"Creation" chapter 7. That connection, what formed
A/N: First of all, I'm regret and apologize. My organism failed me again, this time, my feminine health. I couldn't ignore the problem — and, as it turns out, it wasn't all that significant. So, things are better now, and I hope, this chapter brings you the long-awaited joy of seeing where story are move now
Word count: 3,5K
Warnings: murder and child murder, blood, injuries, references to implied slavery, superficial sexism and racism, swearing, one nasty joke about zoophilia, obvious xenophilia, mounting tension (despite the rather frightening warnings, it's mostly calm here — and by the final paragraphs, you'll get that, what I was holding my breath waiting for. Yes, y'all know, what i mean. Is thaw. But don't expect much more too soon!..)
🎧 Joseph Heath — Growing
Autumn sun is blinding, steadily wading the wooden frame. Leaves beat against the walls, caught by the shifting wind. Morning has already arrived — but in the hut still crawling the night's restless chill.
You shiver under the blanket of furs.
You shiver under the embrace of a wool sweater.
Seeing you, lying next to, is unusual for Noa. It's too hard not to think about what would have happened, if he hadn't given you that promise, that turned into a trial. It's too hard not to think about what would have happened, if he had placed his hand on the curve of your back right now, to warm you...
It's even harder to see your eyes so close. So close, that he can see in you both the struggle with the lingering illness, and the struggle with the fear, that had've once retreated, changed. Roots of your fear are covered in rime, you fear differently — but your husband doesn't know, what has changed in you. Perhaps, the illness has made you fearful again. Before you got sick, you dared to touch Noa's collarbone, right where you left the scar. For no reason at all. When you recover, primarily from your fears, Noa want to touch the scar on your shoulder. Or even the scar on your thigh. If only you would let him... It's still too early to think about that. Right now, it's much more important give you time to recover.
Hairless skin of an echo, as Noa has noted repeatedly, is not adapted to the vagaries of weather. This makes him uneasy. Cold weather is still a long way off, but you've already been nursed through coughing fits, even though you assured him, that you'd caught colds often before — that it would pass quickly, and there was no need to worry about it. You drink healing infusions daily, but without human medicine, you can't heal properly. You have bad dreams, and at night you're delirious. You wake up with bloodshot eyes and cheeks almost as bloodless, as those of lifeless statues, sculpted from white stone.
On top of that, despite therequired by your status abundant food, over the past few months you've lost weight. You've become even less real.
That's why Noa doesn't tell you about seeing a group of several people near the clan's territory.
So that you, like a vision, don't vanish completely due to stress.
He doesn't say what you need to discuss—as ruler and ruleress. Instead, you chatter about all sorts of footle. Instead, you watch the cubs carefully playing with the newly born bunnies and their long-eared mother. Instead, you hold the bunnies in your hands, as if these three tiny lumps of fur — a sign from heaven. Instead, you choose your words carefully — so that what's left unsaid doesn't hurt, when it's finally said. And, in one of many ways, it feels idyllic.
***
Even if you're not yet Noa's wife in full measure — you've brought so much into his life. New words, new knowledge, new feelings... By gradually overcoming yourself, you're already conquering your old fears. You interact with Noa without the fear, that once dragged you down, burying you alive. You even forget yourself sometimes, and act with Noa casually. Without knowing the underlying, you could easily pass for old friends now. Could have dreamed of such progress half year ago?
Back then, being nothing to each other, you couldn't have had enough time to become some more, than acquaintances. Now, when you share daily life and even bed — you've had enough time to get to know each other closer, to become closer. But this, that you didn't shy away from Noa's first clumsy attempts to prove himself a good husband, was already encouraging. Noa learned, that due to the hardships of your past life, you had forgotten the taste of your once-favorite berries — and you found a handful of sweet raspberries at the head of your bed. Noa asked, if he could teach you to horse riding — and you said yes. Noa understood, that your former slave regime had taught you not to rest. So Noa was there simply, so you could lean on him when you were tired. And, incidentally, so you could tell him, at least a little, about your scars.
Not about the scars, that run across your tormented, thin body.
About the scars, that run across your soul.
A month later, you told. How you've boiled over with rage, how you've nearly snapped like a frail branch, how you growing over a soul-crushing past. And you too asked Noa questions.
It didn't last long. It was captivating. For both of you. You were eager to get to know Noa with enthusiasm, with curiousity. However, you weren't eager to get closer. A conversation like that one honest conversation, witnessed only by the mother rabbit with her newborn kits and the log walls, never happened again. And that was only natural.
