Kroniicle of a love story in /Risu/

Kroniicle of a love story in /Risu/

Kroniicles of our stay in /Risu/, volume XII, part I: First encounter.

This is my last Kroniicles of our stay in /Risu/ my readers. It also will be the first one to be translated start to finish in exact risuner's language. Welcome to all the new eyes that read me for the first time. This is not a goodbye nonetheless, just the end of a chapter. To understand what will happen a story should be told. My story, that became our story.

It has been about three years since I arrived here, on the magnificent land of /Risu/. While my main work for the government has always been my priority, with the deadlines never giving me a respite, I can't complain about what this opportunity has given me: to get to know a new world, something specially unique for kronies because we only knew our island until recently, but also to write about it, to be the one to show all the unique experiences this land has to give. Of course, most of my output has been official and military paperwork, and also translation for business on the side, which honestly is what pay my bills so I shouldn't be dissing it, but it's in this space where I feel I make a important contribution to /vtw/kind.

To do this kroniicles I had to travel all over /Risu/ in search for virgin experiences to write about. I've told you, my beloved readers, about the risuners customs; the myths; the way they process our cultural differences; about the beauty of their lands and, of course, of the risuners. Three years…

One day I was, as always, looking for inspiration to write and I went close to a mining zone, searching for nothing in particular. Anything could become a interesting tale if a looked at it hard enough. That day I didn't found what I was looking for this essays, as it usually happens, but something found me. A feeling that I though I had before, but being true to you, I only had lousy imitations before. I know how witless this will sound, but love found me. It wasn't love yet, it requires a shared story between more than one person to be that, but it was the beginning to it.

'A love story? That's what you have to tell, you vapid scribe?' Yes. That is what this is.

That day I gazed at the most beautiful risuner… no, the most beautiful creature creation has given us. She was resting under the crown of a tree in the least graceful position you could imagine; her ample and slightly muscular limbs and torso full of remains of coal and other minerals; her whole body full of sweat that shined with the limited sunlight that came through the leafs and highlighted her brown complexion. This woman looked like her body was sculpted by the goddesses, who decided to give her the most mesmerizing curves in all the right places: voluminous hips and tights that made your body rumble of sexual hunger with a chest that was prominent but not as much as the former.

I entered a trance and began to capture with all my might every little detail of this pagan goddess: mixed with the work-forged body was delicate eyelashes; the curvious body giggled every time she breathed; her rough and darker than her skin but no quite black short haircut; and the wood earrings picturing a squirrel eating a nut.

I was so lost on the whole experience than I didn't realized that she woke up and was watching me intensely, with a shy face burning red and graving her tail in between her arms like a pillow. I was in shock. Even if I had my way with several risuners before, nothing was like that look she had, it paralyzed me whole.

Then she made the first move, stood up and came to me, recouping herself for the moment of weakness she had. When she was in front of me, my eyes went to her neck, not because I looked down, but because she was a head taller than me. She had the traditional nut shaped, made of precious brown stones, necklace that women of /Risu/ use, which told me she cared about her look more than she cared to admit. After my wits processed that detail, I scouted her fingernails which were painted of a dark brown similar to her hair, something quite rare in risuners, as only the women that were interested on the culture of /∞/ used nail paint, an expensive luxury. Before she told me a word, I realized this woman was the most balanced individual I'd met, unity of the most brave and the most delicate of traits.

My mind gone and body euphoric, I missed her first words to me. She was asking me why I was looking at her so intensely, which I heard when she repeated it for the third time. With my whimsicality absolute lost, I straight-out said: 'you're beautiful'. I said them in the most moronic way possible, almost shouting them in a monotone voice. She flustered, but this time she didn't show any weakness, and gave me the best gift she could do to me, not being disgusted by my pathetic display and keep talking back.

She said to me: 'I know your kind: pale complexion; thin weakling body; extravagant looks full of unnecessary ornaments; and that device you call clock hanging in your pants. Your are kronie. I appreciate your kindness stranger —she forced herself to be eloquent in her words, something that wasn't natural to her, I've got know later–, I think you look charming on your own way too'.

I don't recall any more details of our conversation, something I'm not proud of as a scribe, but my guts were in control at that moment and they aren't particularly smart. We talked for a while, with my only honorable moment was when, while she was trying to convince me that she was a brute and not precious, I mentioned almost unfiltered all of what I said before in this paper. Even when she still denied the cuteness of every detail I mentioned, she was enjoying me appreciating her whole, and it was her who told me to ask her to a date. At that moment I came back to my senses, blessed be The Warden, and asked her to go to the commercial part of the port city nearby. She agreed, but we ran out time to keep praising each other –something that seemed it could have continued forever–, because she had to go back to work. When she was leaving I grabbed her hand forcefully and gave it a kiss. I posed my lips on it a little to much time that I felt her body heating up by the gesture. She then repeated that pose of grabbing her tail and blushing she did when our eyes first met.

And then… she bluntly, but with a magical charm, said goodbye and turned her back to me, walking away. Before she disappeared in the distance I could grab a last astonishing sight: her wide shoulders, the wild curves in her toned body and, for the first time, the full splendor of her tail moving so intensely I could feel losing myself again.

Kroniicles of our stay in /Risu/, volume XII, part II: The date.

My readers, this will be a short introduction, as I want to get to this story in a straightforward fashion. Last time I talked about meeting the most beautiful risuner, now I present you our first date.

Ten days after we first met was the day, and we only had little conversations during that period, which were to decide the date of this event, so I was kind anxious about it. I found myself waiting in the docks of the port city of Kenkerto, the place where kronies initiated contact with /risu/ for the first time, an ideal place to charm a woman who —as I described before— seemed to had a interest in our culture. What it used to be a small town populated only by risuners —fisherman mainly—, is now a ostentatious city inhabited by both natives and kronies alike, with a rich and luxurious port full of businesses and entertainment places. The architecture of it shows an absolutely obsession for the most productivity possible but, at the same time, it doesn't lack splendorous adornments at every corner.

The prime example of it is the central plaza, reserved for cultural life: restaurants, souvenirs shops, vanguard clothing stores and a public theater stage. This place is organized around a central garden of yellow, pink and blue flowers, with a sculpture in the middle, made with the finest Bangkirai wood, of Risu and Kronii. This wonder has a proportion twice as big as the tallest risuner and portraits their naked figures back to back, hand entangled, with the Warden face looking to /risu/ while the local goddess sight goes to /∞/. I was here the day it was unveiled and to this day I'm fascinated by two details which can only possible to the most skillful hands of both nations best artisans: one is Kronii's rectus abdominis muscles which can be perceived either as firm or tender depending on which side you look at them; the other, a very realistic and detailed representation of Risu's mons pubis hair.

And there I was again, lost in the splendor of the symbolic monument, waiting for her. To calm my nerves I resorted to smoking a mint herbal cigarette, as I never liked the smell or taste of tobacco, using it to hide the fact that, for the first time in years, I was looking forward to more than a night with a woman. Commitment to my nation and the arts has always been my forte, but I can't say the same about my commitment to people. I'm a loner hiding in the crowds, an expression of the most cynical impudence of my breed. So then, why my perfect fake arrogance was missing? What spell carries the flesh of this risuner that I can't sustain the usual facade? Is that smile and the blush in her cheeks so powerful that it has dissembled my expertly construct detached image? My questions would soon find its answers.

Eventually, she showed up. She was at the entrance arch, waiting. How long has she been there? Was I so lost in my self-doubt to miss her entrance? Even then, I took my time to take the full picture: a long dress, faded light salmon pink, with a fabric belt around her abdomen that made her hips and bosoms pop out, with a exposed cleavage and no sleeves; no make-up at all, she didn't needed it anyway, but with very noticeable dark blue ribbons earrings, easy spot for a kronie, as they resembled those of our goddess; her short hair adorned with a white flower over her ear and tied up with a low tail; a choker necklace with a emerald nut figure —risuners fascination for precious stones without a doubt—; her beautiful caramel skin shinning with the light of the plaza. I could feel my legs weakening while other parts of my body getting stiffed. I fought my desire of giving up at the sight of what it looked like a impossible mission for this man and went to meet her when my cigarette depleted.

I was approaching her when our eyes met and both paralyzed for a moment, and obvious alarm signal of our bodies fearing a failure to get the desired ideal night, to which she recovered first, so I pushed myself to get back to my senses too. Then I made what I intermediately considered a misstep: as soon as I got close to her I spoke lengthily about how mesmerized I was about her beauty, the long tirade receiving an abrupt end when she started to make a big, loud laugh. I panicked and told myself that my luck ran out, and my brain was trying to conceive a dignified escape plan. But then she said: 'Leave the showy words for a solemn gal or your writings, I'd prefer knowing the real nature behind your overzealous speech.' Then it was over. I felt the ropes of my yearning for her tighten my body like a BDSM artist would, leaving me unable to escape, forever. All my fears were exorcised by the witchcraft of her natural charisma and a compulsion to make her feel like I was feeling became my drive.

