In which killers soften
Starring, Raoul and Aarla
Written by Lessoni and Bentus
She was gone. Raoul had turned his back for all of a minute, and she was gone, and this was a problem. He wasn’t sure how she eluded him so well; it wasn’t exactly a large market, but she wasn’t in any of the rows of stalls, or buildings he had to crouch to peer into. He was quite certain he’d given plenty of merchants a scare, staring through their front window, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. Every second Aarla was gone was another second she might end up a massive bureaucratic pain in everyone’s ass.
But his search had finally turned up a clue. A whole heluva lot of grits, something Raoul remembered fairly well her buying. She had been this way, at the very least, might even still be close. If she was… well, he was born a Ragon. He didn’t always love it, but he couldn’t deny it had its perks. He closed his eyes, letting his tongue taste the air, and there it was; he didn’t know Aarla’s scent that well, didn’t have any particular reason to, but the odd blend of races you’d find on the Defiance, their collective scent’s, hung in the air like a perfume. Fading, slightly. Frowning, the ragon tried to determine the direction that she’d left in. It had been a while already, and all the artificial air circulation in the station didn’t particularly help him either. He followed his nose, elbowing (or more accurately kneeing) his way past a couple shoppers, who seemed too wise to protest. He would move along with the scent until it would start to fade, before turning back and retracing his steps until he relocated the correct path. It was an iterative process, but it worked. It led him to a club, the sound of music already there, if faint. He sighed. These places were never built to his size.
It wasn’t, not quite. He had to walk with back bent, ever so slightly, the ceiling being a foot or two shorter than his head. Even worse than this minor humiliation, he’d lost Aarla’s scent. It was a cluster in there, mostly reeking of sadness. Sweat, really, but Raoul assumed anyone dancing in a place like this had demons waiting in the wings, for the song to end. He did, however, have two advantages. Height and fear. The latter hung in the air when eyes locked onto him. He would guess they thought he didn’t notice. He did. His height, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly insubstantial, and looking over the heads of the crowd, he saw one particularly distinct head of pink hair. And it looked like she was having a good time, even had some new friends. And they were heading his way.
Raoul guessed by the state of them that they’d been drinking; that, combined with their general trajectory, was all he needed to know to figure out they were on their way out. It wasn’t hard for him to beat them out the door, simply standing next to the entrance waiting for them. A minute later, they were out, seeming not to notice the looming ragon. Raoul, in an environment a little less chaotic, could see a Kiel with wandering hands next to Aarla. Maybe she’d made more than friends. Raoul didn’t care. He stepped forward, grabbing the comparatively miniscule man before he could go another step, crouching down close enough to blow hot breath down the back of his neck.
“Go. Don’t look back.”
He punctuated his sentence with a long growl, one he’d nearly been unable to get up. It’d been a while since he’d really gotten into character with this.
Aarla had been allowing Ioran to guide her from the club, his arm wrapped around her shoulders as she’d leaned into the embrace. Her cheeks were flushed with colour, although the whole group of kiel were unsteady on their feet at this point, with most of them having paired off for the night. Some drunken giggling and sheepish grins betrayed the young group’s state of mind, and they’d been easily convinced by one of their number’s insistence on trying to see some more of the station’s sights. She’d been enjoying herself, finding that Ioran and his friends’ drink recommendations really had turned her night around. The fact that she had hardly had to pay after the first round made the warm and relaxed feeling in her stomach all the more satisfying.
But then a scaled hand had reached out and firmly planted itself on Ioran’s shoulder, yanking him backwards and pulling him away from Aarla. The young man cried out in surprise, drawing the attention of his friends who were shocked to see the giant reptilian growling over them. They were all fairly recent recruits for the navy, and had all jokingly talked about what it would be like to see their first ragon. None of them had imagined that it would be like this. Ioran was the first to react, despite his own fear and inebriation. Heroically, or foolishly, he tried to place himself between Aarla and the ragon. He was about to tell Aarla to run, knowing that there was little need for her to get wrapped up in whatever this was, when her own voice cut him off.
“Raoul?!”
Having almost forgotten that he’d been accompanying her in the first place, Aarla was nearly as surprised to see the ragon as her new friends. But when the exclamation left her lips, she immediately regretted it.
Ioran stiffened as he turned around, offering Aarla a look of confusion.
“Do you know this ragon?” He asked, the question sounding incredulous to his ears. The girl had been staring daggers at the alien, but she froze as she found herself placed under the gaze of the rest of the group. She hesitated, the thought of lying crossing her mind before she realised that there was little chance of that working in her favour.
