![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalNote: Not too many changes here, just some minor corrections and adding details from Shadow of Doubt.
* * *
“Do you want that anti-nausea patch now?” Rolas asked a few minutes later, as Melanie pushed herself up off the catamaran’s railing, wiping her muzzle clean with a wet washcloth.
“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled. Nevertheless she took the sealed packet from him, reading the warnings on the back carefully, before ripping it open and pressing it to the inside of her left ear. It was the most convenient spot if she didn’t want to shave a patch of fur off her pelt.
“As much time as you’ve spent in zero-g, I’m surprised that the ocean is bothering you so much,” Rolas said, helping her over to a padded bench at the fore of the catamaran.
“You don’t sway in zero-g,” Melanie replied. She looked out over the water, as the drugs settled her stomach. The catamaran was slicing west through the small chop at what Rolas assured her was a relatively quick ten kilometers an hour. The sun had set a half hour before, dropping below the horizon with a suddenness that had startled her. It had reminded her painfully of orbital sunsets she’d viewed from the bridge of the old Scarlet Claw.
“That’s a point,” he agreed. “I didn’t enjoy learning to spacewalk when I was doing my Service tour. The suits we had to wear always felt terribly claustrophobic, even with the 360 cam projections inside the helmets.”
“I never learned to handle zero-g. I spent my Service years with a forest mothering team,” Melanie said. “We got a lot of exercise picking up deadfalls during the spring, to lessen the chances of a forest fire.” She glanced sidelong at him. Rolas was sitting beside her, but keeping a slight distance from her side of the bench, his stance not encouraging a private cuddle at the moment. Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask the questions in her mind, but his mention of his Service years was the only opening she’d had since they had left dock. “Speaking of the Service, how did you ever meet that remarkable fellow, Cannonloader?”
“I don’t wish to discuss that,” Rolas said, his tone brooking little argument.
“I wasn’t asking about your sexual adventures, Rolas. I was asking how you met your friend,” Melanie pushed back, glaring at him.
“We were assigned to the same bunkroom,” he said, after a pause. “He’s a trained electrical engineer, and we both were assigned to the same maintenance team.”
“You know electronics?” she asked.
“No, but I could learn to run optical cabling through a conduits and set connections,” he said.
“That means you know electronics,” she concluded. “Stop putting yourself down, dear.” She smiled slightly, “So ‘No commitment implied or desired’ is that how you put it, when I asked you about your love life.” Back when Rolas had been her prisoner aboard the Scarlet Claw, a lifetime ago.
“I didn’t say Dak was my lover,” Rolas said tightly.
”No, but if you and he implied it any more firmly, I’d have to use claw polish remover to unglue you two.” Melanie shook her head. “Why are you acting all coy about this? So you’re bisexual. What of it?”
“I am not bisexual,” he replied, looking like he was fighting to get the growl out of his voice.
“I think your grasp of sexual orientations needs a brush up then, judging by the evidence.”
Rolas shot up from the bench, turning to glare at her. “Stop joking about this!”
“I’m not joking, I’m talking,” she shot back. “Why are you acting as if you should be ashamed of something? I didn’t think I was marrying a blushing virgin, Rolas.”
“I’m not ashamed of it,” he replied, starting to pace in front of her. “It’s just… that part of my life is in the past. It has nothing to do with who I am now.”
“Who you are now? Or who you have to be?” she asked. When he didn’t answer she went on. “How hard were your parents pressuring you, after Salli declared she’d never marry again? Your mother was going to need one of you to produce a grandcub to continue the family line. Once Salli declared herself out of the mating game, the responsibility fell to you.”
“I wasn’t ever pressured,” he said, but he refused to meet her eyes.
“What, no hints every time an unmarried vixen was mated to one of your friends? No expressions of disappointment when a birth announcement went out? I remember how your mother gushed when we asked her permission to marry. She’d been convinced the Darktail name was going to end with her.”
“And now it isn’t,” Rolas finished, cutting off her argument. “Salli and Ali will probably cook up a cub or two between them, and we’ll get started soon ourselves. Mother should have more than enough grandcubs to satisfy her.”
“You didn’t know that Salli would find Alinadar when you married me, Rolas. Did you do it out of love, or because you were trying get a little air to breathe in your mother’s presence?”
Rolas’ expression went from angered to stricken in an instant. “Love, Mel. Surely you don’t believe otherwise?”
“I have no doubts, Rolas. I was there when you charged a sniper’s nest, after I was shot.” Melanie rubbed the side of her head briefly, where the gauss needle had grazed her skull. A traitor in the employ of Countess Highglider, mother to Salli’s late, abusive, ex-husband, had been aiming for Salli and Rolas, and had shot her by accident. Melanie had been knocked out by the wound, missing the chance to see Rolas’ enraged charge across an open field in the direction of the shots. He’d been wounded in the arm, before reached the sniper and beating him unconscious with his working paw. When she’d finally awakened in the ambulance and gotten the full story, she’d been terrified. Rolas could have died protecting me.
