Author's Note:
I just wanted to say that I read every comment, and they've been immensely flattering. Thank you for taking the time to write them and vote on my story.
Criticism is always welcome! A lot of this is flying by the seat of my pants, so don't be afraid to make suggestions. In particular, there's a bit of analytical number crunching in this part of the story. It can get a little involved, at times. Let me know if it's too much.
All aspects of the story are fictional. All characters that participate in sexual activity are over the age of 18.
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Jackson had a lot going on.
For one thing, a beautiful, mocha-skinned beauty was languishing next to him on the grassy bank of a creek. They rested on their sides; he was fitted neatly behind her back and legs. His softened erection was still inside of her, comfortable as could be in a sheath of moist warmth.
For another thing, Isis had just prompted him to create a bond with said woman. Whatever that was.
On Jackson's left hand was a black, inverted pentagram. It was a nasty, twisted thing, as if a vengeful spirit had come and dragged a knife through his skin, staining it with some sort of otherworldly ink. There was no raised bumps, no actual scar, but it certainly looked ugly.
A similar symbol was now glowing in white on the back of Chaki's hand. Her pentagram was not a scar, but a neat, sharp-edged sign drawn by a careful hand. Jackson now had to select one of the five points of his pentagram for her bond, or, alternatively, not make a bond at all.
An almost reptilian segment of his brain urged him to stake his claim on the svelte young woman that was pressed up next to him. The problem was, he had no idea what it would do.
The floating text of the game that sometimes decided to overlay the world of Isis told Jackson it would benefit them both; she'd gain the powers of the star-marked, and he'd gain some sort of power based on her traits. Isis did not define the word 'traits'. Isis did not define a lot of things, and Jackson did not like ambiguity in his video games. He liked concrete answers. He liked help files. He liked journals, and numbers, and equations, and armor ratings, and hit percentages, and critical chances. He did not like things that promised unknown benefits in exchange for unknown amounts of danger.
What were the powers of the star-marked, exactly? He glanced at his scar. He'd turned his life into a video game. He now had a health bar, and instead of taking injury, he lost health points. When he killed things, he absorbed their essence, and he could use it to strengthen himself or perform special abilities. He could effectively manage his visual experience through an options menu. He was able to transport himself to this other place, the world called Isis that was apparently also the foundation of the Tower of Babel.
That was about the size of it.
Yeah, he had a lot going on.
"Jackson?" Chaki waved at the translucent pentagram hanging in the air. "Are you just going to let it hang there?"
Jackson studied the star. Each of the points was marked with a label - The Sunrise, The North Star, The Abyss, The Legion, and The Fall. Each one conferred particular benefits to the 'Bonded' - that would be Chaki. The game didn't elaborated.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Not much."
"Liar."
"Why do I have to be thinking something?" Jackson said. "I've got you curled up against me. Maybe I'm thinking about that."
"Good try, but no."
"How would you know?"
"You have that look on your face."
"I do?"
"Mmm-hmm." Chaki leaned her head back to smile at him. She rubbed his leg. "Your eyes narrow a bit, and you just have this sort of...expression. Like there's a hundred things you can see that no one else can and you're working out how they all run together."
"Oh. Huh."
"So...tell me what you're thinking. I don't know as much about Isis as you do."
"My head can be a boring place."
"Try me."
"Chaki - "
"Jackson Vedalt," she said. "Tatanka Ska. Do not hide yourself from me."
"...alright," Jackson said. "So I've got this sign on my hand. What I thought was going to be another game has turned out to be something real. I've been summoned by Shakhan to take on some great quest."
Chaki rose up on an elbow. His length slipped out of her when she shifted. Jackson missed her immediately. The prairie air felt icy after the heat of her body.
He wasn't the only one frowning. She glanced at where their waists met for a moment, as if reconsidering, but eventually settled down facing him. "You haven't told me about the last part."
Jackson explained to her what Shaka had told him - and what he'd seen back in the tent, when the flames of the fire turned black and Shakhan had possessed the spirit guide to give him a message. A group of beings called the Fallen were trying to attack the Gate of Heaven, which he suspected was his own homeworld, Earth. His banishment to the bottom of the tower was supposed to kill him. They knew he was still alive, and they were coming after him. He needed to see Shakhan in person to figure out how to protect himself and stop them from completing their plans.
"Mother Earth," Chaki said. "This is getting serious."
"It's been serious," Jackson said. "And I still don't know everything. I'm getting in way over my head."
"...this had better not be some circuitous method to avoid bonding me."
"You actually want to be, uh, bonded?"
"I said I was yours, Jack," she said. "I meant it. Didn't you mean it, when you said it?"
"Well, yeah."
"Then what's the problem?"
"It's a pretty noticeable problem, Chaki."
She turned her head at him and raised an eyebrow. "You don't want me involved."
