Page 46 of Rok's Captive
My name was given to me long ago, shaped by my brothers, my kin, my tribe. The image of me that exists in their minds is simple, unchanging: a stone, steadfast and unyielding, braced against the storm. Alone, but enduring.
Rok.
That is what I am. That is what they see.
But when I think of my name now, with her warmth still lingering against my skin, her scent still in my nose, the image shifts. The winds of the storm grow quieter. The stone is no longer solitary.
It…frightens me.
I am not meant to change. Stones do not bend, do not waver, do not soften. Yet something in me has. Her name lingers in my mind, as if it has carved itself into the stone, leaving a mark that I cannot erase.
“I think I might just have to pick a direction and pray,” she vocalizes, eyes narrowing as she looks around. “Fuck. Shit. I can’t make a mistake in this.”
I do not understand her sounds, but her frustration is clear. It radiates from her in waves, as clear as if she were projecting her thoughts directly to me. She is afraid, though she hides it well behind her constant stream of sound.
She continues speaking, her voice rising and falling in patterns that have become almost familiar. I do not mind the sound as much as I did before. At first, her endless vocalizations grated against my senses, a constant, unnecessary noise. Now, there is something almost soothing about it, like the rhythm of the wind over the dunes.
“Hey,” she says suddenly, turning to face me. Her eyes find mine, and for a moment, it feels as if she can see into me. “I just realized—I don’t know what to call you. I’ve been thinking of you as ‘the alien’ this whole time, which is…well, accurate, I guess, but not very personal.”
I tilt my head, trying to understand. She touches her chest, the way she did in the cave.
“I’m Justine,” she says slowly. “Jus-tine.”
And there it is again—the image that forms in my mind when she speaks her name. A bloom in the dust, delicate and impossible, yet somehow thriving.
Then she points to me, eyebrows raised in question.
She wants to know my name.
I hesitate. Names are sacred, private things. They are not meant to be spoken aloud, to be cheapened with sound. And yet…
I focus on the image that has been my name for as long as I can remember: the stone, unyielding against the storm. I try to shape my lips around a sound that would capture it.
“Rok,” I say. The sound is rough, clumsy, but it is the closest I can come to sharing my true name with her.
Her eyes widen, her mouth opening slightly in surprise. “You spoke again! You…was that your name? Are you telling me your name?” She touches her ear. Not the one with the strange creature trapped in crystal on it. But the other. The one with a stone lodged in it. “I swear I heard it in English. Is this translator thing working? Please,pleasebe working.”
I touch my chest, mimicking her gesture. “Rok.”
“Rock?” she repeats, the sound slightly different from mine. “Your name is Rock?”
Something must shift in my expression, because she laughs—a bright, unexpected sound that sends a strange warmth through my chest. I am not even worried about the shadowmaws hearing. I will fight them all if she would make that sound again.
“I mean, it fits,” she says, gesturing at me. “You’re certainly built like a—wait, no. That can’t be your name. Rock? Seriously? Like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson?”
I do not understand her words, but I understand that she has misheard my name. I touch my chest again.
“Rok,” I say, letting the sound fall short, sharper than the noise she created.
She blinks, tilting her head at me. “Rok,” she repeats, slower this time. Her brows furrow, and I can see her turning the word over in her mind. It is strange. I cannot sense her thoughts, but…I can almost see them through her eyes. “Not Rock. Rok. Same sound, I guess, but…sharper. It feels different.”
Her brows furrow and I tilt my head, watching as she taps her fingers against her thigh. “Yeah, okay. I’ll spell it without the ‘C.’ That’s better. Cleaner. It suits you.”
Her words settle over me like a weight, and something deep inside shifts. She has taken my name—my true name, or as close as her kind can come to it—and made it her own. To hear it in her voice, to see her shape it into something she understands, feels strangely…good. As if she has reached into a part of me that no one else has ever touched.
“Rok,” she says again, softer this time, as if testing it.
The glow beneath my skin flares faintly, betraying me. I have no words for what I feel, but it is enough to know that she has claimed my name in her own way.
