Farbal watched as the gears turned in the human’s head. “Ican see you wish to voice your concerns, Shalia. Present yourself as the sun begins to set. At that time you will be given admittance to state your case. Not before, I’m afraid. You will have to wait.”
“Thanks, Farbal.”
“I am pleased to help. And good luck.”
Shalia walked for hours, inside the village walls and out in the surrounding fields and forest. She had to clear her head. To prepare herself. To organize her thoughts to make as clear a case as possible. She’d have one shot at this, and it had to count.
Dusk took forever to come, and Shalia felt as though every minute had been an eternity. Seeing Valin’s stoic face when she was finally let inside made it all worthwhile. Her heart raced, her Infala churning in her skin, burning with joy at his proximity. He felt it too, she saw, but he sat still, bound and gagged, flanked by four armed guards.
Tikanna waved her forward. She and the other village leaders were sitting in a semi-circle, the prisoner bound to the heavy chair in the center of the room before them. Shalia noted that quite a few villagers were present. It was standing room only. The fate of the Dohrag, it seemed, was quite the spectacle.
“Shalia, I am glad to see you’ve recovered,” the old woman said with a kind smile. “You have been through a lot of late.”
“More than you can imagine.”
“I’m so sorry. Sorry this happened to you while under our care. It was an unfortunate occurrence, and one we all regret.”
“I don’t. Not one bit.”
Tikanna’s face shifted from one of sympathy to confusion. She looked to either side, finding the same looks of surprise on each of her cohort. Rohanna leaned forward in her seat, perplexed.
“I do not understand. You say you donotregret your capture? What did this man do to you? Were you tortured? Whatever it was, you do not have to protect him here. You may speak freely.”
“I am speaking freely. Valin is a good man.”
Niala, the oldest of them, shook her head. “No, he is not. Thisis not only a Dohrag, but a leadership ranking one at that. A commander. The worst of the lot.”
“No, he really isn’t.”
“You are new here. You do not realize what was done under his command,” Rohanna interjected.
Shalia shook her head. “He was just doing his job.”
The woman’s gaze hardened. “People were taken under his watch. Enslaved.”
Shalia’s eyes met Valin’s, a pained look in his gaze. She knew it was true. Bad things happened while he was in charge. Of that there was no denying. But the circumstances? No one outside the orbiting station’s ranks could possibly know what it was like up there. What he had to do to survive.
“Look,” she said, searching for words, her eloquent speech she’d practiced all day flown right out the window. “Yes, it’s true. Atrocities happened, and they happened while he was in command. I can’t deny that. But you have to understand how Dohrag culture works.”
“We do. They are brutes, nothing more.”
“Yes, but also no. Valin had no choice. He was doing what was expected, just as those beneath him did. I know it’s no excuse, but you have to realize, he’s not like the others. Look at him. You can see plain as day, he’s not a full-blood Dohrag.”
“And he is legendary for his brutality because of it,” Tikanna noted with a sour look on her face.
“Yes, I know. But did you also know his kind, the half-breeds born of abducted women, face incredible abuse heaped upon them from the earliest age?”
The flicker of doubt on the elders’ faces made it clear they did not.
“It’s a violent culture,” she continued. “One where you do what you’re told. Where you do what you have to, or you’ll be punished. And just because his blood was seen as unpure, he would be tormented far, far more than the others.”
Valin shook his head, pleading silently for her to say no moreand just let him face his fate. Shalia stared at him hard. No. She would have none of that.
“He is no longer that man. He has changed. Don’t you say that people can overcome their shortcomings and be more? I thought that was a key tenet of Oraku beliefs.”
Tikanna looked at the dozens of gathered villagers silently watching the proceedings, then back to the human standing before them. The former captive now defending her captor.
“Yes, it is,” she relented. “But Dohrags do not change. He is not the first we have encountered, you know. And none have ever shown the slightest remorse. Not so much as a hint of the desire to change.”