After her words she looked at me straight to the eyes, with a playful smirk in her face, to which I responded with a honest smile, a rare occurrence. 'At least let me kiss your hand, you may like to show a rough woman image in your speech but you have dressed like a earthly goddess. You don't deceive me, that dress and accessories are worth weeks of work.' I expected shame but I received a confident wink and a smile back, showing her stunning oversized squirrel woman teeth a little. 'I love the confidence,' I said. She gave me her hand without any minuscule care for elegance, she wanted her price for her effort to please me with her looks. I kissed it slowly. I'm not ashamed to admit that I took my time to enjoy the softness of her skin on my lips. When the ritual ended, I asked her to follow me, as I'd a plan for a dinner in the restaurant nearby.

In the way to it we stopped in a souvenir store, where she browsed in the /∞/ sector. You could see her attention getting immersed in every detail of the goods, from the simplest to the most exotic. I didn't miss a beat, my wits finally showing up, and I chose a twin silver armlets with the design of our goddess weapons, Tick and Tock, to gift to her, which I did in a frenzy. I finally got her to blush with the gesture. Oh, what a gift from the heavens! The rose in her cheeks gave me an intoxicating feeling that no alcoholic beverage could give. I was, finally, on equal footing with her —metaphorically speaking of course, she still was a head taller than me—, it was the time to let ourselves loose.

She told me that they were too expensive —they really were, I gave up almost a month worth of work there, and I don't want to be pretentious but my salary is not exactly the smallest, even if I wouldn't consider me rich—, and she wanted me to give them back. I made an offended gesture in a poorly acted way and told her that her clothes and accessories were pretty expensive too. That worked and she kept them. 'I want you to use them now, if you don't mind', I said. She looked at me with a look that denounced that she knew she had the upper hand again, and replied to me 'You are trying to claim me as yours already? We haven't even got our bodies to pleasure each other, you charming man.' I would've been ashamed if I wasn't so aroused with her words, which weren't as subtle as I transcribe here.

After she put on the armlets, she started to make a pose for me: her hands in the back of her head; fingers going inside her hair; elevating her chin a little; arching her back to boost her chest. Then, without mercy, she abruptly lower her head and winked to me. I took it as it was, a sign to go for it. I grabbed her waist and pushed us together, the side of my face posing in her breast as her head was beyond my reach. I let my left hand slip and pet her tail, a universal gesture in adult risuners I learned pretty early in my adventures in this land, meaning desiring intimacy. Maybe in other places in this planet that would be over the line, specially in a first date, but we're talking about a risuner and a kronie, this was a moment we were waiting to happen. She lowered her face to me, and I looked at her, our eyes told us to get to a private place. We went to the back of that store, which had a small path before the end of the port and the start of the ocean, and we resigned the last of our self-control. I stripped my lower half and sat on the floor, she took her whole dress out and throw herself over me. We took our time to savor our bodies before we went for the intercourse, as tasting a first course is necessary to enjoy a main dish. We explored each other thoroughly. I particularly enjoyed when she licked my ear and whispered words that are only mine to know. I believe she enjoyed my hand exploring her back and other places nearby. Then we connected as men and women do, and did the deed intensely, our bloodlines showing their famous lust. Two sweaty bodies were the result, with my heavy breathing head resting in her chest, hers resting on my head, and our hand linked. We then committed to a long kiss.

In timely fashion, the window over us opened and two towels were left in its border for us to use. A disembodied old lady voice said: 'Thank you for making me remember my days of youth, but take care of yourselves, dry those drenched bodies before you get sick.' With our tired voices, tinted with a pleasured tone, we expressed how grateful we were with the gesture to the unknown risuner or kronie woman. While we were cleaning our bodies she used her feet to play with my manhood. Risuners feet are a little different than ours: they've a shorter base with a curvier arch, and longer claw-like toes with a lot of more precise movement possible to them. An ideal design by nature to climb and keep attach to trees but also those characteristics makes them pretty versatile for pleasuring purposes too. I had to stop her, even if I didn't want to, because we were late for our dinner. 'You really want me to stop for food?,' she asked her head resting in her shoulder, a hand in her now disheveled hair, with a devilish look. 'I'm starving after... you. Even if I'm fuller in other ways,' I replied with snark. We laugh together.

We dressed up, and with our hands together as one, we went to the dinner. It was in a second floor, the table looking at the ocean, the same ocean that saw us going primal on each other before. We talked for a couple of hours, we ate enough to feed an army, and we laugh a lot. We were comfortable with each other, not a easy thing for me and —I learn later— neither for her. I got to know that she was a neophiliac, which was a given by now, given her interest on /∞/ culture; she got to know my curious simpleton real self behind the exaggerated prose I usually display. She wanted to know the world by traveling; I wanted to know it by using any opportunity that is given to me, the reason why I was and am in /Risu/. We talked too, of course, about our lust, gloated about our personal past sex encounters and how we saw us going forward with our carnal desires together. Even if it was too soon to do so, we speculated, hiding it as playfully what-ifs, about a life together. We hit a stop abruptly there knowing that, even if both our cultures were very open about mixed couples, this kind of union was too new and made a lot of the couples uncomfortable and put stress in their relationship on the attention and whispered comments it provoked on our societies. An awkward silence followed for the first time in our talk.

Thankfully, we killed that dread feeling with a straightforward talk about whose house we were going to go next, the proposal coming from her, to do what our bodies were asking to do again. At the end we chose her house, even if it was the longest road. Thus we ended our first date going through the woods, leaving Kenkerto behind, to what would become later our first home, not without a little stop against a tree for a quick love expression. The ropes tightening me were indeed strong, but I wasn't the only one feeling them by now. We shared a knot now, we were in love. But as beautiful as this piece of the story is, love is usually filled with others complex stories attached to them. But at that time, all was bliss, our little untainted starting days.

Kroniicles of our stay in /Risu/, volume XII, part III: Collapse.

I was not always a man of faith. I don't mean about my goddess or church, I might not be the straightest arrow in that aspect, but my love for Kronii, her teachings and gifts were never put in doubt. I'm referring to about the dictionary meaning of the word 'faith': believing in something so strongly that you leave your feelings and thoughts out of the equation. As someone whose livelihood depends on writing, both as what puts bread on my table and the way I fulfill my life with meaning, I've always based my actions around what the material word around me was showing me. Curiosity, observation, investigation, adapting to circumstances: those words describe me more that calling me a 'believer'. Magic has always being present in this world, maybe not as omnipresent in /∞/ where technology is more central, but I've only accept it after watching it happening in front of me. But life made me a man of faith, and I narrate it how that change happened.

A few months after our first date, where I left the story last time, I found myself living with my beloved. This was not a planned development, as my lack or inspiration –once again– for writing kroniicles and my official work diminishing fast as /∞/ and /Risu/ became more tighten together meant that I was lacking the economic support to pay my rent. Kemala —that's her name— forced me to live with her, she had a small house but was sure that we wouldn't be uncomfortable sharing. She convinced me saying that I could live and work there without problem during the day when she was at work in the mine, which was true -- if I had any work to do anyway.

My productivity was so low that I expend a lot of time contemplating every detail of that house, my main form of entertainment given my dire economical situation at the time. The tiny kitchen, only usable to do simple recipes, was enough for a woman who almost never used it, as she mostly ate fruits and vegetables and little meat, and only experienced complex food by looking for foreign dishes when going out. The bathroom was more spacious, but also full of female cosmetics and beauty products, a well kept secret for those who only interacted with her on working hours. Thankfully, the bedroom was pretty big, but also the most simplistic of all rooms: a big closet, with one half being her work clothes and the other some expertly selected leisure time ones; a paint of her as a little child over the bed, something I lost several hours looking at, imagining that it was a prophecy of something to come instead —wishful thinking that I left to me at that time—; some plants and flowers near the ample window, which had no curtains, unnecessary given that the house was at the border of the town and there was no road in that direction; and a bed which could, and probably did at some time, house four people on it, my favorite place to be in the house but not when I was alone, and her biggest luxury besides what resided in the living room.

All of those rooms were connected to the central room of the house, a big living room with a ample couch where we spend most of our time, with a fireplace in the wall next to it. With those two sides complete and the other going to the kitchen and bathroom, the remaining wall at the other side of the couch was the one to be the designated place to have the most curious items, some coming from different nations /Risu/ had contact with.

