Heroon kept quiet as the contained one spoke, only marginally aware that Illia had slowed in her task of transcribing. His assistant’s professionalism was enough to ensure that she quickly made up for any lulls, but even he was wondering if she should stop. Why wouldn’t she? The story they’ve sat through was borderline insanity. No, it was insanity.

So why was he still so invested?

“I lost sight of the planet, then found the controls shortly after,” the pale-furred female continued, her paws folded on the table. “I was able to set my bearing and adjust course back to Iras, though I am unable to speculate how long it took. The decision of where I was to land was lost amidst the haze, truthfully; my mind was occupied with a need to convey what had occurred. I only vividly recall the impact, being surrounded by firearms, then becoming cognizant in this facility.”

And with that, she fell silent once more, staring aimlessly at the table after once again tearing open the sealing wound in her stomach. The pair of interrogators exchanged a glance, but he eventually had to concede that she was likely done.

“Is there anything else you would like to add to your statement?” he prodded, struggling to keep his cadence flat. It was unsettling to see her mutilate herself repeatedly without paying it the slightest bit of attention.

The contained one opened her muzzle, then bit down on her tongue, her expression fearful and reluctant. “No, high one. That is all.”

He noted the deviation, but elected to mull it over rather than make a note of it now. “Then I will review what has been discussed. A moment please.”

The High Quesitar breathed out and let the intercom mute. There was much to think about before he committed to any particular stance, and more than a few things were bothering him. He turned his attention to the neglected terminal built into his desk, bringing up the incident report regarding her ‘landing’ once more. Hopefully, it held the answers that his mind insisted were missing. He hadn’t looked at it since they started, and even then, he barely skimmed the documentation on his first reading—mostly because it was as dry as any other paperwork.

Considering the lack of clarity during her recollection on several occasions, he suspected that her impairment had been a factor in deciding to crash into a military installation as well. The confrontation was likely less than amiable, given the abrupt introduction back onto the base. He was right, somewhat. The file was rather clear in why the soldiers of the base felt the need to use force. Most of the first responders were in the various facilities surrounding the impact zone—the cafeteria, gym, armoury, et cetera—and rushed towards the scene in an effort to evaluate the cause of the disturbance. Upon entering what used to be a functional auditorium, they were welcomed by the sight of an alien craft lodged into the floor, the hatch popping open to reveal a brutalized, almost feral Lilhun.

The transcripts vary in detail after that, yet they consistently mention the level of aggression displayed, a lack of coherence, and how the female was subdued—or more specifically, how difficult it was to subdue her.

Non-lethal shock rounds barely did anything, while tranquilizers had little effect. With their two main methods to dispatch a threat non-lethally being rendered nigh useless, only a barked order from a superior stopped them from resorting to a more permanent solution. The intruder finally collapsed after demanding to speak to a Quesitar, slipping slurred claims of the Union’s sins into her pleading, a damaged electronic device brandished as ‘evidence.’ A twitchy claw amongst the ranks resulted in a heavy deterrent round striking her in the chest, thereby allowing them to contain her. Anything beyond those events was separated into various files detailing the transfer between facilities. A trip to medical kept her alive and hastily repaired the worst of her injuries, but a sudden awakening during the process halted any attempts to do more than the bare minimum. Once the medics gave up on trying to operate on an uncooperative patient, a security log confirmed that they had dumped the female into her current confinement.

His brow furrowed as he cross-referenced the official report with personal recounts from those involved. Although collective memory would invariably have a margin of error, they all agreed that it had taken far more than dangerous amounts of chemical suppressant to put the defect down. The clinical chart noted that blood filtration was relegated to a machine while they were able to stitch her up, though the circumstances demanded a level of urgency that wouldn’t be acceptable normally. They only had time to ensure she wouldn’t die on the table before she began making demands to see a High Quesitar again. That meant treatment was limited to sealing most open wounds, getting lethal doses of several drugs out of her system, and a transfusion to make sure she wouldn’t expire before the interrogation.

The staff provided values for what the filter removed as an additional file, but Heroon was never one for that particular field of study, so he settled for a much easier to understand summary written under the list of compounds. It effectively stated that she should have died twice over from stimulant and coagulant abuse, and that was after disregarding the blood loss and negligent sedative injection.

