Tanae || search
"C'mon Tan, just stay a little longer," Arlon begged, planting a teasing kiss on the back of her neck. Sweets hummed happily but still looked worridley towards home.
Tanae smiled but slid from his embrace and off his lap. "Sorry, not today. My mother gets mad at me if I stay out too late." And, she added silently, if I stay out too late with you.
Arlon's mouth quirked in a wry smile. "Ah, I remember what it was like to be fifteen. Mothers are the worst then. I'll see you tommorow then? On break? Here?"
Tanae smiled, nodded, blew him a kiss, and, collecting Sweets from his perch on the rock, started home. The air was humid, but not unbearably so. It was a perfect summer evening, the kind she'd prefer to spend outdoors with her Arlon and her friends. The moons wouldn't show their faces until much later, the sun hadn't even began to sink yet.
Usually, her mother wouldn't have set such a strict curfew. Before Arlon, there hadn't been any curfew. Now, she had to be home for dinner every night or be grounded.
"Why do I have to be home so early?" Tanae complained as she opened the door to the cothold her family shared with another two others. "It's nice out, and who knows when we'll get another nice day like this?"
"My bets are on tommorow," her mother answered from the kitchen. "You know very well why you have to be home so early. If you want to stay out late you will have to stop seeing that twenty-turn-old."
Tanae's eyes flashed. "You and Da are more than five turns apart, mother. Why is it any different for me and Arlon? Why can't you just keep your nose out of my personal life?"
"Because, young lady, I was not a fifteen turn old girl fooling around with an older man! If you were twenty and he were twenty-five, like your Da and I were when we met, it would be another story. But he is too old for you, Tanae. Men like him want more than it is right for a fifteen-turn-old to provide."
"It is not a different story!" Tanae shrieked. "We love eachother! What's five sharding turns? In five turns, I'll be twenty, and he'll be twenty-five, and until then you can pretend we haven't met, and we aren't together."
"You may be in love," her mother's voice softened, "with all the love any girl brings to her first love. But you're just another girl for him. You're not his first, nor will you be his last, and someday, maybe someday soon, he's going to get bored with you. He'll move on, and leave you heart-broken. I don't want that to happen to you."
"He will not!" Tanae shrieked, louder than the first. "He loves me! You watch, we'll get married!" Sweets gave a squawk of protest and nearly lost his balance on her shoulder as she spun on her heel and, kicking the door open, ran back to the lake.
Arlon was where she had left him, still sitting on that rock next to the lake. Only now he had a different woman seated on his lap and, as she approached, the woman drew back from a long kiss and suggested they go find a secluded bush somewhere. Tanae stormed up to them. "What in Faranth's name do you think you're doing, Arlon?" she demanded.
"Your sister?" the woman asked, looking down the end of her tanned nose.
"My...uh...heh, this is really funny, see, she's my..." Arlon stammered, eyes flicking from the woman to Tanae.
"I'm his girlfriend," Tanae finished for him. "And you are?"
"Aren't you a bit young for him?" the woman cooed as if to a babe.
"I... I..." It was Tanae's turn to find herself speechless. She satisfied herself with a glare. "That doesn't matter. He's mine."
"Look Tan, I really like you and all, but I'm looking for something more...adult...than a snuggle and a kiss every now and then," he winked at the woman sitting on his lap and was rewarded with a kiss. "We can still be friends, but Esdri and I are better for eachother."
Tanae bit her lip, willing the tears not to well up in her eyes. "Yeah, well I understand," she managed to choke out before turning around and running before either of them could see her cry.
Sweets launched himself from her shoulder as they ran, flying at her shoulder level, chirping worridley and trying to console his human, though he couldn't quite grasp why she was so sad.
Tanae just kept running. She wasn't sure where she was running too, and she didn't particularily care either. She definetly wasn't going home. She wasn't about to admit that her mother had been right to her face. All she wanted was to put as much distance between Arlon and Esdri as possible.
When she stopped, it was because her sides ached horribly. It was twilight now, and she realized with a start that she had no idea where she was. While she was looking for any sign of her cothold, she started running back the way she had come and caught her foot in the hole she had avoided earlier. With a cry of shock and pain, she fell to the ground.