“Thank you,” he said, looking relieved. “Anyway, this has nothing to with my mother. This has everything to do with you and me.”
Not quite, Melanie judged. She was missing too many pieces to this puzzle to see the image it hid. But she kept her peace for now.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” Rolas asked the next day, scraping dinner from the pan on the stove to a waiting plate. It was some sort of vegetable omelet that would have smelled heavenly any other time. Right now it was just making her stomach churn.
“No, sorry. I’ll just have some more crisps and water,” Melanie told him, her stomach growling unpleasantly. She tried not to sound churlish. She hadn’t known that Rolas could cook. It was a rare skill to find in a male. Most of the great chefs were vixens of course, keeping with the foxen tradition of a vixen’s dominion over the family hearth, and the rest of the household by extension.
Rolas eyed her with worry, as he passed over a package of digestive crisps and a plastic water bottle from the pantry. “Are you certain you’re not sick?” he asked. He sat down at the small table across from her, his own meal temporarily forgotten it seemed. “If you are we are, we can head back to dock and go home.”
How utterly tempting. But no, Rolas had dragged her on this trip to try and work things out between them. Cutting it short wouldn’t solve the problems they faced. “No, I’ll survive,” Melanie reassured him. She took a swig of water and gestured to his plate. “Eat please. You’ve been working in the sun all day.”
That had actually been quite enjoyable, sitting on the padded bench and watching Rolas man the wheel or fiddle with the sails. Most of it could be computer controlled, as he had told her, but he seemed to enjoy adjusting everything manually. Male’s work, also traditional, while a vixen captain kept her wise eye on the overall picture. Except that in this case Rolas was both the captain and the sole crew, while she was just a passenger. Something was not quite right there.
“So,” she said, as Rolas began chewing on his first bite of omelet. “You have questions for me. Ask away.”
“Mmm,” Rolas murmured, his mouth still full of food. He swallowed and said, “Some things has been bothering me, the more I thought about it, and not just about you and Alinadar.”
A lot of things had been bothering him, she judged. And not all about her old pirate life, if his reaction to Cannonloader’s appearance had been any indication. “Yes?” Melanie prompted.
Rolas set his fork down on his plate, staring at her. “How many people have you killed?”
The question so confused her for a moment that it took her several seconds to form an answer. “Killed? I’ve never killed anyone,” she said.
“Haven’t you?” he asked. His stare was unblinking, uncompromising. “Have you forgotten Ensign Dewclaw so quickly? I haven’t.”
She suppressed a wince. Dewclaw had been a young engineering mate on the Sallivera, the Darktail’s freighter. When she had been the Red Vixen, she’s been given a tip from the Sallivera’s first officer, Lt. Hotclaw, on the ship’s planned route and cargo manifest. As it turned out later Hotclaw had been in the employ of Countess Highglider, the Darktail’s enemy. But she hadn’t known that when she’d attacked Rolas’ ship, taking him captive and stealing the cargo. Dewclaw had been the only casualty in the operation, falling from a catwalk after being stunned, to land head first on the deck.
“That was an accident,” Melanie said. “I regretted it, but I wasn’t the one that pulled the trigger on the stunner. Nor was I the one that made the decision to resist when we boarded your ship.”
“You were the one that ordered the attack,” he pointed out. “Hardly an accident.”
“I apologized for it. I even wept when we visited his family’s memorial garden, if you will recall,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound testy.
“Fine, you regretted that one. What about the others?”
“What others?” she shot back.
“I distinctly recall you stating that you spaced several of the Scarlet Claw’s crew when you took over as its captain.”
“Just three,” Melanie said, feeling as if the ground was slipping out from under her. Not that there was any solid ground within a hundred kilometers of this suddenly too small boat. “Anyway they were very bad pirates. The sort that enjoyed the power they had over a helpless victim. Lt. Zan took care of that part, thank the Mother Goddess. Frankly I think he’d been looking forward to it when the change of command occurred. The ship’s previous captain was an unscrupulous fellow.”
“You’re honestly not seeing it, are you?” Rolas pressed.
“Seeing what?” she demanded.
Her husband crossed his arms over his chest, his stare unwavering. “You were the commander of that vessel. All actions by her crew were your responsibility. Melanie, you may have regarded it as a romantic hobby, but the command was real. As real as any Noble caste domain. The Scarlet Claw’s crew were effectively your leigesworn. And your actions hurt people. Innocent people. Dewclaw was one. Alinadar another, by your failing to her get proper aid. How many others died because you were bored with you responsibilities as a Foxen Lord, and wanted to play pirate?”
