The Archaeological Chronicles - The New World

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Is this a place that I call home?

To find what I’ve become,

Walk along the path unknown,

We live, we love, we lie.

--

Kai'ine

This is the day we arrive on Ter’ais.

I told her seven days.

I lied.

One simple reason for that, she gets comfortable with the idea that she’ll stay on this ship longer until she has to deal with another planet.

If I bring it to her as a surprise, she’ll first off be really angry – which is a good thing – and then be confused for at least an entire day.

She won’t have time to panic then.

Maybe some shorter moments of panic will grip her throughout the day, but she won’t have time to panic more.

She’s still dead asleep. I was foolish enough to think that humans sleep soundly and calmly. Apparently, they do not.

She’s been turning, kicking and almost jumping around in her sleep. When I touched her forehead, to check if she was actually awake, no, dead asleep.

She’s currently sleeping with her back to me, still entangled in my arms.

Luckily for both of us, I have long arms. Her constant moving will not affect the grip I’ve had on her throughout the entire night.

I realize that even if her brain hasn’t suffered any immediate trauma, she really likes to sleep.

Reminds me of that odd animal on the Earth, a slodge? Sloth? Something like that.

She untangled the braid I braided yesterday and slept with her hair loose. Her mouth is slightly opened, and her breathing is deep.

Zuki links me, sending a wave across my body. ‘’Landing in four hours,’’. She informs.

I close my eyes momentarily. I cannot wait to be back home again. It’s been too long. The whole pandemic thing kept me confined to the Earth for over two years.

I run my black claws through Mai’yri’s hair idly.

When I first met her, two years ago – unbeknownst to her – her hair was much shorter. Her face has changed as well. She looks more like an adult now, compared to what she did two years ago.

Our meeting was random, and not supposed to happen. She was on a run, funnily enough, on the same hiking trail I caught her two years later. It was only for a moment. I saw her for a brief thirty seconds. As she passed our team, her smell hit me first.

Then her thoughts that nearly screamed out to us. Her thoughts were troubling her so much that the thoughts themselves were so loud that we could hear them.

I just knew by then, that I had to see her at least one more time.

For reasons I am not capable of admitting to myself.

When it was time to leave the Earth, I could not forget about that human. The run she went on, that day two years ago, is the reason why she’s here now.

I would have never seen or taken another human. The meeting was random and now it has evolved to something much less random.

She stretches slowly and yawns. The shirt I gave to her had risen up her thighs.

Judging by her heartbeat, she’s waking up.

If I want to avoid dragging her into the bathroom, I make a quick decision. I lift her gently from the bed, and a groan of displeasure leaves her lips immediately.

I chuckle to myself as I stare down at her.

Beautiful.

‘’Mai’yri,’’ I murmur quietly.

Trying to wake her as slowly as possible, so that when we go into the bathroom her body won’t be in shape to react. This is to spare her mind. One could argue that if I just didn’t do it, her mind would also avoid more trauma.

If I don’t get her used to simple touches or nudity, her time on my planet will be very tough on her. We don’t show much emotion through our facial muscles, like humans do, but we show it by physical contact and our eyes.

I carry her towards the bathroom.

‘’Mai’yri, it’s time to wake up,’’ I murmur.

She only groans again. Deep sleeper, most definitely. She tries to turn around in my arms, still thinking that she’s in bed. A groan leaves her lips once again.

‘’Let me sleep,’’ she mutters in a breath.

When I place her feet on the warm tiles in the bathroom, she wakes up quite quickly. Her eyes open groggily. When she sees where she is, she wakes even more. Before her body even can react, I have removed her clothes and ushered into the shower.

‘’Wha-‘’ she murmurs sleepily.

When the warm water hits her naked skin, she tenses up and snaps her head in my direction.

‘’Exposure therapy,’’ I smile as I pull her resisting body directly underneath the shower-head.

