Y is for... Yirien

Blogging From A to Z is a blog challenge where participants post a new item every day (except Sundays), where every item relates to the appropriate letter of the alphabet.  You can find out more over at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

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Story: Heavy Metal Generation
Rating: PG
Word Count: 579

It was obvious Reith had set this task as some kind of team-building exercise, but it should have been equally obvious that it was never going to work. He couldn’t tell how the others were getting on, but if it was anything like him and Aralelle, it was a resounding failure.

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 It was obvious Reith had set this task as some kind of team-building exercise, but it should have been equally obvious that it was never going to work. He couldn’t tell how the others were getting on, but if it was anything like him and Aralelle, it was a resounding failure.

“How have you finished already?” She exclaimed in frustration over the wreckage of her own boxes, hands on hips in the pose he’d already learned threatened trouble. “This is impossible!”

“Clearly not,” Yirien muttered, crossing his legs on the skeleton of his bed. Damn Reith and his warning that they’d only get mattresses, sheets and their belongings when they’d all finished assembling their rooms. By now he should have learned to take Aralelle into account.

While Aralelle swung a kick at her misshapen bedframe, he briefly wondered how the others were getting on. Kerratrem and Janura were probably already done; he might hate Janura, the purple-haired bastard, but even he had to grudgingly admit he probably knew how to follow flat-pack instructions. And as for Feiwa and Prerra… Well, Prerra probably just cried until Feiwa did it for her. Of course, she’d probably regret it once Feiwa did their inoculations, but Yirien didn’t think Prerra ever thought that far ahead.

There was no way Reith would have stuck him in a room with Janura, and especially not after the crate incident—it would be a toss-up which of them he found dead in their beds first—but Yirien thought he could probably share with Kerratrem easily enough and leave Aralelle’s moods to the one who deserved them the most.

“Are you even listening to me?” Her voice sliced through his thoughts with all the precision of a sniper shot.

“No,” he said, laying back on his bed. No doubt this was why Reith confiscated their things. What Yirien would give to just be able to read rather than listen to Aralelle. Just what the hell did they teach them in the army anyway?

“Wish our kit was here,” she grumbled. “Then I could stuff the pages from your books into your fucking mouth and suffocate you.”

That… answered both his thoughts, actually.

“Y’know, Yirien…” Suddenly she was there beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder just lightly enough he knew it could turn painful at any minute. “If you did it for me, you wouldn’t have to listen to me complaining any more.”

“But then I’d be doing your work as well as mine. What would I get out of it?”

“My gratitude?”

His snort immediately turned into a wince as her grip turned to steel.

“And,” she continued conversationally, “you wouldn’t have to explain to Reith how you broke your shoulder.”

“How I—?” He almost bit his tongue in half as she squeezed hard enough he felt the bones creak. “Oh, all right.”

When Aralelle smiled it very almost made her attractive—but only if he disregarded her personality. “I knew you’d agree in the end.”

Perhaps Prerra, with her big, tearful eyes and grating whine, really was the least of the evils of the group after all. Ignoring the flare of pain lancing down his arm as he pushed himself up and off his bed, he realised with a sinking heart Aralelle had been careful in her own way to make sure he’d never once had a choice in the matter.