Shock Therapy, CH 04 (Patreon)

The House was still incomplete, which didn’t surprise Tristan. Hea’las had been stubborn about how it needed to be reconstructed, wanting traditional methods over more expedient, and more durable ones. One of the reasons for visiting was to attempt, again, to convince her modern methods would serve the House and community better.

He hesitated before stepping into the House, then stepped back as a female exited, looking him over and baring her teeth at him, then licked her lips. By the time he cataloged her behavior, and worked out that beyond the smile, she’d expressed she found him pleasing to look at, she was walking away.

He stopped the chastising before he could mentally voice it. This was a safe place for him not to react appropriately to other of his species. To accept he was still learning the nuances of their body language. City Samalians, that they accepted it or not, were used to humans, and it made fooling them easier.

He also wasn’t supposed to try to fool the Samalians here.

That was proving a difficult reflex to fight.

“Welcome,” a female voice greeted him in accented Standard.

Tristan faced her. “Source be with you,” he replied in Grr’ler’nin, while studying her. She didn’t have the muscle mass that marked a Samalian as sexually desirable. Samalian saw strength as a trait of a good provider, someone to add to their family in case of trouble, and to ensure their cubs were also strong.

But Hea’las’s position as Leader of the House did not require strength, but still brought something attractive, considering she never lacked for partner, although she didn’t take any of them on as part of her family, nor did any of those who spent time with her expect her to.

“Am I good?” she asked in Grr’ler’nin, and Tristan needed a moment to untangle the words. This was another thing he had to fight the need to be better at quicker. All he’d had to master before were accents, since Space Gov didn’t allow Standard to deviate beyond that. Samalia had so many dialects he wasn’t sure he’d even master all of them

“Will Rourg’arn be easier?” she asked in Tristan’s native dialect.

“Yes.” Then, because even without a mask, there were niceties that were expected; no, that was the wrong term, appreciated, he added. “Thank you for the consideration. And I apologize if looking at you made you uncomfortable. I am learning to see how other see interest.”

Her laugh was deep. “Oh, I never mind a strong male watching me.” A quick lick of the lips, an amused tilt to her ear. “But I believe you should ensure Alex doesn’t see you looking at me with interest.”

“He knows he has nothing to worry about when it comes to this.”

“Does he, now?” The tone was amused, but without the ears. Not as amused this time.

Tristan took the datapad out to forestall any more comments. He wasn’t interested in her opinion of him and Alex, at least in that regard. He would bring Alex up when he was ready.

“I’ve brought a list of permacrete provider I can easily reach and divert material without anyone noticing.” He handed it to her. “I can also get you the equipment needed to build the underlining structure on which to apply it.”

She looked at the list. “You know I am not interested in using human materials.”

“They aren’t—” He stopped. This wasn’t about convincing her his way was the correct one, even if it was. This was about the community she looked after. He needed to appeal to that so she would reach the compromise he offered.

“The village is growing,” he started, purposely not picking the working that would hit her emotionally. He didn’t want to manipulate her. He just wanted her to see reason. “Is it good to not have the house grow with it?”

She bared her teeth. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

“No,” Tristan protested, only noticing the twitching ears afterward. “Yes. I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his muzzle and took a breath. “I am trying to explain that your stubbornness isn’t helping the community you are looking after and I don’t know if I can do that through simply explaining. I’m not in the habit of explaining myself.” The last came out harsher than he meant, but the ears were still twitching in amusement, so he hadn’t offended her.

“Bringing me the same list, with the same reasons, doesn’t add anything to the discussion.”

“I have something new,” he said, and the ears stilled in a quizzical position. “You say you don’t want human material. The reason you give me is that they will make the House something they have touched. Yet you have plasteel sheets welded in place over wooden scaffolding.”

“Implying a form of hypocrisy in my need to expedite keeping the weather out so the forces wouldn’t be exposed to it?”

“The Forces can handle the weather,” Tristan replied in what he realized was borderline dismissiveness. Still, everything he’d read confirmed at least that. The Forces didn’t fear the weather, and their representations within the House were made of stone. “But no. It’s speaks of your understanding that at times, what is immediately available,” he motioned to the datapad in her hand, “takes precedence over what is ideal.”

“Permacrete wouldn’t fit the House anymore than the sheets of steel already in place.”

“Having more would allow you to expand back to the House’s original size, but I am not suggesting permacrete sheets. Nor that only that be used. Permacrete can be sprayed, and formed.”

