The Morning After (Original)
Oct. 7th, 2012 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galTitle: The Morning After
Prompt: Taming the Muse "That's life"
Summary: Liam enjoyed his post on the small planet of Prarownt, and he liked trading with the Rownt people, Ondry in particular. However, when a new officer makes him miserable, he finds that there's more to Ondry than he ever suspected, and culture rules are sometimes less clear than one little linguist might think.
Warning: dub-con, but no sex. I have no idea where this bunny came from, but it just sort of flew out of me and onto the page.
Liam groaned as the pounding in his head seemed to swallow him whole. His body felt too small and slightly out of phase with the rest of him, but he started rolling to his side, inventorying the various aches. Note to self—Rownt alcohol was far too aggressive for Human constitutions.
“Here. This will ease the pain.” Cool hands cupped his face a moment before helping him sit up.
“Whoa.” Liam clutched at the sheet as he realized two things. One, he had no balance and two, he was naked.
“You must be careful of yourself. You have slept longer than I anticipated.”
“I really need to never drink that stuff again,” Liam admitted as he searched his memory for any bits of pieces to explain how he might have ended up naked in a Rownt pillow nest. He accompanied the colonel to the temple as ordered. They’d met Ondry who had offered a drink, and after that… nothing. Just nothing. All Liam knew was that he was breaking a whole lot of regulations here. He was probably setting a new record for way in which to fuck up a xenology assignment in one short night.
“You will not,” Ondry said with a little huffing noise that sounded like worry—like Ondry was scenting him. Liam cracked open one crusted eye. Ondry sat next to him on the large cushion on the floor, a dozen smaller pillows scattered around them. Ondry’s oversided hands still braced Liam, helping to prop him up against the wall so Liam could stay upright. Leaning over to pick up a glass, Ondry left his hand resting against Liam’s arm to keep him steady.
“Is this your home?” Liam looked around at the blues and greens painted across the walls. He recognized a Toal, a mythical beast from one of the ancient scrolls. Two stylized heroes with long spears stalked the giant carnivore across a surreal landscape painted onto the curved plaster wall.
“Yes. I brought you home,” Ondry agreed. He held the cup up to Liam’s lips, and Liam drank. He might be in all sorts of trouble with command, but he couldn’t do much about that until he had a radio and a sense of balance that let him sit up on his own.
“I should have gone back to base.”
“I would not allow it.”
Liam had let his eyes fall closed again since the light seemed to slice through sections of his brain he needed if he wanted to figure out how to avoid getting busted back to first rank. However, at that cryptic comment, he pried one eye open again. Ondry had that lippy look that in a Rownt meant serious aggravation.
“What happened?” Liam asked carefully. Exhibiting a lack of knowledge was a serious tactical error in negotiations, but this wasn’t a negotiation. This was a fucking disaster. Liam half expected the verbal dance of transaction, the spirited sparring of two opponents seeking advantage.
Instead Ondry reached out and ran a too-large finger down the side of Liam’s face. “He dishonored your service.” Ondry didn’t pale. His velvety skin kept its byzantium hue, so he wasn’t overly upset no matter what he said. That didn’t mean that Ondry wouldn’t use any diplomatic mistakes to exact a serious penalty in trade goods. Whatever Colonel Tacker had done definitely put Liam in an awkward spot, and the bastard would probably find some way to blame Liam.
Liam closed his eye. “What did he do?” Liam asked carefully. Maybe he could still salvage this. The Rownt liked Human trade goods, and Liam was the best Human trader on-planet. Hands down. He was the best period. No one had ever worked so hard to master all the nuances of Rownt culture. Of course, that wouldn’t save him from getting shipped to the front lines wearing the uniform of a first rank if things went FUBAR.
“He insulted your skills.”
Liam tried to snort in laughter, but the sound cut through his skull, and for several seconds, he clutched his own head while Ondry’s hands skimmed over his skin, the cooling touch soothing more than it should. Rownt didn’t do comfort. They just didn’t. Liam cracked an eye open again as he struggled to put pieces together. “You insult my skills all the time,” he pointed out.
