"Brielle!" I greeted her. "I see you got my message."
She grinned and opened her arms, clearly expecting a hug. "Rymar! Look at you, trying to act busy."
I huffed at her implication that I didn't work, even as I hugged her back. "And yet you keep coming to my cafe for lunch. How's Jeera doing?"
"Good. In fact, she's supposed to be on her way here too. I mentioned that you wanted to talk to us, and it sounded like a good excuse to have lunch together," Brielle assured me.
So I led her to an open table. At the same time, I waved for Ulris, one of my waiters, to come get her order. Brielle was barely sitting down before the tailless man was beside her with his notebook open, ready to get her anything she wanted. She ordered two iced drinks and an appetizer, then waved for me to join her.
"You're sitting, aren't you, Rymar?" she teased.
Ulris leaned over and patted my shoulder. "Take him off our hands. Please! If you don't, he'll find something else I need to be cleaning." Then he winked at her and headed back to the kitchen.
Dropping into the chair beside her, I chuckled dryly. "I guess he thinks I've been in a mood or something."
"But what has you in a mood?" Brielle asked. "And more importantly, why did you want to see me and Jeera?"
My smile immediately took over, telling on me before I could even reply. "Our refugee is talking. Not only is she telling Zasen what she knows, but she's also doing it in Vestrian."
"Wait, she speaks Vestrian?" Brielle asked.
"Broken Vestrian," I corrected. "Kanik has been teaching her, but - "
The tinkling of the bell hanging on the door cut me off. Both of us looked over just as another tailed woman walked in, carefully making her way down the stairs. Her soft grey color could only be described as steel, and everything about her matched. Her hair, her eyes, her scales, and even her claws were that same medium grey color.
"Jeera!" Brielle called out, lifting a hand to get the new woman's attention.
"And Rymar," Jeera said as she hurried over.
First she gave me a side hug, bending to press her cheek against the top of my head. After that, she moved around the table to give Brielle a quick kiss. Brielle grabbed her hand, squeezing gently, then gestured for Jeera to claim one of the other open chairs.
She did just as Ulris returned, setting drinks in front of all of us, along with the appetizer Brielle had ordered. There was another little lull while we all picked out something for lunch. Ulris wrote it all down, paused to clasp Jeera's shoulder in greeting, then promised to get it to us quickly.
The moment he was gone, Jeera looked over at me. "So, do you want to tell me how my brother is doing? I haven't heard from him since he carried that Mole woman out of Mom's clinic."
I grunted and leaned back. "Yeah... Here's the thing. Ayla -"
"Who?" Jeera asked. "I thought her name was Orin."
"That's what Zasen was calling her before he figured out how to talk to her," I explained.
Which had Brielle breaking in. "And Rymar said she speaks Vestrian now."
Holding up both hands, I begged the women to give me a chance to finish a thought. "Ladies, let me explain. Her name is Ayla, she was kicked out of the Mole compound because she refused to get married, and her native language is English. Yes, that English. No, she doesn't say the words the same way we've been taught. It took a bit to figure out how to pronounce the vowels the way she does, but Zasen and Kanik can both talk to her, and Kanik has been teaching her Vestrian. She's picked it up quickly."
"Well, fuck me," Jeera breathed. "So why is she here?"
"According to her, there's a lot of religion going on down there, and it sounds like she was forced to marry a man she wasn't interested in. Ayla says he was some old man who sounds like a complete asshole, so she stabbed him with a fork. They treated it as if she'd tried to kill him, so they hung her out to die. Even worse, she keeps talking about punishment. The way she says it, I think she's been abused. And that's why I wanted to talk to the two of you."
"Abused?" Brielle asked, picking that one word out.
I nodded slowly.
"This," Jeera grumbled, "only makes me hate Moles more."
From a table behind us, a man called over, "Which is why we should kick that pale bitch out. Don't want any of their kind in town!"
Jeera immediately spun in her chair, snapped, and pointed at him, making a noise that would shut anyone up. "Did you hear a thing he just said? The woman was kicked out because it sounds like she hates Moles as much as you do. So maybe the last thing she needs is for us to prove we're no better."
"Yeah, but Moles do nothing but take from us," someone else said. "How long has she lived on the bounty of our people? Maybe it's time she sucked it up and did something for herself. Like die. Dying would be good."
"Yeah, fuck you," Brielle told him. "Next time you need something, don't think I'm going to forget what you just said. You should suck it up. Maybe you should die."
"Enough!" I yelled. "This is a scared and vulnerable woman you're all talking about. She has never been aboveground before. From the sounds of it, she didn't even know there were people up here. She has done nothing wrong, and punishing her for the actions of someone else makes no more sense than me punishing any of you for what the Moles have done to us."
"I just don't want her kind here," the first man grumbled.
"Thankfully, it's not your choice to make," I told him. "Besides, Zasen is watching over her. Zasen. You all know that if she does anything to threaten any of us, he'll handle it."
That made the people in my cafe murmur, but they couldn't really say I was wrong. The truth was, Zasen was why things had started getting better in Lorsa. Our people were mostly passive, but not him. That man had harnessed his rage and made it into a weapon more deadly than anything I had ever seen before.
Beside me, Jeera just scrubbed at her face. "Well, sounds like my brother has once again bitten off much more than he can chew."
"And yet he's doing a very good job of it," I assured her. "Well, Kanik is, for the most part. But here's the thing. I think this girl needs some friends. Female friends. Everything she's said so far implies men basically ruled her life, and she has some very antiquated ideas of gender roles. I was kind of hoping to show her what it's like to be a woman up here, and you two are good examples of that."
Brielle looked over at Jeera. "It also wouldn't seem suspicious if you made a point of seeking out your brother."
"There's that," Jeera agreed. "But what kind of abuse are we talking about? Was she beaten by men? Raped? I mean, how serious is the trauma she's trying to get over?"
