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Chiana was curled up in her bed, a small knot of misery hidden from the rest of them by a thin sheet. Zhaan sighed and walked in the cell. She put her burden down, a liquid nutrient concentrate sweetened with heklar juice. "You didn't come to eat, so I brought you something."

"Put it in the freezer." Chiana drew her feet up tight to her body.

"You can't be comfortable, twisted up like that. Let me get you a muscle relaxant, while you drink your meal. I'll leave you alone after that." Zhaan took a step backwards, toward the door and the drugs.

"Or you could just leave me alone now."

Zhaan stopped walking. "I know—."

"You don't! Even, even if you lost a brother, you don't know what my planet was like, the kind of home it was. The kind of home it wasn't." She sat up, sheet pulled tightly around her body, face hidden in her arms.

All Zhaan could see were two white hands. "I know a little. The Peacekeepers came to my world, controlled our lives, too."

"No," said Chiana, "it's not the same. Because the Peacekeepers make you do what they want, but at home, they make you," she swallowed audibly, "they make you want what they want. They treat everyone like they did Durka, or they try."

"So, it's a matter of control. Your people are not unique in the universe, in their desire to control others. Nor are they alone in attempting internal, behavioral controls, making people discipline themselves. They have applied rather more technology than is the usual case, but, still, not so strange as that." Zhaan reached out, ran her hand along the large lump she thought was Chiana's spine.

Chiana pushed backward, into Zhaan's hand, and made a high-pitched whining noise, at the limit of Zhaan's range of hearing. It was odd, but not unpleasant, and they sat like that for six or seven hundred microts. Then Chiana said, "But I'm afraid they're right, Zhaan."

Reflexively, Zhaan dug her fingers deeper into Chiana's back.

Chiana gasped, but continued, "What if their way is the only way to be happy? I'm not frelling happy now. My brother is dead. We split up…a long time ago. But knowing, knowing he was out there. Knowing someone else was free and crazy, like me…."

Zhaan brought her hand up, to Chiana's head, got her fingers in the girl's hair. "His freedom, his life, is not your happiness. You have your happiness within you."

Chiana twisted, tried to pull away. "What the frell are you doing, Zhaan?"

Zhaan shifted her grip again, moved her hand from Chiana's hair to her chin, and pulled the girl around to face her. "This is what your brother would have wanted from you? Wallowing in self-pity, surrendering to your enemies? Believing their lies?"

Chiana's eyes narrowed to tiny slits, then she bucked, twisted, screamed to break Zhaan's hold. She pulled herself up, away, to the head of the bed, and kicked Zhaan out of it.

Zhaan landed on her feet and walked back to the bed. "Oh, Chiana, I'm not trying to hurt you." She laughed softly, and her face softened, mouth half-open and eyes half-closed. "I want to make you feel more yourself. You took care of me, I remember, when we fled Scorpius." She sat on the edge of the bed, patted the space next to her. "Let me help you feel better." She shifted and her sleeves slipped, bared her shoulders. "Let me put your spirit back in your body."

Chiana laughed. "That's what they're calling it these days, Zhaan?" She relaxed, though, let the bedsheets fall from her body. She was naked underneath, her normally bright skin dull and nearly grey.

Zhaan removed her own robes quickly, kneeling on the bed to get them off her feet. "You think I'm taking advantage of you, that I'm rationalizing my pleasure in your body."

Chiana nodded and ran her hands along her body, starting at her shoulders, skimming her breasts, digging fingers into her belly, and resting on her eyes. "I know," she opened her thighs, "I know what I want people to see of me." She cupped her sex with her hands, then opened herself wide. "And if I am a tralk, and I forget that," she dipped a finger in her hole, then offered the digit to Zhaan, "someone should remind me—," she inhaled sharply as Zhaan bit her finger, "should remind me of my place, yeah?"