Becoming comrades, partners with someone, who congeners depicted as a terrifying beast — it was a brave act. Desperation doesn't always help one make a painful choice.
But you chose Noa with a liberated smile.
A couple of days after the Rite of Bonding, out of the blue, you mentioned marriages between white women and the Native Americans, who had captured them nearly five hundred years earlier. It would seem, that they should all have been lifetime martyrs. Some were treated horribly, that much cannot be overstated. But most of the captives, as you put it in your narrative, were assimilated. They became an integral part of tribes. And when liberators arrived, these women no longer wanted to be freed, they didn't want to leave their husbands, didn't want to renounce the children born of interracial, intercultural unions. The prevailing wisdom of the time found it distasteful that to a return in the blessings of the New World well-bred ladies preferred the company of uncouth savages, blasphemous idols, and laying in bosom of nature dwellings.
To be honest, Noa also didn't immediately understand, what motivated those women to renounce their homeland.
"Perhaps, having gained, beyond the obligations of marriage, freedom — these women didn't want to return to a civilization, that had taken that freedom away..." — that's how you answered Noa's question.
That's why the pale-skinned women, lost in the abyss of centuries, were remained with the redskins.
That's why you remain with your beast-like husband.
In the face of hopelessness, you didn't give up your hands, but straightened your shoulders. You saw something more, than a forced marriage. You saw opportunities. You no longer just nursed the cubs in their parents' absence — you also adapted to treating the children, women, and elders of the clan alongside the healers.
By making your contribution, you instill in Noa a certainty of something that hasn't yet happened. Something, that must be handmaded... Within you lies not only the light, that so attract Noa. Within you lies a sharp, strong core, that attract Noa even more powerfully. The way, how within you intertwined strength and weakness, despair and faith...
Just as same, as everything is interconnected in the inscrutability of the world.
For Noa you're not just a comrade, not just a partner, and not just a chosen wife. For Noa you're — a whole novel world.
A planet filled with mysteries, orbiting a dawn-giving star — that's what you are to Noa. Speaking astronomically, for Noa, you are — the Earth, where all life is born and reborn. And, if so, he would be happy to revolve around his axis next to you. To be your Moon, your eternal satelite.
So Noa doesn't scare you with disheartening news. Instead, Noa asks how you slept.
"It went without nightmares today, so that's good" you answer without hesitation, smiling as you prop yourself up on your elbows. You fold the blanket of furs at the foot of the bed with a simple, familiar motion, that meaning the chills are no longer overwhelming you. "...And where were you? I heard, you left again before dark and returned at first light"
"Was planning... to go hunting. Decided to bypass the borders" Noa replies, placing his broad palm on your forehead. Indeed, the temperature is almost the same as usual. "Winter... is just around the corner, we need to... prepare. Stock up. Fence ourselves"
Only just you lied to Noa.
Only just Noa lied to you.
Today, just like the previous eight tens days, you were writhing in agony, haunted by painful memories. All night long you cried brokenly in your sleep.
Today, just like the previous fift tens days, Noa went to crash site of iron bird. Entire night he repairing it with the intricate parts he found nearby.
You sit at opposite edges of the nest, as if over an abyss.
While you brush your hair with the comb, that Noa gave you, he admires you. He greedily watches your every move. He greedily absorbs every glint of the rising sun in your hair. Is this small bit allowed, since you're engaged?.. Of course, this small bit is more than allowed. As leader, Noa is allowed much more than simply looking at you, like a statue. He's not foolish enough, to ignore what's self-evident. You've been married for three months now, and this marriage hasn't been consummated that way, as the local customs require. But there's something, that already makes you almost a real couple.
You lie to each other, without blinking an eye. No matter, how many differences outsiders might notice between you — in this you're the same. And only the two of you know it. It's like a conspiratorial omission, vague to the uninitiated, but transparent to the omissioners themselves. This fleeting omission somehow binds you more tightly, than vows spoken aloud. It gives Noa the wrong hopes. Unfounded, unnecessary hopes, that where there are secrets, hidden from each other — there might one day also be secrets, hidden together.
***
Unsure if this is the right move, or is need you to know, Noa reveals his secret. You're unlikely to be as thrilled by the shattered iron bird, as he is — but married life is calmer, when there are no secrets. It doesn't matter, whether secrets can destroy trust or are akin to childhood fantasies.
Yes, for Noa, this plane — thanks to you, the winged machine has regained its original name instead of a figurative one, — is a symbol of youthful dreams, lofty ambitions, that came true.
Against all odds, came true.
So Noa leads you, take your hand, to a rising above foliage rocky waterfall. Just beyond the cascading waters, buried in the shade of leaning trees are the remains of the plane.
