There were no clouds in the sky.

Kozica could barely look towards the horizon without being blinded by the unfiltered sun. Instead, she observed the caravan clearing, her father’s words passing through her pointed ears and out the other side.

A pack of Kharvocs were frolicking near the firepit, a family from the looks of it. The beasts were much larger than she was – she recalled seeing one of the fully-grown ones getting stuck in a caravan door and having to be pushed out from the other side. A small smile crossed her face as she watched the newborn cubs stumble around, unused to the prickly grass under their knuckles. Occasionally, they fell forwards, their front arms unable to support their weight yet. It always took them a while to grow, her father used to say.

“Kozica, are you listening? It’s important you get this right. Few others are willing to learn how to properly fix machinery, and the generators keep the caravan going.”

She blinked, snapping out of her stupor. The weight of the wrench reaffirmed itself in her hand as her father let go of the other end. The oversized tool buried its head into the dirt in front of the young girl, sending a miniscule plume of dirt around itself. Her father, Ivanoll stood leaning against a workbench, observing his daughter as she squatted next to the giant generator that hung off the side of the caravan. His hair matched the colour of the dirt he was standing on, tied up to fit under his cap yet unruly enough to jut out in sprigs regardless.

Kozica looked up towards her father, a serious expression burning itself into his face. Then, his face lightened, turning towards the Kharvocs as well. The cubs were rolling around, tripping over themselves as the mother and father lied down in the grass. The cream-coloured fur of the cubs reminded Kozica of the sweetpuffs mother used to make when they arrived in urban townships and were able to purchase small luxuries in the form of groceries.

“Newborn Kharvocs. They’re cute, aren’t they?”

She gave an absent-minded nod, turning to her father once more.

“Can I get one someday?”

Her father let out a rattling chuckle, ruffling Kozica’s grease-covered and sweat-matted hair.

“Sweetums, Kharvocs aren’t simple beasts. They’re people, like you and I. They think, smile and laugh like we do, even if they can’t talk without a lil’ help from technology. That would be like if they came up to us and asked if they could adopt you, so they could have their own Vysus!”

She thought back to the way she had seen the two elder Kharvocs speak, their jaws hanging open like the toys she saw in the shop windows whenever she passed by the older-fashioned towns. The sound would come out clearly, but there was no attempt to move their jaws like they were speaking.

The voices were “seen-the-sized”, according to her father. Not real, but made by a computer.

She looked towards the ground, her shoulders slumped. Finally, Ivanoll patted his daughter on the shoulder.

“You look like you’ve had enough work for now. Get yourself cleaned up, and you can go play with the Kharvocs. I’m sure they don’t mind seein’ a friendly face around. I’m sure making new friends would be better than just having a pet, right?”

She nodded hesitantly, running off towards the nearby lake.

Ivanoll watched her run off for a moment, before discarding his gloves on the workbench nearby. He reached inside of his sweat-stained jumpsuit, pulling out a pewter-coloured locket in the shape of a hexagon, the outer shell speckled with oil. A quick squeeze flicked the lid open, revealing a printed photograph.

A dark-haired Vysus man, with his daughter in his arms. His wife stood next to him, sporting the same hair-colour as their daughter.

He sighed, closing the locket and shoving it back down into his jumpsuit. Finally, he ran after Kozica, pulling a towel off of a nearby rack.

One Year Later

She stood in the doorway of the caravan, clutching a mewling, shivering cub to her chest. Rainwater dripped off of her long, ginger hair as she left her muddied boots on the mat, jerkily stepping forward. Her movements were stiff as she left a trail of puddles in her wake.

“Where have you been all this time? I told you not to stay out, the weather report said there was going to be a harsh storm!”

Her father rushed over from the kitchen, bringing fresh towels that smelled of cheap air freshener. One was pushed into Kozica’s hand and another scooped the creature into it’s warm embrace. Droplets of blood began to stain the cloth, darkening the brown textile into maroon.

Kozica sniffled and muffled a sneeze, looking towards the large ball of fluff that was wriggling on the outstretched towel. The interior of the caravan had been decorated with trinkets gathered from their travels, filling the otherwise empty space.

“I-I had found this Kharvoc cub in the collapse, pa… she don’t look too good. Her parents were… her parents were…”

She rubbed at her grey skin, the cold whitening it into a pallor. Her hair ran across her exposed shoulders and arms like veins, sticking to her flesh.

Ivanoll picked up the cub, examining it under the rickety lights as it tried to squirm out of his calloused hands. Her tawny fur was caked with red mud and fragments of old concrete that jabbed into her flesh, watery blood mixing with the lighter-coloured earth.

