Vanaka spent a blissful night of sleep in the double bed, tucked in between her two ansoti. All that business with the Chainbreakers had moved a bit further into the back of her mind, with an entire free day in front of her before that evening meeting. There was exploration to be done. But the first order of business, after a quick trip to the bathroom, was of course to tend to the Draining.
It had had time to catch up with her during the flight. Selecting cheap passage helped keep their little trio in the green financially, but also often translated into a worrying lack of privacy. The effect was subtle. Just a hint of weakness, shortness of breath and a chill in her hands and feet. But they were about as familiar to Vanaka as her own heartbeat, and her ansoti of course had an extremely sharp eye for them.
“You need to bite,” Erine said, and did her third power-stretch of the morning. It was the third out of four. She was predictable like that.
“You always say that as if I don’t know,” Vanaka said tolerantly.
“Looking out for you.”
“I know.”
They also all knew that it was Losan’s turn, which she took to be the reason he hadn’t put his shirt on yet. The man simply sat on the edge of the bed, waiting with an expectant look.
“No, no,” she said, and pointed. “In the arm chair.”
“You always make such an issue out of this,” the man grumbled half-heartedly, even as he was compelled to obey and stood up.
“That’s me being nice,” she said and took his arm as they crossed those few steps over to the chair.
He sat down in the chair, which much like the carpet was plain but quite comfortable. She knelt down on the seat with her legs on either side of his and cupped his chin. Losan was long since fully hers, and the venom that bound him to her, and in a way her to him, made him pliable and happy to lean his head back as she went for his neck.
The predator was absent as she put her fangs in. These occasions weren’t hunts. There was no need for tension. Losan went limp in the chair and she held his head in place as she sucked in tiny sips. He let out small gasps, and as always when she had the time and privacy Vanaka savoured the moment, taking little but taking long to do it.
She sighed contentedly as she raised her head again. Her strength returned, her instincts were satisfied, and her bond with one of her ansoti was reaffirmed yet again. She loved these moments, and as ever she simply couldn’t help but start stroking his head.
“You’re always so adorable like this,” she told him through a slightly impish grin as the sedation faded just enough for him to look at her with awareness. “My big, tough warrior... like a little kitten.”
“Yes,” he whispered in a slightly drunken voice, instead of calling her a brat or some such, a sign of the venom still being fresh in his system. As the paralysis started visibly wearing off, she got off him.
“Drink plenty,” she ordered him. “And you know what kind of food to eat downstairs.”
“I’m a hearty boy,” he said, recovering his usual sense. “I can spare bl-”
“Water and iron,” she insisted, gently but firmly, and yet again wondered why he was so prone to arguing.
“Yes,” he said, yielding to her power over him. “Water and iron.”
“You never win these,” she reminded him, and walked to her neatly stacked clothes. “I need my big, tough warrior at his best.”
They all finished freshening up and getting dressed, and that was when the comm unit bleeped. Vanaka had shut off the voice control option, and so walked over to open the line manually.
“Yes?”
“Room 12?”
“You have reached us.”
“I am calling from the lobby,” said the voice. “It seems you have guests.”
“Who are they?” Vanaka asked, although there were only two options.
“They say they are kin.”
“I see. Yes. Please send them up.”
“I will do that. Farewell.”
The three of them looked at each other. It seemed the ansoti were no more sure how to react than she was. After a moment of inaction, Vanaka snatched her hairbrush off a table and attacked her own hair aggressively. The ansoti set out to make everything just a little bit more neat and tidy. But time was not on their side, and soon enough there was a chime at the door.
Vanaka strode over and opened.
Elder Masathon had the fair skin and dark eyes that characterised their people, but his hair had turned white and was arranged in a supremely dignified cut. He wore a pants-and-jacket combination of a cut that seemed quite typical around here, and only close proximity let her notice the conspicuously good quality.
Behind him stood a man in a similar outfit and woman in a style of dress she’d also noticed on the streets. That very subtle body language that had been in play all around Vanaka as she grew up marked them as his ansoti.
“Enter welcome, Elder,” Vanaka said in Vylas and stepped aside.
“I accept your invite, young one,” he replied with equal formality, and led his own little trio into the room. Vanaka promptly closed the door.
“With me are Olo and Bruna,” he said, introducing his blood partners with a sweep of his arm.
“Greetings, Ola and Bruna,” Vanaka said, and smiled pleasantly at the two of them. “With me are Losan and Erine.”
Masathon nodded at them.
“I must say, Elder, that you catch us by surprise,” Vanaka said.
“I find surprise is the best way to gauge people,” he replied. “Time makes it easy to smooth out any imperfection.”
The elders and their tests, Vanaka grumbled internally.
“So, you arrived yesterday?” he asked.
“We hit the surface about two hours before I contacted your community.”