You step into the cockpit, as if you were entering a fairytale palace. The outside is considerably battered, but the inside is almost intact. But looks terrible. What is it that you silently admire?.. You don't grimace at the rust that has eaten away at the flying machine, you don't shield your face from the cobwebs that have crawled onto the ceiling — on the contrary, you smile, and say you've always dreamed of seeing in life workings of an aircraft.
"So that's where you went?" running your fingertips over the stuck switches, you ask casually. "Seems, like with proper care, this aviation treasure will be able to fly. Is you fix that?"
"I found a toolbox... in the area. And clues" Noa nods, opening chewed by dampness blueprints. "I thought, it would be easier for you... to sleep, and for me... to do something. I think, we can come here... together. So you can be here, if I can"
There's a hidden need of self-assertion in Noa's voice. Your ears detect self-assurance.
Never before Noa would haven't bragged about his intelligence, his strength, his endurance, or any other quality.
He used to think bragging was stupid.
Now he was being stupid.
With enyone but you Noa couldn't have imagined making a better impression. With other females, who could have become his potential mate, it was more convenient to manifest as Fate decreed — not be idle, but not go out of skin. Letting things slide. Despite the Elders' admonitions, that the Lord of Birds needed to settle down and find a bride — courtship wasn't even half the focus of Noa's mind. Until you appeared. Covered in mud and blood, soaked, weakened, fighting... You gave Noa that very feeling, that all nations tell legends about.
Ever since that day, when Noa watched you at the lake, within him had been growing the desire to become those, who your match. At first, of course, it was a long-winded meditation, on how you would never allow Noa the kind of touch, that inevitably led to mating — then it was a meditation on what, it would take for you to allow him at least the kind of this touch, that's called platonic. Noa couldn't completely rid himself of his nature. It brought him a persistent shame. You could've see through him — realize, that he wasn't so different from those, who tried to taste your innocence, like plucked from a branch fruit... After everything you'd endured, that taste, your taste, Noa would never be able to experience.
So Noa cast aside all the distracting thoughts, replacing them with a firm resolve to be by your side. As much as possible.
The heavens, however, had decided that Noa could be by your side forever. The heavens made their decision, smiling and taking pity on you both. But Noa didn't force you to stay.
One word, and you could leave.
Everything you needed for the journey —food, weapons, medicine — Noa would have provided, before you even asked.
But you accepted Noa's proposal. You accepted this very bracelet, that now every day shimmers blue on your wrist. Gods behold, Noa wanted to give you that bracelet much earlier. But he didn't have courage to say so.
Erlier Noa used to think cowardice was foolish too.
Until he became afraid of losing you.
"And I think, it won't take you long time" you said, settling into the pilot's seat and smiling at Noa even wider.
Does it mean, that you truly believe in Noa? Or are you just encouraging him? Where exactly does Noa want to go with you? To the plane? Or to the waterfall? Will the moments spent together have any meaning?.. And why does he have this vague feeling inside him, as if you meant not just lifting iron wings into the air, but something beside?..
***
It was impossible not to foresee. Not a dozen armed echoes, entering the clan's territory from a direction, where Noa couldn't even smell their foul odor. Not a many armed apes, keeping a close eye on the canvas-covered carts, in which human and ape women sat cramped together. Not Jeru, who had previously surrounded himself with cowardly henchmen, and now returned as a henchman.
Nor the cut on your cheek by knife, that orator pulled from his sleeve.
You once said, every gun is obliged to shoot at least one target.
Noa didn't tell you about founded near the iron wings guns. Well. There are more than enough of targets here.
"You drew the blood of my... wife. For her blood, you will bleed to death... on this very spot" Noa holds you with one hand, and with the other, points the gun straight at the crooked-nose, flabby face of the gang leader. "Tell me your name. So that I... know, who I'm killing"
"Wife, so that's it... So she's your bitch, huh? You here have fun entertainment... I'm Crichton, it's a pleasure to meet you, another dumbass. Can you even pull a trigger? I give a tooth, you can't. So, while you're thinking with your crinkle, we'll quickly take all your provisions. And everyone of your bitches, that's how it is"
"You'll take all our supplies and everyone of our women, yeah? Maybe you'll take our mares too? Kill two rabbits with one shot. So what? Your ape friend suppose, that anyone, who has a slit between their legs, can be fucked and eaten for dinner. And you're certainly agree with his opinion. So go ahead, come on!..."
While you, wiping the blood with your husband's calloused palm, distracted the scavenger leader with a provocative speech — Noa shot him in the mug. Point blank.