Melanie fought to hold down the contents of her stomach. It felt like it was being wrenched into a tight knot, the urge vomit nearly overwhelming her. “What would you have of me, Rolas?” she finally managed to say. “Should I confess my sins to the world? How many would be hurt then? The Stellar Patrol would have me in court on charges in a moment, and you and your sister along with me for conspiracy in concealing my crimes. There are too many secrets now, Rolas. Even with the Ministry of Justice knowing the truth, it’s still too dangerous to speak publically about this.”
“I know that. Why do you think we’re out here?” he asked. Rolas gestured around them. “No cameras, no microphones or microdrones, no one but us. The only way I could make things more private is if I put you in my lap and we went into orbit aboard in a singleship. I need to know how many people you hurt.”
Melanie was getting the nagging feeling that this was going all backwards. Rolas wanted a confession out of her, yes. So why did it seem he was picking at the scabs of his own wounds, rather trying to hurt her? Confession might be good for the soul, she thought, remembering the old human saying. She just wished she could figure out whether it was for her soul’s sake, or Rolas’.
“Twenty-five,” she finally answered.
“Twenty-five?” Rolas asked, cocking his head. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes,” Melanie said “There were those three pirate from the original crew of my ship, when I bought out the captain’s share. I lost five crew on various boarding actions, mostly from bad luck when the defending crews had heavier weapons than we were expecting. Then there was the raid Bloody Margo made on my original refueling outpost…” She swallowed, the memories coming back vividly in her head for a moment. “That was a bad day. I lost seven crewfolk that day. One of them dived in front of me when....”
She could still remember that moment quite clearly. The crazed, feral looking foxen child charging straight at her, a rifle nearly as big as she was in her arms. Then Gaz, who had never been part of the boarding or gunnery teams, just a cook’s assistant. Diving in front of her had Ali’s shot hit him in the chest, giving Lt. Zan enough time to raise his own weapon and take down Ali.
“When what?” Rolas asked softly.
“When I was attacked.” She waved off any further questions. “We killed eleven of Margo’s attackers, and took one captive. Ali.”
“Twenty-three,” Rolas added up. “That leaves two.”
“Yes. The twenty-fourth was your Dewclaw. The twenty-fifth was Margo’s second-in-command, Brutal Compton. By that time I’d taught Ali the value of using stunners when she defended me, but just that once I didn’t mind.”
“Wait,” Rolas said, looking confused. “I met Compton when he confronted us on Tylesha. You sent me back to my family and then raced ahead to meet me in your true identity. That can only mean you met him again when you were out raiding Countess Highglider’s shipping company.”
Oh, damn. She’d really meant to never bring this up. She could almost guarantee it would be bad for Rolas’ blood pressure. “Yes, well,” Melanie explained, “I ran into him again when the Scarlet Claw was docked at a refuelling outpost and I was trying to find more information about the Highglider shipping routes. I’d bumped into a mercenary pilot defending one of the Countess’ ship and had to, er, put him somewhere he couldn’t get into trouble. Anyway, to make a long story short, Compton got the drop on me and I was captured briefly. Fortunately Alinadar moved quickly and rescued me before they could do much more than rough me up a bit.”
Actually from the look on Rolas’ face, he had a good idea what almost had happened past the “roughing up” part. Damn.
“You never told me this,” he accused.
“No, because it would have upset you, and you had your own worries. Besides, it was over and done. Ali quite neatly shot Compton in the back while he was tormenting that poor mercenary pilot. I got away. Shortly thereafter the Red Vixen went into permanent retirement, and there was no way for Margo to connect her with Lady Melanie Darktail nee Lovejoy.” She sat back in her seat. “So, that’s twenty-five. Dewclaw was the only civilian casualty. His death…” She grimaced. “Between him and the knowledge of what I had done to your own family, that was enough to convince me it was time to retire the Red Vixen. Not bad, I think, for a ten year run.”
“And you remember them all?” he asked.
“The faces of my crew that I lost, and Ensign Dewclaw, yes.” She spread her paw, palm up, on the table. “What more can I do, Rolas?”
He sighed, the anger seeming to deflate from him. “I don’t know.”
* * *
The morning of their second day at sea found Melanie vomiting over the side of the railing again. Rolas watched her, arms crossed, shaking his head slowly.
“You’re certain you don’t want another nausea patch?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said weakly, turning back towards him and sliding down slowly, until she sat on the deck. It was wet of course. Melanie had found herself taking a shower yesterday afternoon and before bed, just to get the damned salt out of her pelt. The spray from the waves as the boat cut through the water tended to make everything above decks damp, leaving her fur and skin itchy. “I don’t want to take too many of them.”
“Why not? You can take two of them every day.” Rolas knelt beside her, fishing a waterproof packet containing another patch out of his pocket. Why would he be carrying one? Rolas had never shown any signs of seasickness since they’d come aboard this damned boat.