A small bookshelf at one corner, with most books coming from /∞/ and /mep/, with a variety of genres going from literature and educative books to romantic and adult pamphlets –the public part of my works included, which I can proudly and shamelessly say were there before she met me–. Then there were two pair on paintings on each side of a big window in the middle of the wall which I'll take pleasure on describing, as it showcases the complexity of my loved Kemala. A native paint of a short and feminine looking naked male risuner with his manhood represented as a thick tree trunk and some big hanging nuts at its base –a little intimidating image to me given my average equivalent–, the figure drawn with very strong lines and intense colors but no background at all, an example of the /Risu/ straightforward culture. Next to it was a /mep/ paint of their goddess in infantile form, sleeping under a tree with a notebook in her hand —a reference about the blessing of an expansive literature production that land has— which was full of color and contrast, with strong greens and muted blues as main palette and a detailed sunflower field as background. On the other side of the window was a paint of a priestess from my land, made with hard black lines and little touches of washed paint color, with the scene being her kneeling by the river bank, the upper half of her body naked, washing the side of her body with a white cloth, her pure white ample bosom hanging low with the only color in it being two big washed pink dots for areolas without nipples and some barely visible green lines as veins. Finally, the last paint was simply a family portrait, something inescapable to any risuner, people of strong family bonds, with all brothers and sisters playing in the ground of a park with their parents looking at them in the background. This last one was painted by an uncle, a favorite relative who introduced her to the art of painting, something that she didn't do much anymore in her adult life.

I remember that I was looking at that wall, smoking one of my herbal cigarettes —ginseng this time—, lost in my own self-pity when someone knocked at the door, something unusual as we didn't get many visitors. I took the fag out of my mouth and went to the door. When I opened it I found myself in front of my beloved's best friend, her face full of wrinkles and tears falling from her eyes. A chill went down my spine, I let my cigarette fall to the ground, and my face went white: my body instinctively understood terrible news were coming. She hug me and the tears became crying, to which I reacted by violently shaken her as panic got me. And then she told me: a collapse happened at the mine. My knees hit the ground with the full weight of my body and I broke in tears too, my only words being an almost inaudible 'no'. She then crouched and hugged me again, and told me follow her.

When we arrived to the improvised medical installation at the entrance of the mine my soul was crushed by the scene: whole families of risuners crying at bodies full covered by cloths, doctors running one side to another trying to attend those with barely better luck, and the smell of dry blood intoxicating the air. Then, a nurse came to tell me to go with her, which filled me with fear for the worst. Thankfully, she told me straigh away that Kemala was alive and mostly in good health, but that I needed to see her as soon as possible. While that cleaned up the dark cloud in my mind, a fuzzy white noise replaced it, as I knew that there was more to it than that.

With the help and support of both the nurse and her friend I got to where she was. I found her sitting in the grass, her head resting in the wall, hair covering the face and with only the left side of her body visible. I ran and hugged her, posing my lips on her head, calling her name. I don't remember most of what happened, my head was burning, the noise in it still going strong, but I'll never forget her desolate crying face when she told me in a voice drown in sobbing this words: 'I'm broken'. She pulled the right side of her body out of the wall, now facing me, and let her right arm fall to her legs, arching her back to hide her face by looking down. My eyes went the same way and found her arm ending abruptly to a bloody bandage were a hand used to be. I hugged her again and broke in tears, half empathy and half relief her destiny was not death as others miners, but the only words I could came with were 'I love you, you'll never broken to me'.

Shortly after a doctor came and took her to another place where I couldn't follow. The nurse asked me to go with her, she was going to give me instructions on how to take care of my Kemala and, if it wasn't that painful enough, on how to break to her that she was never going to be allowed into a mine again. The white noise in my head became a hot boiling pot and I shouted to her in despair my misdirected anger: 'She is not broken!'.

The next couple of weeks was us in our home, with her in bed or the couch, her posture denouncing a defeated state, while I was trying to keep her fed and taking care of her bandages. She was mostly silent and this pathetic scribe was lost of words most of the time. I assumed she was in shock, but in reality she was mourning inside. She knew the news I didn't want to break to her. She expend a lot of time looking at what was missing, with my interventions to end that torture unsuccessful most of the time. I only could connect with her by constantly snuggling her, trying to transmit in body language that everything would work out, even if I wasn't sure how.

That was the worst time in our lives, days filled with hopelessness. We hide ourselves from each other to cry. We could only talk in a mostly mechanical way, as any emotional talk would end in endless waterfalls. We were lost, directionless.

The only moments I left her alone at home when I stubbornly, and repeatedly, went to visit her boss office, which was near the mine, still closed two months after the accident. Time and time again I begged them to let her work in whatever position was possible for her to fulfill when the mine opened again, which was received with confusion every single time, and always with the same result: a rotund no. I explained to them that in /∞/ miners could still work after this kind of accidents by using a pickaxe adapted to be grabbed to the arm, but her direct boss told me that risuners didn't allow disabled people to work again, lack of workers was never a problem in the overpopulated /Risu/, and that they would find her work elsewhere. Time and time again, the same result.

Until one day her boss and a doctor showed up in our house. They came to tell her, she hearing it for the first time, that her mining days were over. Her face was emotionless, mine was full of worry and impotence. 'I don't accept it', she said. 'I have heard my loved one here whisper to one of my friends that you have denied, repeatedly, to allow me to go back to my work, which is my life, even if he had something that would allow it.' They explained to her what I heard a dozen of times, but she still didn't want to accept that fate. The doctor told her how they could help her to find a new job for her, meanwhile the boss repeated with a certain pain in his voice that what she wanted was not going to happen. 'No,' was once again, a every time, the word coming from her mouth. 'Test me,' she said to stop the looping conversation, and continued 'I'll show you I'm not broken'. The word resonated in the room and inside each of us. They answer never came, they excused themselves and leaved. She then went to the bedroom in a stoic matter but broke in tears once she sat in the bed, her whole attention focused once again to the empty space that tortured her.

Something broke inside me at that moment.

I went out and looked for her boss in the streets nearby, and once I found him I cowardly assaulted him with a punch, making him fall to the ground. Then I went on my knees a begged him to give her the chance. I bargained with promises I couldn't fulfill; made threats that I'd never dare to carry out; I also spouted words without order and sense; and, at the end, I told them, repeating the words endlessly, 'I have faith she can do it'. And, for once, I actually believed it, as I realized in my pain that I would never give up on seeing her happy again. I truly believed in her, I would forever, ever if reason said otherwise.

Once he was on his feet again her boss accepted to give her the chance when that was possible, followed by the doctor telling me that he would reunite with his equals from /∞/ to arrange it. I left with that promise, still shaken by all that happened, the weight of those months of pain finally catching me after repressing it, but I'd a feeling of hope pushing me to rush towards our home to transmit my beloved that she had that opportunity to get back on her feet.

When I got home I found her standing in the front door, her eyes expressing utter sorrow. She ran to me and hug me, she screamed to me while crying that she didn't want to be a burden and begged me to not leave her. I grabbed her cheeks and told her that would never happen and that I wanted to go back inside with her, to our home. She calmed down and nodded. Once inside I made her dinner, ate it in silence, and then we went to bed. The news would have to wait until tomorrow when she could process them in a calm matter. She fell asleep fast, but I couldn't, expending the night playing with her hair, thinking about how I was never going to lose hope for her. Whatever happened in the future —and lot of things would happen— I had faith on her. On us. On our love.

Kroniicles of our stay in /Risu/, volume XII, part IV: Whole.

I think a topic I've been avoiding for a while in my kroniicles has been the presence of /meat/ people in /Risu/. I guess I've been censoring myself, as it has never been a prohibit topic, but it's certainly a taboo one to focus too much on it. Or at least, I preferred it that way until now.

We kronies introduced /meat/heads legally on this country for the first time, as we hired them as workforce for building and protection of the road and assorted projects, which meant that they would have to live here, a very uncomfortable prospect for the natives. The land of the magic trees –sorry risuners for the oversimplification– has historically been one of the nations who has suffered the most the raids from the self-proclaimed 'godkillers'. Pillage, raping, burning, cannibalism, slaving, between other atrocities were what the risuners knew them for, as does most of the world. Then, suddenly, they not only have foreigners intruding in their land and transforming each aspect of the lifestyle; but also, they found themselves coexisting with the descendants of those who reigned terror in their land. For this reason, even if kronies have mixed into every part of /Risu/, /meat/heads have been segregated on isolated and self-contained towns, and they mostly dealt exclusively with /∞/ representatives at first. Bloodstains are hard to wash, no matter how old they are.

I can hear you reader, you are saying 'you asinine scribe, this is suppose to be the fourth part of your love story, why are you rambling about that? Well, you will understand soon enough.

Half a year has passed since the collapse of the mine and the accident that killed several risuners and maimed others, my beloved Kemala being in the latter group. By that time she was mining again, the first time someone from her nation with a disability was doing such feat, but just as a temporal test. I can see her banging the rock with great strength, but not as precise as it should be, as adapting to the prosthetic tool she was now wearing is not easy, I've seen /∞/ miners suffer the same struggle before, needing months to get comfortable working in this new way. It worries me, she has never been a woman with such aggressive posture and movements, but I do not dare intervene, both as his partner or as a professional, as I'm here to capture in writing this historical moment. In fact, at that moment, I wanted to run away from that image, looking at her getting worked out because inside her mind she knows that the test was going to be considered a failure no matter what, as their bosses accepted to do it from pressure they received from some high ranked kronies representatives, as I cashed in some favors. They don't need to say anything to show their disapproval, their body language speaks for them, they don't understand what good could come of using a disabled risuner when there are several healthy ones that could do the same work, without suffering a surgical intervention to get prosthetics, and being more productive at the same time; and if they do understand why someone would want to do it, continue working in what they feel is their calling in life, they can't justify the changes it would provoke, as they can predict a change like that in here would trigger a wave of others in their society.

