The Nameless Accounts: The Love of an Akor'mar (15)
The next few weeks — or was it months? — after the fall of Sun-On-The-Lake was a blur to me. The akor’mari set up shop within the city itself, repairing some of the buildings and walls, making them battle-ready. I don't know if they planned on living in the city once it was cleaned out, or if it was simply to be a temporary headquarters for the rest of our operations in Nah’Ke’tzin. They acted as if they expected retaliation.
The rest of the army was housed in tents, set up wherever there was space for them. I slept in Sus'syri’s tent during the days, half because that's how cramped the available lodging was, and half because... I felt different somehow. And somehow, she could understand.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the sort to be in the middle of attention. I talked lots, laughed lots, told stories. I had many friends -- or at least people I would speak with regularly; I know the word does not mean the same thing in your language. Still, I enjoyed their presence and would like to think they enjoyed mine.
Now it felt different. I found I couldn’t relate with the others like I used to. I would try, or be invited (or sometimes even dragged in), to their conversations, but after a few hours it seemed they would be on one side of the fire, laughing and joking amongst themselves, and I would be on the other, in more than a literal sense. They would make a joke about the war, or about Surfacers, or about how many wuyon’mari they had slain or raped, and... Suddenly I would see the the King's face again and I’d feel myself go far away where I couldn't hear them anymore.
Instead, I grew closer to Sus'syri. It's strange what strange circumstances can do to you; I would have never imagined pairing up with someone like her before the war. Some people still ask me how we manage to get along and not kill each other, and it's hard to describe, except to say: she understands me.
She wasn't (and isn't) very talkative, and she's incredibly serious. With my light-heartedness (prior the war) it was like fire and water.
Except that I suppose I wasn't myself during the war. I couldn't spin tales for the others like I had used to; I couldn't remember to complete my own sentences half the time. I felt like I was in another world. But in that world was also Sus'syri, so it wasn't so bad.
It wasn't like love that they describe in your Surfacer tales. I didn't fall into it without realizing that was what was happening, and I didn't swoon every time I saw her face. It was a friendship at first, us thrown together like driftwood onto the beach. And, overtime, it grew into something more.
I think sometimes that's why we’ve stayed together for so long. Of course there was (and is) passion, but that's not what the relationship was built around, not in the beginning, and not now. We held each other up, but we never forgot that we were separate people. The best I can describe it is that we are partners, but not lovers. Not in the fiery, romantic sense, at any rate.
I sometimes wonder if Sus'syri hadn't been there, if I would have turned out just as empty and blood-crazed as all those other akor’mari had. It's not a pleasant thought.
