“Vile,” I reply, as fury runs through me at the very thought of anybody daring such an attack on the woman I protect.
“Honestly, probably the easiest of all the injuries I’ve sustained over the years. That one only had me off work for three weeks, and I got a conviction out of it, so I’m happy.”
She has lived the life of a warrior. She is tough. She is hardened by pain. But she responded to my punisher regardless. There is a contradiction about this woman. There is softness and harshness all wrapped up and combined together.
At the crash site, I was too wounded, furious and ashamed of my newfound weakness to appreciate anything beyond her obvious need for rescue. Now I see so much more.
Ariel turns her head away from me so she cannot make eye contact with me. These humans are very influenced by the gaze of another being. A simple look can make her heartbeat rise, her cheeks change color, set off an entire internal chain of miniature explosions deep in the core of her nervous system.
I never thought much about humans before this moment. I knew of them, but their delights and their sensitivities and their strangeness were hidden beyond the facade of barely-evolved primate they all wear.
* * *
Ariel
I do as I am told and I lie there, naked, allowing the alien doctor to do alien doctor things to me. I suppose there’s worse things that have happened to me. One time I was accosted by a man whose insides were partially on his outside, who kept grabbing at them and then screaming “FUCK ME”. That was the least I have ever been aroused.
This is… I don’t know how this makes me feel. Small, exposed, and entirely without choices. King Brawn is the first person in the history of people, or people-adjacent entities who has ever made me do anything I didn’t want to do as an adult.
As a cop, I had an uneasy relationship with the brass, made easier by the fact my captain was a corrupt drunk who barely noticed what was going on in the precinct. And holy fuck, was there some stuff going on in the precinct.
These thoughts distract me from the situation, which would otherwise be almost unbearably embarrassing. The way the king’s golden eyes roam my body is almost physically feelable. Is that how you say that? I mean, it’s like a sensation I can feel even though it is only his eyes on me.
The doctor is taking his time, moving about, touching instruments and then putting them back down again. Maybe there’s something he can do for me. Maybe my life can be less painful. Maybe in a lot of ways. For the first time in what seems like forever, I feel the oddest sensation of hope creeping through me.
The doctor gets back to work, and I notice that King Brawn does not leave. He stays where he is, big arms folded over his massive alien chest, his expression impossible to read when I dare look at it. There's something about the way his eyes are made, that slitted pupil, that makes it very hard for me to understand his motivations. I was made to understand the eyes of humans. I can tell his anger easily, but the rest of his feelings? I’m guessing at them.
The doctor makes little more in the way of comments. He works as much as he can without touching me. Scans sweep back and forth over my skin, and I see a stream of data being compiled behind him.
“I believe she is a healthy human specimen,” he says, finally.
“Hah!” I can’t help exclaiming when I hear those words.
“Does that amuse you for some reason, Ariel? Do you know something we don’t?”
I may have trouble reading him, but he does not have any trouble at all reading me. He looks like a big, dumb brute, but there is nothing dumb about him.
“I’m sure you know more than me,” I say. “But I’m cleared. So we can stop prodding me and let me get back to… whatever it was I was doing.”
“You were being rescued from your world.”
“Yes. Thank you for that.”
What will he do with me now? I refused his riches and his goats. I may very well have insulted him in the process. He has already punished me for disobedience. But I don't know how long he’s planning on doing that. Not forever, probably. A king like him is likely to get bored sooner or later. Probably sooner. He obviously feels some obligation to help me because I sort of helped him, but also really kind of didn’t.
“Can I put my clothes back on?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Certainly not those clothes. I do not like them on you. Now that I have seen your naked form, there are far better garments. I will have something brought for you. Wait here.”