This situation, resistance to change, was not exclusive in this ambit. Since the first days of the kronie-risuner relationship the natives and owners of this country have tried to hold onto their ways and culture while being welcoming to us and to the progress our intervention have brought to their land. They received with open arms the incorporation of tools, cultural interchange, knowledge about engineering, production organization and the introduction on new fetishes; but not so much industrialization, deforesting, the sexual liberty inside married couples or the strictness of our social structure and time management –I can say I'm not happy about that either–. And, of course, while being cautious to show discomfort, our tendency to casually consume mind and body altering products, sudden burst of schizophrenic nostalgia for our land, and our workforce agreement with /meat/. This is understandable, /Risu/ was not uncomfortable with what it was as a nation before we got here, and while they started calling it 'the dull era' to the years previous to our arrive, there was stability in that dullness; now, the changes were happening in every institution, either material or cultural, at breakneck pace, and they felt their identity being diluted, specially the commonfolk. /Risu/ was fighting between what it always was and what they wanted to be.

An so, as you can guess by my long parenthesis, that day the test was considered unsatisfying. So did the one done the week after. Third time, same result. And then the last one happened, which wasn't supposed to be the last, but it ended being that way. Kemala was getting better at doing the work, but she was still hitting the rocks with too much temper, so much that something horrible happened: the metallic rods that held the prosthetic attached to her arm broke and pierced the flesh. A howl of pain echoed in the mine. She fell to the ground and got into fetal position. She was crying, but only agony screams came from her mouth. The medical staff took her away fast, but they couldn't take the prosthesis away, risuner doctors didn't have much knowledge about it to take the risk. After that horror scene the proposal to implement this new form of mining work was over, but what was worst for me was that Kemala's dream of coming back to 'her place', as she called it, was never going to happen.

Later that day I found myself waiting in a room of an /∞/ military medical camp outside the city, as doctors from my land were the only ones with the expertise to deal with such situation and the best ones in /Risu/ were in this installation. Behind the door in front of me Kemala was having a procedure to remove the remains of the prosthetic that penetrated her arm. I expected the worst, but not about her physical safety, I believed the doctors could deal with that, it was worrying about the aftermath. The hope for reincorporation to mining was what gave her the motivation to pick herself up after the accident, focusing on exercising to recover her strength and accepting going out more to help her improve the mood swings she was having. Now, that was no more, so I couldn't stop shaking. I failed before to push her to diversify her activities and interests, as she was obsessed with this opportunity to go back to mining. That curious of the world, complex Kemala I met was gone. 'What was going to happen after this?,' was the question eating me inside.

Eventually, one of the doctors got out of the room and approached me. She tells me that the forearm is compromised, but for now they won't amputate it. I questioned her if Kemala said anything that could have influenced that decision. She doesn't answer, which means yes.

'What could happen if that ends being a bad call?,' I asked while my voice struggled.

'She was hiding that she had pain in the arm, which could mean she had something already going in the region. During the procedure we found a big infection, but we don't know if it's only because of the accident or if it was already there and this made it worst. If the infection spreads to the body--'

I got mad and punched the wall, and leaving my fist on the wall I said: 'then why are you doubting about it! You know her judgment is clouded! You've been treating her from months, you know how obsessed she is with this that she isn't thinking straight about consequences. THE consequence.'

She went silent for a moment and then told me that no doctor here wouldn't do anything she didn't want, they didn't want to have problems with risuners authorities because they did a procedure against a native's will.

'Cowards. Cowards!,' I shouted, 'once she is conscious I want her ready to go'.

The doctor was startled. 'She can't be without medical attention,' she told me.

'She won't be,' I said while dismissing her.

The sharp tool was inserted very sightly into the throat, but that was enough for a little stream of blood to escape from it. Kemala turned her face and shouted to me 'you have been lying to me from the start, you piece of shit.' I told her that she should end what she started or desist on it, otherwise what she was doing was pleasing for him. After that she pointed the improvised weapon to me instead, her eyes tearing.

'Why?,' she asked.

'Your man is not a traitor, young lady, he is a savior. I was told you were open-minded, was he lying about you?,' the old man said.

She was trembling of fear and fury, I don't believe she knew what she wanted to do. A good signal, somewhat.

'This is boring. Sit down, your are dealing with an infection in your forearm that could spread to your body and then there will be nothing else to do. You getting worked up will make it worst. You'll have the answers you need after I cut out that piece of sick meat you are holding on to as if it was your life, risking losing it all. If you don't realize that, you're the piece of shit in my opinion. Forget that I'm from /meat/, this is a medic talking to you, a medic who knows about flesh diseases like no-one could, a perk of my upbringing in the land you think you hate.'

She kept loosening and tightening the grip. I made a guess that part of her confusion might be because of the infection spreading. So I beg her.

'Please, listen to him. I trust him, and you should too. You know there is more than meets the eye, and I know that deep down, you still believe in me.'

She lets out a nervous sighs while her tears keep falling. She lowers her arm, turn around and sits, then leaves the item on the table.

'Do as you say.'

'Well then! Go rest on that bed, I will go for my assistant and we'll extirpating the sick part of you. But I want to tell you something before we begin, a person is more that the flesh it is made off, meat it's only worth if you make the most with it,' told the old man before leaving.

She followed the instruction right away. She didn't look at me while doing it. I didn't care. I did what it had to be done.

Soon enough, the doctor came back with his assistant, they numbed her from pain with some potion, but she didn't lose consciousness. I knew this was being done on purpose: not because he wanted her to suffer watching it, he was doing it that way so she was sure nothing undesired was going to happen to her. I went to her side and grabbed her hand, she was trembling but her grip was holding me strong. I told her that I loved her, she turned her head.

Some time later we found ourselves looking at the detached forearm in a silver plate, the doctor cutting a side of it to show us the pus that was trapped inside. She looked a Kemala straight to the eyes and told her: 'to this putrid meat you were holding on to. See this white liquid? That's the poison that would end killing you. Do you think you are less than before, that you are not whole, without it?'

You could see that the words affecting her: the eyes were fixated to what was a part of her before, but she wasn't watching it, she was lost in her thoughts.

The old man realizing that she was not going to stop doing that punched the table of his desk, startling her.

'So, do you want to hear my story or what?'

She nodded.

'Well then. I'll make it short. As you know, I'm from the nation of /meat/ and a doctor, and that I'm in /Risu/ thanks to that silly looking man you are in love with. Don't deny it, you are. He saved my life. I come from a farmer region of my country, and I'm a commoner. I was a good /meat/head, I lived as one of my people should, until I didn't. Something changed in me when they took my daughter as a sacrifice, forcefully. At first I took it as an honor, until I saw it happen in from of my eyes. For the first time I didn't enjoy the gutting, and my mind wasn't praising our goddesses, it was resenting my fellow people. I wasn't against what was being done, but I couldn't bear the fact that it was being done to someone who didn't offered to, even if she was smiling all the way through. A crisis of faith I guess? Not sure, more of a different understanding of it, as I'm still a believer of the sacred cycle and I will never give up on my believes. But since that moment, I questioned and redefined the way of doing my faith, so I found that helping slaves and other /meat/heads that though like me to hide from the forced sacrifices gave me peace of mind. But eventually, they would be find out, and while sometimes they would be forgiven, other times... Anyway. I knew that some day I was going to be found out, and that in my case I wasn't going to be forgiven. And that was about to happen, they were so close to me, when this shitty writer here came to me and told that he could help me, and other like me, to escape /meat/ and hide ourselves in /∞/ or other countries, which in my case ended to be the beautiful /Risu/.'

He stopped there, waiting for a reaction, any reaction, but nothing was coming.

'Not impressed? What is in your mind?'

'Why were you in /meat/?,' she asked me, 'what was a translator, I'm guessing that was what you were doing there, and an /∞/ procession, doing in a rural town in /meat/?' So smart, my beloved, she picked up that hole in the story so fast.

I looked down for a minute, I bit the tip of my tongue inside of my mouth for a moment, and then looked at her.

'I was there-- We were there to... deliver something. I'm not proud of--,' I was forcing myself to answer the question when she interrupted me.

'What was it,' she told me in a piercing tone, full of fury.

'Come on stupid scribe, you've been in perils worse than answering this lady's question. Spit it out,' told the old man.

