinking he couldn’t handle the situation himself. If he had been drunk, the latter would have been almost certain. As it was, he stood there for a long moment, staring after the departing train.

“I should probably start going to a gym,” he said eventually. “A year ago, I could have taken him. Not so much at the moment.”

“I could come with you,” I said, as if casually inviting myself along to my master’s events was perfectly normal for a dimari. “Some exercise would be good for both of us.”

He nodded, and while I understood that that wasn’t necessarily agreement, it wasn’t a refusal either. I could use that, when it came time to actually go. I could remind him that he’d agreed we could go together. Because, after a year of being confined to his apartment, I would have been completely useless if I’d actually needed to defend him from the man. And I didn’t like that idea at all.