Sweets gave a similar cry and shot towards the ground, chittering worridley as he nuzzled her face and then waddled down to her foot and nuzzled it. Even the light touch made her wince and Sweets chittered louder.
Cursing her clumsiness, Tanae gave him an image of herself lying there to show to her mother's flit and sent him home for help. The moment he winked between, she thought better of it and almost called him back, but that was her only hope of getting help and getting home.
Tanae heard men's voices and tried to drag herself out of the open. They were probably friendly, but she didn't want to meet them like this if she wasn't. She hit the foot on a rock, though, and couldn't keep in a cry of pain.
"Didja hear that fellas?" one of the men, obviously drunk, asked. Tanae held her breath, though her heart was thudding away so loudly she was sure they could find her simply by listening to that.
"It's comin' from over there," another, equally as drunk, answered, this one closer. There was rustling and muffled cursing in the bushes, accompanied by drunken laughter, and then four rough looking men burst onto the trail where Tanae lay.
"Lookee here!" one of them crowed. "Whatsa purdy lil' girl doin out here all alone in the middle o' the road?"
"Dunno," the first one replied, "but I say we have ourselves a bit o' fun, eh guys?"
Tanae tried to back away. "Now, you stay away from me. If you lay a finger on me my Da'll kill you!"
The fourth man advanced, grinning drunkenly. "I'm not to worried about you're Da, he'll never know." She tried to stand up but collapsed. The man grabbed her by the arm and clapped his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. "She's a fiesty one," he commented to his friends.
Tanae bit down on the man's hand as hard as she could. He gave a bellow of suprise and staggered away. As soon as he let go, however, she fell to the ground. She opened her mouth to scream, but never got the chance. One of the men hit her hard on the head and she sank to the ground and into unconciousness.
When she woke, she was laying on the grass. It was very cold, and she realized with a start that she was stark naked. Even worse, there was a man standing over. "Where are my clothes?" she demanded, bringing her knees up to cover herself. This brought unexpected pain and she was horrified to find blood on her belly and legs. "Where are those men?"
The man standing above her handed her clothes, but not her clothes. They were all leather, riding gear like the man was wearing. She glared at the man until he turned around and then greatfully pulled them on. "What happened?"
"Those men..." he began, shaking his head sadly. "You were raped. If Siyeth and I hadn't gotten here sooner..." he shook his head again, as if he couldn't believe it.
"I was what?" Tanae exclaimed. "Where's Sweets? Why didn't Sweets protect me?"
The man produced a pinkish bundle from inside his jacket. Tanae gasped as Sweets raised his bandaged head. "One of the men caught him when he tried to help you and got him pretty bad."
Tanae took the tiny flit and cradled him to her chest. He uttered tiny peeps, barely stronger than those of a hatchling. "Those... those..." she couldn't find a word nasty enough to describe them and spat instead.
"Let Siyeth and I take you back to Falas. We can get you patched up and then we'll bring you back home," the rider offered.
Tanae shivered and shook her head. Her father wouldn't take her back now. "No, you can't. I... I don't have any parents."
The rider's face softened. "Well then, I'm sure there's a foster mother I can take you back to."
"I ran away because she used to sell me," she lied. "Please don't take me back to her!"
The rider gave a snort of disgust. "How a nice girl like you gets mixed up with such rotten people," he sighed. "Well, I suppose we can find a place for you at Falas." He paused for a moment, then a grin slowly spread over his face. "Maybe as a Candidate?"
Tanae's heart jumped. "A Candidate? Me?"
"Of course," the rider told her, lifting her up and starting down the trail. Tanae was too weak to protest and all the defiance poor Sweets could offer was a weak chirp. "I'm P'mir, by the way."
"Tanae," Tanae replied. She was so tired and the rider's steps lulled her to sleep. Before she knew it, she was asleep, her head resting on P'mir's chest.
If you weren't my rider, Tanae awoke to a voice much like P'mir's in her head, though it was obviously meant for the rider, I'd think all men were disgusting.
P'mir nodded and, putting Tanae down on the dragon's back, climbed up and seated himself behind her. She leaned back and fell asleep again, not noticing as the blue launched himself from the ground and winged his way skyward. She didn't even notice the cold of between.