Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (20 page)

Mikhail averted his
eyes.  Casual nudity must be something his species wasn't accustomed to
seeing.  He was amazed how quickly his body reacted to the sight of her
triumphant smile, and her bobbing breasts, as she reached the shore.  Ninsianna
put down the spear with the still-wriggling fish impaled upon it and wrapped
her shawl back around her still-wet waist and shoulders before bringing him the
fish to inspect.

“What that word?” 
Mikhail pointed to the fish.

“Fish,” she said. 
“Fish.”

“
Iasc
,” he
translated.  “Fish …
Ias
c.”  He suppressed the facial expression
accompanying the thought which otherwise would have made him smile. 
‘Thank
the gods!  Something to eat besides that terrible dried meat and sour berries!’

“Simdi bu temdiz
gidecegiz.” 
Ninsianna grabbed her
stone blade and headed back down to the stream. 

Something about
cleaning the fish?  She took a handful of water and said a prayer before
dumping it on the fish's head.  Then she got down to the unpleasant task of
cleaning it, using the stone blade to scrape off the scales and remove the
entrails.  Rinsing it in the stream, she walked into the underbrush to bury the
undesirables before returning to rinse her hands.

“Fish … good.” 
Ninsianna's eyes gleamed with anticipation.  She poked the fire with a stick to
create a flat area amongst the coals and set the fish directly onto them to
cook.

Mikhail considered
telling her that she could salvage one of the flat titanium-steel panels which
had come crashing down from the ceiling of his ship, but thought better of it
when she began to sing.  She moved outside the periphery of the clearing to
comb the underbrush for other things to eat.  She obviously knew what she was
doing. 

She returned
periodically to put something onto the fire or near it.  Curled up green
things.  Some type of leaves.  Knobby little tubers.  Little round nuts with
caps on them which she dug out of a hollow tree as though she'd just won the
lottery.  She nestled the nuts and tubers into rocks strategically placed into
the fire to protect them from burning.  Mikhail’s stomach growled as the
delightful aroma of cooking fish wafted his way.

Ninsianna talked to
herself as she worked as though she were having an animated conversation with a
friend.  She didn't appear to be insane.  Her father was a shaman for his
village.  Perhaps she engaged in a prayer ritual?  Although he could only
translate the stray word, he suspected she discussed
him
with whatever
deity she prayed to for guidance.  Given how quickly she had rustled up a meal,
whoever she prayed to obviously listened.  Not to mention the fact he was still
breathing from injuries which should have killed him.  He made a mental note to
question her society’s spiritual beliefs once enough of the language barrier
had been overcome to discuss such abstract concepts.  The Cherubim….

Damantia!  The memory
flitted into his mind and was gone again before he could grab onto it.

When Ninsianna had
wrapped her arms around him last night, she'd triggered a memory of a winged
being, perhaps his father, giving him just such a hug.  From the way he barely
reached the man’s waist, he must have been a child.  What surprised him wasn’t
the memory … of course he must have had parents … but the emotion which had
accompanied it.    Unlike the other fragments, this memory stayed with him. 
The physicality now felt alien, as though he had not received a hug in a very
long time, but at one time he'd found the gesture comforting.  He could see why
an expressive creature such as Ninsianna would require such reassurances.

Ninsianna moved back
to the fire, scooping the cooked fish onto a plate, along with the curled green
things, tubers, and roasted nuts.  Mikhail decided to amuse his otherwise empty
mind (for what are you to occupy your mind with when you have no memories?) by
watching how she would react to certain stimuli.  Stretching out his wings as
far as he could before it became painful, he flapped them to test the planets
gravity.  He was rewarded by a momentary sensation of uplift as well as the
surprised look on Ninsianna’s face as the draft blew sparks onto strip of cloth
she wore wrapped around herself to make a crude dress.  The local gravity was
heavier than he was used to, but not enough to be a problem. 
If
his
wing healed, that was.

