Ebony Clarke
Sexcerpt from Aphrodite's Daughter-Thy Brother's Wife
Calla left the doll on the floor behind her. They walked for what seemed a very long time through brightly lit hallways that had large pipes running about the sides. Different parts of the walls had been marked with paint, while the words and symbols were what she recognized as English they were in some abbreviated form that she did not understand. Some of the pipes were painted a dull dark gray while other were bright red or yellow, the latter two were all marked with what she imaged was their contents. A soldier in uniform with a sidearm at his waist walked by, in his hand he held a familiar red and white tin can. "Do they still make that?" She asked in a quiet voice as he passed by them.
" Make what?" Daniel had been to intent on walking the path he was leading her on to notice the soldier who had passed them never mind the contents of his hands. She did not answer him, instead Calla glanced back over her shoulder and, with a slender finger, pointed at the man with the hard hat bearing the letters MP on his head. He was raising the white and red can to his lips. Daniel followed her gaze. "Coke?" Her eyes lit up and she smiled without realizing she was doing so. He thought it was probably the most genuine smile he had ever seen in his life. "Yes." He stopped their pace and glanced down at the woman by his side. "Do you want one?" The smile, that only a moment ago, he thought could not be any brighter suddenly lit up like a thousand suns. "I guess you do. There's a machine just around the corner."
As always, Daniel was true to his word. After they rounded the next bend, in the corner across from her stood a large machine with several large buttons. The image of a bottle of the precious caramel colored liquid was bright on the front, beads of water glistened upon the sides of the container as they gracefully made their way to a generous amount of ice at the bottom of the bottle. Calla watched as Daniel removed a leather object from his back pocket that was a wallet. She remembered that, men carried them in their pants while the women carried them in leather pouches called handbags. From the wallet he took a green piece of paper that Calla understood was money, he put it into a slot in the machine and the machine made a whirring noise not unlike the thing called an MRI had. Daniel hit one of the buttons and out popped a cold bottle just like the one on the cover of the machine. He held it out to her. "You know what this is, don't you? You've had it before."
Calla nodded excitedly as her shaking hand took the bottle from his grasp and unscrewed the top. Whhoosh. Air escaped from the bottle, little brown bubbles rose inside the liquid. She raised it to her lips and took half the contents down in three long slow gulps. "Ares can keep his nectar." She told him with eyes that were not only wide but also seemed to glow with an inner fire. "I'll take this any day." She raised the bottle once again and emptied it down her slender throat. "That is so good." The words on the bottle told her that she should look under the cap to see if she had won. Turning the round red top over in her hands the words 'play again soon' greeted her eyes. Calla turned the phrase over in her mind and shrugged her shoulders.
" Didn't win, huh?"
" I guess not." She agreed. "Daniel, do they still make chocolate?"
" Yes, they do. I think I can find a candy bar around here somewhere, would you like one?" Calla nodded. Daniel smiled gently, "One more time; would you like one?"
" Yes, please." She held up the empty bottle and rolled her eyes toward it. Daniel didn't say anything. She was sure that he knew what she was trying to convey but he was going to insist that she ask for it anyway. "May I have another?"
Daniel's gentle smile grew wide and he kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, you may." With Cokes and candy bars in hand, Daniel led them out of the installation and through the main gates of the base. Day had turned to night, he realized that he had lost all track of the time. There was a clean woolen blanket sitting in the back seat of a jeep, Daniel plucked from there without stopping and lead them further away from the base.
Taking a slow and deliberate pace, he led her up the nearest hillside. It was a short and gentle slope but still he worried whether or not she would make the climb with the wounds on her feet. Calla said nothing as they went up the hill to a place that was far enough away from the base to allow a little peace and quiet. He came up here often when he needed to think or just be away from it all. Daniel sat her down by a small circle of stones that he had assembled some years back and which now served him as a fire pit. Daniel gathered some dry grass and small sticks placed them in the circle and soon a campfire burned happily against the backdrop of the night sky.
" It's nice here." She said as she warmed her hands by the fire he had made.
Daniel stretched out by the fire and tried to decide if he should follow where she led him or if he should lead her where he wanted her to go. For now, he decided, he would do the following. "Yes, it is." He tossed another branch into the flames. "I'm glad you like it. How do your feet feel, was the climb too much?" Calla did not answer his question, she just stared into the flames, Daniel understood that it was more than merely possible that she would not tell him if she were in pain. As the Cha'Dech, it was not her place to complain about such things. "I saw you heal Jo and Kanan, can't you heal yourself, Calla?"
Staring up at the stars she said; "Master must heal."
Daniel had already taken note of the signs that she was going to pull away from him, short choppy phrases were a perfect example. If she said no more than what was absolutely necessary she felt scared, as though just one single wrong word, one solitary syllable out of place, would bring down a violent retribution. "And Kanan?" Daniel encouraged as he held her hand in his own.
A small shiver went down her spine. "Never healed wounds he laid on me." Naganti Kanan would heal the wounds she had sustained during the normal course of her life, well if they were so deep as to require such special attention. Never did he heal the ones he laid with his own hands.
"Why?"
Calla sighed and gathered a bit of strength. "He wanted me to remember."
"Remember what you had done and what the consequence was?" Across the growing flames, Callas' head nodded. "I bet he did." The image of the women laying her in Kanan's bed after she had healed came to Daniel's mind. The look on the drained man's face as the women tucked her in next to him, how he had almost turned her away. The wound Jo had sustained was not life threatening but the gaping hole in Kanan's chest certainly was. What would have been the outcome if Kanan had not allowed her to be laid next to him? "I am Master now, Calla. Can I heal you?"
" Would you?"
" Yes. Will you show me how?"
"Touch me."
Daniel rose to his knees and crawled to where she was, he took her foot in his hand and undid the laces on the black boots. Her bandaged foot slipped from inside its hold. It had swollen and blood was weeping through the gauze. With a light touch, Daniel unwrapped the bandage and let it fall to the ground. Familiar pale blue eyes stared down at her as his soft palm closed around her tender flesh. There was a tingling, which began in his head and made its way down his neck and shoulder to his arm and finally the palm that was touching her skin. As it traveled down the length of Daniel's arm it grew in intensity, his vision blurred and his ears began to ring. At about his elbow the tingling sensation evolved as blue energy began to radiate through the pores of his own skin, it meandered its way down to his fingers and finally engulfed Calla's wounded foot. The sound of her sucking in a harsh breath rose his eyes from the light to look at her, she had fallen back against the Earth, her eyes slowly closed before him. When Daniel looked back, the flesh of her foot was pink and perfect once again. Calla lay motionless on the ground as he unlaced the other boot and placed his palm over the wounds, the blue energy did its work and when he took his hand away from her flesh, it dissipated completely. She slept on the ground before him for six or seven minutes before she woke. As she rested Daniel sat under the stars, watching over her. Gradually his head began to cease its spinning and the tingling sensation became nothing more than a memory. In utter amazement, Daniel looked at his own hands and saw no sign a wound, his feet felt fine.. Healing her was not the same as when she healed another, he did not take on her wound as she did but merely made its close in it on itself. Unlike Calla who seemed to need a bit of rest now, Daniel felt energized, invigorated, by the experience
Soon her eyes were rolling open and Calla struggling a bit to raise herself onto one elbow and off the ground. As she did, a faint and hesitant smile crossed her lips. "Thank you."