Ondry brushed locks of sweat-damp hair back from Liam’s face. “Only to seek advantage. I have never attacked one who serves me as palteia.”
Liam’s brain latched onto the unfamiliar word. Palteia. Same prefix as pasay or child. The context suggested subordinate, but Liam knew at least fifty different words to designate relative rank in Rownt language, and none used the “pai” prefix. None. It didn’t exist. And if it did exist, then Liam suspected that the stories that included the terms had been deliberately kept from him. In five years, he’d read everything he could find of Rownt song and storytelling, and he’d never heard anything close to this.
“Can you define palteia for me?” Liam felt like he was tiptoeing across cultural ice.
Ondry set the empty glass aside. “You should sleep. The drink was made too strong. I shall tell the grandmothers that if another wishes to challenge for a Human palteia, the drink must be diluted.”
Liam tried to struggle to his feet. “Challenge? What challenge?” He didn’t grab at the sheet fast enough, and it slipped off his lap as he stumbled to the side. Ondry was there, holding him steady with an arm around his shoulders, but Liam’s brain couldn’t process that for the moment. The fact that he was naked and being held by an alien who had a good fifty pounds on him, even if Liam was a large man… all that would have to wait. Right now, Liam only wanted to know one thing.
“Why am I chained to the wall?” he asked carefully. He had to pronounce each syllable because he found himself staring in shock at the shackle locked around his left ankle. A white chain of deceptively delicate looking links led to a bolt in the wall.
“I need to make sure you do not return to your base,” Ondry said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He tried urging Liam to sit, his hands tugging gently at him. As much as Liam wanted to sit down before he fell down, he had to keep his wits and he had to stay on his feet.
“Ondry, Humans have very strict rules about holding others captive.” He tried thinking each word out carefully, but he still found his tongue tripping over the idea of calling himself a captive. When he’d transferred into the xenology unit, he’d gone through all the psychological training. He just never expected to need any of that training.
“That is why we had the ceremony. You look pale, even for a Human. You must sit.” The pressure grew more firm as Ondry tried to push him back down into the next of pillows. Liam resisted for a second, but then he let Ondry push him down and then fuss over him. Ondry arranged the sheet over him and ran fingers over Liam’s shoulders. Unfortunately, Liam’s cock was a little too interested in all this touching, and Liam pulled his knees up to hide that reaction.
“I have to call base.”
“You are not theirs anymore.”
“Then I need to call them to discuss that,” Liam tried negotiating.
“I told your colonel that my challenge had succeeded. He is not welcome on Rownt territory.”
Okay, that had an oddly final sound to it. That had an ominously final sound to it, maybe because of the number of social deixises Ondry had just used to conjugate that sentence. The colonel had definitely just earned a demotion in Rownt eyes.
“Explain this challenge to me, Ondry. Explain what you did.”
“I told the grandmothers that I challenged for the palteia.” Ondry had a perfectly neutral expression that left Liam so frustrated that he wanted to grab the man and shake him. Hard. Liam could feel his blood pressure rise, but getting angry wouldn’t solve anything. It would just confuse Ondry because anger wasn’t an emotion they understood.
“You’re talking in circles intentionally. You’re trying to not give me answers,” Liam accused the man because manipulation was a social construct they understood very well.
“I will not upset you.”
Liam ran his fingers through his hair and sent up a quick prayer for patience. “You have chained me to a wall.” He gave the chain a hard pull, and the small links made a tinkling sort of rattle. “You’ve already upset me. I don’t understand what’s going on here, and Humans react emotionally and unpredictably when they are confused,” Liam said, trying to explain in the most logical way possible.
Ondry huffed, his eyes opening wider as he considered that little fact. Leaning back against the wall, he didn’t seem to know what to do with this new information.
“I need you to explain palteia—explain why you have a right to take a palteia and challenge for them.”
“Because they should be protected,” Ondry answered quickly, but he was starting to pale. This conversation was as upsetting to him as it was to Liam.