Ironically, the amount of organ damage caused by the former had prevented the latter from killing her. Her body had been shutting down anything and everything that wouldn’t directly ensure immediate survival, limiting exposure to the toxic byproducts that were usually associated with stimulant overdose. Of course, that was conjecture at best; there wouldn’t be any concrete conclusions until more tests could be run, which was something the patient in question was adamant in refusing.

The brown-furred male kneaded his temple with a claw. This would have been a much shorter affair if medical was given the time to actually work. Alas, the High Elders had caught the scent of dangerous claims, and the patient was hardly willing to acquiesce during the procedure, so the defect was effectively put back together enough to make it into a cell, and not one iota more. He rubbed away the migraine and eyed the female beyond the mono-transparent wall.

White lights in the ceiling highlighted the crimson-stained coat that wasn’t fully cleaned while she was unconscious. It was mostly scrubbed to a serviceable level around her wounds, but the bandages prevented him from comparing those areas with the rest of her visible coat. He could only imagine how bad it was before. A glint on the table drew the eye to fresh blood soaking into her claws—a result of the defect constantly reopening the gash in her stomach over the course of the interrogation. Her eyes had regained their lustre, though Heroon wondered how much of her recovery was related to the tale, and how much was simply her body processing the dregs of sedatives that they never had the chance to purge out of her system. She was still fairly inactive and limp, sans the moments of hatred or sorrow that appeared during important events in her story, but she was apparently quite active on the table. At least she looked somewhat alive now.

Illia had decided to refrain from commenting since he lost his temper with her. Not that he needed to hear what she thought; the beige-furred female might have been recording all that was said, but he could see the opinion written on her face. She had shifted from being outraged by someone asserting that a defect could bond to being completely disinterested, having determined that the entire tale was fiction.

Honestly, Heroon was reluctant to disagree. As much as he wanted to take this seriously, the story was filled with the impossible and the absurd. How was he supposed to believe such a facility had been constructed within their space? One that was dedicated to bonding Lilhuns with these ‘humans,’ then subsequently slaughtering the lot of them in increasingly cruel fashion? That a single defect laid waste to it with all of her purported ‘evidence’ being contained on a conveniently damaged terminal?

The worst thing was that he still wanted it to be true. It might have been his inherent distrust of the Union, or perhaps it was because he had gained a sense of sympathy for the female locked inside the room before him despite what she was. Either way, a part of him had yet to cease scouring her words and presented proof for signs of legitimacy.

He closed the reports, brought up his dismissed graphs, then leaned forward in his chair, reaching for the intercom while keeping an eye on the defect. Yet when he went to activate the microphone, he found himself at a loss for words. What was he to ask? They had covered everything from her initial disappearance to her eventual return, and although he suspected a great number of details had been lost to a haze of drugs and adrenaline, the parts that remained painted a rather vivid picture.

Still, the niggling doubt remained in the recesses of his mind, wondering what he could do to confirm his suspicions. There had to be a reason for her behaviour, especially when her first reaction upon waking up during treatment is to rip the blood filtration tubes out. The documentation is sterile, but clear. She all but suffered a panic attack when they tried to seal her wounds, despite their insistence that the procedures were needed to stop her demise. Only when the staff agreed to release her into security’s possession did she calm down.

Why? It was well-established how bleak her future would be after her disappearance, and if she had truly bonded as she claimed, then it was baffling she had yet to answer the Void’s call now that she was alone. What could she possibly have left to hold more dear than life itself? More accurately, what was worth suffering for?

His claw pressed down on the intercom.

“Special Tactics Officer ‘Demo,’” he began, cycling a long breath. This would require some finesse. “To ensure that I understand the contents discussed, I will reiterate some of your claims, and you will verify that I have not made any errors in my interpretation.”

The pale-furred female scowled slightly, but returned a terse nod.

“Then let us begin. You abandoned your post to participate in an experimental treatment—one that resulted in a modification of your physiology. Amongst the possessions you carried was an unspecified quantity of restricted chemicals and compounds that were taken with the intent to create demolition charges, though you cite recreational purposes as the primary motivation.”