Strands of soft, tangled cream-coloured fur remained on his hand, stirring memories of the past.

The Kharvoc family that she had been playing with before.

Kozica shakily looked towards him, eyes half-lidded.

“Please. Save her.”

They locked eyes for a brief moment. Ivanoll watched the deep melancholy sparkle like the moon casting reflections in an watery abyss.

He walked over to a basket full of ripened fruits, spilling its contents into the corner of a nearby sink. The basket was flipped upright, and the towel was gently spread across its interior. He reached below the counter to pick up a roll of gauze and scissors as he placed the cub into the basket. He bit his lip as he looked over the young Kharvoc that seemed to fill the basket to the brim.

“It was lucky that you brought her to me when you did. If it had been longer, I don’t think it would be possible at all. She would have drowned in the rain. ”

He deposited the tools onto the desk and began to work, as Kozica watched on with the same, melancholic eyes. The tap-water felt like it took an eternity to warm, but once it did, Ivanoll gently scrubbed the dirt off of the cub, as she sat in the sink. Mud and blood trickled down the drain, until the water grew clear.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He lifted her back onto the counter, gazing at the wound in it’s abdomen. While there was a large, unsightly gash across the Kharvoc’s pelt, it wasn’t deep enough to risk internal injury. Blood slowly flowed out of the wound, clotting slowly.

Ivanoll peered closely, silently cursing as he tried to look for fragments of debris that hadn’t been washed away. He’d have to take the cub to see the convoy doctor later, but certainly not in this rain.

Even as he bandaged the cub’s wounds, he occasionally flicked his gaze to his daughter, trying to read her expression. Why couldn’t he ever get a read on her? He towelled the Kharvoc dry, using a nearby hair-dryer to warm it up.

Seeking to change the topic, Ivanoll addressed his daughter.

“Kozica, what should we call her? Knowing the blasted caravan leaders, they probably didn’t bother keeping a record of the Kharvoc families, and the Kharvoc families didn’t care enough to have themselves recorded like that.”

He looked towards the dried Kharvoc, who had fallen into a sound sleep.

“Whatever name she had before, well, we don’t know it. But we can’t just call her a cub forever.”

Kozica looked at the cleaned Kharvoc child, running a gentle hand through the puffy, dried fur. She pulled back, staring at the dirty brown marks that she left streaked where she touched. Memories of a dusky plains, of a planet a couple Gates away. She had asked mother, what they called the wide expanses of brown-yellow grass, where strange packs of creatures roamed.

“Savannah. I’ll call her Savannah.”

Ivanoll nodded, speaking gently as he watched the cub’s chest puff in and out, breathing in the warm air of the caravan. The rain continued to pound against the roof, washing away the accumulated grime the caravan convoy gathered from their combined travels, discarding it into the foreign soils of another world.

Seven Years Later – Present Day

How long had Kozica been travelling? A year had passed since her father had been killed, but it only felt like two months. Through the Aether Gates, she had already been to each of the planetary capitals, an infinitesimal individual when compared the vastness of the universe.

Each town and city just seemed to blur past her, simple repairs and mechanical operations keeping the two of them alive. That was the only thing she was good at, after all. If she had been better at searching for people or figuring out travel plans, then maybe she didn’t have to go to the other cities in the first place.

At least they were nice enough to let her keep her passport when she was unjustly exiled. Free travel for the nomads, though you were still subject to travel customs and laws.

It was odd for a Vysus and a Kharvoc to be paired together. Typically, most paired Kharvocs would be in the company of a Velasoph. After all, the Velasoph were the ones who had bred the Kharvocs and relied upon them for safety and companionship, even to this day.

Boy, it was a fun day when they had arrived in that Velasoph city a while back – shame she couldn’t remember the name of it, though. The odd looks the locals gave to them, it was different. It was amusing, watching the snobbier city-folk cast their own judgements on something innocuous and unexceptional.

She placed a hand on Savannah’s head, who opened a large, understanding eye. To think, that she was bigger than Kozica herself now, despite being younger! Though in Kharvoc years, she would already be 21 years old, only one year shy of Kozica. The soothing, warm biological hum that the Kharvocs emitted was pleasant under her finger tips, bringing a small smile to her tired face.

There was only one other person in the cabin, an older Vysus man in a dark grey trench coat. Like most other city-Vysus she had seen in her life, he wore a personalised mask; his was rather straightforward. A shade of grey cloth one drop darker than his skin, with what appeared to be a white arrow running down across the top of his snout. Or was it a trident? Hard to tell with the stylisation. Even though he was wearing dark colours, pale blonde hair streamed down from the back of his head, like the mane of a wild beast.