'/∞/ gives /meat/ people to use as sacrifice, it's a deal under the table, they're prisoners of Schizograd, the ones deemed irrecoverable. Some of them, yes, they are such; but others are full functional kronies that just don't think like our government wants them to. As you guessed it, I was acting as a translator.'

'You're leaving the story at that. Then I'll say the whole thing then,' the /meat/ native continued narrating unhappy I was letting details out.

'He is no mere cog in the machine dear. Pardon the cheesy metaphor, I've spend too much time with him. While doing his duty he was also doing the same as me, helping those who were wrongly forced into a destiny they don't deserve. He found sanctuary for them in /meat/, cashing favors from his travels around the world, something very few kronies had done at that moment. And I believe he probably has helped non-Schizograd kronies getting refugee in other countries like /kfp/ or /rose/ too, but he is so mysterious and humble about it to tell it, or maybe cautious would be the right word, a requisite for men doing the things he did to keep living.'

'So he did the same for people of your land. There are /meat/heads hidden inside other countries because of him, eating people, if not doing worst,' she inquired.

I looked straight to her eyes, I had nothing to say to her, I was there being exposed and I was not ashamed of my actions.

'Talk coward! You're a fucking hero! He saved /meat/heads like me stupid woman, people that just though different in an intolerant society. Maybe if I was born in other place-- even inside /meat/, I wouldn't have needed to find haven in other country, but in my case I had to. I'm not the only /meat/ here, it just that we have adapted to your society, passing as kronies, hiding what we really are. I haven't eaten a person here without consent ever, not for fear of being discovered but on my own conviction, and I've never forced my believes into anyone! He, HE, is such a stupidly full of empathy person that he steals /meat/ rations from the legally installed /meat/heads here, that would kill a so-called traitor like me if they found out about it, so I can live my religion fully, even if he doesn't sympathize with what I do,' shouted the /meat/ doctor, going almost berserk.

'Enough! I'm no hero. I'm just... sometimes I disagree about what is happening around me and I do what I feel is right, just that. I'll bear with any consequences. But just me. So, Kemala, if you need to--'

'I will not rat you out,' she interrupted me, and then continued.

'He being here saved my life, and him being a doctor probably means he did that for others too. I still don't like any of this, is-- is too much for me to deal with it now, but I understand what it's about. This... doesn't change what I feel for you. I still love you. This hurts me, the lies-- not lies but hiding it from me-- which I also get why but-- we'll have to deal with it later. I want to go home. Together.'

'Finally some fucking sense coming from this lady! But before you leave, hear me out Kemala-- allow me to call you by your first name, you already know everything about me-- hear the wisdom of /meat/, at least, the one part I believe to be completely true. Our religion talks about a cycle: life, death and rebirth, and also suffering. In it you have to make the most with was given to you, going as far as needed to reach the highest form of pleasure you can have from it, not letting the meat you are made of put you limits. We are made of flesh, but it doesn't define you, you define it by pushing it to do all, to feel all, pain being just but one of those things. If there is anything a /meat/believer can teach you, is that,' told the old man changing his angered tone from before in an enthusiastic lecture. 'Remember Kemala, you might lose a leg, another arm, an ear even, but you'll always be complete, whole'.

She looked at him and nodded. 'Let's go,' she told me while asking for my hand to grab hers.

So we left.

Once at home, we sat down in the couch, and realized the bandage in her arm was soaking in blood. In went to the bathroom and brought bandages to change them, and while I was doing that she said:

'Thanks for saving me. I'll never forget this. Nor I'll forget that doctor. I'll help you to do that kind of thing you did for him for others.'

We kissed.

Then, after the bandage was done, she told me: 'I need you to make me a favor. I'm indebted to that doctor, so I'll help those like him, the /meat/ people searching for a new opportunity in life in my country. I want them to know that they will find an ally in me. So I want you to find me a /meat/ tattooer, I will write a message in this upper arm for them to recognize me as someone they can ask for help.'

'You will call the attention of your people... those who realize what that mean... how will they react?,' I questioned her, my mind not completely understanding the need for such a specific gesture.

'I will deal with that. We, I hope, will deal with that. I want it. I want a word written in their language to be there,' she said completely proud of this decision.

'What word,' I asked, leaving any judgement behind.

'Whole'

You might be asking how I'm daring to tell this story. That's because I-- We are not in /Risu/ anymore. We took care that the people that I gave refugee in this land would be accepted by the authorities, whom after realizing that they've integrated to their people peacefully, decided to treat them with respect and to protect them from any attack from other /meat/heads who would try to capture them. Kemala's family are in /∞/ now, under my land protection, how that came to be will have to wait for a next time. As where we are now, well, it will take some time to get to that part of the story. This is the last public part of it, say goodbye to the Kroniicles to our stay in /Risu/, you will have to take chances to find the next ones on the wild, and just the curious and fearless will find the way to them.

'Till the next time, if you are brave enough.

Whole

Kroniicles from exile. Part five of my life with Kemala.

Hello back reader. It would be rare, if not impossible, that you are reading part five of this story without knowing what it is about, as finding it surely required to take some particular risks. Which ones, I don't know, I'm not in charge of the distribution of it. In any case, I'm honored of being worth the dangerous venture of finding this paper in the wild. So then, I won't lose your time with an overextended introduction.

Not a long time after where I ended the narration last time, a mere eight days later in fact, Kemala and me were inside a high ranked /meat/ military official office. This man, responsible of ruling one of the isolated towns where /meat/heads resided –the one closest to where we lived– was standing up, his posture perfectly still, wearing a suit exactly like the ones /∞/ officials wear, but instead of the material having a blue hue, it was a dark magenta tone, and its decorations were, or course, from /meat/. This curious image was possible because years of sustained relationship between our nations started to create certain customs and bureaucracy, represented in this new kind of amalgamations between soldiers and diplomats, and given the situation was certainly asymmetrical in the case of the settlement in /Risu/ being leaded by kronies, /meat/heads had to comply to a organization structure we decided. While this was certainly not an easy feat at the beginning, and with a lot of growing pains, the situation stabilized when the three parts involved found out they could trust each other. At any case, the symbolic gesture was more about bringing tranquility to /Risu/ about the /meat/heads adopting some rationality and organization stability like kronies than them actually being under our control, something that was not the case. So intertwined were the cultures becoming that I could see in his desk that he was having barley tea with cashew nuts as appetizer before we got to there.

'Do your best work soldier, I know the skin of a risuner is an unknown canvas for you, but I trust that you're the most qualified for this job, both as an artist and as a discrete man,' said the official.

'Thank you sir, I'm honored to be the one chosen for this, um--,' the soldier resisted to say the obvious truth, that this was a personal favor.

'Soldier, the less you say about this, even in front of me, the better. This never happened,' he said with complete military formality.

'Of course sir, my apologies,' answered the man doing the tattoo my beloved Kemala desired. He didn't turn his face once, completely focused on her skin.

A black mate base, to grab attention to it, and dark red letters which resembled the color of blood, an iconic palette that declared proudly its origin. Kemala asked to add several diagonal bold white lines behind the letters. Together, she explained, it meant 'the black background represents my body, the lines the pains endured by it, the word how I feel.' A heavy message to carry always with you, but I couldn't deny to it being done, even if it worried me how flagrant it was. How I could prohibit her telling to the world she felt whole again?

Let me remind you reader about this impossible to ignore gesture. It was made to honor the /meat/ doctor who saved her life by removing her infected forearm, something that for different reasons both /Risu/ and /∞/ medics didn't do, and that intervention saved her life; and, at the same time, to 'tell' the hidden /meat/ refugees I helped install in this country that she was an ally to them. And, of course, the personal meaning, an affirmation of acceptance about her new body status quo.

It was a noble gesture. It was a necessity to reclaim her sense of completeness. It was a premonition of disaster.

'While the soldier finishes the job, could you follow me to the backroom, old friend? I believe we have a pending topic to talk about, grab your cup of tea and come with me,' told me Tlapalshochi, who I met as an equal, a translator, years before.

I did as he said. Once in there I started to look for one of my herbal cigarettes, struggling to find it. He handed me one. I thanked him with a head gesture and when I was about to put it on my mouth he told me: 'you can't do that here, not that you have any way to lighten it anyway.'

I smiled and gave him a little friendly punch in his shoulder as a way to show him that I accepted the blunt humor. He smiled back. Both took a sip of tea.

'So,' he started talking, his face turning complete serious, 'you know this will be a disaster, won't you? You're throwing all our work, putting everyone we saved-- AND US-- in danger, for a woman.'

'Not the first time,' I answered.

'Not like this, you are not trying to save her from something else, you are trying to save her from herself. And let me tell you, this plan, you're changing the danger of her killing herself to making someone else kill her, condemning a lot of other people with her.'

My tongue danced around the insides of my mouth in an obvious nervous tic, my head turning to look at her in the next room.