She closes her eyes angrily and crosses her arms across her chest, trying to hide herself. I ignore her attempt to hide her body, I’ve already seen it so why bother hide it.

Humans are confusing.

I start lathering shampoo into her scalp, with her angry scowl still very prominent on her face.

While the conditioner is doing its thing in her hair, I clean the rest of her body. She tries to fight it, yet again. I only brush her hands, easily, away and continue cleaning.

By the time we’re done, she has angry tears in her eyes and refuses to meet my gaze.

I wrap her in a towel, while she tries to grab it and do it herself.

Foolish girl.

She has the towel tightly wrapped around her, as a shiver runs through her body. I fasten a towel around my hips, just to ease her mind a little, and walks towards the closet to grab a fresh set of clothes.

I quickly dress her, without little protest, and usher her to the bed. I make her sit down so I can work my way through her long hair. This is done without any words spoken to each other.

Which is quite fine by me.

I took notice that she liked a bit more colorful clothes, than we usually wear. I saw her looking at her pastel green robe yesterday, with interest in her eyes. She paid the white less attention and would sometime look down with hidden distaste.

High borns are usually only seen in white or white with pastel colors. This shows off our social status, as well as our hair color.

To please her in the most non-obvious way possible I found some pastel green trousers, white short sleeved shirt and pastel pink robe. I had intertwined a golden chain through her braid as well.

Now everyone knows that she belongs to a high born and is off-limits.

Satisfied with my work, I stood to my full length to admire it. She was beautiful, even with her death glare.

I leave her sitting on the bed as I changed into my clothes.

Mine was stark white today. From top to bottom. A thick golden chain with blue sapphires adorning it. I place a golden diadem with the same blue sapphires on top of my head, vanishing into the braid.

When I return to the room, she’s seated in the same spot I left her in.

Good.

‘’Feeding,’’ I announce without stopping, and head towards the door.

She followed reluctantly.

Good.

We walked into the dining room. She kept her distance and was at all times at least four steps behind me.

I pulled out a chair for her and she sat down in it quietly. She was oddly quiet today. Even I know that she isn’t done fighting me, by a long shot.

I placed a bowl and spoon in front of her and the box of Cheerios and oat milk followed shortly after. I started doing some work on the pad, and saw a link coming through from Zuuri.

‘’I found her medical records. Want me to retrieve them?’’.

Bingo.

Time to figure out why my little Viking had earlier trauma to her brain. I replied with a simple ‘yes’.

One hour until landing.

If she had paid any mind to her surroundings she could easily see outside the windows and see that we were in another galaxy, approaching Ter’ais. Which she has not.

‘’We’re landing today,’’ I finally say.

The food in her mouth gets stuck in her throat as she coughs heavily.

‘’You said seven days!’’ she cries as she stares helplessly at me.

‘’I lied,’’ I answer with a small shrug.

Ah, there it is. The anger.

She throws the bowl in my direction and I dodge it easily.

‘’You eat from those, not throw them,’’ I comment.

I should have waited to tell her after she was finished eating, I realize that now. She only snarl in annoyance and throw the carton of oat milk.

That was a close one. She’s getting better with her aim.

‘’I’m not going to your stupid planet!’’ she yells as she rises from the chair.

‘’You don’t have a choice,’’ I answer, not even looking up at her.

A second later a chair comes flying in my direction.

I dodge that one as well.

She’s panting heavily. Scared. Angry.

‘’Take me home!’’ she finally yells. ‘’Helvettes faenskap!’’ she yells in her mother tongue.

I have no idea of what she just said, but I can assume what it might have been. Nothing good.

‘’Yelling and throwing things will get you nowhere. Look outside the window, Mai’yri, we’re nearly there,’’ I say as I finally look up at her.

I point towards the window. She finally takes notice of it and another facial expression crosses her face; one I cannot decipher.

She starts tugging at the fastening of her braid. Frustration crosses her face. She takes a quick look in my direction, a devilish look on her face.

