Page 6 of Origin (Deridia #13)
He was back in a line. It wasn’t consciously done. He’d merely stood in one of the open areas beyond the mess hall, and others found him. Not directly beside—another man could have fit between them if it didn’t matter that shoulders brushed.
Others got to move with purpose, walking out in small groups and some in single formations, drifting off to where they were expected for the day.
While he got to wait.
And wonder.
There were a few coughs. A few fidgets.
Then whispers as the guards took longer than expected to come and give their orders.
“What are you hoping for?” A man two down from him asked the other. “I was in clean-up at my last post. Hazards. Told there wouldn’t be any of those here. Never seen a sky as clear as this one.”
“You think I want your whole life story? Pipe down. Beating’s yours if they catch you yappin’ when we’re supposed to be waiting.”
Ellion glanced to his left. The man did quiet, and he was staring down at the ground.
Bootless, Ellion noted.
Most of them were.
A sleeve was torn. Hair unkempt.
A far different beginning than he’d experienced.
He refused to feel guilty for it. He’d meant it in jest, but perhaps there was an element of good-fortune on his side, strange as it might be.
Or maybe it was just... Hana.
He’d held off the attempts to steal his supplies all on his own, but the rest was because she was kind enough to think of him. To want to spare him the difficulties she’d experienced when she was new.
Lost.
He didn’t expect to see her. Not until later. Possibly even that evening when they were next to take a meal together. But a guard was beside her, leading her toward the line-up, while she nodded. There were papers in her hands, and she flipped through them with practiced care.
She was almost purposeful in keeping her attention away from him. “Sleeves up, please,” she addressed them all. Courteous, her instructions clear. He expected some to argue, but perhaps the guard over her shoulder was enough incentive to do as she said.
He almost undid the cuff on both, but paused. Realised what she wanted.
Did as the others, pushing up his sleeve until his number was readily visible. She started to her right, flipping through the papers until the order was confirmed with the number etched into his skin. There could be no trading, no argument. Not when she had simply to hand a sheet of crisp paper.
He stared at it as she moved on.
Then she turned back, and he could just make out her query. “Can you read?”
It was enough to earn a scowl. A sneer. “Course I can read,” he bit out. “Keep your assumptions to yourself.”
Her face fell. She turned back to the man in front of her. He kept his arm at his side, which meant she had to ask him to elevate it.
He did. Keeping his forearm turned toward the ground.
“Other way,” she instructed, keeping her tone as polite as possible.
He was being difficult on purpose. They all knew it. He wondered if they would all be like this, and if so, how long the guard would indulge their little mutiny before the clubbing began.
Another paper. Another reluctantly presented arm. But this time, the hesitation was met with the swift blow of a club, and Hana flinched out of the way before it could clip her as well. “Rule. Name and number must be presented promptly when requested. This has not been prompt.”
If the prisoner had any complaints that others had been allowed to prolong the process and he was the only one punished for it, he wisely kept such thoughts to himself. He’d staggered, the blow coming to his arm rather than to his head. Less a blessing than it might have been, because arms could be broken. Which meant no work. Which meant... what, exactly? If physical punishments were allowed, did it not follow that executions were as well? For noncompliance. For dissension.
It should have worried him. Set him trembling with trepidation.
Instead, he felt... as if it was expected. Known. But he hadn’t realised he knew until he watched this unfold. Watched Hana, still stricken by it, swallowing thickly and waiting for the altercation to die down. She didn’t move to the next prisoner until the last was on his feet. She gave no order, did not ask him if he was all right—likely because there was a spark of rage in his eyes, which would have only earned a harsh word and a subsequent blow.
But she held out the paper, because that was expected of her. Waited a little too long for him to take it from her, his bruised arm cradled to his chest and a scowl firmly planted on his lips.
He was angry with her rather than with the guard. Which was... severely misguided to Ellion’s view. She had orders to fulfil just the same as any of them. But perhaps it was safer to take out frustration on her than the guards surrounding them. Easier to hate her rather than the ones they had no hope of overpowering.
A lump settled in his chest. Worry, he decided. Not for himself, but for her.
The next few were handled without incident. Arm extended. Paper taken. She even nodded and smiled a few times, because it was simply in her nature to do so.
When she got to him, he wasn’t so foolish as to ask if she was all right. He even waited for her to ask for his arm. But she took a little longer flipping through the papers to his number. Even hesitated long enough, she could see the order for herself before handing it to him.