“Yes.” She admitted, frustration evident in her tone as she once again scowled at Raoul. “He’s part of my crew. Here to pick me up, I assume.” She paused. She could turn and run. Grab Ioran and just pull him away before Raoul could react. But even Aarla knew that would be foolish. She sighed in defeat. “You should just do what he says.”
“What?” Ioran said, confused as he glanced between the pair. For a few seconds, it looked like he was going to try and argue, but the cold look in Aarla’s eyes stopped the words in his throat. It was a look that he hadn’t seen that entire night, and something about it made him question the person he thought that he’d been meeting. “Alright, yeah. Sure.”
Turning to his friends, he nodded to them as he turned to leave. “Stay safe, I guess. Assuming Aarla really is your name.”
His tone was bitter as he led the group away, and his parting comments caused Aarla’s frown to deepen. She didn’t respond though, not even offering a defence of her own actions as she watched the kiel leave down the next street. There were a few nervous glances from the group as they walked away, the looks of fear and apprehension replacing the smiles and laughter they’d been exchanging so far. Aarla stayed where she was, her mouth pursed into a line until the kiels had all left earshot.
All at once, she rounded on her crewmate.
“What the hell, Raoul!” She was furious, staring daggers at the ragon as if she didn’t notice his intimidating stature. Her words were still slightly slurred, but that did little to mask her anger. “Why did you do that?”
“Depends. Why did you see fit to sneak away?”
“Why does it matter?” Aarla retorted. “It’s not like any of the others needed to be shackled to a chaperone today.” Folding her arms across her chest, her scowl deepened. “And why do you even care? I wasn’t bothering you. Least you could’ve done was return the favour.”
“It matters because your foolishness might’ve created a lot of headaches, so you could wander off and be groped. And I believe that you know fully well why the Gollar requested you be watched.”
The girl’s scowl deepened.
“I can look after myself just fine. And I have everything under control. It’s not like I’m just going to explode.” There was a bitter taste in Aarla’s mouth at Raoul’s latter comment, and she bristled at the implication. “You know what, the Gollar’s rules don’t even make sense. If they were so worried about the station’s safety, maybe they should’ve prevented you and Sshalah from leaving the ship. I can at least fit in when I want to. Meanwhile I couldn’t go a couple steps with you without everyone looking at us like they’d seen a monster.”
“Yes, and everyone sees a monster. Everyone knows the danger I pose, everyone has a hand near the holster, but you? You could leave a trail of bodies here and no one would see it coming. Not until it was too late. And tell me, what exactly did you intend to do about those implants? Hide them all night? Forever?”
Aarla flinched as Raoul gestured towards her implants. Frowning, she adjusted her hat as if to ensure that the horns were still safely hidden from view.
“I’d have figured something out.” She snapped back. “And why do you care? I’m not blind, you know. I saw what you were doing back at the market. Makes it real rich to hear you criticising my choices.”
“I don’t care that you were drinking, or flirting. You’re not a child, regardless of the gloves you’re handled with, my problem is that you didn’t at least tell me. You snuck off, like a child to a party. Did you think I would stop you?”, he asked, frustrated that she didn’t see what she’d done wrong, but remaining level. He was tempted to simply let it go; he lived by a strong code of ‘no harm, no foul’, but this was different. This time it wouldn’t have been just him affected, it would be the ship.
Aarla was caught off guard by the question. Her instinctive reaction was one of suspicion as she narrowed her gaze towards the ragon.
“Well, that’s what you were ordered to do, wasn’t it? It’s what people always do.”
“I was ordered to make sure someone kept an eye on you. Nothing more, nothing less. Someone had an eye on you.”
He paused for a moment, almost hesitant with his next words.
“I don’t like this arrangement any more than you do, you realize? I have better things to do with my time than babysit you, but you weren’t getting off the ship unless I did. I’m not a great reader of people, but people tread lightly around you. Treat you like you need watched. I thought perhaps you’d appreciate a watcher who could care less.”
“Then why did you have to scare off the others?!” Aarla exclaimed, her frustrations bubbling back to the surface as she jabbed a finger towards him. “You could’ve just watched from a distance without barging in. You talk all high-and-mighty, but you sure just act like one of the others - even if they treat you like a menace as well.”
“I could’ve. Maybe I would’ve, if you’d told me what you were doing. All this could’ve been avoided with that simple step. Don’t get angry at me. You’re the one who didn’t take it.”
Despite Raoul’s words, she was angry. Aarla seethed at the ragon’s callous attitude and how he acted like this was all somehow her fault. She didn’t care whether she’d told him her plans or not, and it shouldn’t have mattered. She’d been having a good night, and then all of a sudden he’d shown up and ruined things all over again.
“Fine. If that’s all it would’ve taken, then I’m letting you know now.” She said through gritted teeth. Aarla turned on her feet and began to storm down the street. She wasn’t sure where she was going or what she was planning, but anything would’ve been better than getting lectured to like this. She waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. “Go bother someone else, or whatever it is you do in your spare time.”