'All right,' he sighted after telling those words, 'most definitely not your first rodeo with death. I know you have been working on it since the day she told you the idea of the tattoo: talking with the exiled and their friendly neighbors in the known to create a narrative in the town about a way to explain the tattoo to others; using you contacts in every institution, either risuner, kronie or my kind, to help keep your secrets hidden; and that you have planned with her on how to be careful about exposing that ticking bomb.'

He made a pause that made me uncomfortable. He was waiting for me to tell him something. I had a suspicion about what it was, but I didn't say anything.

'I know about the exit plan.'

I made a discomfort grin.

'Everything is being taken care off, some-- some with her help, which is very welcomed by the people we are helping, even those who hate on /meat/. They understand. Everyone understand that this will improve what we are doing for the best--'

'For how long?,' he replied making a disapproval gesture by putting his hand on his temple, 'you are lucky you are far from a main city were that tattoo would have been understood intermediately; and far enough of this official /meat/ settlement to not be a relevant threat. Your town is calm enough, with several people close to you to work as a secure net, to make that tattoo less of a problem, but... risuners might not learn /meat/ language on their schools, but the history books have art picturing those letters. It's a matter of time Keym.'

He lowered his arm and then put both in his waist, losing completely his soldier gesture. His sentimentality hit him, it seemed.

'It's a matter of when, not if my friend. I'm afraid of losing you, and I'm not talking about the exit plan. I'm talking about this raising hell to everything we built together.'

'I know all of this. You know I'm working on it. You know-- KNOW-- I will not walk away from this. From her. She is a liability? You'll have to kill me first to get to her. I also know, funny how I can't stop saying that word, that you wouldn't do that either, so what is the point my friend, give me the bad news that you don't love me anymore already,' I half joked.

'Ha!,' he lost his cool for a second, 'I will never stop loving you. Still bitter about that motherfucker, we could've been great together,' he smirked, though he wasn't joking.

'Sorry for not sharing the same feeling, but you know I love you in other ways. And that I'm afraid to lose you too.'

That hurt him, his eyes getting a little teary, but not about the romantic feelings, it was about not seeing us again. I felt the same.

'It still is a matter of when then. Fair, I don't know what I expected,' he gave me one last friendly smile and then when back to the military posture.

'I've what you asked me for.'

He looked for a box hidden next to a table and showed me what was inside, carefully hiding it from the sight of the other room. It was beautiful: a cuckoo clock made of beautiful /uuu/ wood, with the form of a risuner's house. He showed me, turning the hands to twelve to activate the /∞/ made mechanism, the main feature: a figure composed of a squirrel and a crow in a waltz position came out from inside the house and turned in circles like dancing.

Our eyes crossed and both smiled.

'Thank you,' I told him wearing my heart in my sleeve, 'you went overboard with it. Couldn't ask for more.'

'This was hard to fit into it, the artisan told me he struggled for weeks to find a way to make it look good.' He referred to a little drawer with a lock on it made of /∞/ wood that was incorporated to the design, seamless. 'It should work. I mean, I hope it does, we can't open it now to test it, right?'

'No we can't. Hope it works when the time comes.'

He turned his face to a side a little and raised an eyebrow, mocking me, and put it again into the box.

'I'll put it on the vehicle, go back to your lady. I'll back in a moment.'

I went back to the room Kemala was, she was getting bandages to hide the tattoo. It was over. Her face was all happiness. I faked the same gesture, but I'm not too sure if I sold it.

Tlapalshochi came from the back and told us that it was time to go, that everything was arranged for us to leave without anyone noticing. We took turns to hug him, Kemala giving him a hard one, which he didn't expected it to be so intense, but after a second he reciprocated it.

Once in the vehicle I told her, and I hated myself for having to do so, that she had to understand that everything would be changing forever with that tattoo.

'Everything already did when I met you,' answered. Damn you brown beauty, your naïveness was a gift and a curse.

The night protected us in our way back to home.

'When' echoed in my head that night.

Some weeks later, a month and half give or take, we were on our living room, Kemala completely naked in front of a full body mirror, making the finishing touches to a painting of herself, something that took hours given the difficulty of taking turns to pose and paint. I didn't complain, I was making a painting of the same in my mind, where it would never leave me. I was trying clothes to use for the reunion the next day, which was in her parents' house, a town away.

'It'll never capture your perfection,' I said in a smug tone.

'You kronies use that work too easily,' she replied.

'You've never been more wrong. Read more about us, we don't use that word that much if we're not referring to our goddess.'

'Oh! So you are putting me at the same level that Kronii?,' she was the smug one this time.

'Now you know why my fellow kronies treat me like a pariah!'

'Liar, they love you and your blasphemous snark,' she said while taking her sight out of the picture to transmit me her mocking disapproval.

'They do, goddess knows why,' I said while doing a undignified victorious pose.

'You look great in that suit,' told me with her eyes back to the canvas.

'And you'll look great in anything, birthday girl.'

'Moron,' she said while laughing.

'It's over? I need your attention for a moment,' I told her while I was gesturing her to come to the sofa.

'Now? Okay. Not that I can improve this more with this untrained hand. Well, let me wash myself, I'll be right back.'

I went for the gift box and put it where she was about to sit. When she came back she looked at me with her eyes closing a little in confusion and suspicion.

'What is that? Early birthday gift? Why not wait until tomorrow?,' she questioned me while grabbing the box and sitting at my side.

'Because I want to do it now. Also because you will not travel to another town with that. Open it.'

She opened the box with care and took out the cuckoo clock. Her eyes were sparkling.

'It's beautiful.'

I hadn't seen that neophiliac wonder in so long that it felt new.

'What does this mean?,' she looked at me with a child-like curiosity.

'Turn the hands to twelve.'

She did and the crow and squirrel came out and did the dance. She had the most beautiful smile.

'I love it. But where are we going to put it though? There is not a lot of room left here.'

'That's the thing. I want us to move out of town. I've been talking with friends-- I'm not exchanging any favors, don't worry-- with friends and they found a house in the middle of the forest for us, near /Towa/, to live in. I wouldn't be too far from a port city to do my work, and for you it will be a very comfortable place to do your paintings. I could sell them in the city once a month in one of my travels or in a weekend. It's perfect for us.'

She murmured something, I couldn't listen to her. I wanted it to be a shy approval, but I knew better.

She repeated it now in audible form: And safe. That's what you are leaving out of the sentence on purpose.'

'Yeah,' I said in nervous way.

'That's not what I want. Safe or not,' her face showing sadness.

'Kemala, it has become increasingly dangerous being here. Risuners, those who aren't friends with us, have realized about the tattoo and they have begun talking between them about it. I know that for a fact. It's a matter of time until something goes wrong. Very wrong. There's no other way, I've exhausted every other possibility. I might have made the local government acknowledge the exiled people and guarantee their security in secret, but our situation is different. We cannot fall. I will not be able to keep tabs on everything else happening in other places that are my responsibility. And you know I'm not negotiating that.'

She was about to cry but she was too strong to allow herself to do it.

'When?,' said with her voice getting a bit raspy.

'Next week,' I answered straight away.

Can't we postpone it for some time?'

'Not preferably.'

'Okay,' she told me in a defeated voice. She half smiled at me, put her hand on my cheek and then kissed me. The she hugged her gift with care to find some solace in it. I needed to smoke a fag after that, so I raised from the sofa and went to the door. She asked me this before I could leave.

'How is it?'

'I've no idea, I'm sorry. But we're going to be as happy, or more happy, there than we're here now, I promise you.'

'I believe you. Sorry. You're my hero, you know?'

'There is nothing to be sorry. And I'm no hero. I love you darling.'

Our vehicle stopped at the front door of the house. I couldn't stop sweating. While they already knew about me because my beloved had visited them several times before and they had all the information about our personal life and secret actions, it was the first time I was in front of them in flesh. I usually am a nervous wreak but that scene was ridiculous, how could the fear of their disapproval be that heavy to my heart?

'Calm your balls,' she told me while grabbing them with a tender grip. I got sightly aroused and to a half mast, despite the nerves.

'That's better,' she laughed, 'that will distract your mind. Get yourself together, I need the charming scribe coming out of you today. First impressions and all, you know?'

I closed my eyes, breathed heavy, let one big sigh out, and was ready to go.

We were received by her brothers and sisters, quite the bunch. Literally, risuners usually have a lot offsprings and this was no exception. They were friendly, their hugs full of honest love and warm, a good start at least. But then was the turn of papa and mama, the big fish. Usually I would have been prepared for this: asking Kemala a lot of questions and having answers ready; or searching for every detail in and around them to having a plan B ready. But no, I was a tabula rasa at that moment.

'So, this is the famous Kaym. He is pretty cute, I would hit that if I was younger,' said her father.

'I wouldn't mind either,' completed her mother.

'I told you he was hot. He's a big brain too,' tried to sell me well my lover to her parents.

'I dunno about that, he uses fancy words and all, but his writing is a little basic, hiding that weakness with lengthy, useless descriptions,' throw me a gut punch her mother, a teacher.

