Infall

Hey everyone. A person got to me and said to stop being a jerk. She's good at that. Maybe a few of you wanted to finish it anyway, she said, and she was right. Apologies. I'll keep posting until it's done. Hey, Karen. Thanks for the support. -Harp

Chapter Three

Indya laughed, Etien joining her. It was autumn, all the leaves changing and the countryside taking her breath.

"So then my father," Etien said, hitching, "closed the door and we never spoke of it again."

Indya's laugh went out all around, her shoulders shaking. They were sitting in her tent on cushions on the floor.

"What is so amusing?" Kythe said, scratching on the outside and coming in, his eyes going to her face. "I can hear you two across the camp."

"I was telling Indya about when you and I were in Jassa, Rí," Etien said, still smiling, calling him that even though he and Kythe were friends, because none of these people would call Kythe anything else.

It seemed a lonely way to be in the world, to have nobody call you by your name, but Kythe didn't mind when she did. Indya wasn't wearing the earpiece. She couldn't wear it if she was going to become fluent.

Kythe came and sat on one of the cushions. "Thank you for allowing me to use it, alea," he said, holding the earpiece out and leaning forward. He'd asked her.

She took the earpiece and put it in her pocket, smiling at him, feeling shy. "Aforna, Kythe."

Etien got to his feet, looking at the ground. "I will see you tomorrow, Indya."

"Thank you, Etien," she said, smiling at him. "You are a good friend."

Etien laughed again, shaking his head, going to the tent flap and leaving. She saw a man glance in, craning his neck. Indya grinned, looking away.

"What is funny?" Kythe said.

"Your people think I have sex with Etien, and with you, and then you bring for a horse," she replied.

He laughed, his brows going up. "I told you. I can bring a woman to stay with you."

She made an impatient noise. "So I don't have sex? I could have sex with the woman."

His mouth fell open a little and he stared. "What?"

"You don't know about this?"

"Yes, but I didn't think you--Have

you

done that?" he said, still staring.

"No. In Atlantis, women do, because the men don't want sex so much, but I'm not...feeling for women," she said, not sure that was the right word.

"That's good to know," he said. "Just in case, I don't think I'll get you a woman to stay here."

"Etien is not feeling for women," Indya said.

Kythe's glance at her was sharp. "No, he doesn't. He's my friend, Indya. I respect him. Don't say that to others."

"Why not?"

"It would shame him."

"Shame him for what?" Indya said. "He has nothing to be shamed for. I don't understand."

"I know you don't. But these are my people, alea," he said. "Etien's people are the same. Things are different here. He must be careful, and those who are his friends must also be careful for him."

She was frowning at him. He was right. It would matter to Etien what his people thought, what these people thought, and she would never hurt him. "I don't think he should be ashamed, but I don't say it ever again, not to him, not to you or anyone," she promised.

He smiled at her. "You're more beautiful every time I see you."

Her eyes dropped and she smiled at him, feeling shy again. She rose, wearing her compromise. One of their dresses with soft pants, Kythe breaking into laughter whenever he saw her, and he'd gotten her shoes. She wrapped her breasts and wore her hair in a high tail behind her, a thin deep and dark red ribbon Kythe had given her woven through the thick fall. It swayed behind her when she walked.

She was excited, having just finished it, going to her work table. "You remember I ask the glass?" she called.

"My magnifier, yes," he said, his voice mildly disapproving.

"Magnifier, yes," she agreed. That was the word.

"And another small one I had to get from Sorso," Kythe said, his voice still stern, "and now none of us can see anything on the maps until the new ones come."

She turned and brought it to him, the item heavy. "I need them for they are glass..." Her eyes went up and she shaped a cup in her hand.

He glanced at her hands briefly, his eyes shifting. "What is that?" he said, looking at what she'd brought.

"I don't all have I need." She bent down, adjusting the strapping, "so it's..." she said, pretending to struggle under its weight.

"Poshte," he supplied, grinning.

"Yes, heavy. But if you get me for the--"

"What did you do to my magnifiers?" he exclaimed, looking at what she'd set down. "They are broken."

"No. I took them out of their..." she said, shaking her head. She didn't know this word. "I made it for to see far."

He shook his head. "See far," he echoed. "I don't know what you're saying."