“Your promptness does you credit,” Masathon said. “Our two clans have never been intimate, but custom is custom. And on that topic, may we speak alone?”
Custom was indeed custom, and given that this was her dwelling, even if a small, temporary one, she could in fact tell him no. But something being technically allowed did not necessarily translate into it being good form.
“Certainly, Elder.”
She turned to her ansoti.
“Please wait downstairs.”
Losan looked at Masathon’s partners.
“We might visit the hotel bar, perhaps?”
The four of them exited the room, carrying with them that odd air of camaraderie between ansoti that Vanaka suspected she would never fully understand. Now alone, she and the elder sat in the arm chairs, facing one another across a small table.
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“I take it you are not here as an official representative of your clan,” he said.
“I am not,” she said, and given her youth the suggestion seemed rather ridiculous. “I am simply staying here for a few days. I contacted you as a matter of courtesy and protocol.”
“That was good of you,” he said. “It may go some way to soften the voices that suggest you have simply started to ignore our ways.”
Vanaka was silent for a little while.
“Is there some doubt that I am a proper Vylak?” she then asked.
“Our people are all about family, community and stealth,” he said.
“I need no reminder of the basics of our existence.”
“And yet you wander aimlessly, leaving family behind.”
“I cannot be the only one of our kind to go off-world for reasons other than visiting kin or tending to business interests,” she said.
“No. But us elders speak, young one. It is known what you are getting involved with. Some worry.”
“Do you worry, Elder Masathon?” she asked.
“I have not made up my mind,” he replied, and Vanaka felt she understood the point of this visit.
“I respect our traditions,” she stated firmly. “I know they help safeguard us. And there will be plenty of time for me to spend time at home, tending to family. But my life is only just beginning and I want to see the galaxy. I want to understand it, and the people in it. I feel it helps me understand myself better. I suppose... I want to be wise.”
“Wise?” he said. “It is good to want to be wise, but I understand that some time ago you very nearly had a Kalero Warden in your embrace. What kind of attention would that have drawn on your homeworld?”
“I think... think I would have had her not wear the suit,” Vanaka said defensively, as that whole matter was brought up yet again. “If she’d... come along.”
Vanaka sighed.
“Look, perhaps this did not come with whatever version of the story you were told, but circumstances landed me in that situation,” she told him. “Quite against my will. I needed her help to escape a war zone, and things simply escalated from there. Again, due to factors beyond my control.”
She thought once again of the parting in that space port, and just how tempted she’d been.
“I suspect she would have come along with us,” she said softly, and shifted her gaze to a wall. “Home. If I’d just pushed her a little more. She was very nearly mine. And she was so magnificent.”
Somewhat reluctantly, she did turn her eyes back on the elder sitting across from her.
“But I did let her go. As you say, a Warden draws attention and... and she has work to do. Out in the wider galaxy.”
Masathon seemed to wait for her to add something more, but that was all she had.
“No doubt she would have been a fascinating companion to a young kinswoman,” he said. “Far more so than those unremarkable creatures that you brought here with you.”
Vanaka’s hands clenched around the armrests like claws in a quick flash of anger.
“Those are my ansoti you speak of,” she told him harshly. “In my dwelling. Show some respect.”
“Yes,” he replied calmly. “And your reaction is proper and does you credit. I apologise.”
She remained tense, glaring at him in silence.
“I do,” he insisted. “I make no judgments on people I know only from a quick glance.”
Vanaka knew tests were inevitable when dealing with elders, but did not appreciate them coming in the form of personal insult. Still, she forced herself to relax.
“To continue on...” she said with some reluctance. “If I acted recklessly during that whole episode, then I did so three years ago, which is a long time for someone my age.”
That got a little smile out of him.
“Indeed. But tell me, what have you been getting up to since? What are you doing, besides dancing and sightseeing?”
Vanaka took a long breath. This was why she’d been nervous about this meeting.
“I suspect you know, Elder. In fact, I suspect the elders in general are having something of a discussion about me.”
His next smile was affable enough, but also carried an answer with it.
“You are getting involved,” he said. “With the wider galaxy, and wider humanity. Which might not even be an issue, except that you are dipping your toes into a wretched underworld of secrecy, danger and violence.”
Vanaka was silent.
“However secretive they are, the existence of the Chainbreakers is no secret at all,” he told her. “They even feature in fiction. And it is no secret either that they have enemies among pirate groups, wide-reaching gangs, and slave-states.”
“We also feature in fiction,” she said, although she didn’t know what point she was even trying to make.
“Ah, yes,” the elder replied. “The life-stealing fiends of the dark. Have you learned to not let all of that bother you, young one?”
Vanaka hesitated, before shrugging.
“I am... working on it, I suppose.”