Because he’s worried about me, she realized. Which would be sweet under any other circumstances. Say, if they were on dry land. “Not… not right now, Rolas,” Melanie said, holding up a paw to ward him off. She got back onto her feet, grabbing onto the railing for balance.
“You’ve barely eaten a proper meal since we left the dock, but you nibble almost constantly,” Rolas said.
“I’ve been getting heartburn if I eat meals that are too heavy,” Melanie said, accepting his offered arm and toddling over to the padded bench. Rolas sat beside her, and didn’t move away when she leaned up against him. Good. She could feel as miserable as a half-drowned bleeder bird, so long as Rolas was still willing to be her body pillow.
He looked at her uncertainly. “Perhaps…. perhaps we should head back into port. You look miserable, Mel.”
“Given the reason we came out here, did you seriously expect me to be all smiles?” she shot back. Melanie grimaced and kneaded her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on. It could go with her stomachache. Not to mention her heartache. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that. No, we should stay out here. We need to get this all settled before we go back. I don’t want things to keep festering between us.”
“Yes, well…” Rolas eased her head down onto his bare chest. She sighed, listening to his heartbeat under his dark, sun warmed fur. “I think we’ve talked through everything we can at this point.”
“Not… quite,” she murmured. “It’s your turn.”
“Eh?” He looked at her quizzically, ears twitching forward.
“We talked about my sins and faults. Now it’s time to talk about yours. Fair?”
Rolas grimaced, and then nodded. “Fair. What exactly do you find displeasing about me?”
“My husband, the Count of Frustration; I’m not displeased with you, dear.” Melanie smiled at him sadly. “I thought when I first met you that you were acting like you were because of what old Countess Highglider was doing to your family. It wasn’t until after we were married that I realized you were like that all the time.”
Now Rolas looked dismayed. “I haven’t been…? I mean, have I been that unpleasant?”
“You’re… well, grumpy. Which is rather endearing in its own way. But I’ve always wondered what’s been at the heart of it…” Melanie’s voice trailed off.
It was a little like being stuck by a lightning bolt, Melanie thought, this sudden clarity. She'd been married to Rolas for two years now and she hadn't seen it before. What a fool she had been! "I always thought you were moody and broody because of having to deal with that lunatic countess your family was trapped under, but I'm betting you were always like this, because of Salli," she said.
"Of course it was about Salli, how could it not be? You saw her when you arranged for her treatment," Rolas said.
"Oh, no," Melanie said, grinning fiercely and lifting her head up off his chest to look him in the eye. "I don't mean about her being hurt. I mean it was always about Salli, wasn't it? Even before she married Kev Highglider, it was always about her."
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Normal young males don't go sailing in circles for six weeks with just their sailboat's AI for company. But you did. You had to, just get away from your family, or else go as mad as Salli. You were jealous."
Her husband's jaw dropped open. "What?" he asked, incredulous.
"You heard me. You were jealous. Do you remember how you first described her to me? I do. You said she was always ahead of you; Prettier, smarter, more charismatic. And of course she was a vixen and you were just male. She was your family's heir and you were expected to be her helper to administer the estate, leaving you to deal with all the fussy paperwork while she got all the attention and love of your commoners."
"I don't want to hear this," Rolas said. He stood up, frowning deeply.
"Oh, yes you do!" Melanie said, going on, relentless now as she stood up to face him. "Then she was betrothed to Kev Highglider, and you thought that finally things would go your way. She married up to a Countess' Heir. Sure, you'd still be her social inferior, but at least your family's domain would be all yours once your parents passed on. No big sister to trail after anymore. At last you'd be able to shine!"
"Stop this!" Rolas shouted.
"No!" she shot back "You need to hear it, because you know it’s true. You've just been hiding your anger all these years, pretending it was about Salli being hurt, when that wasn't it at all. Because just when you were settling in to the idea of being your family's Heir, she came back, mutilated and half mad because of the abuse she'd suffered under Kev Highglider, and all of a sudden it was all about her again. You couldn't even be angry about it because poor, poor Salli had suffered so. So you had to swallow it all down and be a good little boy, while your sister hid in her rooms and cried and cried that no one really loved her."
"Be quiet!" he shouted. “I don’t want to hear this!”
“Then once that was dealt with, she had to go back to the homeworld to get her eye fixed and watch over Ali when she went through that horrid cellular regeneration and recovery. You had a whole colony world to rule for over a year, but then she and Ali came back and you were expected to meekly hand the reins back to your big sister, because she’s the Heir and you were always, always going to have to settle for the leftovers!
Melanie stepped forward, paws pushing against Rolas' chest, forcing him back against the rail. "Let's face it, Rolas. When you saw what Kev had done to her, didn't make you even more frustrated, because he'd finally done what you could only dream of?"
“SHUT UP!” With a roar, Rolas cocked his fist back and punched Melanie in the face, dropping her to the deck.