'Yeah, but he makes our honeybee happy mama, give him a break. At least our daughter keeps him in line, he looks fit. Or is that because you fuck like bunnies?,' said the risuner with the typical charm of his people.

'Well, a little of this, a little of that,' I winged it.

They laughed hard. So did her siblings. Thanks Kronii and Risu, I needed that blessing. Then they asked everyone present to go to the room where the dinner was ready, with family and friends from this town and ours: everyone wanted to cheer Kemala after the dark times she went through. We were going there when her father grabbed my arm and with a worried face asked me to follow him to a side of the room.

'How is she doing?,' he asked me.

'She is doing better. She is waking up and going to sleep to normal hours again. She is not doing any stable work, but she does some nut gathering as temporal jobs and I've been trying to provide for her by doing more official work, so that's not a problem for now. Thank you for helping us with our money issues, I know that it has been a burden--'

'Family takes care of each other in /Risu/ clockman, we rise together or we fall together. I don't want to hear the word burden again,' he told me without getting mad in any way, with soothing voice, pure fatherly love.

'Fair. But I'll compensate you for that. Well... she still can't go near the mine, it makes her regress every time she does. Her work friends are careful not to mention anything related to it when they visit. She has found comfort in painting, she is doing that a lot, gifting then to you or friends for now, but I want her to sell them so she realize how great her art is. She gets frustrated by her limitations doing that, but the struggles push her to try harder. She has become very skilled drawing with her left hand and feet.'

'She has always been great with feet if his sex partners are to believe,' told me while posing his hand in my shoulder, his face recovering his upbeat tone. Typical of risuners, sex isn't taboo at all. Nothing a kronie can't handle anyway.

'That has gotten better too. Since the tattoo her sex drive has come back, but it depends a lot on her mood swings. She is better, but a battle is still happening inside her. I expect some hard times when we move, specially with me having to travel so much to work, but I will sleep better when we get to there, knowing she will be safe.'

'You're a good man. Have you told her about what you consulted me by mail the other day?'

'No. I don't think I will do any time soon. For now, everything will be about her, there will time for us later.'

'That's where you are wrong Kaym, it has never been about her for a long time now, once you are in love and want to expend your life together, everything is about both. You better search for some personal happiness, otherwise that will reflect on your relationship. My daughter is suffering watching you leaving your personal matters unattended for her. And I agree with her fears.'

'That's my choice,' I told him in a frustrated state, 'but I will try to change that, eventually. I have hope that will be possible once we move.'

He made a face expressing understanding, messed my hair with his hand in a sign of approval, moved to my side and put his hand in my back to push me inside the room. Kemala was in there, taking turns to hug everyone, her face full joy. I couldn't be happier of being able to watch that scene, but it didn't last long.

When Kemala saw his uncle entering the room moments later she immediately went to him, gave him a hug, and then asked him to see her paintings in the other room. He was the responsible for her interest on arts, teaching her to paint as a little child, hobby that evolved in her passion for discovering other cultures later. I guess, in a way, he was responsible for the two of us getting together, and he knew that. And he didn't like that. When she showed him the paintings he made a disinterested gesture, which transformed her face instantly. So it began.

'What is in with all the black and dark red, that doesn't look like risuner art Kemala,' he said with a certain sharpness in his speech.

She went pale. Didn't say a word.

'What about that tattoo. You know what that represent, don't you? That's /meat/ letters. Why you have that? Did the schizophrenic island man forced you to do it as some kind of sick joke?,' each word he spouted was poisoned with vile.

I tried to intervene but her mother stopped me.

'I chose to have this tattoo done, by myself. I would never allow someone to decide something like this for me. And yes, those are /meat/ letters, some of their teachings have helped me to--,' she responded without missing her calm and sure of her words, but he interrupted her.

'What teaching you are talking about? Killing? Raping? Burn people alive in raids? Eating them? Have you forgotten that they have done all those things I mentioned to your ancestors? Are you one of them now Kemala?,' he keep throwing question after question, his eyes getting bloody.

'Enough! No! I'm no /meat/ follower! But some parts of their philosophy has helped me to stand in my two feet again. If you can't realize the difference, I don't care uncle. And don't dare insult Keym again,' she told him while putting her paintings back into the storage box.

'You're a disgrace to our people. You bring shame to your family, to your country. You and those like him –he pointed at me– are bringing this country to its knees, desiring that we become slaves of their debauchery. I know what you've been doing, and I'll not allow it--,' he was going for an endless tirade when Kemala's mother stopped him.

'You are bringing shame to our family now,' she told him while putting herself between her daughter and her brother. At that moment, Kemala's father arrived to the room, his posture showing readiness for whatever was necessary to protect his daughter.

'/Risu/ is about family. /Risu/ is about love. And you're not doing anything of that. Get out of my house, we will talk about this another time,' continued her mother.

'Huh!,' her uncle exclaimed with uttermost fury, and then kicked a chair making it fly to the other side of the room. 'All of you are narcissist traitors to your country and your family history, forgetting where you have been born! You are allowing /Risu/ to be eating alive by this invaders you are siding with!,' he shouted, with her mouth spiting, loosing his sanity.

Kemala's father approached him and told him to leave. He left without saying another word. Silence reigned for a moment in the room. Her father took the chair and put it in its original place. Then he said:

'I'll never stop loving my family or my country. My daughter, all my children, are the most important thing to me, and if him is her life partner, he is my family too. I don't condone his fury about what /meat/ has done to us in the past, but he is letting other frustrations and grudges from the past taint his perception of the present, where nothing is how he is portraying it. I would fight on his side if it was the way he describes it, but it isn't. And even then, I could never treat my family as he did, there are other ways to deal with something like this. So, this discussion is over. Lets go back to the party,' he sentenced and brought closure to the crisis. I envied his strength that day, and I still use this image of his integrity as inspiration to this day.

The party resumed and we tried to turn the page about what happened. We made an effort to make the rest of the day a happy event as it should have been. It mostly was, and we returned happily to our home a couple of hours later.

But that wouldn't be the end of it, as you will see next time.

Kroniicles from exile. Part six of my life with Kemala.

Welcome back again. Hopefully this paper is getting in your hands in a safe way for the sender and you too, reader.

The day after Kemala's birthday, after a nice morning sex session, we were hanging in the bed, our minds relaxed with the bliss of pleasure. But, as good sex is to give our mind a necessary pause in hard times, my mind couldn't keep repressing the worries about the previous day. I didn't want to have that conversation, but I knew I had to be done:

'What does you uncle know Kemala?,' the words came with some difficulty.

'He knows I have the tattoo, and I guess my family said we help exiled people, he must have assumed that between them there are /meat/people.'

'What DOES he knows... I'm talking about details. Have you told your family any--,' my words were coming with a certain tone that would make her uncomfortable, I couldn't control it, and yet she was able to not get intimidated and stopped me.

'He knows nothing, because my family knows nothing. If he knows exactly what my family knows, he only knows that we help exiled people. Nothing else. Drop it off, please.'

'I can't. Has he shown this kind of attitude before? This aggressiveness to foreigners?,' I couldn't stop going for it.

'You are making that question open because you don't want to say specifically /meat/. He hates /meat/, most risuners do. Our history books tell the history of the horrible horrors of /meat/heads raids, and they are not too far in the past, my grand grandparents we victims of them. My uncle have always talked about how his mother, when she started to loose the sharpness of her mind with age, always narrated stories about her grandparents being impaled and then chopped to pieces in front her while she hide under the rumbles of the house, so perturbing it was that the image never left her, not even in her last days. So, I think you can understand him resenting them particularly,' she answered me, frustrated, and started to get up from bed to end the conversation.

'But your parents don't feel the same,' I had to continue, even if I knew that this was ending in a fight, specially with what I had in me as the next question.

'Everyone has different ways of thinking. You cannot understand him feeling that way?'

A grabbed her hand so she didn't left. I think she was waiting for an apology, but that wasn't it.

'What we are going to do about him?,' I told her.

'What do you mean?,' she turned around, her face expressing pure anger.

'He is dangerous. To you. To us. To the people I said I was going to protect.'

She finally got up and left, no words said to me for the rest of the day, not even when I went out of the house.

'So doctor, how do you see me?,' asked Kemala.

'With my eyes silly! And call me by my name already, it has been months since we met!,' told the /meat/ doctor that saved her.

'Will you ever not be grumpy Agmundr, it has been months since we met!,' she retorted in a way that made my proud, because that definitely are some words that could have come from my mouth.

'HA! Well, I don't know about health, but your spirit is burning and I like that!,' he said while laughing.

'That's not a very doctor-y diagnostic, that's more like a witch diagnostic,' she continued pushing his buttons, he enjoyed the bantering.

'Not so different occupations, depending where you ask... But you body is in a great shape, nothing to worry about darling. How is the rest doing?,' he inquired as a friend and not as a doctor anymore.

