Page 62 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Anghar

“ I t’s not a nice story,” my Ellie warns me.

I say nothing, just continue holding her close, thinking she might find it easier to speak of her troubles if she does not have to look at my face.

With a deep breath, she starts talking. She tells me of her home, her tribe that is so large that many rules have been put in place to keep them under control.

“I was from the food sector,” she says. “I was one of the workers providing food for the upper tiers - the more important people. When I was a little kid, I worked on the packing lines. Mostly just moving boxes from one place to another. But sometimes, the machines used to break down. Things would get stuck in the mechanisms. They used to make the little kids crawl inside to unblock them. Lots of them lost fingers when the machinery restarted. Sometimes whole hands. I was one of the lucky ones.”

She holds up her hands, wiggling all ten of her fingers. I catch one hand, drawing it to my mouth and pressing my lips to each finger in turn.

“Your tribe leaders would really place younglings at such risk?”

“They weren’t important,” my Ellie says. “Too many of us. If a few got a bit damaged, it didn’t matter. Not to the tribe leaders.”

“Gregar would never care so little for a youngling. No raskarran would. When our younglings are born they will have many males watching over them, making sure they do not get so much as a bad bruise.”

“Raskarran?”

“That is what I am, linasha.”

“Oh. I’m human.”

“Two different species,” I say, remembering our early conversations with a smile.

My Ellie stills in my arms. “You think we can even have a child?”

There is a note of cautious hope in her tone that makes my heartspace sing. I hold her closer, then speak my words against the sensitive spot on her neck.

“We managed the mating just fine, did we not?”

She squirms, swatting at me with her hand, but pressed against me as she is, I can feel the rhythm of her heartspace - the way it speeds up.

“Do you want to hear this story or not?” she says.

I lean back a little, give her some space. But not too much. I want her in my arms as she speaks, so she knows she is safe, that I will protect her in all ways.

My Ellie starts talking again. She tells me of the food sector and the different jobs and how all the females wish to work in the slaughterhouse, as they get more resources.

It is a strange world, hard for me to understand.

There are the words like ‘machines’ that the dreamspace struggles to translate for me.

There is no raskarran equivalent for such things.

But more than that, it is the way they operate as a tribe that I find incomprehensible.

We have different roles within our tribe - healer, warrior, hunter and others.

Each has their part to play. Hunters gather the food and healers tend our ills, but if there are no ills to tend, the hunters would not deny the healer food.

We are strongest when we all look out for each other.

The idea that someone would get more than another, just because of his role within the tribe, seems counterproductive.

Are we not best when we all work together for the benefit of everyone?

“We never had enough on the bottom tier,” my Ellie says.

“We were always hungry. Never had the right medicines, couldn’t afford to see doctors.

The slaughterhouse girls always had extra things.

Treats - sometimes food, sometimes clothes.

They could be traded, shared out. Among the very poor bottom tier, the slaughterhouse workers were rich.

We all wanted to be chosen for it. And I was one of the lucky ones. ”

Nothing in her tone suggests she still feels she was lucky.

My muscles tense. I need to know my linasha, how her headspace works.

If I know where she has come from, I can look after her better.

Anticipate what she needs. Understand her fully.

I want that - but also, I do not wish to hear of how she has suffered.

She has not yet told me and already I am pained by it, by the fact that there is nothing I can do about it.

I try to hold myself still, let her keep talking.

She tells me about what she did in the slaughterhouse - ending the lives of animals so they could be butchered for their meat.

It does not sound like her tribe honoured the animals the way they should have.

Certainly they did not hunt them, or offer thanks to their goddess.

The animals were led in a line through to where my Ellie and her tribe sisters were waiting with knives.

So many every day. A good hunter might fell an ensouka and feed his tribe for several sunsets.

My headspace cannot imagine a tribe so big that so many animals would be required to feed it.

“It was grim work,” my Ellie says. “All that food, and none of it would end up in our bellies. It would feed the upper tiers. Everything anyone did on the bottom tier was in some way in service of the excesses of the people at the top, but food sector workers had it worst. The warehouse workers might have looked at the fine things and wished for them, but you don’t feel a pinch in your stomach because you don’t have a nice hat or the latest gadget.

We were all hungry, but only food sector workers had to be around food they couldn’t have all day every day. ”

I think of how she has been around food - eating it quickly in case it is taken away, uncertain she has permission to eat more.

It makes sense to me now, knowing how her tribe has treated her.

Anger and sadness war in my heartspace, but neither serve my linasha, so I cast them aside.

I will expend my energy making sure she always has everything she needs instead.

“I swear you will never be hungry again, linasha,” I say. “I will hunt day and night to make sure there is always food in your belly.”

“And the other girls?”

“Of course. A hunter must provide for his tribe. If your tribe sisters wish to be a part of my tribe, I will provide for them as well.”

“Thank you,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.

I am ready to tell her that it is nothing, that it is what any good raskarran male would do, but before I can form my words, my Ellie continues with her tale.

“The worst part - worse than the killing, worse than the feeling hungry - was the supervisors. Most food sector work is full on. Busy. You have your place on the line and you never stop doing your job from the moment you step through the door to the moment you leave. But slaughterhouse work wasn’t like that.

Sometimes it would get quiet and the supervisors used to say that we needed to keep busy, keep earning our pay.

Some of them used to make us do really menial stuff.

Re-cleaning things we’d already cleaned.

Buffing stuff to a shine that really didn’t need to be shiny.

Pointless stuff, but harmless. Others used to say if we weren’t busy servicing the equipment, then we could service them. ”

It takes me a moment to fully understand her meaning. It is not just that she uses strange words to describe it - it is that such things are incomprehensible to me.

“They forced you to mate with them?” I say, pleased that my words only shake a little. I must be strong for my Ellie.

“Neris always used to say it was better to pretend like you were willing, like it was half your idea. She said if you could make them feel like you were into it, they’d treat you kinder.

Give you little gifts. She had a few of the supervisors wrapped around her little finger.

They’d give her biscuits and clothes and she’d…

make them feel like big men, I guess. It worked for her.

I just tried to avoid it as much as possible. But I couldn’t always.”

She shudders in my arms and I think so much of her fear, her reluctance, suddenly makes sense to me. She has been hurt by males, and then I showed up in her dreams talking of mating and younglings and she must have seen me as one more male out to take from her.

“I am sorry, linasha, if I ever made you feel like those males did.”

She looks up at me, her eyes wide with surprise.

“You’ve never done anything like they did,” she says, touching a hand to my face. “You’ve never forced me to do anything.”

I press my forehead to hers. “I know that, but that does not mean I did not make you fear. In the beginning. When we first knew each other. I only wanted to care for you, but I know headspaces do not always align. My actions may have appeared different to you than I intended and I am sorry for that.”

She leans up to me and brushes her lips over mine.

“Maybe I did fear you a little sometimes, but your actions showed me I was wrong to. You’ve only ever been gentle and kind and considerate.

You asked me what I wanted and respected it, even though we only have a few words between us.

You saved me from those others who would have treated me like the supervisors back home did. ”

My body stiffens at the thought of those Cliff Top tribe males and the things they said, my arms tightening round my Ellie, as if I could tuck her against me and keep her safe from the world that way.