* * *
“Do you want that anti-nausea patch now?” Rolas asked a few minutes later, as Melanie pushed herself up off the catamaran’s railing, wiping her muzzle clean with a wet washcloth.
“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled. Nevertheless she took the sealed packet from him, reading the warnings on the back carefully, before ripping it open and pressing it to the inside of her left ear. It was the most convenient spot if she didn’t want to shave a patch of fur off her pelt.
“As much time as you’ve spent in zero-g, I’m surprised that the ocean is bothering you so much,” Rolas said, helping her over to a padded bench at the fore of the catamaran.
“You don’t sway in zero-g,” Melanie replied. She looked out over the water, as the drugs settled her stomach. The catamaran was slicing west through the small chop at what Rolas assured her was a relatively quick ten kilometers an hour. The sun had set a half hour before, dropping below the horizon with a suddenness that had startled her. It had reminded her painfully of orbital sunsets she’d viewed from the bridge of the old Scarlet Claw.
“That’s a point,” he agreed. “I didn’t enjoy learning to spacewalk when I was doing my Service tour. The suits we had to wear always felt terribly claustrophobic, even with the 360 cam projections inside the helmets.”
“I never learned to handle zero-g. I spent my Service years with a forest mothering team,” Melanie said. “We got a lot of exercise picking up deadfalls during the spring, to lessen the chances of a forest fire.” She glanced sidelong at him. Rolas was sitting beside her, but keeping a slight distance from her side of the bench, his stance not encouraging a private cuddle at the moment. Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask the questions in her mind, but his mention of his Service years was the only opening she’d had since they had left dock. “Speaking of the Service, how did you ever meet that remarkable fellow, Cannonloader?”
“I don’t wish to discuss that,” Rolas said, his tone brooking little argument.
“I wasn’t asking about your sexual adventures, Rolas. I was asking how you met your friend,” Melanie pushed back, glaring at him.
“We were assigned to the same bunkroom,” he said, after a pause. “He’s a trained electrical engineer, and we both were assigned to the same maintenance team.”
“You know electronics?” she asked.
“No, but I could learn to run optical cabling through a conduits and set connections,” he said.
“That means you know electronics,” she concluded. “Stop putting yourself down, dear.” She smiled slightly, “So ‘No commitment implied or desired’ is that how you put it, when I asked you about your love life.” Back when Rolas had been her prisoner aboard the Scarlet Claw, a lifetime ago.
“I didn’t say Dak was my lover,” Rolas said tightly.
”No, but if you and he implied it any more firmly, I’d have to use claw polish remover to unglue you two.” Melanie shook her head. “Why are you acting all coy about this? So you’re bisexual. What of it?”
“I am not bisexual,” he replied, looking like he was fighting to get the growl out of his voice.
“I think your grasp of sexual orientations needs a brush up then, judging by the evidence.”
Rolas shot up from the bench, turning to glare at her. “Stop joking about this!”
“I’m not joking, I’m talking,” she shot back. “Why are you acting as if you should be ashamed of something? I didn’t think I was marrying a blushing virgin, Rolas.”
“I’m not ashamed of it,” he replied, starting to pace in front of her. “It’s just… that part of my life is in the past. It has nothing to do with who I am now.”
“Who you are now? Or who you have to be?” she asked. When he didn’t answer she went on. “How hard were your parents pressuring you, after Salli declared she’d never marry again? Your mother was going to need one of you to produce a grandcub to continue the family line. Once Salli declared herself out of the mating game, the responsibility fell to you.”
“I wasn’t ever pressured,” he said, but he refused to meet her eyes.
“What, no hints every time an unmarried vixen was mated to one of your friends? No expressions of disappointment when a birth announcement went out? I remember how your mother gushed when we asked her permission to marry. She’d been convinced the Darktail name was going to end with her.”
“And now it isn’t,” Rolas finished, cutting off her argument. “Salli and Ali will probably cook up a cub or two between them, and we’ll get started soon ourselves. Mother should have more than enough grandcubs to satisfy her.”
“You didn’t know that Salli would find Alinadar when you married me, Rolas. Did you do it out of love, or because you were trying get a little air to breathe in your mother’s presence?”
Rolas’ expression went from angered to stricken in an instant. “Love, Mel. Surely you don’t believe otherwise?”
“I have no doubts, Rolas. I was there when you charged a sniper’s nest, after I was shot.” Melanie rubbed the side of her head briefly, where the gauss needle had grazed her skull. A traitor in the employ of Countess Highglider, mother to Salli’s late, abusive, ex-husband, had been aiming for Salli and Rolas, and had shot her by accident. Melanie had been knocked out by the wound, missing the chance to see Rolas’ enraged charge across an open field in the direction of the shots. He’d been wounded in the arm, before reached the sniper and beating him unconscious with his working paw. When she’d finally awakened in the ambulance and gotten the full story, she’d been terrified. Rolas could have died protecting me.
