“Yes, apparently. I also did not expect to be asked to work on afemale.”
The way he said it struck a nerve, but she kept her expression neutral. His disdain wasn’t nearly as pronounced as some of the others, but it seemed even this holiest of holy men bore her some traces of ill will simply for her gender. It seemed to be a running theme here, but Elder Soparo, however, had requested his services, and the Skrizzit would do his duty no matter what. Even if that meant working on a woman such as her.
“Unusual. I’ve not seen your race before, but Draikis says your world is a recent addition to the Dotharian Conglomerate, is that correct?” Volkarian asked.
“Uh, yeah, brand new,” Ella replied, biting her tongue and not volunteering any more information than necessary lest she give away the true situation. The fact that Earth was very muchnota part of their conglomerate.
Fortunately, the Skrizzit seemed satisfied with her response. In fact, his mood even shifted a fraction, if not to the friendly spectrum, at least to the less annoyed one.
“At least it will be an interesting process,” he said, circling her with a piercing gaze. He reached out and ran his fingers along her bare arm, his touch far rougher and uncaring than the man who had worked her over earlier in the day. “Supple. No scarring whatsoever. That in and of itself is quite interesting.Burns normally do not heal this well, even with the more potent salves and mending devices. I think this could be a very interesting process indeed.”
“I appreciate your doing this for me. I can’t express how grateful I am.”
“Of course you are. Now, shed your clothing and lay upon the table and we will begin.”
“We’ll leave you to it,” Elder Soparo said, apparently a little flustered at the thought of her bare flesh after so many years surrounded only by men.
“I will check on you later,” Draikis added as they left. “You are in good hands.”
And then they were gone, leaving the poor human woman all alone and at the mercy of the odd tattoo artist. A Skrizzit. A specialist in precisely this sort of very detailed sort of ink work. Orpigmentas she’d been corrected on multiple occasions.
Ella stripped and climbed up onto the table. Unlike before, this was not sexy in the slightest. Not his gaze nor his touch, and it had nothing to do with having already relieved herself not long ago. This man was simply utilitarian in his touch. Workmanlike and nothing more. She was just a piece of flesh for him to tend to. To experiment on, it would turn out.
He poked and prodded, then took out several small vials of different color pigments and held them up next to her skin, assessing their contrast to her flesh tone.
“Hmm. Unusual.”
“What is?” she asked.
“I do not have a base reference for your species, so this will require a bit of creative thinking.”
“Mama always said I lived outside the box.”
“Outside the box?”
“Oh, it’s an expression on my world. How people tend to think within the confines of what they’re familiar with. A box of sorts, metaphorically speaking.”
“And you live outside it? Outside this box?”
“I tend to see things a bit differently, yeah.” His questioning gaze was unsettling. “Um, what I meant was, since I’m not your usual kind of subject, I guess you’ll be working outside the box with me.”
Amazingly, a tiny curve appeared on his lips. Almost imperceptible, but Ella saw it.
“I suppose I will be,” he said, pulling out a dozen more vials. “Not knowing how your race reacts to the various pigments means we will first need to test them on you. I will do so in an innocuous area, of course.”
“Testing? Like, I’m going to be a human scratch pad?”
At that the dour man actually let out a tiny chuckle. “I would do no such thing. All markings must be of the correct nature, and thus I will be giving you a series of small enhancing runes that typically do nothing on their own, but should a particular pigment take hold, they may connect with your new runes, strengthening some over time.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Now, relax. This will not take too long.”
He set to work, his hands moving with the steady speed of one who had done this sort of thing countless times. When it came to applying basic runes, Skrizzit Volkarian could do them in his sleep.
He chose her ankle for the tests, forming a band all the way around consisting of a total of seventeen small runes, each a different color pigment. As he worked, he explained what sort of power each of them contained, idly chattering about the plants they were extracted from and how much of the galaxy’s energy they could hold. Some were flat in color, while others werevibrant. A couple even glowed faintly as they were set into her skin.
Then there was the final one. The darkest of black that she had seen on the chest of her host. The one used not just for basic designs, but also for the blocking rune. He placed that as the final marking then stepped back to look at his handiwork.