Zhaan sat back, in a posture to mirror Chiana's. "You are a creature of your body, Chiana. Your pleasures and your pains," and here, she touched the spot where the life disc had been, "your triumphs and your downfalls are all physical." Zhaan pushed to get Chiana to lie back. "And you are attempting to confront your downfalls in your thoughts. It's no wonder your sorrow is overwhelming."

Chiana closed her eyes and turned her head away. "What do you want?"

"Hush," said Zhaan. "Let me pleasure you, so you can find your center." She put her mouth to Chiana's belly, licked a stripe up and bit her way down.

Zhaan drifted down Chiana's body with tongue and teeth. Chiana tasted bitter and salty, more salty at the breast, more bitter at the belly. Chiana gasped and moaned for Zhaan's every change of position, smoothly enthusiastic for whatever Zhaan did. But Zhaan felt the tiny kick Chiana made when her right breast was suckled and when Zhaan licked just at the crease where her leg and body joined. Zhaan stayed there a while, sucking and biting, as Chiana kicked underneath her.

When Chiana's leg was still, fully extended and the muscles all tensed, Zhaan sat up and placed her hand on Chiana's sex. She was hot, swollen, and dry. Zhaan looked at Chiana's face and was glad to see the girl's eyes were rolled up to the ceiling, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. "Chiana," she whispered. "Chiana, shall I go in dry?"

Chiana's eyes fluttered, fluttered, fluttered, and when she finally looked straight at Zhaan, her leg relaxed. "There's stuff," she pointed to a small jar beside her bed, "but I can go dry."

Zhaan smiled and picked up the jar. It contained a translucent pink gel, very slick, much thicker than water, which smelled faintly of jikset root. She smeared both her hands, up to her wrists, then held them out to Chiana. "Enough?"

Chiana said, "You'll have to go further than that."

Zhaan blinked once, twice, then put gel up to her elbows. She reached for Chiana then, put Chiana's butt between Zhaan's spread legs and opened Chiana up with one hand. She was pretty inside, a faint pink to match the gel. "You're beautiful, did you know?"

Chiana said nothing. She closed her eyes and sank back into the sheets.

Zhaan kept her face still, but she knew she'd made an error. She put her free hand on Chiana's sex, and the girl was softer, cooler than she had been. Zhaan leaned forward and got her mouth just on the tip of Chiana's right breast. She sucked harder when she felt Chiana's legs tremble over her own, and bit down until Chiana pushed foward at the hip, pushed Zhaan's hand inside Chiana's body.

The gel was so slick that Zhaan didn't have to push hard to get further inside Chiana. A slow and steady pressure sufficed for Zhaan to sink in every dench of her arm that was covered in gel. She hit something inside Chiana, and the girl made the same high pitched whirring as before, so she pushed harder at it.

Chiana began to buck, and Zhaan leaned forward on her, to keep them both anchored and safe, and to leech a little bit of Chiana's ecstasy. She pulled her arm out and shoved it back in, and Chiana pushed back faster and harder with her hips. The movement started a spiral, a slamming between them, and Zhaan pulled Chiana to her, wrapped her arm around Chiana's back, and kissed the girl.

Chiana flailed her arms until she grabbed Zhaan's shoulders and pulled down, hard. Zhaan pushed, in and down, and Chiana screamed.

Zhaan pulled back, and Chiana relaxed, letting go of Zhaaan, convulsions slowing, slowing, slowing until finally she was still. She leaned back on Zhaan's arm and smiled.

Zhaan smiled too, and laid her gently down on the bed. She pulled her arm out of Chiana, and looked around.

"There's a towel under the bed," said Chiana.

Zhaan reached underneath and found a towel that smelled of jikset and Chiana. She wiped herself clean and Chiana as well, then put on her robe.

She picked the drink back up and handed it to Chiana, watched her drink all of it. Then Zhaan took the cup from her, pulled the covers around her body, and kissed her mouth. "Sleep, Chiana. And wake a little more yourself."

Chiana's eyes drifted shut and she took a deep breath. "It still hurts," she muttered. "I still miss him."

"You always will," said Zhaan, and she left.