“You can’t chain me to a wall without explaining, Ondry. You have to explain why you think I need protecting. I’m a soldier. You know that. I spent two years fighting on the front lines. I am not a child.”
“You are palteia.”
“That had better not mean that you’re calling me a child,” Liam warned, his temper starting to fray. That earned him a quirk of Ondry’s cheeks—their equivalent of a smile.
“You trade too well for a child. You are an adult male. But a palteia… it is how someone sees the world. To explain…” He flared his nostrils as he thought about it, and then he rattled off a sentence full of so many unfamiliar words that Liam was left with verbal Swiss cheese, only with more holes than cheese. And then, unhelpfully, Ondry ended with, “So you must stay.”
Groaning, Liam dropped his forehead down onto his knees. Fuck.
“Are you unwell?” Ondry’s cool hands skimmed over Liam’s shoulder. And once again, Liam found himself being comforted by a species that all the literature suggested could not nurture. For them, mating was a nearly violent act of a female pushing a male down to take sperm. Partners were people who thought they could have more success while working together, and as soon as the profits moved, their partnership ended—often with mutual attempts to secure as much of the joint wealth as possible. And they did all this with a pragmatic calm that suggested that acting in such a way was both normal and healthy. On the rare occasion that Liam had discovered some way to pry additional trade goods out of Ondry’s stingy hands, the man had congratulated Liam on his manipulation like a proud parent.
“What does a palteia do that is different from other adults?” Liam finally asked. He needed to stay calm and figure out what the fuck was going on.
Ondry shifted around so that he sat right next to Liam, their shoulders brushing. “He does not seek status.”
“So you think the fact that I don’t want to be an officer makes me palteia?”
“In part.”
Liam scratched his arm. “If I were an officer, they would make me stay at the base. We only have four officers on the whole planet, and they won’t risk losing one.”
“So they risk you?”
“They’ve invested less time in training me. Losing me would not be as much of an expense,” Liam said. It was a military truth most Human civilians would choke on, but the Rownt considered that sort of logic perfectly reasonable.
“You understand more of Prarownt than the officer you claim to serve. The last trader would often call back to base for help. You never do.”
Liam hadn’t known that. Of course, the last trader had practically run for the relief ship when Liam had come downworld. He hadn’t even bothered to explain his filings or show Liam the systems before shaking free of the Prarownt dirt.
“I trained myself. The military didn’t have to make an investment. But if they make me an officer, they will invest resources in me and, therefore, protect me more diligently.”
“A palteia seeks to improve himself so he can serve better.” Ondry tilted his head as though making some grand point that would win the debate.
“I sought to improve myself because I didn’t want to die on the front. Linguistics and technical science knowledge get you transferred to behind the lines.”
“Palteia serve. Even when given unreasonable orders, they do not seek their own profits but the profits of those they serve.”
Liam groaned. The damn temple ceremony. Liam had known trouble was brewing, but Colonel Tacker wouldn’t hear anything about it. He just knew that the Rownt wanted to welcome a new Human officer. Idiot. “I couldn’t disobey without hurting my own profits,” he tried to explain. The idea of following an order, even when it was a stupid order, would put Humans in a bad light, but Liam needed Ondry to understand.
“Would you not make more profits if you were an officer? And as an officer, you could make rules, not only follow them.”
“I don’t want to be an officer,” Liam tried explaining again. “I want to trade.”
“Do you want to make rules for others?”
Liam laughed. “Trust me, no one wants me making rules for others.” Liam barely passed psych for enlisted, but getting tossed out of the service with no retirement and no military preferences for jobs or housing or transport—it wasn’t happening. Liam would be stuck in the slums. Without preferences, money, or connections, Human worlds were not friendly places.
“Then you are palteia.”
Liam sat up. “Wait.” Okay, this couldn’t be right. “Palteia are followers?”
Ondry widened his eyes in confusion.
“People who don’t want to lead, people who always follow?”
Ondry nodded, a stiff gesture not natural to the Rownt but one which more were starting to use. “Yes.”
