Grey Eagle - Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Consciousness filtered in gradually, a familiar headache warning him not to move. They'd done it to him again. He moaned softly and rolled over, opening his eyes. Sharsa was sitting on the floor close by, leaning against the wall, watching him.

He sat up reluctantly, his head banging protest. He ignored it as best he could and it subsided some. "That figures."

"What's that?"

"You're here. You were around the other times too." He closed his eyes, laying his head against the wall.

"Arion, you did it to yourself."

He laughed, winced. "Right. I just up and decided to clobber myself."

"You've done it before. You just don't remember."

"Sharsa," he said irritably, confused and frightened, "I can barely remember waking up this morning. I don't know why you want to lie about whatever it is you're doing to me - I obviously can't stop you."

He looked about and noticed he had no tray. "I don't get to eat today?" he asked then. "Or I did that already? That's a good way to skip a meal. I can't remember so I can't argue. I'm always hungry anyway, so I shouldn't even know the difference. Not that knowing could change anything anyway." He suddenly realized he was babbling and fell silent, sulking instead.

"It's too early to eat. You're hungry because your body is used to a certain number of calories, but you won't burn that many in here. You don't need it. You woke up, played an interesting song, and sat for a minute. Then you got up and ran through the doorway. I don't know why, you just did. So I came and put you back in. You really ought to quit doing that. It isn't good for you and there isn't any point."

Arion shook his head. "And all this time I've been telling myself what a good liar you are. Can't you do any better than that?"

"No, I can't. It's the truth."

"Right. And just how are you supposed to know what I was doing if you weren't already here?"

"Video," he replied, his surprise indicating the obviousness of the answer. "I record everything that goes on in here. We have sensors that signal when there's movement, making it easier to scan the record, and an alarm for the doorway." His ears tilted backward and he said with some hurt, "It wouldn't be much of a study if I was limited to the little bit of time we're able to share together, now would it?"

Arion glared at him for a moment, then slumped against the wall. "Wonderful. But that doesn't send me through that blasted doorway," he countered defensively. "You're doing something, and I don't know what, but you can't sit there and tell me that it's my fault!"

Sharsa sighed and shook his head. "You have dreams when you're awake," he said, changing the subject.

Arion froze, startled. Awake?

"You had a rather bad dream the other day," Sharsa persisted. "What was it?"

"You're the homologist. You figure it out."

He looked at him for a moment, then said, "I thought the mythra would cheer you up. It seems to have done the opposite."

Arion looked up sharply, bitter. "So that's it. You need an excuse to take the mythra." He dropped his eyes, desperately wanting to grab it and hang on, but unwilling to give him the satisfaction.

Sharsa rose, his ears well back in a rare show of irritation. "I didn't do it, Arion, and if you want to keep the mythra, that's why I had it sent over. I'm just trying to understand, but you're determined to hate me. I'll be back later with your meal." He turned abruptly and left.

Arion drew the mythra to him, refusing to be sorry Sharsa had gone, yet knowing it was his own fault that he had. But he still had the mythra, and that was the important thing. If Sharsa was mad, so much the better.

He closed his eyes and clung to the instrument, leaning his face against the neck. He felt tired, ill and disordered. Sharsa could pretend what he wanted, but he hadn't done this to himself. Even so, it was a comfort to know he still had a meal coming...

When it came, Sharsa also brought with him a small, portable monitor. He set it down and handed Arion the tray. "I decided to prove to you I didn't do it," he said, his earlier annoyance gone. "You can hear the song too. I have some questions about it."

He turned it on and Arion watched, fascinated, chills running up his spine. It was eerie, and frightening. Most of the song had been written the day before, but he had no memory of completing it, or singing it. Then, just as Sharsa had said, he stood up and ran through the door.

He had an awful feeling that he had been trying to kill himself, and the sight of his own crumpled body lying just beyond the doorway disturbed him deeply. Sharsa turned it off. "Do you remember now?"

"Part of the song," he said, shaking his head, subdued. "From yesterday. It wasn't finished yet."

"You made it?"

He nodded.

"Any idea why you ran through the door?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "No. But I believe you now. And thanks for the mythra."

"Your welcome. I noticed you took it with you."

Another pause, and he nodded, remembering the picture on the screen but not why he'd taken it. "What made you think of giving it to me?"

"You sing a lot. And humans seem to like toys."