“There is little point in worrying about how the rest of mankind perceives us,” Masathon said. “Our very nature forces a certain separation between them and us, and it will never be truly bridged. Best that most think of us as more Fringe myth than reality, or bygone residents of the past, which people are always so willing to invest with the evils of the galaxy.”
“And the elders worry that my humble escapades threaten this balance?” she asked, a bit defensively. Then she leaned forward. “Am I being considered for culling?”
“Nothing so dramatic, kin,” he assured her. “Culling is for murderers, abusers, and those who otherwise grossly threaten our communal safety. You are merely... being discussed, among many other topics. But since I have you here before me, why don’t you explain yourself to me, in your own words?”
“Explain...” Vanaka repeated under her breath, and thought the matter over. How was one to explain a very simple thing without sounding like a child? Or was it really as simple as all that?
“I often feel that the bite works both ways, in a fashion,” she finally said. “Those few days I spent with Saketa, well, let’s just say she left an impression on me. And I don’t just mean the... the power she displayed. Power that can’t be explained by biology or anything I would call logic. It was the bearing. Her... dedication to the rest of the universe. That sense of justice, and the courage to actually do something with it.”
She looked up at the ceiling and sighed, then looked at the elder again.
“It was all... it was like seeing how people should be, rather than how they actually are. Except she was very real, and very sincere.”
The elder watched her with the kind of patience that came with a long life, leaving Vanaka to reach her own points without any prodding or inserted observations.
“And I wouldn’t say I want to follow her example,” she went on. “I do not have that kind of power, nor the warrior mentality, nor the willingness to face constant great danger. But she said something to me. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but I remember how it affected me. I would say she taught me, without even really meaning to. Taught me to... be active, I suppose is what I am trying to say. One doesn’t have to be a mystical warrior of legend to make a difference. I can satisfy myself by just making what difference I can.”
The elder continued to just watch and listen.
“Our gifts can be put to use beyond simply sustaining us, and protecting our secrets. And I want to matter. I want to... I want to be a part of the positive energies of the universe, not simply neutral.”
She held the elder’s gaze, searching it for a reaction even as she searched her own mind for something more to say. But that seemed to be it for now.
“Have I... do you understand me?” she asked.
“I think I do,” he replied. “But listen: You have travelled some. You have seen various different peoples, and you have studied history in school. You are also simply not a fool. You know that human existence is one long chain of conflicts. Look at any museum or historical plaque here on Gorono and you will be reminded of this.”
“I do know these things,” Vanaka said.
“Then you see how easily mankind creates enemies and draws lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’? How natural is it for people to find reasons to hate? And with us the broader quilt of humanity has an even easier time of it than with most.”
He was silent for a breath and his face darkened with what his next words revealed was memory.
“I do not know how the slaughter at Rask seems to one like yourself, but to me it was not that long ago. Not a man, woman or child left alive. That is how humanity deals with its monsters, onto which it projects it fears and evils.”
“Rest assured, Elder, that the Clan of Eylo teaches its children about the events at Rask,” Vanaka said, and meant every word. “And they are ever in the back of my mind. But I think simple probability, and the unceasing nature of time, means that we cannot stay hidden forever. And when we do go public we had best have an understanding of the rest of humanity.”
“Personally, I feel I understand it just fine,” the elder told her. “Though I get the point you are trying to make.”
“I believed you would get it, Elder, but what do you think of it?”
He was silent for a few breaths, and she had no idea if he was thinking or simply testing her nerves. Just in case it was the latter, she hardened herself and resolved to wait for an answer without further words.
“Allow me to answer you with a question,” he finally said. “I cannot fault you for wanting to strike blows against human trafficking; it is a business as repulsive as it is undying. But what would your allies in the Chainbreakers say if they were to discover hints as to your nature? If they were to understand your relationship with your ansoti?”
“What we do is different,” she said.
“I agree, but would your allies? Would they, as a group, draw a distinction between your biological needs and the depraved cruelty they fight against?”
Vanaka passed through an uncomfortable silence like she was floating through a dark tunnel.
“I do not know.”
“Hmm,” was his response, and Vanaka suspected that wasn’t the answer he’d wanted from her.
“Look!” she said. “Perhaps I will give this all up one day. Perhaps I will simply return home for good and live the quiet life I was raised to. Perhaps I will study finance as my father wants, and rear children. Perhaps my heart will harden and cool with age. But until then I cannot justify not obeying it. I cannot... I... I cannot justify not trying to be a good person.”
There was a tolerant quality to his smile, that made her feel a bit like a child.
“Then do so,” he said. “Do try. But within the limits of the boundaries fate has set for our kind.”
He spread his arms out.
“I bid you welcome to Gorono, Vanaka Fan Umo of Eylo. I hope the stay does you some good. But as local elder I must stress to you to be careful. Our people are at a great disadvantage.”