The other memories were buried. Drowned in woe and loneliness.
When the Orki saw she had finished eating, he gave her a water pouch. Next to him lay another one, stained red. The maker had taken time on the stitching, including fancy patterns. Constructed from an animal bladder, not even the wineskins at home were as carefully constructed. The craftsmanship was pure cream. Red was a significant color among the Orki.
Whatever was in that thing, it was important.
Nervous fear bloomed at the back of her neck and rolled down to her fingers. Her hands shook when she lifted the water skin to drink more. A new feeling. Nothing like the greasy, disgusting creep of dread and woe dogging her heels these last days.
This feeling was exhilarating. It reminded her of young and adventurous days. That red bladder hid a secret, something to do with becoming a bride. She knew it. The information was in some other old teaching of Papa's she couldn't reach, or maybe it was her mother who had told her.
She wanted it.
"What are you doing, Annabell Roe?"
Nothing. She was doing nothing. Sitting in a cave, facing a lava wall, next to a huge, muscled Orki, drinking water. Doing nothing. Sitting, still a little giddy and reckless, as if a boy she liked was finally going to kiss her. Instead of running away and telling her brothers, she was going to let it happen.
Handing him the rest of the water, she said, "Thank you."
He watched intently, with a focus that saw everything. The thoughts behind her eyes, the way her eyebrows moved, every twitch of her lips, the pulse in her throat. Setting the water aside, he picked up the red bladder.
Annabell twitched, wanting to reach for it. The strange, amazing life she lost with her brother's rejection had inexplicably come back to her grasp. Nothing would make her miss this chance.
Lifting the red bladder, he leaned closer to her. Comfortable in his skin, this male had no awkward, unconfident moments. Muscle, bone, sinew flowed, seamless and intentional. With him kneeling over her, she found herself between the v of his spread legs, her folded knees pressing into his thighs. Filling up her world, he pressed the end of the red pouch and its mysterious contents to her lips.
Annabell looked into his eyes and opened her mouth. All her limbs flooding with that feeling, flashing her cheeks pink, ready for that first taste. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears.
He squeezed it.
A sour, fermented milk squirted into her mouth. It did not taste good. The smell filled her nostrils—like something spoiled with foreign added flavors that didn't mix with it. Determined, she closed her mouth around the spout to swallow, eyes watering, trying not to blink, as she answered the intense stare of the Orki with one of her own. Her stomach wanted to send the stuff and everything else back up, but her determination was louder than Mama's voice, stronger than her brother's judgment.
She brought her hands up and squeezed the bladder, swallowed. Squeezed it again, forcing the stuff down.
"What have you done, Annabell Roe?"
In defiance of the voice in her head, belly churning and arms trembling, Annabell sucked and squeezed.
The pale Orki said nothing, but his eyes went wide with surprise. He seemed to have expected a different reaction. His expressive face shifted from one feeling to another—surprise, satisfaction, and pleasure.
"No!" She reached, trying to get it back, not thinking.
Everyone that could stop her or judge her was dead. She had only herself to please. And without this Orki she'd be absolutely and utterly alone. She couldn't do that anymore.
The way he held her when she cried, the feeling of his skin under her cheek, the intensity of his eyes. The woe always drained every bit of happiness, the curse of the red moon hovering over her every day from dusk until dawn. But this creature, this Orki Original, a native of the planet, he was bigger, stronger than all of that.
He killed those murderers. He and eleven others and their war beasts had torn through them, ending their terror. Ruthless, but not cruel. Unstoppable. Held against his chest, that purr—a sweet drugging sound—he'd filled up her cold with his heat and made her safe.
Safe. And not alone.
This was her dream come true, and Annabell opened her arms wide to embrace it.
He took the bladder away despite her protest. Holding her still when she tried to chase after it. "What is that stuff? I remember Papa telling stories. So long ago. Oh, more than years. I was a little girl, and I had hope," she said.
He didn't answer. Sitting back, he watched her, curious.
"That drink is awful. You know it is awful. But I know red is a good color for you. I want good things. I had hope, and then I didn't. I want that again. I had a good life, and then Papa was killed and I was dirty. I had his blood on me, you understand. It was my fault." The never-spoken admission slipped out. It startled her to hear it, to vocalize a belief she had always carried but didn't know existed.
Her secrets aired in the face of this Orki's silence. His mouth moved in what might be a sad, conciliatory frown, and she lifted her fingers, drunk on possibilities, to touch the curve of his full bottom lip, tracing it back and forth between his tusks. She needed him to know everything. How awful she was, who she was. "It was my fault. If I had been up earlier, if I had been on time, I could have been there. The sow got out, you see, and she knocked him down. Ran over him to get where she wanted to go. He hit his head. There was blood. When he took his hand away, there was a lot of blood. I think that was the first time I saw blood like that, just... pouring. And it was my fault."
Saying the words out loud as an adult, it all sounded absurd. Letting her hand drop, Annabell hid from his inquisitive gaze, hid from her own vulnerable admission. She had been a seven-year-old little girl, and the sow was bigger than her papa, yet she carried the certainty that it was her fault with her all her life. Papa's blood and those damned red moons had stained her. No amount of washing could get her clean, either. She knew it.