He wanted to call her nosey. Wanted to nudge her shoulder and insist it was private information she was holding, and she should have to ask him to share it with her. And he’d even make sure his tone was a little guarded, a little hurt. Would watch her scramble with an apology, stumbling to explain herself before his eyes would warm and he would reassure her he was only teasing.
Whether or not it would hurt him later, he trusted her. He couldn’t explain why. Didn’t much care to try.
But he did. Which settled rather nicely. To trust someone. To think fondly of them. To...
Have a friend.
Did she have many? He’d seen no evidence of it. Surely there were others in her same position. Working in the in-between of guard and inmate. They should ban together. Support one another in what seemed a terribly lonely sort of work.
She handed him the paper. “Here you are,” she intoned, catching his eye just briefly. He tried to get a hint. A flicker of indication. Should he worry or find himself disappointed with the assignment? But she was carefully neutral, moving to the man beside him without glancing his way again.
He shouldn’t keep watching her. She had practically forbidden him from interfering if anything should happen, but it was harder than he might have imagined ignoring her. He would well picture an inmate grabbing hold of all the papers. Scattering them. Shoving at her before he ran.
He’d be clubbed to death afterwards, Ellion was certain, but still...
Or what if he took Hana hostage? Her work might push her into closer relation with the guard, but that was not the same as favour. The guard might not be careful during her extraction, and she’d end up hurt or worse...
He was gripping the paper too hard, and it crumpled in his fist while he warred with himself.
His mind might not be able to conjure memories of his past, but it seemed perfectly capable of feeding him horrid outcomes to steal his peace.
He took a breath. Shoved it down. She’d lived here well enough without him. She didn’t need some sort of hero interfering in her business just to assuage his own anxieties.
He stared at the paper instead. Waited for the symbols to look like words rather than jumbles of letters he was certain he knew. It took longer than he cared to admit; the meaning slow. There was a pressure in his forehead while he struggled, and it took a great effort not to rub at it to soothe the sensation.
More guards approached. “You will join your assigned group, and those going beyond the compound walls will be led to transport. Move.”
They did, although there were fewer groups than he might have expected. Evidently, none of them were particularly specialised, and most of them were herded toward farming. “Harvest,” Hana whispered from two paces behind him. “They’ll be reassigned come winter.”
He grunted, hoping it sounded near enough to a cough, but wanting her to know he’d heard her. He moved toward another guard, although there were no others that joined him. Was a group of one even considered a group? He glanced down at the paper once more, questioning if he understood it at all.
Another group left. Cleaning detail. The janitor from before was amongst them, shoulders slumped. There was no questioning his dissatisfaction with the role.
“I’m going to need some direction,” Ellion admitted to the only guard left for him to stand beside. “I don’t know what a...” he squinted at the word.
“Liaison,” Hana finished for him.
He kept from glancing at her, but only barely. “All right, but what is it? And why does it need escorting?”
The palps flared, and he readied himself for a blow. “Explain it to him,” rumbled the translator, and the guard turned on his heel.
Ellion made to follow, because that had been the instruction, but Hana reached out and snagged the back of his shirt, keeping him in place.
“It’s your own fault,” she began, when he turned to her, all raised eyebrows and incredulity. “You wouldn’t sit where I put you. And then again this morning.” She shook her head, watching him carefully. “So if you’re going to get yourself into trouble, you’re going to have a title.”
Ellion looked down at the paper once more. “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”
Hana hummed a little. She seemed pleased with herself, but there was something about the edges of her that suggested she was defensive. Waiting for him to fault her? He couldn’t know for certain. “It means you’re going to follow me about,” she explained, less sure of herself than she’d been a moment before. Less playful. He was sorry for it, because he liked the glow about her when she was... perhaps happy was too strong a word. Content?
Like that moment this morning, he decided. That’s how he liked her. When there was the soft smile at her lips, when the mist hung heavy in the air and her hair curled in answer.
“While I go about my business. As liaising.” She glanced up at him then, as if... hopeful. “Just...” her breath was sharper, and her eyes flickered down again. “This is probably wrong, and I understand if you can’t, but...” Her hands curled. She forced them to relax. “Never mind. Forget it.”
“Don’t do that,” Ellion chastised. A part of him wanted to reach for her. To touch her arm as if that would somehow coax her into finishing, but he’d retained enough sense not to. “What do you need?”