"Toys... Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it."

"Tell me something. Whenever I try to do something nice for you, you try to escape. But when I don't, you don't. Why?"

He frowned. "Do I? I hadn't realized..." Was that what he had been trying to do? "Maybe I just feel better enough to try again. Or something. I don't really know." He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work the ache away. "Not very appreciative of me, huh?" He looked at Sharsa, worried again that he might take the mythra away.

"I see. The measure of a successful gift." He smiled, forgiving.

"Something like that," he answered, relieved. He smiled back, feeling guilty for returning Sharsa's kindness with trickery. The guilt annoyed him, for he had no business feeling it.

"The mythra made you feel better then?"

"Yeah."

"But the words you sang were not happy."

"No, not happy," he agreed, uncomfortable.

"How do sad words make you feel better?"

He smiled at that, because it struck him as a good question, and because it held no danger in answering. "Mostly because I was singing to God, and it helps to tell Him when you're feeling bad. Singing is a good way to talk to Him because you're speaking with more than just your head."

He nodded, but didn't look like he understood. "You mentioned a female. Who is she?"

"Chelsea," he answered, frowning again.

"Pretty name," he offered. When Arion didn't answer, he asked, "She's your partner?"

"My wingmate? No." The image was so amusing that he almost smiled. Chelsea wouldn't be caught dead in a career, vigorously insisting that homemaking was a legitimate, natural occupation. She had no intention of letting someone else raise her children - once she had some.

"She is your companion then?"

"Was," he corrected him. "Sort of." Chelsea's homemaking ideals had included a husband who wasn't at daily risk of immediate demise. She was adamant that he quit the Gadamista before they got married, and he had staunchly refused. The relationship had already had it, they just hadn't done anything about it. The thought was not a comfort.

"I'm sorry. I'm upsetting you again, but I'm really very interested. I'm only trying to understand, okay?"

Obviously it's not okay, he thought bitterly, but if I refuse, you'll leave. "It's your show," he said, keeping his voice mellow.

"You said something else I didn't follow. I thought your soul couldn't die."

"It can't... Doesn't," he answered slowly, understanding the question, but neither sure of the answer, nor wanting to give it.

"Explain?"

"Just... Just asking, that's all. It wasn't meant for you to understand anyway."

"You feel your god is leaving you?" he asked gently, ignoring the hint, yet seemingly genuinely concerned.

Arion didn't answer. He loved to talk about God, but his inner plight was deeply personal, and he was ashamed of it as well. To top it all off, he had shown Sharsa exactly what he needed to hide.

Sharsa tried again. "You can't feel him anymore?"

This hit home painfully, and he gave a short, hard sigh. "I can still feel Him," he said defensively. "It's just.. harder." He shrugged unhappily. "Maybe I expect too much."

"What do you expect?"

He met his eyes, surprised by the question. Surprised, too, that he didn't know the answer. He looked down then at Sharsa's boots. "I expect Him to get me out of here," he said at last.

"But I thought he only cared about your spirit, not your body."

"Like I said, maybe I expect too much." He sighed, depressed and vaguely frightened, and put his head down in his arms.

"So when you expect too much, then he leaves?"

He lifted his head slightly, sighing again, but didn't look up. "If you're too busy looking for what you want, instead of what He wants, then it's hard to hear Him. It's not that He isn't there, you just sort of forget how to listen."

"What He wants? Again, I thought he only cared about your soul. He tells you what to do?"

"Not really," he answered, digging within, seeking an answer for himself. "You're just supposed to do the best you can, and you're supposed to know by what feels right... Only nothing feels right anymore. I can't do anything right."

"I thought he was supposed to make you feel better. Now he's making you feel worse."

"No," he said firmly. "It's not Him, it's me. I'm screwing up somehow. Only..." I'm not supposed to be able to.

Sharsa shook his head, perplexed. "Sounds rather unfair to me."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Why? Because I haven't got a soul?" he asked, insulted again. "If that's the way it works, you'd be better off without one too."

Arion stared at him, abruptly hateful. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? That's what you want."

"Oh, Arion, no... I didn't mean it like that." He was highly apologetic, very nearly groveling, wounded by the intensity of Arion's eyes. "I just meant that, well, you seem so upset... So unhappy, and all because of this soul thing. I just don't see what good it does, having it."