“Mikhail …
t
ú dona
!!! 
Bad!!!”  She waggled her finger and patted her shawl to douse the sparks.  She
muttered a string of words he guessed meant something along the lines of “look
what you just did to my dress!”

“
Tá brón orm
,” he apologized. 

He felt an evil thrill
at watching her jump and express her anger.  He didn't think the females of his
species were so expressive … even when angry.  In fact, given how much he
enjoyed riling her, he felt
he
wasn’t used to doing the irritating,
either.  He decided a lesson about using modern cutlery could wait as she ate
using her fingers.  He followed her example as she ate the fish, tubers,
greens, and the bitter roasted nuts.

“Good,” Mikhail said. 
It was the tastiest meal he had any memory of eating … at least since he'd
crash landed on this planet.  The meal didn't trigger any memories, but he had
the feeling even if he
did
have his wits about him, this meal would
compare favorably to whatever fare he normally ate when he wasn’t eating
remolecularized food cubes. 

A bead of sweat
dripped down his forehead.  What time of year was this?  Ninsianna acted cold,
but he was too hot.  By the bushes submerged in the rocky banks of the stream,
he gathered the water table dropped much lower.  Early spring, perhaps?  If
this was spring, he hated to see what the summer was like.  Shrubs lined the
stream, but once away from it, the underbrush became scrubbier.  Beyond that
was open, grassy plain.  Distant mountains looked bare.  A dry climate.  Water
was probably scarce in the summer.  Given the ease with which he observed and
calculated this areas likely climate, he must have had some training. 
Ascertaining a planet’s climate shifts was critical when surviving in a hostile
environment.

“Ninsianna?” he
asked.  “What … this … name?”  He pointed to the various flora and fauna as she
cleaned up after the meal.  Tree, stream, rock, tuber, fire, deer, bird,
squirrel, acorn and flower were added to his vocabulary. 

Sniffing his own
sweat, he realized he'd become fairly ripe.  Stripping off his shirt and combat
boots, he waded into the stream and sat down in a hollow, sighing with pleasure
as the water washed over him.  Soaking his hair and feathers in the cool water,
he was surprised when Ninsianna came up behind him and offered a freshly dug
root of a plant.  Wearing nothing but her loin-cloth, she ducked beneath the
water and showed him how to rub the brownish root to create lather before
rubbing it through her hair. 

 “See… how…” 
Ninsianna's expression was guileless as she held the root out to where he sat
in the water.

Looking up, the only
thing Mikhail could “see … how” was how her brown nipples stood at attention
from the cold water dripping off of them mere inches from his face.

“See … how … soap,”
Ninsianna repeated, holding out the root and giving him the word.  “Soap.”

“S-s-soap…” Mikhail
mumbled.  Color crept into his face as he realized he'd sprouted an erection. 
He had no idea when he'd last had relations with a female, but from his
reaction to he guessed it had been quite a while.  Remembering the promise he'd
made to her father, he thanked the gods he sat in the stream so she wouldn't
see his reaction straining guiltily against the confines of his cargo pants.

“Ninsianna … help …
soap?”  She pointed to his blood-matted hair. 

Mikhail froze as she
squeezed a natural soap gel out of the root and rubbed the lather through his
hair, gingerly washing away the dried blood from his stitches, down his
shoulders and neck.  Torture.  It was the most exquisitely sweet torture since
… he couldn't remember.  The soap root burned wherever it made contact with an
open wound, but he ignored it.  He twitched under his skin as she touched him,
but it was not from his injuries. 

“G
ortaithe
… hurt?” she inquired.

“No,” Mikhail lied.  “
Líon
n
í chuireann sé
gortaithe
[it doesn’t hurt].” 

Actually, he was
not
lying.  Her ministrations didn't
hurt.  It was maintaining his
self-control as her hands ran the slippery substance over his bare skin that
hurt!

“Mikhail,” Ninsianna
pointed to his chest.  “I … see?”  She wished to examine his wounds. 

She bent in front of
him, giving an unobstructed view of her breasts as she examined her
needlework.  Although in no way did her hands linger or convey any meaning
other than a desire to help him, Mikhail shivered with a nearly uncontrollable
urge to pull her into the water so he could kiss her. 