He wanted to help her. To give her something in return for all she’d given him thus far. She’d say it was her job, would even thank him again for being one of the first to let her. Perhaps he was reading far too much into it, and this was simply... her. Eager to please. To help. And he was so desperate for friendship, he was misinterpreting her intentions.
Something tightened in his chest.
Still, she hesitated. Fidgeted, but stopped herself quickly. “I just...” she huffed out a breath. Faced him fully. “When you don’t want to... When you’re ready to move on, that is, will you tell me before you hate me?”
His brow furrowed, and he must not have understood her properly. “Hate you?”
She nodded slowly. “Or maybe you won’t. Hate me, that is. But if you tire of me, could you just... let me know? And I’ll get you reassigned. They’re assessed every season, so you’re stuck with me until winter, so hopefully it won’t happen quick but...” she shrugged her shoulders, sounding so sure of herself that it would happen.
Had that happened before? He should have asked. If there had been... others. Like him. That had clung, and needed her a little too much.
That had turned on her, afterward.
It would explain quite a bit if that was so.
“That isn’t going to happen,” Ellion started, and Hana gave him a look. The one that said she knew more than he did, which was true, and she was right and he was foolish, but he held up his hand. The one with the paper still grasped in it. “But if it does,” he continued, giving her a pointed look as she deflated. “And I tire of you. Or I hate you...” he couldn’t quite keep just how absurd he found that idea out of his tone. “I will let you know.”
He’d wanted to set her mind at ease. To do as she asked. But she had a sad sort of smile on her lips, which wasn’t at all what he wanted. “Thanks,” she murmured, as if that was something to be grateful for.
“Hana,” he started, and this time his hand did reach out. Not all the way. He didn’t grasp her sleeve. Didn’t hold her in place. But he’d moved without thinking, and he wouldn’t allow that. Had to control himself.
He didn’t understand the instincts simmering beneath the murk of his mind, but they had already proven dangerous. And he must be careful with her. For her.
Escort. He had a job. His head tilted as he regarded her. “You’re really a prisoner? Same as all of us?”
It was her turn to look confused. “Course. Showed you my tattoo, didn’t I?”
He gave a half-hearted nod. “Just trying to puzzle you out.”
She laughed, which was an improvement to her mood a moment before. “Really? I’m not that interesting.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ellion countered, turning his attention back to the paper. He’d crumpled it, and that bothered him. Others were scattered on the ground, discarded once they’d been read. Much like the maps the day before.
They weren’t anywhere about now, and he could recognise why.
Hana stooped down, picking them up. Smoothing them out. Tucking them back into as neat a pile as she could make them. It took him only a minute to help, one lying by his feet. “There a reason we’re doing this?”
Hana glanced at him. “You don’t have to. But this is my home, and I’d rather keep it orderly. Even if nobody else cares about it.”
Which was... absurd, really. She could spend her entire life cleaning up after other people, which was hardly fair. Better to insist they do it themselves.
Besides, wasn’t the concept of a home tied to some degree of ownership? They were trapped here, yes. Or... presumably there had been an agreement somewhere along the line. He still could not imagine what sort of conditions would make a limited sentence a worthy exchange for a lifetime... here. But there must be one. Hana wasn’t stupid. Na?ve, he might allow, although it did not fit either. Practical, certainly. Hopeful. That was it. She’d wanted a better life. Wanted people to get along. Wanted to help them along the way.
It was admirable, if not exactly a perspective he could adapt for himself.
“So,” he began, handing her the papers he’d collected. All but the one she’d handed to him. That he would keep, although he couldn’t exactly understand why it was important to him. “How did you imagine this working? You’d go about your day, and I would simply watch?”
Hana took his few offerings and added them to her pile. What would happen to them? Did they get filed away somewhere? Burned? Paper was inefficient. They had other means for dealing with communication. He couldn’t quite conjure what it was at the moment, but it certainly wasn’t leaflets that could be lost or blow away with the lightest gust.
Less tech, she’d warned him. Which meant no harsh lights overhead in the dorms. No glossy white pods to sleep in that regulated... whatever a body needed regulated. Temperature? Ambient sound? Or perhaps a blissful quiet so he could sleep when he liked rather than listen to the drone of noise coming from the floor below.
He couldn’t remember... well, anything at all, really. But he was certain there was not quite so much wood involved in construction. Had it been stone? Metal?
“I don’t know,” Hana answered, looking rather chagrined. “I certainly wouldn’t presume. We’re all obligated to fulfil our tasks, of course, and if yours is to escort, then just... being there would be the whole of that responsibility.” She swallowed, looking down at the papers. “Although, to be honest, there might be other... aspects to the role.”