"It's for seeing. Things far," she said, gesturing away from herself, "like they are," she said, gesturing toward herself.

"What?"

She reached for the earpiece and then stopped, pulling a piece of thick paper out of her pocket, unfolding it, her scribblings all over it, slapping it in front of him and pointing. "They are two glass. This is your eye. It sees, turns over and again larger, and does it again, so it shows what was far the other way." She looked at him. "You understand?"

He was smiling slightly, watching her, and he shook his head, looking so handsome.

Her mouth curved, her eyes going down and flashing to his. She looked away, reaching for it. "You look. We go out." She rose, going to the door. "Come, Kythe."

He laughed, standing and following her out.

She ignored people who stared at her and then they looked down when they saw Kythe, used to it now, taking him out to the field beside their village. She turned and handed it to him. "Your eye on it. There," she said, pointing, pulling out the earpiece and putting it in her pocket. She understood more than she could say.

He crooked his brows and raised it, putting his eye at the eyepiece. "I see nothing."

"Yes," she said, grinning.

He drew his eyes away and looked at her. He laughed. "You are happy, alea."

"Yes. Now do this. Stop you see," she said, showing him, sliding one of the clumsy cylinders inside the other.

He raised it and looked through, manipulating it. She waited. Nothing. He manipulated it some more.

"

Nepelak

," he whispered, his body going still. He slowly panned. He pulled his eye away and put it back, doing it twice more. He pulled it away, looking at it in his hands, and put it back at his eye again.

"What is nepelak?"

"It doesn't matter. How did you do this?"

"It's not magic, Kythe," she said. "It's like your glass. Just the two glass...talks to each the other."

"I can see the aonoi on the trees."

"What is aonoi?"

"On the trees, alea. The smaller sticks it is made of."

Branches. She laughed. They were across the field. "I do better. Make it better with different--"

He set it down on the grass and he walked and caught her up, laughing and turning her in a complete circle, and then he kissed her fast and released her, going back to it and picking it up, walking across the field, staring all around. "It is remarkable, Indya."

Her face was hot, her lips tingling, although she was still smiling. "With other glass you can give me, I make you see small animals. See things small."

He turned to her, his eyes roaming her face. "Why would I want to?"

"For learning, Kythe. Your people...for I make for they don't get sick. And to learning, to understanding the things in...little world."

He looked down at the telescope in his hands. "You made this."

"I show you. It's not difficult."

"Yes, draw as much of it as you can. I will help you with the words to write. Give it to me and I'll have my people make more of them."

She looked back at the camp. "I don't think your people make it, Kythe. They don't have things."

He studied her. "I don't mean here, alea."

She looked at the camp and then back at him. "You have more peoples?" she said. "I think womans and childs somewhere?"

He put the telescope down gently on the grass again and came to her, facing her. "Yes. This is just a small part of the border of my land," he said, pointing. "We are the Matisi. Our capital city, Averdine, is that way. It's my home, a large place with many buildings."

"A city?" she said in Alcon, her language, shocked, switching to his language. "You don't live in the cloth rooms? You don't travel for a new home, this place to that place?" She'd thought they were nomads.

"No," he said, his mouth twitching. "You believed we are like Revestin, that this was my whole palintes, this camp?"

"What is these words,

Revisten

and

palintes

?" she said.

"Revisten are wandering people. A palintes is a place a person rules. I didn't know you thought this, Indya. We will go to Averdine soon, when the cold weather comes."

A city. That was strange to think about. And she'd be going there. "You think I work there, Kythe? I can do things."

He stepped closer, and for the first time since she'd lived in his tent, his knuckles came to caress her cheek, a wave going through her belly. "You can do so many things, alea. This seeing-far tool alone would make you altzac."

"What is that,

altzac

?"

"Everyone would know you."

She wrinkled her nose. "I can't know everyone, Kythe. Just some people."

His mouth twitched. "You would have money."

"The metal pieces?" she said, shrugging. "I don't need so many. I need a home, some food and clothing. You take the far-see. You like it."

His face was serious. "You give me everything, alea, and ask for nothing."

She looked down again. "I could ask for a home in this city, Kythe, if you are tells me where to go. I don't know peoples and they don't like me here. Maybe they will like me more in the city of your father rules. I can live with others. I'm strong. Some food and clothing, a place to work on things."

