Her weeping grew louder and she began to frantically scrub at her face with one hand as if trying to wipe something away.
He’d already cleaned her face while she was unconscious, removing the thick coating of dust and blood that had covered it like a mask. Perhaps she was unaware that it was clean, but her movements were jerky, like she was growing more panicked by the second.
“This is real,” she said, rubbing harder at her soft skin until it turned an alarming red shade that was almost as bad as the black and blue colors that covered most of her body. “This is really happening to me. It’s not some nightmare. Oh…god… the blood. The blood!”
He had no idea what to do for her. Her words made no sense to him, but the rising volume of her voice spoke of growing hysteria.
When she collapsed from her crouch onto her generous, tailless rump, he stepped closer to her, deeply concerned now because her behavior was growing more erratic. He actually preferred her fighting back by biting him or trying to escape, though she would not have gotten far.
This… this was frightening. His drahi was breaking down, and he could say nothing to soothe her. Nothing that she would understand. He watched her rock back and forth, her arms wrapped around her legs, rending the seams of the sitak even further until the material flapped open to expose the damaged flesh of her side.
Another slow, careful step towards her had her jerking her gaze upwards to stare at him, her eyes open so wide he saw the strange whiteness completely surrounding her eyes. Her equally strange round pupils were so dilated they nearly blotted out the dark brown color of her eyes.
She flinched and scooted further from him when he leaned forward, reaching out a hand to her, hoping she might see the move as the soothing gesture he intended, rather than as another opportunity to chomp on him.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, shaking her head violently from side to side. “Don’t touch me!” Her whispered alien words turned to a loud shriek that appeared to repeat the same pattern. Her hand scrubbed at her face again. “It’s there. I can feel it. I can smell it! I can taste it. It’s… it’s everywhere. Mine will be next. My blood will be everywhere!”
“Vaka-iv,” he said in a low voice that he hoped would be comforting to her. She undoubtedly didn’t understand that he wanted her to calm herself, but it was an automatic response to a panicking yan-kanat. “Vaka, drahi.”
She huddled into a tighter ball, pulling her legs so hard against her chest that he wondered how it didn’t hurt her, given her wounds. His attempt at calming her only caused her to rock faster, turning her head so he couldn’t see her face.
He backed away several steps and noticed that the tension in her body relaxed slightly, her arms loosening around her legs, but her shivering continued.
Though the temperature of the cave was comfortable to him, she might be too cold, despite putting out so much heat from her body that he wanted to hold her against his scales to soak up that warmth. He used the nixirs’ body heat to track them in complete darkness, but he had never realized how good that warmth felt when pressed against his own body, until he’d held his drahi.
He retreated from her until he stood on the other side of the inferno stones, grabbing up his crock. He quickly rinsed the dregs of the xirak from the container and splashed in some more vandiz to set it on the stones. As it rapidly warmed, he dug out a pouch of yanhiss, the fungus powder that warmed the insides and soothed the spirit when drunk. The Ajda had given the yan-kanat the gift of yanhiss, since they did not have the yan—inferno—of the gods inside them to keep them warm in the cold.
He prayed to the Ajda that the yanhiss would put an end to his drahi’s shivering and calm her nerves as it did for the yan-kanat.
Even with the heat of the stones, it seemed to take forever for the draught to fully steep, dissolving the powder completely into a dark, greenish liquid that smelled of mushrooms. He added a few drops of ane tree sap to soften the bitterness of the yanhiss. It was his preference for that bit of sweetness to make the drink palatable that he hoped his drahi shared, since he could not ask her if she wanted him to flavor her drink.
As he made the drink, his drahi sat on the other side of the stone ring, rocking and muttering to herself in her language. Occasionally, she would rub her face, but her movements had already grown less frantic when he’d backed off and given her space.
With the drink prepared, he rose to his feet to carry it to her. He paused in a crouched position that he might use for the low tunnels, when he noted her tense up again. Her wide-eyed, damp gaze shot to him, before darting away as she seemed to curl in upon herself.
He sank deep into his crouch, tilting his head so he could still see her, but was not meeting her eyes or looking directly at her. Though it went against everything in him to do so, he bared his neck and brought his shoulders inwards, careful to keep his spines flattened in submission and his tail tucked tightly. Then he shuffled towards her, awkwardly folding his body nearly in half to keep his head lower than hers as he approached her.
It was humiliating to show submission to anyone. To a nixir, most of all. But this was no armored creature, carrying an alien weapon and a desire to kill. This was a fragile, soft female, as delicate as a newly opened blossom. This was his drahi, and there would never be another, even if he dishonored himself by rejecting Seta Zul’s will in order to be with Farona. If he handled this wrong, due to his own pride, then he would lose her forever. His bitterness and resentment had already driven her to this point as he’d failed to notice the signs that she was breaking down until it was too late.
When she flinched, even at his submissive approach, her body tightening up again, he immediately set the crock down in front of him. Then he slid it towards her with two fingers, barely touching it. He kept as much of his body away from her as possible.
“Zarken, Ssarah,” he said in the softest voice he could manage. “Vaka-iv. Zarken.”
Her wary gaze shifted from him to the crock, then she turned her head away again. Though frustration filled him and he wanted to simply grab her and force her to drink the yanhiss, his still throbbing hand told him that would only cause more problems with his drahi. Instead, he backed away, maintaining his low crouch and submissive posture.
It wasn’t until he was on the other side of the stone ring that she finally turned to look at the crock again, shooting suspicious glances his way as he sat as still as possible on the other side. With cautious, yet still jerky movements, she reached down and picked up the crock. Slowly, she lifted it towards her mouth, pausing with it hovering in front of her face.
The delicate nostrils below her jutting nose flared several times, and her mouth twisted in a look that he suspected was distaste. The shivering in her body was so bad now that the liquid sloshed over the lip of the crock.
“If bad things are going to happen to me,” she said in a quivering voice, “then I’d rather be drugged than be alert when I suffer them.” Then she took a cautious sip.
He suspected she’d spoken a prayer to her gods before taking a sip of a drink that had to be unknown to her. No doubt she was dehydrated, and the yanhiss would help with that too.
“Not as bad as it smells,” she muttered, then took a larger drink.
Relief filled him as she continued to drink, no longer speaking her incomprehensible words. One of the elder priests might recognize and even speak her language—most likely Elder Arokiv—but he would not know for certain until he returned with her to the temple to complete his mating quest, now that he had discovered the nixir that was making the urvak zayul uneasy.