[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.10

One morning, it sounded like the homehans outside Tegafel's cell were even busier than usually. The building in which the cell was located in sounded fairly empty, and when people came in, they sounded hurried.

Toward the evening, three people came in. One of them was the homehan leader figure who Tegafel only barely remembered and the two others were the guards who had first raped Tegafel. Tegafel pretty much automatically backed away from them and twisted eir face into crying mode. The leader spoke: "Consider yourself lucky, Tegafel Darrelter. We managed to come to an agreement with representatives from your side and we negotiated a peace of sorts, deciding that what happened between our armed forces was just a grave misunderstanding. You're free to go, but we offered to clean you up for tomorrow since we killed all the other soldiers from your squad and held you prisoner." Ey turned to the two guards. "So, guards, wash em, clean em up, take em to the field medic, feed em good and have em sleep in a nice warm tent tonight!" The leader left.

"Well, tables turn, eh?" said the guard who had declined from raping Tegafel once. "At least kind of."

Tegafel was pretty speechless. On the other hand ey almost did not believe ey was so lucky, and on the other hand ey was very relieved and eager to be treated well. Then again, ey doubted that things could go so smooth or that ey was really told the whole truth. The guard came to Tegafel, wrapped em up in the blanket and lifted em. Holding Tegafel in eir arms, ey walked outside with the other guard.

Tegafel saw more homehans by glance outside before the guards took em behind a building that had a crude washing place set up. There was a smallish silo of water and a cauldron with a fireplace for warming up the water. There were also a few buckets around, a tap on the silo and a bench.

The guard placed Tegafel sitting on the bench. "I hope you don't mind us seeing you naked anymore, heh heh." The guard was fairly happy, the other one not so. "I suppose people usually have persons from the same sex help with stuff like this but you with your fourteen freaking sexes... No offense still, but it does sound really weird and complicated and disgusting." Tegafel just grunted a sound as an answer. "We even have soap for you. Don't have a lot of this stuff around, but the lieutenant thought it'd please your people. Come on, wash your hands, after that you can start washing up other places."

The two guards helped Tegafel wash up and clean up the wounds, though after the ugly scabs were torn off, most of them started bleeding again.

"Hm, I suppose it isn't any use to leave this place. Go get the medic and bring em here, it's easier that way." The other guard left while the other one kept on pouring water on Tegafel's wounds to keep them from being clogged again before the medic could stitch them.

The other guard arrived with the medic. The medic did not really say anything save for a short greeting, and went straight to examining Tegafel's wounds. After having taken a look at them all, ey said: "Hm well, the smaller cuts on your legs and arms and cheek have healed somewhat. They would've needed stitches, but it's not much point anymore. The rest still need stitches, they're so big. I'm gonna drug you because it'll hurt like hell, especially that one on your face. They're also infected, fairly badly too, so I'm going to cleanse them a bit aggressively." Tegafel nodded weakly, and the medic took out some bottle of liquid. "This doesn't exactly taste good, but drink two mouthfuls of it." Ey handed the bottle to Tegafel, who then drank. Tegafel grimaced and felt a bit like throwing up. Meanwhile, the medic had produced a few leaves. "Now chew on this and then place it under your tongue in your mouth. Try not to swallow any pieces of the leaves, and make sure you don't swallow the whole thing. You can swallow your spit though.

Tegafel did as ey was told and eir mind got very foggy indeed. Ey felt more like an observer in eir body than actually a part of it. Ey had trouble doing much anything and registering the commands ey was given, but that mostly served the purpose since ey was calm and immobile while the medic treated eir wounds, cleansed them, sew them shut and finally cleaned them again with a stingy and strong-smelling liquid. Tegafel had to be told a few times to spit out the leaf mass before ey did it. After having washed eir mouth, the medic started bandaging the wounds. Tegafel had not felt much pain while being stitched, but it started returning now, though after the sting of the liquid with which eir wounds were washed, the pain was just a vague throb in the wounds and eir head.

The medic smiled at eir own work and seemed to be thinking about something. "You'll need a walking stick. Good thing your left arm is in better shape than the right one—considering the leg, I mean."

"Guess what? I was smart and got one!" said the guard who had went to get the medic. "I also brought your clothes. Your other stuff is safe too but you don't have much business walking around with a backpack, armor or weapons anyway." The medic seemed content with that and left.

The guards helped Tegafel get dressed and then took em to get something to eat. They arrived at a similar food depot as the military camp had had at Ailanihi. The guards left Tegafel sitting at a table and went to get the food. They returned with portions for themselves and a smaller portion for Tegafel. The other guard said: "Now, you probably feel sick an' all and that drug isn't doing anything great to your stomach, so you can't eat a whole lot tonight. It's better to feel a bit hungry than to spend the night throwing up, right?"

"Besides, you'll get a full meal tomorrow, I hear the lieutenant even told the cook to make something nice for you."

Tegafel just nodded vaguely and started to eat. Ey was hungry and did eir best to eat the food slowly—food eaten fast was more likely to come up. The food did make em feel nauseous, but that was probably just because of the drug ey had drunk. After the meal, the guards took Tegafel close to the place where the "cell" had been, but instead took em to a tent that was under a wooden shelter. It was a fairly big tent, so big that Tegafel almost didn't have to crouch while in there. The friendlier guard helped Tegafel to get down on the bed, and after that was done, the guard stroked eir hair a bit.