His brow rose, and she wouldn’t look at him. “Oh?”
She cleared her throat and tried to straighten her shoulders, but was only marginally successful. “On... occasion... there have been less than polite people.”
He thought of breakfast. The rumbles. The spitting.
“Guards intervene when things get particularly violent,” she was quick to add, as if that would be some great comfort to him. “But I admit, I was hoping if there was someone else there, someone they respect, maybe it wouldn’t need to get that far.”
She took a breath. Lifted her chin. “I’m not asking you to get hurt for me.” She wilted. “Or maybe I am. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for you.”
His lips twitched. “You asked for me?”
It was the wrong thing to say—or perhaps the right, because he rather enjoyed how flustered she became. “Asked is too strong,” she insisted. “I merely suggested that if you were going to be around me anyway, perhaps we could put willingness to good use. And that I’m better at my job when I’m not... you know...” she swallowed. Put on a terrible excuse for a smile. “Injured.”
“That’s happened?” Ellion asked, his previous good-humour fading as quickly as it had come. She nodded, the movement so subtle he almost missed it entirely. “Was it bad?”
“I’ve got all my fingers and toes,” Hana quipped, trying to force some of the seriousness from the subject. Which irked him, although he supposed it shouldn’t. It was her history, her experience, and she could talk about it how she liked.
Even if it left a pit in his stomach. She’d warned him that medical care was lacking. Something about trades? He couldn’t recall now, and that bothered him. Had he not been paying attention, or were recent memories not sticking like they should?
“It was hard to get around for a while,” she allowed, when his expression seemed to indicate he wasn’t as willing to accept her answer. He tried to soften it, but it only earned an even more concerned look from Hana. “But I mended. I’ll admit that I’d rather not go through it again, though.” She looked stricken, and he didn’t know how to fix it. “But I think it would be worse if you got hurt for me. I hadn’t... I hadn’t thought this through all the way.”
She was working herself up, her attention already looking about for a guard. But they were alone for the moment, and before she could move and look for one, Ellion took a step nearer. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he told her as plainly as he could.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, either,” Hana insisted.
He held up his paper. “I’m an escort to the liaison. For at least a season. The risks are mine to take, and not for you to worry about.”
Her eyes took on a misty quality. “But I suggested...”
“If I told you I wanted to walk out that gate,” Ellion cut in, nodding toward the outer wall. “And you ran up to a guard and asked them to let me, would they do it?”
Hana rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
Ellion nodded, expecting her answer. “You said we have more freedom than we think, but perhaps you’re overestimating your influence.” Her eyes widened, and he worried for a moment he’d hurt her. “My point,” he hastened to clarify, taking another step nearer. “You need someone on your side. They know that. And apparently they’d rather it be me than have one of them follow you around all the time. You can’t take it back now, and honestly, I wouldn’t want you to.” He reached out. Let his fingers skim her sleeve just the once before he dropped it again.
Her eyes were so wide as she watched the gesture, but he couldn’t make out any fear in them. No sense that he’d overstepped. Which was... something. He tucked it away to analyse later.
Her mouth turned to a firm line as she glanced at him. “That doesn’t change that if anything happens to you, I’ll carry around a guilt so heavy they won’t be able to get me out of my bed in the morning. And then they’ll be cross, and I’ll get hurt anyway, so the answer is...” she huffed out a breath, and her lips curled, so that was all right. “You can’t get hurt. Deal?”
He pushed up his sleeve without thinking. The laces prevented it from making it all the way to his elbow, which... felt like it was the important part, but he couldn’t remember why. But then his hand extended, and he watched it all as an outsider, not like the arm was his, the waiting hand was his. But they were someone’s. Someone that knew this was necessary and just... did it.
Hana blinked at him in surprise and tucked her bunch of papers beneath one arm while she pushed up her own sleeve. Nestled her fingers against his forearm beneath his sleeve, and he did the same. A clasped arm. The pronouncement of a deal. It was real and solemn, and while there was a lightness in his heart that very much had to do with the idea of pleasing her, he now had to take it seriously.
Protect her. And find a way to do it without injury to himself. And, of course, to her.
Should be simple enough. Assuming he could lock her up in the bunkhouse and do all her business himself. But as she shuffled her papers and smiled at him, he was certain that wasn’t what she wanted.