Arion relented then, remembering who he was talking to. "Yeah," he said, shrugging. "I guess it's only natural that you wouldn't want something you're not meant to have."

"...Is this what causes the bad dreams?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" he said irritably, trying to dismiss an unwelcome topic. "You've got nothing to do with anything."

"The dreams are my fault?"

"Just forget it, okay?" He was angry with himself, with Sharsa. He was blowing it, and he knew it. He didn't know how to think anymore, but if he didn't talk, Sharsa would leave. And if he left, he'd only get worse, and then he'd blow it anyway... He put his head down again. No wonder he couldn't think anymore. Crud.

"Did you play a lot of music at home?" Sharsa asked quietly.

"No. Not really," he answered from within his arms. "Just on my own, in my spare time. ...I had a cithara."

"Cithara?"

He lifted his head, making the effort so Sharsa would stay. "Yeah. Kind of like this, only older. Very old, actually. Not mine; mine wasn't old, but they go way back. My namesake had a cithara, so when I was a kid, I wanted to learn too. But I like the mythra better."

"And who was your namesake?"

Arion barely smiled, both touched and troubled. Sharsa was obviously returning to a comfortable subject for him, but he felt manipulated too. "Well, oddly enough, his name was Arion... Back on Earth, they had stories for many of the constellations. When they came here, they named a lot of the new constellations after favorite old ones, and the stories came along too. Arion was the main character in the story behind Delphineus."

"Delphineus? Isn't that your little boat?"

He nodded. "Hovercraft, yeah, but she was named after the constellation."

Sharsa laughed. "You humans sure do get complicated when you name things!"

He smiled slightly. "Well, not always. It's just one of my hobbies I guess. Maybe because my name had such a good story. It just always sort of appealed to me. When I was little, I wanted to be Arien, the eagle, but my mother insisted that I was Arion. Same sound, different spelling," he added for Sharsa's confused look.

"So what's the story?"

He smiled more fully then, accepting the opportunity to discuss a safe topic. "Arion was a poet and a musician, and a real good one too. He went to a festival where they were having a music and poetry contest, and he took first place in everything. When the festival was over, he got on a ship to sail home. The sailors saw the prizes he'd won, and they got jealous. They decided to kill him and take it all for themselves."

"The sailors? What were they?"

"Oh, they were humans too, but a long, long time ago, and back on Earth. Satan was still loose in those days and humans killed each other a lot. Pretty weird when you think about it. The stories back then are mostly about good guys and bad guys, but they were all human."

"Now you have new bad guys to fight."

He smiled slightly. "Yeah."

"So what happened next?"

"Well, Apollo appeared to him in a dream, warning him about the sailors, and promising him His protection."

"Apollo. That's one of your names for god, right? Doesn't he protect you all the time?"

"Well, he was promising to protect his body. He can if He wants to. If there's a good reason... Anyway, so the next day, when the sailors attacked him, he asked them for a last wish. Last wishes were pretty important to them, so they said yes. His last wish was to play one last song on his cithara.

"Well, he played a song so beautiful and so sad that a school of dolphins came to listen. When he finished his song, he jumped in the water to get away from the sailors. They didn't care, because they thought he'd drown, but one of the dolphins rescued him and carried him to Cape Taenarum.

"From there he made it home to Corinth. He complained to the king, and when the sailors got back, they were punished and all his prizes were returned to him. And the dolphin, for saving Arion, got his very own constellation, Delphineus."

Sharsa smiled. "That's quite a story! No wonder you like names that mean something."

"It is what started it."

"Well I'm glad the mythra suited you so well. I had no idea. But I hope it does a better job of cheering you up than it has so far."

He smiled and gazed at it, rubbing his thumb against the edge of it. "It really does help. Just... Just makes me homesick, I guess."

"Mmm. ...Well, I really should be going now. No more jumping through doorways. You'll be all right. You'll see."

Arion smiled again. "Thanks, Sharsa." He truly did feel better now, even though nothing had changed. Sharsa left and he sat quietly, tinkering with the mythra, musing over the conversation.

He thought about his mother, about his childhood and the stories she used to tell him. She had been taken when he was eight, galvanizing his desire to join the Gadamista - to fly free when the venators attacked, rather than hiding, trapped within a hole... Ignoring Sharsa's "eyes," he sang for himself, playing a song he had written aboard the Arlemagen.