"You know... I'm sorry about the... well, you know, the raping. That wasn't very nice of us. I hope you won't harbor too many bad memories about this whole thing." The statement was ridiculous, but Tegafel did not really care now and grunted a response, and the homehan was about to pull eir hand from Tegafel's hair when eir expression went a bit funny. "You know, you haven't really said anything today. You've just nodded and grunted at us," ey said a bit amusedly. Tegafel was quiet and looked at the guard somewhat hopelessly. Ey did not want to speak. The guard waited for an answer, but when ey did not get one, ey just withdrew eir hand and said: "Good night, Tegafel. We'll come wake you up in the morning. There's a bucket of water outside the tent in case you get thirsty." The guard left, leaving Tegafel to sleep in peace.

Tegafel felt nauseous but managed to fall asleep without too much of a problem. Ey woke up in the night due to a nightmare and felt even more nauseous. That time ey sat up and drank a bit of water. The nausea did not want to go away, so Tegafel just lied in the tent, immobile. It started to rain at some point in the night, and hearing the dripping on the roof and ground calmed Tegafel down and ey fell asleep once again.



After waking up to yet another nightmare, Tegafel stretched eir aching limbs a bit, letting out a few whimpers when the stretching hurt. The friendly guard's head popped into the tent from outside and ey said: "Great, you're awake now. Let's go and eat, you'll get a full breakfast today. Your people will arrive around noon, I'm guessing. That's still some hours away." Tegafel got up and they went to the eating area, where ey got a fairly decent breakfast—it was almost as good as the food ey had often eaten at home.

After the eating session, the two guards just hung around Tegafel and the friendlier one tried to get Tegafel to talk, with fairly poor success. They ate something small before it was announced that the femehans had arrived.

The femehans had set up a small camp-like thing right next to the homehan settlement, and both of the races' groups of representatives met at the vague border of their camps. Tegafel was with them, the other guard by eir side. Ey felt uneasy and ey did not know what to think of a meeting such as this one. Ey did not even know whether it was official.

The spokesperson of the homehans had been instructed a bit about the sex system of femehans. Tegafel was fairly sure that the femehan captains knew about homehans. Ey did not pay much attention to the communications and only barely noticed when eir name was mentioned. Ey was supposed to go over to eir own kind now, so ey went. The homehan guard came along for a short distance, carrying Tegafel's equipment. Tegafel greeted the captain who instructed em to go with the field medic. The homehan guard was vaguely confused, but gave Tegafel's equipment to the medic. Tegafel and the medic went to the temporary infirmary tent.

The medic put Tegafel's equipment on the ground in the tent and had Tegafel lie down on a bed before speaking, in Femen: "I'm Fronel Certneget and I suppose it's obvious that I'm a medic... Now, I think the captain will ask you what exactly happened, so I'll just ask what was done to you. At least you seem to be fairly well treated..."

Tegafel was quiet for a while. Ey had not spoken properly for a long time, and eir voice was still very worn from all the signing ey had done days ago. Eventually ey spoke: "Y-yes... I got the wounds in the... the battle. They tortured me... opened the wounds..."

The medic noticed that Tegafel had a bit of trouble expressing emself. "Is the worst one on your leg? How deep is it?"

"Yes... I don't know..."

"Would you like some water?"

"...Yes, please."

Fronel gave Tegafel some water. "I'll make you some herbal drink. That will make your throat better." Tegafel did not answer. "What can you do with the leg?"

"Walk. With the stick... I've been trying to not use my leg."

"That sounds okay. Was it cleaned and bound when you got it?"

"No... I tried to clean it. I licked it..."

"Hmh... is it infected?"

"Yes... the homehan medic said that, I think."

"So it was bound only yesterday? At what time?"

"Uh... evening?"

"Good... I'll change the dressings in the evening then and examine your wounds again. The ones on your face don't look ...life-threatening. If the other ones are like those, my guess is that you'll live and won't lose your leg, but they'll leave nasty scars. And you might limp a little... But you should still be able to run." Tegafel just nodded. "Well. That's about that. You should just get some rest now and move your limbs around so you won't get all stiff." The medic was quiet for a moment. "Just one more thing... Did you... did you see your friends get killed? Are you having nightmares?"

Tegafel went quite grim. "Y-yes... I..."

"Shh. That's okay. Having nightmares is normal. They will eventually fade and you will forget. It's something soldiers just have to live with."

"But... they're so..."

"Yes they are. I'll talk with you about that later. I'll talk about something else now. I happen to know that for many soldiers, the worst part of being hurt and surviving is the boredom they're subjected to when they rest and heal and the fact that they can't think of anything but happened in the battle... which, in a case like yours, is not good at all. So I have a great method of eliminating the boredom and loneliness. Can you read?"

"Uh, yeah. Not very well..."

"That's good enough." The nigecod dug out a book from a backpack. "This is a book about plants and what they're good for. It might not be very entertaining, but it's damn useful. I'll go wander around the camp. If you need me, start yelling, somebody'll hear it. I'll bring you food when it's time for that."

"Thank you." The medic left and Tegafel started reading the book.