Liam let out a breath. This was entirely new xenopsychological ground. The textbooks said that Rownt didn’t even understand the concept. Followers translated as someone who didn’t yet have the experience, resources, or respect to lead, but who wanted to. It was the same noun as social-climber.
“Wait, but if I’m a follower of the Human leader, why chain me here?”
“I challenged.” Ondry’s skin tone darkened with some sort of pleasurable emotion.
Liam buried his face in his knees again. And they were back to circling each other with words. Liam might have been amused, but naked and chained to a wall on an alien planet precluded any humor.
“Can you tell me what happened at the ceremony?” he tried again.
“Of course.”
When Liam looked up, Ondry had a relaxed, pleasant expression on his face.
“Will you please tell me what happened?”
“You drank the…” The Rownt word went by too fast for Liam to catch, but since he didn’t intend to ever drink the stuff again, he didn’t bother stopping Ondry for a lesson in pronunciation. “And I took you back to the chamber of grandmothers. Twelve came. Twelve.” Ondry darkened even more, and Liam did understand that having so many grandmothers at his challenge was a bit of a coup for Ondry.
“They asked you of your feelings, of your hopes. They entered your name into the lists of palteia, and then I challenged Colonel Tacker’s treatment of you.”
“But…” Liam wished his head wasn’t pounding off his shoulders. “You couldn’t know anything about Colonel Tacker’s treatment of me.” And while it was true that the man was an ass who considered Liam one step below slime, all that had taken place on the Human base.
“You know.”
Liam groaned. “Ondry, please tell me what happened. What did you do? What did you say? What did the grandmothers say?”
For a second Ondry studied him with that wide-eyed expression of confusion or curiosity. “I told the grandmothers that no palteia becomes so unhappy overnight unless his chilta misused him. They asked you questions, and after hearing your answers, they determined that my challenge had merit and gave you to me.”
Liam groaned. After drinking that crap at the temple, god knows what he’d told the grandmothers. Hell, he might have told them about the file on Tacker that Liam clearly didn’t have clearance to read, but he hacked anyway. Great. He’d given classified information to an alien species. Even if he got out of this, the military would send him on an all-expenses paid vacation to prison. Worse, palteia was starting to sound like it has some functional traits in common with slave. “They gave me to you? For how long?” Liam asked. There had to be a way to fix all this.
“You are palteia.” Ondry said that as if it explained everything. For a Rownt, it probably would.
“So you keep saying. The problem is that I don’t understand that. I’ve never seen the word. I don’t know any stories with a palteia. How long am I supposed to stay here?”
“A palteia is always palteia.” Ondry started to pale.
“Oh fuck. Forever. You plan to keep me forever.” Pressing his eyes closed, he thunked his head back against the wall. Pain was better than thinking about reality right now, and oh was his head in pain.
Ondry’s strong fingers rubbed his arm more gently than Liam had ever given them credit for. Maybe Liam would worry about fixing this later. Right now, he really just wanted to curl in a little ball and have a good panic attack. Ondry started a low glurbling sound Rownt used to sooth children, and under other circumstances, Liam would have taken offense. Today, though—just today—he felt the comfort sink in until Liam wanted to just cry and let the rest of the world go fuck itself for a time. And chained to a wall, he even had a good excused to do just that.
On to part two: http://lit-gal.livejournal.com/445099.html
Prompt: Taming the Muse "That's life"
Summary: Liam enjoyed his post on the small planet of Prarownt, and he liked trading with the Rownt people, Ondry in particular. However, when a new officer makes him miserable, he finds that there's more to Ondry than he ever suspected, and culture rules are sometimes less clear than one little linguist might think.
Warning: dub-con, but no sex. I have no idea where this bunny came from, but it just sort of flew out of me and onto the page.
Liam groaned as the pounding in his head seemed to swallow him whole. His body felt too small and slightly out of phase with the rest of him, but he started rolling to his side, inventorying the various aches. Note to self—Rownt alcohol was far too aggressive for Human constitutions.