‘’Don’t you dare take that out,’’ I say sternly.

She narrows her eyes as she tugs it lose. That little fucker. She rips out the golden chain I braided in with the braids and throws it as far as she can. She then proceeds to throw the robe off and that was where my patience ran out.

I reach for her in an instant and grab her by the throat.

‘’Well then,’’ I hiss. ‘’It seems as if we need to fix that braid of yours,’’ I say threateningly as I lean in close to her face. She struggles wildly.

I force her knees to the ground as I tug her hair back.

‘’You better sit still,’’ I hiss.

She doesn’t. She tries to claw and kick whatever she can reach. I tug her hair even further back, craning her neck in an uncomfortable position.

The dining doors open with a burst.

‘’Brother!’’ Zuuri calls.

He sees the scene unfold in front of him and freezes in his tracks. I can see from where I’m standing that my little Viking is sending him a pleading stare. He looks at her, then back up to me.

‘’What happened?’’ he asks in our mother language.

‘’She had a little tantrum. Wasn’t happy with the landing,’’ I explain as I effectively braid her hair once again. His eyes look pained.

I can basically hear her thoughts running wild as her eyes fills up with tears.

‘’I got her files. We can look at them tomorrow. You won’t like it,’’ he explains as his gaze is glued to hers.

‘’Be gentle, brother,’’ he advices. ‘’You can go and prepare for landing, I can take care of her,’’.

I nod, gratefully.

There was a lot of things I had to put an order to before landing. When Zuuri and Mai’yri was in the study yesterday, I got loads of work done but there was still quite some left.

I finish her braid and it looks just as good as it did before she threw a tantrum. I let go of her hair and she immediately touch her head in pain.

I was too rough.

Zuuri motions his head to get her to follow him.

‘’Let’s go, Mai’yri,’’ he smiles and reaches his hand out to her.

She leaps to her feet, not even glancing back, as she runs towards him.

She doesn’t accept his hand.

They walk side by side from the dining room. I can see him smiling down at her, trying to cheer her up. The door closes and I’m left to myself.

I type quickly away on the pad and gets the work done within the hour.

***

I can hear the ships alarms going off, as it’s preparing for landing. Unbeknownst to Mai’yri, there was twenty people onboard this ship. We had our own quarters and I’ve only kept her here.

The ship was a bit larger than what she believed as well, by a lot.

I close the pad and make my way out of the dining room. I see my siblings standing before the exit of the ship, waiting for me. Zuki hisses at Mai’yri and Zuuri whacks her arm for it.

Those two.

I see that Zuuri had found another robe for Mai’yri. She now wore a pastel green one, matching her pants. It was quite beautiful.

She is too busy looking around her, confused and scared, to notice me. This is the first time I see her actually scared of the ship itself and the noises it makes as it prepares for landing. I stride towards them, firm steps.

Confident steps.

Mai’yri jumps a little when I reach for her hand. She tries to pull away, with no avail. I crouch down to her level. She’s really stressed out by now. I stare into her confused, teary eyes.

‘’You are safe,’’ I state.

Her eyes are all over the place, not meeting mine. I gently grab her chin, to force her to look at me. When her eyes meet mine, I feel an unknown source of pain erupt in my chest.

It hits me so hard, I nearly let out a grunt of pain.

Never felt anything like it.

Zuuri looks down at us with uncertain eyes. He saw that.

‘’You are safe,’’ I repeat. ‘’Stay by my side. No one will touch you,’’ I explain calmly. Making sure that she understands what I’m saying.

I brush some loose strands of hair behind her ear and get up to my original height. Still holding her shaking hand.

The alarm goes off a bit louder, and I swear she tightened her hold on my arm, and we landed with a thud. I had to steady her, otherwise she would have fallen.

The exit opens with a puff and I can already see the people awaiting us outside. Ready to greet us.

I’m home.