“Only giving an imitation of the stones that go into making a House.”

Tristan tried to read if she was purposely being aggravating, but he still didn’t understand all the nuances of Samalian body language, which she knew and was almost certainly taking advantage of.

“Permacrete could be used as an underlayer over which the stones could be places,” He said and her ears faced him. He kept his satisfaction at finally capturing her attention from showing. “It would serve multiple purposes. First, the House is usable to its full capability sooner. Second, each block of stone can be thinner without sacrificing any of the House’s protection. This means you can cover more of it with the slabs you’ll procure.”

“Don’t you intend to mean that you’ll procure for me?”

“I’ve given up convincing me to let you procure the stone, Hea’las. You’ve made it clear that is one aspect you aren’t willing to sacrifice tradition on.”

She studied the list again, and, unlike previous times, she placed the datapad into a pocket instead of handing it back to him. “I will consider your suggestion.”

Tristan willfully unclenched his teeth. Right or wrong, the decision was hers. All he could do was offer to help.

This caring about other people could be a bother at times.

“Will you step inside?” she asked, motioning for the door.

He hesitated. His only reason to go in had been to seek her out and have this conversation, so there was no need anymore.

His discomfort made him step to the door. He hadn’t let his belief the universe wanted him dead stop him from doing anything. He wasn’t going to let this unfounded worry the Source might be as much as what Hea’las claimed it was affect him either.

The inside was only a fraction of what it should be. Barely a fifth of the circular domed structure that was the House had survived the multiple attacks by scientists, collectors and simply thieves, each taking what they felt mattered to most to their goals.

None of LeisureTek’s raids had targeted the House directly, Tristan’s research had showed. As if they understood the trouble a direct attack on a Samalian’s faith could cause. They preferred corrupting that faith discretely through usurping what the Source and the Forces represented.

The lightly glowing half sphere representing the Source sat in the relative center of the House, with the Forces against the walls. The implication was that the other half was unseen within the ground, the part of the Source that still affected everyone, even when it wasn’t visible. In an intact House, the Forces would be equidistant along the walls, grouped with those linked to them.

He averted his gaze from the Defender, on the left of the Aggressor, then, noticing what he’d done, forced himself to look at it. This stone sculpture of a pale furred Samalian in tattered pants with a blade at his feet, either moving away after placing it there, or in the process of reaching for it. The Defender, willing to let for of his weapon, but ready to take it up if needed. There was a calmness to the uncertainty that contrasted the violent certainty of the Aggressor at its side, with claws and teeth bared, eager to wrench apart anything that stood in his way, or threatened what he held dear.

“The teacher,” Hea’las said, standing before another of the statue, “wants us to never stop asking questions. She promoted the belief that every question is but the latch that, when answered, opens the door to understanding, acceptance, communion and love. She ignores that sometimes answers bring pain, answers shatter instead of brings together.”

“Nothing’s simple,” Tristan said.

Hea’las gave an affirmative twitch of her ears. “Just like you.” She faced him. “Or Alex.”

Tristan swallowed and went over their interaction. That he’d let anything slip seemed ridiculous. He controlled everything about himself. Let other see only what he wanted them to see. He wasn’t someone some female in charge of some belief could read the way he read everyone.

Not that he had an easy time reading Samalians still.

And not that he enforced his control here as hard as he does elsewhere.

And not that her seeing something he hadn’t been sure how to voice was a problem.

“He killed someone today,” Tristan stated, and she acknowledged the statement. “If I hadn’t intervened, he would have done it in public, in a market where security would have recorded it. He barely controlled himself as I lead both of them to an alley for privacy. Then he was angry at me for it, for not letting him avenge you right then and there.” A quizzical tilt to the ear prodded him to add. “Samalians. A human merchant was selling a Samalian trinket, and a guard, one of those Samalians LeisureTek reprogrammed, took the human’s defense, and Alex was enraged.”

“He is what you made him,” she stated.

“I taught him better than to be seen or recorded,” Tristan countered. “That was… not what I taught him.”

“And is it you seem to be losing control of him that is distressing you?”

“No,” Tristan stated. “I will not control him. I made him that promise. He isn’t mine to control.”

“Isn’t he?” She stepped away from the Teacher and to the Defender. “He is a Defender. That is the Force that guides him. It is a Force that, while adjacent to the Aggressor, isn’t meant to embody him the way you have Alex embody you. You made his desire to protect into something that lashes out. You took the spark of the Aggressor you all carry and through the trials you forced on Alex made it larger; made it so it rivals the Defender.”