Keeping his gun pointed at Jeru, who had drawn his pistol, Noa was ready to shoot them all without hesitation. To lay the attackers' bodies in a neat line.
If it weren't for the children.
The children they'd captured — both species, both sexes, different ages, skinny and hunted, — whose they wheeled in open cart, forward and pointed at them their own guns. The looks on the women hidden behind rags, made it clear, they were their children. They thought, they'd lost their own. Two mothers, a dark-haired woman and a female gorilla, rushed toward two teenagers — a short ape girl and a dark-skinned boy, — who were holding hands. Their daughter and son, who had run up to meet them, still clasping hands... Scavengers shot them instantly.
The mothers, covering faces with their hands, fell to the ground. They were shot just seconds later.
They began to take off clothes on corpses, identifying items.
Instead of tears you growled.
Snatching the gun from Noa, you smashed the skulls of four positioned on different sides killers.
Rushing at you as if on cue, Jeru was about to bite the cut on your cheek — but instead, he bit Noa's shoulder, who shielding you with himself. The others watched. Making no attempt to seize territory, more than twenty foreheads... Making no attempt to escape, more than fifty captives...
Out of nowhere an enraged Nigig appears, leading several warriors. Not to fight alongside her former houndmaster — but to reclaim her home.
An ape will not kill an ape. This teaching Noa was instructhed, by wise ruler who he respected completely, even without knowing him. It's sad to see, that this teaching, seems so, have sunk into oblivion. Anyone can kill anyone. Only question is, for what purpose can killing be justified? Killing to save his own life seems to Noa weak-willed. Killing to save your life seems to Noa a worthy end. Jeru's cold body falls on Noa like dead weight. Even after death, his teeth continue to gnaw at Noa's flesh, until you throw the traitor off your husband, bending down and embracing him. Blood gushes from Noa's wound, he, like as peaceful life of the clan, hangs by a thread, but the moment you rushed to him — everything ceased to exist. The shots died down. The blood wiped off. Your image remained, and nothing but.
***
Rain intensifies. Noa comes to as you finish re-bandaging. He slept a whole howling thunderstorms day. You trace the line of his old scar again, the one you left — and press your forehead to his new scar, which must never, ever become infected... It hurts even to admit it yourself, but you can't lose him.
One day, or even more so one week earlier, you wouldn't have imagined of laying your head on your husband's thickly furred chest.
Yesterday, you realized what would happen if you lost your husband forever.
Horrors of hidden terror, that took place behind doors, in the dead ends of the dungeon, became insignificant, in comparison with the terror that was on all display.
Unconscious, Noa didn't see, how the crowd gather. He didn't see, how his subjects fight back the scavengers, snatching some of the captives from their clutches. He didn't see, was nearly out of breath, how you lying down next to him — to accept the best of deaths, if the battle become embittered.
Yesterday you could have been left a widow. You could have faced, one to one, all trials of government. All the multi-ton weight of hopes placed on you. You could have been booed and thrown out. You could have been banished to new wanderings. But you feared not that. No matter how much you denied it, you felt affection for Noa. After losing everyone, who had been your family, Noa became your family. He couldn't patch the void inside. But with him, the void was filled. With him, you not only won't fear all the previous misfortunes, but also remember your former self. With him, you wanted to show the tenderness, that had been nipped in the bud within you... That's what truly frightened. That Noa became the one, with whom you allowed yourself to forget.
This touch, what you broke.
That touch, what you don't want to break.
And that connection, what formed between you.
A clap of thunder makes you instinctively press yourself against Noa — it happened once before, then you immediately turned away. Now you don't want to turn away at all. Even less do you want, that Noa's fingers, which have begun exploring your face from the cut on your cheek to the corners of your eyes, to stop what they've started.
"I was so afraid... of losing you" Noa's hoarse voice rings out against your skin, as his palms come to rest against your lips. "No one would dare... to encroach on what's ours"
"I was afraid might lose you" you admit, your fingertips timidly brushing his lips. "Can it be called permission?.."
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I know, I've been absent from here for a loooooong time... But I have two pieces of news — one exculpatory and one joyful. In order:
The exculpatory news is that recently, an unpleasant event occurred in my life, which landed me in the gynecological department of the city hospital. Now I'm exhausted, shocked, and have recently had my stitches removed 🏥🧵🪡✂️
But the joyful news is, of course, that in October I'll be giving you an extensive chapter of "Creation." And first, in a day or two, I'll show you a fragment of the cover 🍃🐵👩🏻🏡
And yes, one more thing also nicely highlights the big changes. Now I have a new hair color✨ ~