“Here. This will ease the pain.” Cool hands cupped his face a moment before helping him sit up.
“Whoa.” Liam clutched at the sheet as he realized two things. One, he had no balance and two, he was naked.
“You must be careful of yourself. You have slept longer than I anticipated.”
“I really need to never drink that stuff again,” Liam admitted as he searched his memory for any bits of pieces to explain how he might have ended up naked in a Rownt pillow nest. He accompanied the colonel to the temple as ordered. They’d met Ondry who had offered a drink, and after that… nothing. Just nothing. All Liam knew was that he was breaking a whole lot of regulations here. He was probably setting a new record for way in which to fuck up a xenology assignment in one short night.
“You will not,” Ondry said with a little huffing noise that sounded like worry—like Ondry was scenting him. Liam cracked open one crusted eye. Ondry sat next to him on the large cushion on the floor, a dozen smaller pillows scattered around them. Ondry’s oversided hands still braced Liam, helping to prop him up against the wall so Liam could stay upright. Leaning over to pick up a glass, Ondry left his hand resting against Liam’s arm to keep him steady.
“Is this your home?” Liam looked around at the blues and greens painted across the walls. He recognized a Toal, a mythical beast from one of the ancient scrolls. Two stylized heroes with long spears stalked the giant carnivore across a surreal landscape painted onto the curved plaster wall.
“Yes. I brought you home,” Ondry agreed. He held the cup up to Liam’s lips, and Liam drank. He might be in all sorts of trouble with command, but he couldn’t do much about that until he had a radio and a sense of balance that let him sit up on his own.
“I should have gone back to base.”
“I would not allow it.”
Liam had let his eyes fall closed again since the light seemed to slice through sections of his brain he needed if he wanted to figure out how to avoid getting busted back to first rank. However, at that cryptic comment, he pried one eye open again. Ondry had that lippy look that in a Rownt meant serious aggravation.
“What happened?” Liam asked carefully. Exhibiting a lack of knowledge was a serious tactical error in negotiations, but this wasn’t a negotiation. This was a fucking disaster. Liam half expected the verbal dance of transaction, the spirited sparring of two opponents seeking advantage.
Instead Ondry reached out and ran a too-large finger down the side of Liam’s face. “He dishonored your service.” Ondry didn’t pale. His velvety skin kept its byzantium hue, so he wasn’t overly upset no matter what he said. That didn’t mean that Ondry wouldn’t use any diplomatic mistakes to exact a serious penalty in trade goods. Whatever Colonel Tacker had done definitely put Liam in an awkward spot, and the bastard would probably find some way to blame Liam.
Liam closed his eye. “What did he do?” Liam asked carefully. Maybe he could still salvage this. The Rownt liked Human trade goods, and Liam was the best Human trader on-planet. Hands down. He was the best period. No one had ever worked so hard to master all the nuances of Rownt culture. Of course, that wouldn’t save him from getting shipped to the front lines wearing the uniform of a first rank if things went FUBAR.
“He insulted your skills.”
Liam tried to snort in laughter, but the sound cut through his skull, and for several seconds, he clutched his own head while Ondry’s hands skimmed over his skin, the cooling touch soothing more than it should. Rownt didn’t do comfort. They just didn’t. Liam cracked an eye open again as he struggled to put pieces together. “You insult my skills all the time,” he pointed out.
Ondry brushed locks of sweat-damp hair back from Liam’s face. “Only to seek advantage. I have never attacked one who serves me as palteia.”
Liam’s brain latched onto the unfamiliar word. Palteia. Same prefix as pasay or child. The context suggested subordinate, but Liam knew at least fifty different words to designate relative rank in Rownt language, and none used the “pai” prefix. None. It didn’t exist. And if it did exist, then Liam suspected that the stories that included the terms had been deliberately kept from him. In five years, he’d read everything he could find of Rownt song and storytelling, and he’d never heard anything close to this.
“Can you define palteia for me?” Liam felt like he was tiptoeing across cultural ice.