“Thank you,” he said, looking relieved. “Anyway, this has nothing to with my mother. This has everything to do with you and me.”
Not quite, Melanie judged. She was missing too many pieces to this puzzle to see the image it hid. But she kept her peace for now.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” Rolas asked the next day, scraping dinner from the pan on the stove to a waiting plate. It was some sort of vegetable omelet that would have smelled heavenly any other time. Right now it was just making her stomach churn.
“No, sorry. I’ll just have some more crisps and water,” Melanie told him, her stomach growling unpleasantly. She tried not to sound churlish. She hadn’t known that Rolas could cook. It was a rare skill to find in a male. Most of the great chefs were vixens of course, keeping with the foxen tradition of a vixen’s dominion over the family hearth, and the rest of the household by extension.
Rolas eyed her with worry, as he passed over a package of digestive crisps and a plastic water bottle from the pantry. “Are you certain you’re not sick?” he asked. He sat down at the small table across from her, his own meal temporarily forgotten it seemed. “If you are we are, we can head back to dock and go home.”
How utterly tempting. But no, Rolas had dragged her on this trip to try and work things out between them. Cutting it short wouldn’t solve the problems they faced. “No, I’ll survive,” Melanie reassured him. She took a swig of water and gestured to his plate. “Eat please. You’ve been working in the sun all day.”
That had actually been quite enjoyable, sitting on the padded bench and watching Rolas man the wheel or fiddle with the sails. Most of it could be computer controlled, as he had told her, but he seemed to enjoy adjusting everything manually. Male’s work, also traditional, while a vixen captain kept her wise eye on the overall picture. Except that in this case Rolas was both the captain and the sole crew, while she was just a passenger. Something was not quite right there.
“So,” she said, as Rolas began chewing on his first bite of omelet. “You have questions for me. Ask away.”
“Mmm,” Rolas murmured, his mouth still full of food. He swallowed and said, “Some things has been bothering me, the more I thought about it, and not just about you and Alinadar.”
A lot of things had been bothering him, she judged. And not all about her old pirate life, if his reaction to Cannonloader’s appearance had been any indication. “Yes?” Melanie prompted.
Rolas set his fork down on his plate, staring at her. “How many people have you killed?”
The question so confused her for a moment that it took her several seconds to form an answer. “Killed? I’ve never killed anyone,” she said.
“Haven’t you?” he asked. His stare was unblinking, uncompromising. “Have you forgotten Ensign Dewclaw so quickly? I haven’t.”
She suppressed a wince. Dewclaw had been a young engineering mate on the Sallivera, the Darktail’s freighter. When she had been the Red Vixen, she’s been given a tip from the Sallivera’s first officer, Lt. Hotclaw, on the ship’s planned route and cargo manifest. As it turned out later Hotclaw had been in the employ of Countess Highglider, the Darktail’s enemy. But she hadn’t known that when she’d attacked Rolas’ ship, taking him captive and stealing the cargo. Dewclaw had been the only casualty in the operation, falling from a catwalk after being stunned, to land head first on the deck.
“That was an accident,” Melanie said. “I regretted it, but I wasn’t the one that pulled the trigger on the stunner. Nor was I the one that made the decision to resist when we boarded your ship.”
“You were the one that ordered the attack,” he pointed out. “Hardly an accident.”
“I apologized for it. I even wept when we visited his family’s memorial garden, if you will recall,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound testy.
“Fine, you regretted that one. What about the others?”
“What others?” she shot back.
“I distinctly recall you stating that you spaced several of the Scarlet Claw’s crew when you took over as its captain.”
“Just three,” Melanie said, feeling as if the ground was slipping out from under her. Not that there was any solid ground within a hundred kilometers of this suddenly too small boat. “Anyway they were very bad pirates. The sort that enjoyed the power they had over a helpless victim. Lt. Zan took care of that part, thank the Mother Goddess. Frankly I think he’d been looking forward to it when the change of command occurred. The ship’s previous captain was an unscrupulous fellow.”
“You’re honestly not seeing it, are you?” Rolas pressed.
“Seeing what?” she demanded.
Her husband crossed his arms over his chest, his stare unwavering. “You were the commander of that vessel. All actions by her crew were your responsibility. Melanie, you may have regarded it as a romantic hobby, but the command was real. As real as any Noble caste domain. The Scarlet Claw’s crew were effectively your leigesworn. And your actions hurt people. Innocent people. Dewclaw was one. Alinadar another, by your failing to her get proper aid. How many others died because you were bored with you responsibilities as a Foxen Lord, and wanted to play pirate?”