‘Promise … you made
a promise…’
he reminded himself as he
schooled an impassive expression onto his face.  The little voice welled up
from his subconscious, reminding him to be careful.  Without memories, he
couldn't understand why, but he
did
heed the warning, however vague. 
Although he couldn't remember who he was, he felt certain he was an honorable
man.  He would keep his promise!

Moving to his back,
Ninsianna examined the exit wound from his lung and wing-splint, tossing the
rods to the shore.  She lathered up more soap root and proceeded to pick the
dried blood out of his feathers.  It had to be the most agonizingly pleasant
twenty minutes he had ever spent.  Ninsianna perfunctorily lathered up the
areas he would have trouble getting on his own in his less-than-perfect state.

“
Leigheas maith leat
… you heal good.”  Ninsianna handed him the soap root
to finish washing the uninjured portions of his lower body.  She walked back to
the shore, wringing her long hair as she went.  Wrapping her shawl around her
waist and tossing it over her shoulder, she never gave him so much as a
backwards glance as she walked back to the fire.

Mikhail stayed in the
stream, not because he felt like sitting there once he'd rinsed the soap root
out of his feathers, but because it took that long to get his libido back under
control.  Keeping his hands off of her was a wise course of action.  For all he
knew he had a mate back … someplace … anxiously awaiting his return.   As soon
as he got back to the shore, Ninsianna insisted he sit down so she could
bandage him back up. 

“You …
degisim
giysi
… now.”  She pointed to a clean set of clothing she'd retrieved from
his ship while he'd wallowed in the stream.  He felt self-conscious about
changing in front of her. 

“No,” he said. 
“Later.”

“You …
degisim
giysi
… now,” she said again.  He gathered the unknown word was ‘change.’

“No,” he shook his
head.  “It isn't proper to change in front of a female who is not your mate.” 
He knew she didn't understand, but she accepted that he wished to stay in his
cold, wet clothing while she bandaged him back up and reset the splints on his
broken wing.

She repacked his
shattered ribcage with leaves and some type of sap. 
That
would never
heal.  For the rest of his life he would have a hole in his chest to remind him
that he owed this woman a debt he could never repay.  Ninsianna replaced his
wrappings with khaki beige strips fluttering from a nearby bush like cheerful
flags, remnants of a uniform he couldn't remember earning.  She'd washed and
recycled the shirt he'd been wearing when his ship had crashed into clean
bandages.

“My shirt?”  He shot
her a raised eyebrow.

Ninsianna frowned and
muttered something he took to be an apology.  She didn't understand the subtle
nuances his kind understood to be teasing.  She mistook his admiration at her
resourcefulness for anger.

“It’s okay.  It's good.” 
He took her hand to reassure her.  “Thank you.” 

Ninsianna scrutinized
his expression, her emotions dancing across her face.  Puzzlement.  Curiosity. 
Relief.  She finished binding his chest in silence, helping him pull a clean
shirt over his broken arm.

“Hurt … good.”  She
placed one hand over the wound on the front of his chest, the other over the
hole in the back. 

Mikhail winced in
anticipation of pain, but Ninsianna didn't apply pressure.  Instead, she
chanted a sing-song prayer.  Her father was a shaman.  It was common for
pre-technological people to believe magic could heal wounds.  He didn't
interrupt her even though he was skeptical of such practices.  The Emperor…

Damantia!
  Another memory fragment come and gone!

His skin felt warm
where she placed her hands.  The pleasant tingling sensation he would forever
associate with her touch spread throughout his  body, making his pain subside. 
Magic that worked?  He was amazed at how quickly he was recovering.  He didn't think
it was normal to recover from such severe wounds so quickly.  But what did he
know?  For all he knew, he really
had
died and the spirit who had come
to escort him into the dreamtime was spinning a pleasant dream.  It made as
much sense as any other option.  When faced with an unfamiliar situation, it
was best to withhold judgment and observe.