“Wait-”
He knew he couldn’t grab her, restrain her. A Ragon grabbing a defenseless little Kiel would look terrible, and end terrible, but he needed to stop her, had to find something to say-
“The psykers you fought. You knew them, didn’t you?”
Aarla had already started to walk away when Raoul called out to her. She rolled her eyes as he told her to wait, and wasn’t even going to bother to listen to what he had to say until his question caused her to stop in her tracks. She didn’t turn around for a few moments, her scowl deepening as she felt the unwanted twisting in her gut return. Aarla clenched her fists, frustrated that Raoul seemed to be so focused on causing her discomfort.
“Yeah.” When she turned around, Aarla was staring daggers at the ragon. “What has that got to do with any of this?”
“Nothing. I needed you to stop moving, and that was what came to mind, but I am… I know what it is to put down people you might’ve fought alongside. It wasn’t easy, was it?”
Aarla didn’t respond immediately, her expression remaining largely unreadable as the silence stretched out between the pair. Eventually, her gaze shifted away from his.
“It wasn’t difficult, either.” She muttered, trying to present an air of indifference. “They had orders to take me in alive, so they weren’t fighting to kill me. It was stupid of them to hold back though, I thought I’d taught them to be better than that.” There was a brief pause, but now that Aarla had started to talk, the words slipped out of their own accord. “I mean, it’s all their fault. Six-Two should’ve known what I’d planned, since they’d just use him to track me if they could.”
She felt that unwanted feeling rising in her chest once more, and she clenched her fists in frustration.
“He knew I was going to try and kill him, but he was too damn stupid to try and kill me back! He deserved what happened because of that. If he’d fought back properly, then maybe the both of them would still be alive instead of me. And don’t even get me started on Eight-Five. What was she thinking trying to use her powers like that? Even if she’d succeeded, she would’ve killed herself in the process. All because she blamed me for Six-Two being dead.”
Aarla practically spat out the words, her frustrations all bubbling to the surface at once. She was angry. Angry at Raoul for ruining her night. Angry at Eight-Five and Six-Two for not fighting back. And angry at herself for…
For killing the closest things she had to friends.
All at once, the fury left from Aarla’s body. Instead she felt it being replaced by an aching emptiness as the gravity of that last thought reverberated in her skull. She’d killed them. They’d held back because they hadn’t wanted to do the same to her, and because of that, she’d killed them. Her shoulders slumped as she felt the burning of tears in her eyes.
“And because of that, now they’re both gone for good. And I hate that I’m stupid enough to care.”
Realising what she was saying, Aarla immediately bristled once again. She glanced back up to Raoul with a scowl.
“There, I said it. Was that all that you wanted to hear?” She snapped irritably.
Raoul didn’t exactly expect a breakthrough like that, but he could adapt. He’d acted as confidant often enough, after all.
“It’s going to hurt, until you forgive yourself.”
He stepped forward, close enough to lay a hand (closer to a finger) on her shoulder as he crouched down.
“You’re going to think about them all the time, for a long time. You’re mortal, in that way. As am I.”
He paused for a moment.
“I killed my brother. A very long time ago, but for years it burned me, that single question. What if I hadn’t? I killed friends, very good friends, as was demanded of me. Grief, it has a way of holding your heart. Burning it. If you let it, it will subsume you, and destroying it will be tantamount to destroying yourself. Those now gone, they cannot forgive you. Now, you must forgive yourself.”
Surprised at the soft tone coming from the ragon, Aarla didn’t respond at first. She stiffened slightly as his finger rested on her shoulder, but she neither pulled away nor brushed it aside. She studied Raoul’s features, as if cautiously checking whether his words were genuine rather than feigned offerings of understanding.
She remained like that for nearly a minute, not saying anything at all as she mulled over her own thoughts. Until eventually, Aarla took a step closer to the crouching ragon and allowed her head to fall into his shoulder. Her whole body shook with a single sob, and Raoul’s shoulder muffled the sound. Raoul would have felt the dampness of tears from the young psyker, although the sound of her crying was more like jolted snivelling, as if her body wasn’t sure how to actually cry properly. Maybe the alcohol had helped to bring on this behaviour, or maybe it had been Raoul sharing his own personal story, but it was clear that this had been something that she’d been bottling up, maybe without even having realised.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this close to another body without killing it, or trying his best, and for a moment it made him uncomfortable. Especially the tears. But he could sense well that she needed this, need outweighing discomfort, so he let her stay, as long as she might want.
“That you regret it is the greatest sign of something deeper than a warrior. It’s a sign that you can become something more.”
