Endosymbiosis

24. Chrysotherapy

When Kadi left the room I took off my clothes to examine my abdomen in the golden reflection that stared at me from the wall. The puncture where the bullet had pierced me was perfectly healed, leaving no marks behind... Almost as if the attack hadn't been real... But the memory of blood crossed my eyes, painting the world red by a just instant. That pain had been real.

I covered my body with the dress that was on the bed. Its bust was structured and firm, like iridescent snow-colored armor that perfectly fitted my body measurements. From the neckline to the skirt flowed golden lines similar to the veins of beetles' wings, converging in a semi-transparent tail that trailed along the floor, over the pale skirt of fabric interspersed with golden metal. I looked like a cross between an insect and an alien princess.

I found Kadi in an adjoining room, waiting for me. He was distracted, adjusting the sleeves of the white suit he wore. The fabric was opalescent, between the smoothness of silk and the firmness of armor, and, like what I wore, it had been custom-made. I couldn't stop my eyes from catching each place the fabric did the same on his body...

He turned to me when he heard my footsteps and his eyes roamed over every covered inch or not of my skin. I couldn't blame him when I'd just done the same. His pupils dilated, even with all the light coming in through the windows, and I felt more seen than I ever expected to be.

"Really everything the pacifists touch becomes aurium..." He purred, lighting a fire in my face.

"You're not too bad either."

"Maybe the pacifists aren't that bad. Just imagine when they save the galaxy, then... With the revolution."

And, just like that, my face was cold again.

Kadi offered me an arm which, after hesitating, I accepted. And then we left the room to discover what lay beyond those golden walls.

Outside, two guards were waiting for us, and when we left, they escorted us through the corridors of that palace, as vast as the streets of a city. The guards wore what appeared to be golden armor, but when I watched cautiously, I realized that the covering belonged to their bodies, like exoskeletons of gold - or rather, of aurium, a similar but much stronger metal. Their faces were shaped like pyramids and culminated in pairs of horns the same shade of white as the bust of my dress. My clothes were so reminiscent of their bodies that I didn't know if they had dressed me in what they knew for beauty or the skin of one of them... But by that point, I should have gotten used to being covered in death.

Those beings were metrionas, the creatures that had turned that world, the ancient Aurium District of Itopis, into Pacifia.

We were led into a golden hall - but I doubted there was a different one in that palace. All over the floor, blue lines carved into the gold in insect-like designs, and the walls were covered in overlapping boards, opening slits where sunlight streamed in to reach us. At the center of the room, a long table rose from the floor and, on it, two empty seats awaited us near the end, where a different metriona sat.

He was bigger, more imposing and more comfortable with the power he held in every inch of metal over his body. One of his horns had been snapped in half, and he had kept it that way, never to forget the struggles he had survived - and maybe to warn every creature that came across him of the strength he contained within himself, capable of tearing us apart without even needing to try. He watched us silently for a moment with those pairs of pearly eyes of his, then pointed with the spurs of his paws at the chairs, inviting us to sit down. Kadi quickly complied, while I hesitated for a moment... Until his grimace convinced me to imitate him.

"I see you are rested." The metriona greeted us, speaking in our human language. He was really making an effort to make us comfortable... And I could only wonder why. "I imagine that was a very... Exhausting experience."

"We've been through worse things." I replied.

"Thanks for helping us." And Kadi tried to be nice.

He asked me with his eyes to thank the metriona, but I wouldn't do that until I knew what the pacifists wanted for it. Nobody helped humans for nothing.

"I hope you can return the favor." The creature then confessed.

Straight to the point, apparently.

"What do you want?" The sternness of my tone called to me all those metriona eyes, small from afar, but the more I watched them, the more giant they became, as if they could swallow me at some point if I wasn't careful enough.

"We need your help in the war against the Aulics." How, exactly? He turned to Kadi and continued: "We need your energy to supply our new troops." New troops?

"And I will get with this?"

The metriona chuckled softly, as if he knew this was the right answer to what Kadi had said, but not because he knew how to laugh.

"I've heard a lot about you, Arkadi Phaga... Smart enough to steal from the Empire and not get caught; insensitive enough to commit any crime, as long as the payment is up to date; and great to call when you need someone dead..." I sent Kadi a sideways glance. "I didn't think you were the kind of person who would help another one..."

"Probably because what you heard was wrong."

The metriona laughed again.

"I know your wishes, Arkadi. And, in the end, they will become true."

As easy as that, Kadi had been won over. I wondered what he could want so badly to make him sell out so quickly to those who could pay...

The metriona turned to me, pulling me out of my thoughts:

"And from you, Donecea Gaxy, we need the blood. To strengthen our vorrampe soldiers, most of our army." I wanted to worry about the army he said he had, but I ended up wondering how he knew my name... And how much he would use me for a cause I didnt even know if I should help.

I clenched my fists under the table. I didn't want to be fuel for that war machine... That wasn't what I was crossing the galaxy for.

"What happened to the other humans from the Oasis that were rescued by the rebels?" Kadi asked. Rescued? And to think that I had once thought it was possible for humans to escape alone...

"The Empire intercepted the rescue ship." The metrona replied. "And they insisted that we could never get them back." Dead. More valuable like that than alive. All those people... "The Empire's armies are guarding Earth, so we can't recruit humans and give them the blood upgrade." So they couldn't use them... But they could use me.

Humans were labor, disrespected even by the species that the Aulics judged to be of the lowest level... And, for us, there was nothing left but to be simply used.

I could no longer contain the anger that heated my core.

"What if I don't want to help them?"

The metriona watched me for a long time, stretching a silence between us until I had no choice but to raise my eyes to his... They were so true that, for a moment, I almost felt that the pain of humanity wouldn't exist in an empire that was his... In them I saw a destiny that I would like to live; and felt forgiven for the mistake of being what I was...

I averted my eyes before I felt anything else I didn't want. And then the creature whispered, tearing me from my mind:

"Do you remember the last time you saw your mother, Donecea?"