Ondry set the empty glass aside. “You should sleep. The drink was made too strong. I shall tell the grandmothers that if another wishes to challenge for a Human palteia, the drink must be diluted.”
Liam tried to struggle to his feet. “Challenge? What challenge?” He didn’t grab at the sheet fast enough, and it slipped off his lap as he stumbled to the side. Ondry was there, holding him steady with an arm around his shoulders, but Liam’s brain couldn’t process that for the moment. The fact that he was naked and being held by an alien who had a good fifty pounds on him, even if Liam was a large man… all that would have to wait. Right now, Liam only wanted to know one thing.
“Why am I chained to the wall?” he asked carefully. He had to pronounce each syllable because he found himself staring in shock at the shackle locked around his left ankle. A white chain of deceptively delicate looking links led to a bolt in the wall.
“I need to make sure you do not return to your base,” Ondry said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He tried urging Liam to sit, his hands tugging gently at him. As much as Liam wanted to sit down before he fell down, he had to keep his wits and he had to stay on his feet.
“Ondry, Humans have very strict rules about holding others captive.” He tried thinking each word out carefully, but he still found his tongue tripping over the idea of calling himself a captive. When he’d transferred into the xenology unit, he’d gone through all the psychological training. He just never expected to need any of that training.
“That is why we had the ceremony. You look pale, even for a Human. You must sit.” The pressure grew more firm as Ondry tried to push him back down into the next of pillows. Liam resisted for a second, but then he let Ondry push him down and then fuss over him. Ondry arranged the sheet over him and ran fingers over Liam’s shoulders. Unfortunately, Liam’s cock was a little too interested in all this touching, and Liam pulled his knees up to hide that reaction.
“I have to call base.”
“You are not theirs anymore.”
“Then I need to call them to discuss that,” Liam tried negotiating.
“I told your colonel that my challenge had succeeded. He is not welcome on Rownt territory.”
Okay, that had an oddly final sound to it. That had an ominously final sound to it, maybe because of the number of social deixises Ondry had just used to conjugate that sentence. The colonel had definitely just earned a demotion in Rownt eyes.
“Explain this challenge to me, Ondry. Explain what you did.”
“I told the grandmothers that I challenged for the palteia.” Ondry had a perfectly neutral expression that left Liam so frustrated that he wanted to grab the man and shake him. Hard. Liam could feel his blood pressure rise, but getting angry wouldn’t solve anything. It would just confuse Ondry because anger wasn’t an emotion they understood.
“You’re talking in circles intentionally. You’re trying to not give me answers,” Liam accused the man because manipulation was a social construct they understood very well.
“I will not upset you.”
Liam ran his fingers through his hair and sent up a quick prayer for patience. “You have chained me to a wall.” He gave the chain a hard pull, and the small links made a tinkling sort of rattle. “You’ve already upset me. I don’t understand what’s going on here, and Humans react emotionally and unpredictably when they are confused,” Liam said, trying to explain in the most logical way possible.
Ondry huffed, his eyes opening wider as he considered that little fact. Leaning back against the wall, he didn’t seem to know what to do with this new information.
“I need you to explain palteia—explain why you have a right to take a palteia and challenge for them.”
“Because they should be protected,” Ondry answered quickly, but he was starting to pale. This conversation was as upsetting to him as it was to Liam.
“You can’t chain me to a wall without explaining, Ondry. You have to explain why you think I need protecting. I’m a soldier. You know that. I spent two years fighting on the front lines. I am not a child.”
“You are palteia.”
“That had better not mean that you’re calling me a child,” Liam warned, his temper starting to fray. That earned him a quirk of Ondry’s cheeks—their equivalent of a smile.
“You trade too well for a child. You are an adult male. But a palteia… it is how someone sees the world. To explain…” He flared his nostrils as he thought about it, and then he rattled off a sentence full of so many unfamiliar words that Liam was left with verbal Swiss cheese, only with more holes than cheese. And then, unhelpfully, Ondry ended with, “So you must stay.”
Groaning, Liam dropped his forehead down onto his knees. Fuck.
