"Well, I have your name… is that your full name?"
"Why wouldn't it be my full name? Do you have more names than Chloe?"
"I do. I have a family name which I share with Sabine and my parents and my brother."
He points to a mark on his arm. "This is my tribe. I do not need another name."
"So it is not a spoken name?"
He's frowning again. "My people are called Honey."
"That would be like me calling myself, Chloe Human."
"I would not call myself, Tiril Honey. I am a Honey warrior. What is it you do Chloe of the humans?"
"I am a scientist. I study things. Animals usually. I guess they thought I was the best person to study you." My words disappear into a whisper as I realize what I said. "I know you aren't an animal."
"Yet, I am caged like a beast for market."
And there's another thread I need to follow. What animals do they take to market? What animals do they breed for food and fibers? Do they have beasts for ploughing and riding?
"I can't change that, and you are actually in a cell. It's where we put prisoners." That someone added cupboards and filled them with some equipment, doesn't make this a lab.
"And what do these prisoners do to earn their place back in society?"
My eyebrows lift. "They sit in the cell for however long their sentence is."
He's giving me that look again, as though I am the strange one.
I try a different approach. "What do your people do when someone breaks the law?"
"It depends on what they did. The most severe lawbreakers are banished. Debtors and most others work to prove they still belong in the tribe."
"How can you trust them? How do you know they won't steal again?"
"Because they want to re-earn their place in the tribe. If they didn't want to, they would run away, effectively banishing themselves. The life of a banished warrior is not easy. Most die within the first year because they are hunted by the nearby tribes, or because other predators hunt them."
Every time he speaks, I come up with another three questions. I jot down a few notes on the tablet, so I don't forget to ask him about how his tribe works. How do the women choose their mate?
Do fights break out among the men? I want to ask about the ink and how it is put into his skin, and to see his writing, and ask about his family and his brothers. And why the hell Sabine would choose an alien?
Tiril is quiet while I write.
"How long have you been banished?"
"Three years."
I glance up at him. "That is considered a long time?"
Given that he said most die in the first year…
"It is longer than I expected to live."
"And how old were you when you were banished?"
"My seventeenth summer, the same as every fourth son."
I stop writing and stare at him. "So you're only 20?"