"Look," Jackson said, "there's a million variables I can't wrap my head around. You read the text. What exactly encompasses the powers of the star-marked? Where does my life begin and my abilities end? What sort of benefit will I get from you on my end? What's the difference between the different points on the pentagram? What the hell else will happen that it hasn't told us? Because so far it feels like I've been lied to about five hundred times, and I don't want to throw you into a pit when I can't see the bottom, alright?" Jack stopped. He took a breath, let his voice cool off. "I'm not saying I don't want you around, I just don't want to - I still don't understand the consequences of what's happened to me. There's too much I don't know. I can't bring you into that in good conscience."
"Sometimes," Chaki said, "we have to make decisions even when we don't know everything about a situation. And maybe we'll look back and wish we did something else - but we can only make the choice that seems right knowing what we know now, not what we know in the future. And right now..." She met his gaze. "I want this."
"...you're not going to let this go, are you?"
Chaki shook her head.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to finish what you started," she said. "I said I was yours. Now that you're a member of the tribe, we'll be married, of course, but this is different."
"Wait. What?"
Chaki cocked one of her eyebrows so high he thought it might fly off her face. "I hope you did not believe I would throw myself at a man without the intention of joining with him permanently? I am not some immodest...floozy."
"Says the naked chick."
Chaki sniffed. "It was a wonderful consummation of our blossoming relationship."
"Right."
"Jackson," she said, her voice growing serious, "do not test me on this. Many of my people wed at the Mountain Meet. Shaka can hold our ceremony. It will be perfect." She had a distant smile. "It is traditional to exchange a vow-gift. Make sure you present me with an item worthy of my affections."
Jackson's brain was spinning. It had been doing that a lot, lately. "Chaki, for god's - for Shakhan's sake, I guess, let's do one thing at a time. Bond. Okay. Yes, I want to be with you. But also I want to keep you safe. There's a chance I could die, you know?" Jack brushed her hair back and held her cheek. "Getting to know you, and Shaka, and everyone...it's been kinda hectic, but I've enjoyed it. But this isn't a vacation. Frankly, I don't know if I'll be able to handle it."
"I know," she said. "That's why you need me." She leaned into his hand, putting her own on top of it. "Jack. If you are so afraid of what lies ahead, then why haven't you gone home?"
"...go home? Home to what?"
"What do you mean?"
"What I said," Jackson said. "Home to what? High school? A mother that could care less if I vanished off the face of the earth? A world that doesn't give a damn if I live or die? A world so bad that I'd rather go and lose myself in fantasies?" He stared at her. "Why do you think I signed up for this when I thought it was a game? I wanted to get away. Shit, I'd rather die here than live back there. Anyway, that's all beside the point. I've barely known you two days and I know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"At least you are not hiding yourself anymore."
"But are you sure about this?"
"Do I seem unsure to you?" Chaki asked.
"No. For reasons I don't really get, you don't."
"Do you find it such a wonder, Tatanka Ska?"
"Actually, yes."
"Stop stalling and make the bond. I shall tell you afterward."
"I wasn't stalling," Jackson mumbled. He looked up at the pentagram floating above them. Chaki followed his eyes. "Which one of these points are you?"
"Well," she said, "you get to pick. What do you think I am?"
He smiled at her. Jackson was not an excitable person; his was a small smile, just a slight curve of his lips, a scrunch at the corner of his eyes. "That's easy. You're the North Star."
"Not the Sunrise?"
"Well, I could see that," he said. "But...you're not a big dramatic flash of light. You're steady, strong. Constant. I mean...look at what you just said. I kinda get stuck around in my own thoughts, sometimes. You dragged me out of them. When I wasn't sure how to behave back at the feast, you helped me. You're the student of a spirit guide. That's exactly what you are - my north star."
"So, the north star is something that guides and steadies, then?"
Jackson suddenly realized that their sky did not have a north star. This was another world entirely. "You know how the stars move over time?" he asked.
"Of course." Her brown eyes lifted overhead, inspecting the swath of stars that was broken by a few clouds. Out on the plains, there were not lights but for the camp's distant fires. The night sky twinkled with points of light and glowed in the hazy colors of distant nebulas. "We follow their paths carefully. It helps us keep our place on the plains, though it is rare we need resort to them. The land may seem uniform to someone not accustomed to it, but there are many things that mark our paths."
"Well, in reality, the stars aren't moving relative to us," Jackson said. "The entire world we stand on is slowly turning, so it appears that the stars are moving."
Chaki blinked. "Is that really so? I've never felt as though we were moving. Wouldn't we be flung into the air?"
"We're moving at the same speed, so it doesn't feel like we're moving. Gravity - that's the force that pushes everything to the ground - is enough to keep you pinned to the surface."
"It sounds complex."
"We've proved it back in my world. I don't think it would be that much different here. I can show you the science sometime."
"I think that would be interesting."
Jackson pointed up at the great bank of gas and flickering light that stretched across the night above them. "There's one star, named Polaris, that sits right above the northernmost cap of the world. Say you stuck a rod through the earth to mark the axis that it turns on. Polaris almost lines up right with that. So while all the other stars move, Polaris is almost totally still. That's why we call it the North Star. Since ancient times, we've used it as a reference point to navigate huge distances, when we have nothing else."
"...I am your north star." Chaki nodded. "Don't soon forget it, Jack."
"I won't," he said. "You'll keep reminding me."