“Are you unwell?” Ondry’s cool hands skimmed over Liam’s shoulder. And once again, Liam found himself being comforted by a species that all the literature suggested could not nurture. For them, mating was a nearly violent act of a female pushing a male down to take sperm. Partners were people who thought they could have more success while working together, and as soon as the profits moved, their partnership ended—often with mutual attempts to secure as much of the joint wealth as possible. And they did all this with a pragmatic calm that suggested that acting in such a way was both normal and healthy. On the rare occasion that Liam had discovered some way to pry additional trade goods out of Ondry’s stingy hands, the man had congratulated Liam on his manipulation like a proud parent.
“What does a palteia do that is different from other adults?” Liam finally asked. He needed to stay calm and figure out what the fuck was going on.
Ondry shifted around so that he sat right next to Liam, their shoulders brushing. “He does not seek status.”
“So you think the fact that I don’t want to be an officer makes me palteia?”
“In part.”
Liam scratched his arm. “If I were an officer, they would make me stay at the base. We only have four officers on the whole planet, and they won’t risk losing one.”
“So they risk you?”
“They’ve invested less time in training me. Losing me would not be as much of an expense,” Liam said. It was a military truth most Human civilians would choke on, but the Rownt considered that sort of logic perfectly reasonable.
“You understand more of Prarownt than the officer you claim to serve. The last trader would often call back to base for help. You never do.”
Liam hadn’t known that. Of course, the last trader had practically run for the relief ship when Liam had come downworld. He hadn’t even bothered to explain his filings or show Liam the systems before shaking free of the Prarownt dirt.
“I trained myself. The military didn’t have to make an investment. But if they make me an officer, they will invest resources in me and, therefore, protect me more diligently.”
“A palteia seeks to improve himself so he can serve better.” Ondry tilted his head as though making some grand point that would win the debate.
“I sought to improve myself because I didn’t want to die on the front. Linguistics and technical science knowledge get you transferred to behind the lines.”
“Palteia serve. Even when given unreasonable orders, they do not seek their own profits but the profits of those they serve.”
Liam groaned. The damn temple ceremony. Liam had known trouble was brewing, but Colonel Tacker wouldn’t hear anything about it. He just knew that the Rownt wanted to welcome a new Human officer. Idiot. “I couldn’t disobey without hurting my own profits,” he tried to explain. The idea of following an order, even when it was a stupid order, would put Humans in a bad light, but Liam needed Ondry to understand.
“Would you not make more profits if you were an officer? And as an officer, you could make rules, not only follow them.”
“I don’t want to be an officer,” Liam tried explaining again. “I want to trade.”
“Do you want to make rules for others?”
Liam laughed. “Trust me, no one wants me making rules for others.” Liam barely passed psych for enlisted, but getting tossed out of the service with no retirement and no military preferences for jobs or housing or transport—it wasn’t happening. Liam would be stuck in the slums. Without preferences, money, or connections, Human worlds were not friendly places.
“Then you are palteia.”
Liam sat up. “Wait.” Okay, this couldn’t be right. “Palteia are followers?”
Ondry widened his eyes in confusion.
“People who don’t want to lead, people who always follow?”
Ondry nodded, a stiff gesture not natural to the Rownt but one which more were starting to use. “Yes.”
Liam let out a breath. This was entirely new xenopsychological ground. The textbooks said that Rownt didn’t even understand the concept. Followers translated as someone who didn’t yet have the experience, resources, or respect to lead, but who wanted to. It was the same noun as social-climber.
“Wait, but if I’m a follower of the Human leader, why chain me here?”
“I challenged.” Ondry’s skin tone darkened with some sort of pleasurable emotion.
Liam buried his face in his knees again. And they were back to circling each other with words. Liam might have been amused, but naked and chained to a wall on an alien planet precluded any humor.
“Can you tell me what happened at the ceremony?” he tried again.
“Of course.”
When Liam looked up, Ondry had a relaxed, pleasant expression on his face.
“Will you please tell me what happened?”