He tipped her chin. "I will make sure you have what you need, alea."

Indya smiled. "Thank you, Kythe."

"I want to ask you something," he said. "You don't bleed, Indya."

Her brows crooked. "Bleed? I do. You think I don't? I fall, I cry and bleed."

"With the moon, alea."

She looked at the sky. It was day and the moon wasn't visible. "You think I bleed with the moon?" she said, eyeing him. Maybe it was a ritual.

"A woman's blood."

She peered at him, casting her mind in every direction. Her brow cleared and she laughed. "No," she said. "I don't. I forget people do that. Our women don't. How you know I don't?"

"I just know. Are you

incinati

?" His face was serious.

She shook her head. "I don't know this word."

"Are you with child, alea?"

"With a child?" she said, looking around and then she realized, shaking her head. "No, Kythe. I'm sorry, I don't understand when you say to ask. No, no child in me. With me. That's not possible."

"You can't have them?" he said, his face still so serious.

"I can," she said, nodding. "I say."

"You say what?"

"I say yes or no for having a child with me in my body."

He stared. "You control this?"

"Yes," she said, touching her shoulder. "I have a thing..." her eyes went up, "plant in me here."

"You have a shrub in your shoulder."

That metaphor didn't translate. She should have known, Indya laughing. "No. A small thing, a mechanism. It says to my body, 'No, not now. Go have sex, but no baby now.'"

He was staring at her. "Can you tell it to stop saying this to your body and your body listens?"

"Yes."

"You can take it out, the mechanism?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "That would making me sick, Kythe. I having it when I'm young, a girl. It is me now."

"Can I see it?"

"Not see," she said, pushing up her sleeve. She showed him the place. "Touch here."

He pressed, his hand drawing back, his nose flaring, and then he returned his hand. When he touched her, bumps broke out on her arm.

"There is something in there," he said. "Something small and hard." He was staring at her. "How did they get it so deep in there? Didn't that hurt badly?"

"They make I don't feel," she said. "Stick it in."

"Make it so you don't feel," he echoed.

"I don't feel nothing. It heals. I am a child," she said, distracted because he was so close. She wanted to kiss him, but she was nervous to do so because she didn't know their customs.

"No pain?"

"No pain," she echoed, her eyes roaming his face a little. She liked his face.

He was still so serious. "You can have children if you turn this thing off?"

"Yes," she said, losing the thread of the conversation, his smell so pleasant and his big hands, and remembering his big hands on her body and that pleasure. She decided to just say it. "I want to have sex with you," she told him. "Do you want to have sex with me? I don't want to have sex with somebody else. I like sex with you. I like you." Now she was just saying the words again, like she hadn't been clear. She looked down.

Kythe was all she thought about. She'd liked being with him. She liked his face and his body, and he made her laugh and he talked to her. He pleasured her.

He was quiet and she felt her cheeks burn hot and she shrugged, still not looking at him. "I asked. You said if I want to. You don't have to say more. You are a friend like Etien. I don't say it again. You take the see-far. It's a thing for you." She didn't know the Odien word for gift. There was a big heavy place in her chest.

She turned, walking back quickly, her cheeks still hot. Nobody would bother her in her tent, and maybe Kythe would be kind and not say anything about it ever again. Kythe came with her, bringing the telescope, walking as fast, and she didn't look at him.

"Rí," a man said when they got into the village, walking with Kythe.

"Not now," Kythe said.

"But Rí--"

"Not now, I said."

She glanced at them and she was at her tent, where she turned around at the door. She reached down and unlaced her boots, taking them off because her people never wore shoes inside where people had private spaces. "Have a good day, Kythe," she said, not looking at him, ducking inside, very glad to be alone.

Letting the flap fall closed behind her, she stopped and stared at the table blankly, and heard him. She turned as he came in, carrying the telescope, going to the table and setting it down.

"I make it for you, I say--" she said as he walked to her and kissed her.

Indya made a small noise, her hands raising, her arms coming around his neck. She'd missed kissing him, the roughness of his facial hair and his hands, and he was walking her back toward her bed. Her heart was pounding.

"Rí," a voice said outside the tent.

Kythe stopped, looking, and then dropped his hands, stepping back. "Wait for me here," he said.

She frowned a little. "I live here, Kythe," she said.