Melanie fought to hold down the contents of her stomach. It felt like it was being wrenched into a tight knot, the urge vomit nearly overwhelming her. “What would you have of me, Rolas?” she finally managed to say. “Should I confess my sins to the world? How many would be hurt then? The Stellar Patrol would have me in court on charges in a moment, and you and your sister along with me for conspiracy in concealing my crimes. There are too many secrets now, Rolas. Even with the Ministry of Justice knowing the truth, it’s still too dangerous to speak publically about this.”
“I know that. Why do you think we’re out here?” he asked. Rolas gestured around them. “No cameras, no microphones or microdrones, no one but us. The only way I could make things more private is if I put you in my lap and we went into orbit aboard in a singleship. I need to know how many people you hurt.”
Melanie was getting the nagging feeling that this was going all backwards. Rolas wanted a confession out of her, yes. So why did it seem he was picking at the scabs of his own wounds, rather trying to hurt her? Confession might be good for the soul, she thought, remembering the old human saying. She just wished she could figure out whether it was for her soul’s sake, or Rolas’.
“Twenty-five,” she finally answered.
“Twenty-five?” Rolas asked, cocking his head. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes,” Melanie said “There were those three pirate from the original crew of my ship, when I bought out the captain’s share. I lost five crew on various boarding actions, mostly from bad luck when the defending crews had heavier weapons than we were expecting. Then there was the raid Bloody Margo made on my original refueling outpost…” She swallowed, the memories coming back vividly in her head for a moment. “That was a bad day. I lost seven crewfolk that day. One of them dived in front of me when....”
She could still remember that moment quite clearly. The crazed, feral looking foxen child charging straight at her, a rifle nearly as big as she was in her arms. Then Gaz, who had never been part of the boarding or gunnery teams, just a cook’s assistant. Diving in front of her had Ali’s shot hit him in the chest, giving Lt. Zan enough time to raise his own weapon and take down Ali.
“When what?” Rolas asked softly.
“When I was attacked.” She waved off any further questions. “We killed eleven of Margo’s attackers, and took one captive. Ali.”
“Twenty-three,” Rolas added up. “That leaves two.”
“Yes. The twenty-fourth was your Dewclaw. The twenty-fifth was Margo’s second-in-command, Brutal Compton. By that time I’d taught Ali the value of using stunners when she defended me, but just that once I didn’t mind.”
“Wait,” Rolas said, looking confused. “I met Compton when he confronted us on Tylesha. You sent me back to my family and then raced ahead to meet me in your true identity. That can only mean you met him again when you were out raiding Countess Highglider’s shipping company.”
Oh, damn. She’d really meant to never bring this up. She could almost guarantee it would be bad for Rolas’ blood pressure. “Yes, well,” Melanie explained, “I ran into him again when the Scarlet Claw was docked at a refuelling outpost and I was trying to find more information about the Highglider shipping routes. I’d bumped into a mercenary pilot defending one of the Countess’ ship and had to, er, put him somewhere he couldn’t get into trouble. Anyway, to make a long story short, Compton got the drop on me and I was captured briefly. Fortunately Alinadar moved quickly and rescued me before they could do much more than rough me up a bit.”
Actually from the look on Rolas’ face, he had a good idea what almost had happened past the “roughing up” part. Damn.
“You never told me this,” he accused.
“No, because it would have upset you, and you had your own worries. Besides, it was over and done. Ali quite neatly shot Compton in the back while he was tormenting that poor mercenary pilot. I got away. Shortly thereafter the Red Vixen went into permanent retirement, and there was no way for Margo to connect her with Lady Melanie Darktail nee Lovejoy.” She sat back in her seat. “So, that’s twenty-five. Dewclaw was the only civilian casualty. His death…” She grimaced. “Between him and the knowledge of what I had done to your own family, that was enough to convince me it was time to retire the Red Vixen. Not bad, I think, for a ten year run.”
“And you remember them all?” he asked.
“The faces of my crew that I lost, and Ensign Dewclaw, yes.” She spread her paw, palm up, on the table. “What more can I do, Rolas?”
He sighed, the anger seeming to deflate from him. “I don’t know.”
* * *
The morning of their second day at sea found Melanie vomiting over the side of the railing again. Rolas watched her, arms crossed, shaking his head slowly.
“You’re certain you don’t want another nausea patch?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said weakly, turning back towards him and sliding down slowly, until she sat on the deck. It was wet of course. Melanie had found herself taking a shower yesterday afternoon and before bed, just to get the damned salt out of her pelt. The spray from the waves as the boat cut through the water tended to make everything above decks damp, leaving her fur and skin itchy. “I don’t want to take too many of them.”
“Why not? You can take two of them every day.” Rolas knelt beside her, fishing a waterproof packet containing another patch out of his pocket. Why would he be carrying one? Rolas had never shown any signs of seasickness since they’d come aboard this damned boat.