“You drank the…” The Rownt word went by too fast for Liam to catch, but since he didn’t intend to ever drink the stuff again, he didn’t bother stopping Ondry for a lesson in pronunciation. “And I took you back to the chamber of grandmothers. Twelve came. Twelve.” Ondry darkened even more, and Liam did understand that having so many grandmothers at his challenge was a bit of a coup for Ondry.
“They asked you of your feelings, of your hopes. They entered your name into the lists of palteia, and then I challenged Colonel Tacker’s treatment of you.”
“But…” Liam wished his head wasn’t pounding off his shoulders. “You couldn’t know anything about Colonel Tacker’s treatment of me.” And while it was true that the man was an ass who considered Liam one step below slime, all that had taken place on the Human base.
“You know.”
Liam groaned. “Ondry, please tell me what happened. What did you do? What did you say? What did the grandmothers say?”
For a second Ondry studied him with that wide-eyed expression of confusion or curiosity. “I told the grandmothers that no palteia becomes so unhappy overnight unless his chilta misused him. They asked you questions, and after hearing your answers, they determined that my challenge had merit and gave you to me.”
Liam groaned. After drinking that crap at the temple, god knows what he’d told the grandmothers. Hell, he might have told them about the file on Tacker that Liam clearly didn’t have clearance to read, but he hacked anyway. Great. He’d given classified information to an alien species. Even if he got out of this, the military would send him on an all-expenses paid vacation to prison. Worse, palteia was starting to sound like it has some functional traits in common with slave. “They gave me to you? For how long?” Liam asked. There had to be a way to fix all this.
“You are palteia.” Ondry said that as if it explained everything. For a Rownt, it probably would.
“So you keep saying. The problem is that I don’t understand that. I’ve never seen the word. I don’t know any stories with a palteia. How long am I supposed to stay here?”
“A palteia is always palteia.” Ondry started to pale.
“Oh fuck. Forever. You plan to keep me forever.” Pressing his eyes closed, he thunked his head back against the wall. Pain was better than thinking about reality right now, and oh was his head in pain.
Ondry’s strong fingers rubbed his arm more gently than Liam had ever given them credit for. Maybe Liam would worry about fixing this later. Right now, he really just wanted to curl in a little ball and have a good panic attack. Ondry started a low glurbling sound Rownt used to sooth children, and under other circumstances, Liam would have taken offense. Today, though—just today—he felt the comfort sink in until Liam wanted to just cry and let the rest of the world go fuck itself for a time. And chained to a wall, he even had a good excused to do just that.
On to part two: http://lit-gal.livejournal.com/445099.html
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Date: 2012-10-07 06:09 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2012-10-07 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 06:25 pm (UTC)I hope you continue with the story.
Laurie
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Date: 2012-10-07 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-08 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 07:41 pm (UTC)I would be more than happy to read more of this!
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Date: 2012-10-07 11:52 pm (UTC)The Morning After - part 1
Date: 2012-10-07 08:30 pm (UTC)Thanks so much!
Re: The Morning After - part 1
Date: 2012-10-07 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 11:46 pm (UTC)I like the bits and pieces of culture you are feeding us it gives the story a very rich feeling and the new cultural words feel right and not just like gibberish . I amused that Ondry challenged and the Rownt Grandmothers agreed because Colonel Tacker was a jerk
Zaz
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Date: 2012-10-07 11:49 pm (UTC)“You appear unhappy,” Ondry immediately offered before even hovering over Liam’s sample goods.
Liam froze. He had the best command of Rownt language and cultural norms in five solar systems. He could tell a glurble from a gurgle and translate the emotion behind each. After all, as much as the Rownt appeared to be plum colored, large, flat-faced people, they weren’t.
They were a tailed, bipedal civilization with a set of rules that defied Human logic. And they always focused on the trade. Always. Personal conversation came later… when you were trying to figure out a better way to screw the opposition the next time you traded. All was fair in war and trading.
This plot really has grabbed me by the throat. I'm loving this world.
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Date: 2012-10-09 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-09 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-08 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-09 04:14 am (UTC)