Perhaps, he would find her to be an oddity like him, she thought. Her culture was a minority after all, the strange ones who never wore a mask in public, their facial markings free for the world to see. She traced a finger under her eyes, the faded red trails looking like a pair of rusty rivers trailing down her neck.

Peoplewatching had become a bit of a hobby for her over the past three years of travelling. Perhaps she found some satisfaction in judging others, as many others have judged her face, bared to the world as a whole.

Something was off, however. Trying to hide her intrigue, she hid herself behind a laptop screen, peering over the top of the lid.

The man was wearing gloves, at this time of night? The wine-coloured cloth matched his tie, clearly an intentional choice of fashion.

She narrowed her eyes, glancing at her marking-less hands. Near her wrists, bands of paled dark red, the same colour as redwood blazed out on top of her grey skin, as if someone had spilled wine onto a slate-coloured parchment. They matched the strips of coloured flesh running down her face.

Even if it was a common practice to hide one’s face and skin patterns from the world, she’d never heard of a Vysus covering their hands outside of work situations. Apparently, it was considered to be quite ominous. There was a saying, “those who covered their hands often had blood on them.”

“Young lady, it’s rude to stare.”

His voice was unexpectedly clear and articulate, a strange mix of the authority of a soldier, but the eloquence of a scholar. Odd, for someone who looked like a desk-worker wearing a trench coat to stay warm.

She jolted upwards, a blush running across her cheeks as she glared at the man, who looked towards her casually.

“What’s it to you? It ain’t a crime to look at people!”

Savannah lazily shifted in her sear next to her, occupying nearly the entire bench on her side.

“Koz, apologise to the man. We’re the visitors to this city after all.”

She grumbled, muttering out an apology, meeting the man’s eyes.

“Odd choice of place to be travelling to, you two. Surely you’ve heard of this city’s reputation?”

It was hard not to. The customs officer had made her sign too many forms on the way in.

“What, with the night-time curfews? That ain’t much.”

The man shrugged, gesturing towards the window behind her.

She turned around, peering through the smoky glass onto the city below. Travelling via Aether Gates always had one advantage – a great view when the elevator cabins descended the grand towers that connected them to network as a whole.

Kozica’s face pressed against the glass, joined by Savannah, whose warmth fogged up the glass nearby.

The city looked as if it had been divided in three.

While the split wasn’t a smooth cut, the colour and shapes of the buildings clearly indicated where specific districts ended and began. From Kozica’s perspective, there was only one wedge fully visible.

There was streaks of red across the rooftops, like blood had rained from the sky. The corroded, rusting metal had her tug at her hair in frustration. Why were they using raw metals for roofing? Surely they at least had access to some plastic sheeting? Even her convoy had proper roofs made for their caravans.

“Welcome to Sahn Drei, traveller. You’ll be fine if you have business in the other two districts, but I wouldn’t recommend going to the slums. Word is, things are getting dangerous around there. Conflict is brewing, and you’d be best avoiding it.”

She turned back around to the older man, who reclined back in the plush seating. A brief period of silence, punctuated by the whirring of the elevator mechanisms.

A light headache and dizziness grew from a dot in the centre of her mind, like a vile thorny bush. She instinctively reached into one of her pockets, thumbing the emptied paper package.

“Mind if I ask what a pair of young women like you two are doing in this city?”

The man spoke up once more, jolting her hand from her pocket. Man, did he need to pick better times to talk!

“Business.”

Was that true? Kozica supposed it was. It was technically the same for all the other cities she had been to. And if her sources were correct, this was the last time she’d need to make a business trip.

The man nodded, mulling over her terse response.

“Fair enough. Are you two part of that Caravan Convoy that’s coming to the city in around a month or so? ”

Kozica’s expression darkened, gritting her teeth behind pursed lips.

“No, I’m not part of the caravan”, she responded, masking her rage behind a tone of disinterest. It looks like her sources had been right after all.

The man tilted his head in curiosity, before standing up. He reached out with a gloved hand, grabbing the nearby standing-pole.

“Careful, traveller. I can sense your vitriol.”

Kozica glowered. What does it matter?

“I don’t know what you’ve got against them, but follow what you believe is right. Can’t do much more than that, I’m afraid.”

There was a creak and a clang, as the elevator stopped moving, secured into the braces at the base of the tower. The doors opened, and the man casually strolled out before she could respond, his tail swishing behind him. It was the only part of him that hadn’t been covered by his clothes.

Kozica stood up, the numbness in her legs sparking like a firecracker. Savannah hopped down from her perch, trailing along on all fours.

The pair of them looked onto the city from the interior of the tower, the gleaming light from above refracting through the tinted glass and casting patterns onto the ground.

It was a wonderful day for plotting revenge.