Because he’s worried about me, she realized. Which would be sweet under any other circumstances. Say, if they were on dry land. “Not… not right now, Rolas,” Melanie said, holding up a paw to ward him off. She got back onto her feet, grabbing onto the railing for balance.
“You’ve barely eaten a proper meal since we left the dock, but you nibble almost constantly,” Rolas said.
“I’ve been getting heartburn if I eat meals that are too heavy,” Melanie said, accepting his offered arm and toddling over to the padded bench. Rolas sat beside her, and didn’t move away when she leaned up against him. Good. She could feel as miserable as a half-drowned bleeder bird, so long as Rolas was still willing to be her body pillow.
He looked at her uncertainly. “Perhaps…. perhaps we should head back into port. You look miserable, Mel.”
“Given the reason we came out here, did you seriously expect me to be all smiles?” she shot back. Melanie grimaced and kneaded her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on. It could go with her stomachache. Not to mention her heartache. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that. No, we should stay out here. We need to get this all settled before we go back. I don’t want things to keep festering between us.”
“Yes, well…” Rolas eased her head down onto his bare chest. She sighed, listening to his heartbeat under his dark, sun warmed fur. “I think we’ve talked through everything we can at this point.”
“Not… quite,” she murmured. “It’s your turn.”
“Eh?” He looked at her quizzically, ears twitching forward.
“We talked about my sins and faults. Now it’s time to talk about yours. Fair?”
Rolas grimaced, and then nodded. “Fair. What exactly do you find displeasing about me?”
“My husband, the Count of Frustration; I’m not displeased with you, dear.” Melanie smiled at him sadly. “I thought when I first met you that you were acting like you were because of what old Countess Highglider was doing to your family. It wasn’t until after we were married that I realized you were like that all the time.”
Now Rolas looked dismayed. “I haven’t been…? I mean, have I been that unpleasant?”
“You’re… well, grumpy. Which is rather endearing in its own way. But I’ve always wondered what’s been at the heart of it…” Melanie’s voice trailed off.
It was a little like being stuck by a lightning bolt, Melanie thought, this sudden clarity. She'd been married to Rolas for two years now and she hadn't seen it before. What a fool she had been! "I always thought you were moody and broody because of having to deal with that lunatic countess your family was trapped under, but I'm betting you were always like this, because of Salli," she said.
"Of course it was about Salli, how could it not be? You saw her when you arranged for her treatment," Rolas said.
"Oh, no," Melanie said, grinning fiercely and lifting her head up off his chest to look him in the eye. "I don't mean about her being hurt. I mean it was always about Salli, wasn't it? Even before she married Kev Highglider, it was always about her."
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Normal young males don't go sailing in circles for six weeks with just their sailboat's AI for company. But you did. You had to, just get away from your family, or else go as mad as Salli. You were jealous."
Her husband's jaw dropped open. "What?" he asked, incredulous.
"You heard me. You were jealous. Do you remember how you first described her to me? I do. You said she was always ahead of you; Prettier, smarter, more charismatic. And of course she was a vixen and you were just male. She was your family's heir and you were expected to be her helper to administer the estate, leaving you to deal with all the fussy paperwork while she got all the attention and love of your commoners."
"I don't want to hear this," Rolas said. He stood up, frowning deeply.
"Oh, yes you do!" Melanie said, going on, relentless now as she stood up to face him. "Then she was betrothed to Kev Highglider, and you thought that finally things would go your way. She married up to a Countess' Heir. Sure, you'd still be her social inferior, but at least your family's domain would be all yours once your parents passed on. No big sister to trail after anymore. At last you'd be able to shine!"
"Stop this!" Rolas shouted.
"No!" she shot back "You need to hear it, because you know it’s true. You've just been hiding your anger all these years, pretending it was about Salli being hurt, when that wasn't it at all. Because just when you were settling in to the idea of being your family's Heir, she came back, mutilated and half mad because of the abuse she'd suffered under Kev Highglider, and all of a sudden it was all about her again. You couldn't even be angry about it because poor, poor Salli had suffered so. So you had to swallow it all down and be a good little boy, while your sister hid in her rooms and cried and cried that no one really loved her."
"Be quiet!" he shouted. “I don’t want to hear this!”
“Then once that was dealt with, she had to go back to the homeworld to get her eye fixed and watch over Ali when she went through that horrid cellular regeneration and recovery. You had a whole colony world to rule for over a year, but then she and Ali came back and you were expected to meekly hand the reins back to your big sister, because she’s the Heir and you were always, always going to have to settle for the leftovers!
Melanie stepped forward, paws pushing against Rolas' chest, forcing him back against the rail. "Let's face it, Rolas. When you saw what Kev had done to her, didn't make you even more frustrated, because he'd finally done what you could only dream of?"
“SHUT UP!” With a roar, Rolas cocked his fist back and punched Melanie in the face, dropping her to the deck.