"I won't be long."

* * *

Indya waited, nervous. Her meal came and she ate, drawing it out, but he didn't return.

She sat and started the explanation for the microscope, her hands moving over the page, a better rendering. It had taken time for her to get used to the quill. Indya first worked with the numbers she knew and then she translated them into their numbers. At least they knew about zero. She didn't want to imagine explaining that to them.

By the time she was done, the paper was covered with drawing and numbers and was a little messy, but she thought it would work. She rolled it and tied a string around it and put it down. Her next meal came, a man who never looked at her and wouldn't speak to her, and then it was dark and Kythe still hadn't come.

Indya took down her hair and cleaned up, and then undressed and got into her bed. It was getting colder, but Kythe had made sure she had so many blankets that she was never cold. In bed, at least. Maybe he'd gotten too busy. Maybe he was in his tent and had changed his mind. She turned over. Maybe he'd forgotten.

* * *

Indya was cold, turning on her back and looking for the covers with her hand.

"Alea."

"Kythe?" she said, sleepy. She opened her eyes. Kythe was in bed next to her and had drawn away the covers, looking at her body. She blinked at him, not really awake. "You forget me?"

"That's unlikely, Indya. Do you always sleep naked?"

"Of course," she mumbled. "You wear clothes your bed?" She didn't want to have sex now. She was too sleepy.

Drifting down, she swam back up into pleasure, tugs on her nipples, Indya crying out softly, her legs spreading. Her eyes opened and she'd changed her mind and wanted sex very badly now, his hand stroking between her legs. She was already wet, slick and panting.

"Indya," he said into her hair, behind her, his sex there.

She jutted and found him, wiggling herself onto him, taking forever. His breathing was rough as she began to move, like an itch she wanted to scratch, not quite there. She moved faster, urgent, his sex so good, making a sound, hearing her own need.

He pulled out of her and she was abruptly standing on the side of the bed with him behind her. Kythe pushed her front down and she caught herself on her elbows. He kneed her legs apart and thrust into her.

Indya cried out as he went fast. She jutted and his hands landed on her hips, jerking her to himself. His thrusts were sharp and deep and then he was over her and his fingers were on her breasts, pinching her nipples, sharp bites, his other hand planted beside her.

Her voice was getting higher as she arched, going still to feel it as he thrust into her so hard she had to brace against it. Then his fingers touched her clitoris, stroking, and she was going to come.

Indya flattened herself on the bed, her butt as high as she could get it, motionless, her eyes seeing nothing. Kythe's thrusts were hard, and she felt a slap on her butt cheek like he did that she liked, more fast slaps as she climbed to her climax, her butt stinging. She'd forgotten how good this felt. He was grunting as she strained, crying out sharply.

"Enith a ne, nis alea," he panted, and she couldn't think to translate, losing all of it in pleasure.

Her straining ended in whimpers, the pleasure still on her, and then she released. Kythe had her hips and was grunting with every jab and then he pulled her up into his arms, his hips low as he cried out through his teeth, stilling, his sex moving inside her. He grunted, a raw sound, trying to get closer, grinding on her butt.

He was panting, slowly relaxing, releasing her gently. She put her front down, gathering her arms under her, closing her legs. He was still inside her and she was still bent over, all her muscles warm and the pleasure so nice, her sex twinging and pulsing around his. He moved her hair, pawing at it gently, and his fingers traced her spine, Kythe touching her. She liked how he touched her, her eyes heavy.

"I forgot all your beauty," he said, still breathing fast, still pressing her thighs against the bed, leaning into her. "You wear layers of clothing and I can't see your beautiful aurubi and your nelta, the pink in your skin. I think you should walk around naked all the time."

"I like it," she said, also panting, her eyes closing. "But people here think under the clothes is a surprise."

He laughed, his hand rounding her butt, his hips still against her. He gathered up her hair, heavy, brushing it from the back of her neck and leaning down to cover her with his body, his elbows coming down, Indya shivering, her sex spasming again. Kythe gave a soft grunt, pressing. "I missed you, alea," he breathed in her ear.

Her eyes opened and she was surprised to find she was crying. Yes, she'd missed him. She sniffed, trying to hide it, but more were coming and he pulled out of her and she was abruptly on her back, Kythe over her, the weight of his lower body on her.