She looked at me as if I had a target in my face, discreetly. But then she made a resigned smile. We didn't resolve our pending fight two weeks after it, but we were doing better nonetheless, thankfully as we were moving in a couple days. I had to change the date until we were both in the same page again, even I grew impatient to move. I had my reasons.

'I see. Well, it will get better. He won't be as much as a bitch when you get out of here. While I enjoy it greatly the gesture, you fucked up with that tattoo. He is doing what is best for you. Better doing that instead of waiting for something bad to happen,' he abused her confidence to be blunt about it, if it was me saying them she would have been gone before I could finish telling them.

'I know... but... Nothing. Yeah. I'll miss you,' she said without letting the frustration take reign for her.

'He will be able to visit us. We're the ones who are not coming back here,' I tried to cheer up in the lousiest way.

A little silence followed.

'I really appreciate you doing this for us, for our safety. And I still can't believe I'll be a legal citizen soon, thanks to you. And-- AND-- the two of you being safe somewhere will let me sleep better at night, I hate to admit, but you deserve better than being stuck with us, your life being in danger for it. So! This meat muncher salutes the horny saviour once last time!,' he got up during the speech and open his arm waiting for a hug.

Kemala complied. I preferred to give him a side hug afterwards.

We left through the backdoor and took a detour around before going back to the main street. We were walking for some time when I saw a couple coming our way looking at something behind us with a worried look. I grabbed Kemala from the waist, turn around abruptly and put my hand in my pocket. Who was there?

It was Kemala's uncle. He was standing there, looking surprised, so that meant he was stalking us. He then jump forward and started running toward us. I took my weapon in the pocket, pointing it to him without taking it out.

'Uncle, what are you doing!,' she told him and escaped my grasp, making me loose the right position to shoot.

'Uncle, what--!,' she was trying to say again until she saw he was carrying a knife.

I couldn't shot, even if I had him in the perfect position. I wouldn't be able to come back from that. So I took courage and went toward him and hit my shoulder against his, making him fall in the ground.

Kemala was fast of wits and kicked his hand, making him lose the knife, that she then grabbed.

'Uncle...,' she told without any other word coming after it, she was completely lost about what just happened.

'You traitor. And you snake, I know it was you! You're a sneaky snake, but you failed, we're still free. I won't let you get away with it,' he told me in a quiet voice. He was tired, he hasn't sleep in days. Probably two sleepless nights.

'What you are talking about uncle? We did nothing, what is happening to you?,' she couldn't understand what he was talking about.

'Leave. Never come back, and nothing else will happen. Leave us alone, and it's over,' I said, my face and voice emotionless.

'It'll never be over,' he said while struggling to get up. Then, without spouting another word, he left our sight running to an alley.

I tried to took the knife from her hand, but she resisted and looked to me with her eyes wide open, and told me in a lower voice so I was the only one who could listen to her: 'what did you do?'

'I did what I could do. I'll tell you the rest at home.'

'Well, speak. What was my uncle talking about,' she confronted me putting her whole body in front of me after I just sat in the sofa.

I doubted about how much I wanted to tell her for a couple of seconds but it wasn't worth it the effort to hide the truth. And I didn't want to lie to her anyway.

'Your uncle is part of a hate group in your home town. They are violent. I'm not sure about him in particular, but they have attacked foreigners before. I rat them out,' I looked up to her face, the shadow of her towering body leaving me in a sightly darkness.

'What! Lies!,' she said but stopped immediately realizing something, 'Wait! How do you know about this? You were not surprised at all out there? Explain yourself!'

'I don't have to repeat what I said, you heard it. It's true. After what happened at your birthday I asked a risuner friend to spy on your uncle and he found that he belongs to that group. After realizing that, he infiltrated the group, confirmed their aggressive behavior, and fast in take action, he filtrated the information to the local authorities. He told me what he did after he came back. It happened in the span of a couple of days. They were arrested and interrogated, and they were advised to stop their actions or they would be put in jail. That was two days ago, I think your uncle decided to confront us then. Is that enough?,' I didn't blinked once, I was not going to show weakness.

'Why did you do that!,' she shouted a me, then left in direction to the kitchen but stopped midway. She turned around again, and repeated: 'why!'

'I do not condone what he did. It was a good move, acting preemptively before anyone else gets hurt. He realized that they attacked before, they would do it again. And what if your uncle told them about us? What if you uncle knows something else? Kemala, I'll need to take care of him,' I told her with my tone showing that my blood was burning, something she had never heard before.

'Taking care of? He hates /meat/ because the ones he knows, or not even that, he heard about, were monsters. They're still monstrous /meat/heads out there, that is an indubitably truth? You also said that he might have never done anything like the people of that group! What he did today was because of your actions!,' she shouted at me so hard that my head numbed for a second, as strong I was trying to be, I was heartbroken about this scene. But then I said.

'Not my actions, but again, what the spy did was right. If it was for me, maybe your uncle and his friends wouldn't have been so lucky. I do what I must to protect those I took a vow to do so. I told you, I'm not a hero,' I finally throw out there the final hidden part of myself.

'You are as much as a monster as them,' she told me while smashing her uncle's knife in the table.

'We leave tomorrow Kemala, pack your things. You need to stop being naïve. We're in danger. AND putting danger those you said you'll protect too. We still have a chance to have a normal life in the other house,' I lost control and shouted back.

'This is your fault, nothing would've happened if you didn't provoke him, sending a spy. A spy! He's part of my family!'

'Kemala, he-- them-- They would be dangerous even if I didn't intervened. They eventually would have hurt innocent people, again I might add, what my actions did is to prevent that to happen once more. That's what I do. Sorry if you haven't realized that with my heroic feats came a price,' I told her slowly recovering my calm.

She was furious, hating me with her insides burning with rage, but she also understood the reality of what was happening.

'You will not put a finger in my uncle or I will...'

'I won't. But we leave tomorrow. Say it,' I get up making sure there was nothing more to discuss.

'We do. We leave tomorrow. But you leave my uncle alone, let the /risu/ authorities take care, as you should always have done.'

'That became an option when I got them to recognize the exiled as legal. Want to see how I have been caring about everyone until now? Before the tattoo, what really provoked this-- think about it-- my only plan was that to keep them hidden. But after THAT, I had to move heaven and earth to assure our and their safety, and thankfully I could do that, but if it failed I had an exit plan. Oh, goddess, grab your hat and think about what I'm about to tell you, hear how I have been struggling all this time to find a way to solve this riddle. My exit plan was faking a attack on us, making it look real by getting me hurt in a relatively safe place, to make you come to your senses about moving from here. But I scrapped that after the amnesty for the exiled and with the new house I found. And then your uncle happened. So, stop judging me and realize that everything I do, I do because I must.'

Her face changed anger for sadness: 'why you do this?'

'You can't run away from your decisions Kemala. I can't. I might be a monster for some, but I know what I did was protect innocent people. If I didn't do those things... the world isn't fair.'

She teared when she saw me finally showing weakness, my eyes tearing. She hugged me with all her might. I poured a river, with all the strength in my body depleted the sadness trapped inside me came out.

We packed everything that night and left the house the next one.

Someone was knocking at the door, but I was barely awake to being able to reach to it before the mailman left. It took me some minutes to be there and find a message in the floor. The man who knocked the door wasn't a mailman. I read it. It was from Agmundr. It said that the authorities jailed a group of people that tried to burn our old house, thinking that we still lived there. Kemala's uncle was one of them. This event helped to find and dismantle a organization that was planing on attacking foreigners, but he wasn't sure if those like him were between the targeted ones, as far as he knew they were still a secret only known to friends and the government. I ripped the letter in two but before I could keep destroying it Kemala came from behind a took it from me. She starting crying after reading it and thrown the whole weight of her body over me. I hugged her and started crying too.

'I sorry,' I said, my throat barely responding.

'You were right. It's my fault,' she whispered.

'No. No, it's not. He could've let it go, but he didn't,' I put my hand on each side of her head and kissed her temple.

'I want you to tell this story, people deserve to know. Otherwise, there will more misunderstandings and misdirected anger,' she said with her words drowning a little.

'If I do, we have to leave /Risu/, and we might not be able to come back, ever.'

'So be it. There is something I wanted to tell you for a while now anyway,' she said while searching for my eyes, a way to not let me run from the request, 'I want to go to /∞/.'

I swallowed saliva with difficulty, and not only because of the crying. To go back to the island. I was going to do it for her, but I didn't think she was going to find there what she was looking for.

'Okay, we will.'

That's enough for today readers. I could talk endlessly about the sadness that filled that day. I could try to make you understand our pain. But what purpose would have torturing my audience like that. I don't need to tell you more about this, my readers. It might not sound like a happy ending, but it's the ending to our story in /Risu/. Nonetheless, happy news keep coming to us about peace and safety for the exiled, kronies, risuners and even the proudly well behaved /meat/head in /Risu/. A big cost was paid, but it was worth at the end. You can say that the right monster had its temporarily win.