She faced him. “You have made him the battleground for two Forces. We all battle with them, but I do not believe is had ever been so literal in anyone, and you caused that in Alex.”

“No,” He stated, his tone level. “I honed what was already there. My actions may have aggravated the situation, but I didn’t initiate it.”

“How are you certain of this?”

Tristan ran a finger over his forearm, felt the scar under the fur. “He cut me, before I ever started training him. Before that, he killed dozens of merc armed with nothing more than knifes. There was something in him as he attacked me. He wasn’t himself then, not the Alex who is walking among your people right now, marveling at your alienness. That part of him is what I fostered, what I folded over and over until he was as sharp and flexible as the knives he wields. But it was there before I acted.”

She studied him. “If you what you say is true, the situation remains, only that it is something else that caused the Aggressor to gain dominance. If you want Alex to return to who he is, you still need to have his Aggressor return to the position within Alex’s circle he belongs in.”

“How do I do that?”

“I do not know. With anyone else who comes to me for guidance, the influence is still weak, only strong enough for them to notice and decide to correct what is happening. Alex has had to live like this for so long, longer than encountering you, if what you say is correct, that he cannot take the first step in asking for help, because he can no longer see that damage he is causing.”

“He sees it,” Tristan said. “But he doesn’t care.”

“Can you make him care?”

Tristan shook his head, then forced his ears to twitch in the negative, and then paused. He’d trained Alex not to care about anything but what Tristan told him to do.

He looked at the Defender.

But because of who Alex was, he’d never been able to stop caring about certain things, certain people. Could he use that?

“Thank you,” he told Hea’las. “You’ve given me something to work with.”

She touched his arm as he turned. “Remember, despite how he acts, he isn’t an Aggressor.”

“I know.” He left the House.

He found Alex with a group of Samalians. Two males and two females who were, if he read their body language correctly, intimately close. One was pregnant, the wind carrying the scent before he noticed her belly, and when wondered how he’d recognized it. He couldn’t remember ever interacting with a pregnant Samalian.

One of the males stiffened on seeing Tristan. Rig’Irik. The male who had tried to take Alex from him. Alex was crouched before the pregnant female, hand on her stomach.

“Rig’Irik,” Tristan greeted him. “The Source be with you,” he said in Rorlar’grr, and the male’s ear went up in surprise.

“Tristan,” Alex said, looking at him. “I’m going to be his guardian?”

He filed the term along with the others he needed to study, and looked at Rig’Irik, who stood proudly. “Trust Alex,” he said.

Tristan nodded. The male knew what awaited him if this was more than it looked like, so Tristan did nothing. “I’m heading to the hover, Alex. When you’re done, we can go home.”

“I’m ready to go,” Alex replied, hurrying to his feet.

“We aren’t in a hurry. You can spend more time with your friends. I’m sure Rig’Irik would like to show you around.”

The Samalian eyed him suspiciously, and the other three picked up on the tension enough they moved closer, moving the pregnant Samalian behind them. They exchanged whispers Tristan couldn’t make out.

Alex looked from them to Tristan.

“It’s alright,” Tristan said. “You know where we stand, Rig’Irik. I trust you to put what you have before what you crave.” There was confusion in Rig’Irik’s eyes, and Tristan wished Samalian’s had one standard language, so this wouldn’t happen.

“I learn,” the Samalian said. “I find my family.” He pulled the others close to him. “Alex is yours.”

Tristan started to protest, but it wouldn’t help right now. “As I said, Alex. If you want to spend time with your friends, we have the time.”

“I think,” Alex said, looking from one to the other again. “That it’s best if we head out.”

Tristan nodded and turned, then was surprised to find Alex’s hand on his arm as they walked.

“I like that,” Alex said.

Tristan tried to work out what Alex meant.

“You threatening Rig so he’d remember who’s I am.”

“You are yours, Alex. Not mine, not his. Yours.”

Alex smiled. “Of course, that’s why you threatened his family.”

“I did not—” Tristan sighed. “I simply said—” he sighed again. “Maybe Space Gov has a point with enforcing one language on everyone. If I’m going to be misunderstood, I want it to be because it’s my intent.”

Alex squeezed his arm, and Tristan places his over the human’s shoulders, pulling against him.