Ashi sat for what seemed like the longest time before daring to grab one of his hands. She wasn't sure if he was aware she was holding him or not as his body was so slick with gore the princess couldn't tell if she was holding onto a mechanical limb or a biological one. “We're okay; we're all here. I'm sure they're still looking – they know I'm alive now – but I think we lost them for now,” Ashi whispered, her chin trembling. “I don't know what happened, I can't remember...I just remember my ears ringing and being moved down a tunnel until we made it to the ship. Rosalind set up a temporary medbay where you and I stayed until we got here...”
Ashi had seen deaths. She'd seen executions, and some of those were loved ones meant to serve as a reminder what happened when nosy princesses stepped out of line. Those were hard. But this was different. The mechanical man before her put himself in this position for her; he'd made the conscious choice to take the grenade for her. He wasn't blackbagged in the middle of the night like the others had been, no, he dove headfirst in for her. And now, the princess that was usually the first to deal with the media was at a loss for words. What could she say, other than that she was still here? But she wasn't Toka, and Toka was gone partially because of her. What could she say? “There is nothing to forgive you for, Ranoru'ah of Clan Barut,” she finally ended up saying, the tears now flowing freely from her eyes, “She will be the one to greet you now, and I promise she has already forgiven you if she thought you needed forgiveness.” She gave his hand a tight squeeze, bowing her head.
There was so much she wanted to say to him at this moment, so much that she kept back. She knew she could never replace Toka, never in a trillion light years; yet, she too found a kindred spirit in that big mechanical monster – though she would never call him that. To her, he was like the father she never had, the kind that would show her unconditional love regardless of what happened – the kind that would take a grenade for her rather than order her death.
The shift was sudden, but Ashi could see it before he ever uttered a word. She did not return the anger, fear stepping in in its stead, “Ranoru'ah, no! Think for a moment, would you? None of this is Hyun's fault. Think, think! Hyun was not the one who killed her, and she wasn't the reason Toka was left by herself. If you're going to blame anyone, fucking blame me would you?! It makes sense! If you're going to blame anyone, fucking put it on me! If I hadn't have shown up, Hazoo wouldn't have ever been attacked in the first place! She wasn't going to make love to me, if you'll remember, I'd just been beaten in because I thought I was going to be tough, become a ganger just like you and Hyun. She was going to clean me up! See? It's all my fault. Not Hyun. If you're going to take it out on anyone, let it be me. You'll know where you can find me when you're back on two feet, because I'm not going anywhere.”
><><><><><><><><><><
The doctor wasn't fluent in Terskixian but he knew enough to know he was getting insulted and now it was his turn to sulk, working in silence. “Alright, alright,” he said, finally done mixing and actually putting the cream on the crack, “Feels alright, doesn't it? Now, I'll need you to not mess with it until it dries; give it at least 7 galactic hours. If you can convince your mate to get you things you might need in the meantime, it would be beneficial, anyway -”
“What?! My fault how?! I am nothing but tender and loving to you. Only reason I'm saying you should get it fixed is because I care about you, cariño,” Mendez said, giving her hand a squeeze, “That and I don't want to deal with you bitching about it when we're in space.” He laughed at the last part, knowing how true it'd be with the irony that much more rich them being on their way away from a hospital.
“Well then, Jorge Mendez is it? Shall we have a look?”
“You're not gonna find anything, amigo. I'm happy and healthy,” Mendez said, shrugging.
“Your mate asked that I do this, so I'm going to. Alright, sit up straight. I'm going to check your heart and lungs."
All that is empty in the drawing should be filled in, the teacher said to us kids. First you sharpen the pencil to fill in the thin whiskers, then you use the thick crayon to fill in the wings with brown, meticulously and without letting the crayon leave the page. Six feet can be traced below the soft belly. Now, breathing is hard to detect on paper, the teacher said to me when I asked, but it is easier to feel it in real life.
Even insects breathe.
-Rawi Hage, Cockroach