“That is correct,” she affirmed.

Heroon didn’t need to check over his observations yet. If nothing else, her absence was documented, but the reason for it was still up for scrutiny. True to her word, a message had been distributed around the time of her disappearance, calling for soldiers to guard several landing locations, so she did leave within the described period. A manifest of items left in her vacated room detailed the remainder of materials she claimed to have taken as well. All of that was verifiable.

The destructive cargo was a matter he would have to bring up with command another time. For some reason, nobody thought it was important to catalogue how much highly explosive material was being stockpiled by a single soldier. What it was ultimately used for is irrelevant; specialization or not, the female had taken a shocking amount of controlled substances without a single soul being aware. The fact that it went missing was enough for him to dread the impending paperwork he needed to submit. He suspected that whoever was in charge of distributing it had just given the defect whatever she asked for to make her leave faster, which added even more forms to the pile.

He felt the migraine press against his skull.

“After said modification, you were asked to reside in a den that you could not leave without outside interference, and to become a cohabitant to a species that the Lilhun have no record of. You insist this is the case despite the years of our people being engaged in preliminary negotiations with the Union, and how we have yet to hear even a whisper regarding said unknown species.”

“They are ‘humans,’” she corrected, a slight shadow of a snarl slipping into her expression.

“Please adhere to verifying the accuracy of these statements.”

She glowered, but eventually relented. “…That is correct, High Quesitar.”

“Following a brief trial where you discover the properties of your purported condition, you lose the provided translation device, then are given a replacement by the alien in question—a replacement that you no longer possess.”

Claws scraped against metal inside the containment as the female tightened her paws into fists. He shared the sense of frustration at this point; as absurd as it was, simply being in the same room would confirm the results of any strange medical procedure. That alone would lend mountains of credence, but as things stood, he couldn’t break protocol.

“Correct.” The contained one averted her gaze to hide her anger, but not before Heroon spotted a hint of guilt. It was a curious reaction, yet still aligned with what he surmised of her character.

“You and the alien develop something of a friendly relationship over the course of your cohabitation, during which, you—a defective—‘bond’ to them. You report that this is the case regardless of the inherent incompatibility between our kind and others, as well as the exceedingly well-documented records regarding those of your condition being incapable of a bond at all.”

“Yes,” she ground out between clenched teeth. So questioning her bond seemed to be a point of contention? Interesting. She was irritated by it before, but needling the issue seemed to elicit a more severe reaction.

“The alien leaves and is reported as deceased. Because of such, you are left to your own devices for an extended period of time. You make this claim while also aware of how detrimental the extensive isolation would be to an unbonded Lilhun, let alone one in possession of the Mother’s gift.”

“That is correct.”

“Once a member of staff arrives, you scent your cohabitant on them, kill them, take the device that you have since submitted as evidence, then set out to find the missing alien. I am required to reiterate how this conflicts with your recorded condition.”

“…Yes.”

Heroon raised a brow, suppressing the urge to jump at the opportunity. “Is there an inaccuracy in my understanding? You hesitated.”

The pale-furred female controlled the ire on her visage. “No, high one.”

He held his gaze on her for a moment. The unsettling sense of staring into the Void tickled at his senses. “Moving on… Having exited the den, you set traps and explosives while fleeing Union forces, meeting another member of the unknown species—”

“—Greg,” she interjects tersely, refusing to look away from the table. “The male’s name was Greg.”

“Another member of the unknown species,” he repeated pointedly, shifting in his chair to restrain his curiosity. “They give you yet another device which grants you unfettered access to numerous maintenance tunnels. They perish during a confrontation with Union security, while you are left but a breath from death, then discarded as a corpse. You survive by pure chance, allowing you to continue your pursuit unimpeded for a time.”

“That is…correct.” The pause went unquestioned. He could practically hear her blood pressure rising, and she needed to be pushed at the right times in order for this to go the way he wanted.

“During your ascension through the facility’s levels, you encounter a security member that provides you with advanced navigational capabilities, which you use to make your way to the missing cohabitant whose death had been falsely reported. Reunited, you and the alien flee pursuit until said member of the unknown species actually expires.”

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“Yes,” she growled, earning even more of Heroon's attention. The question now was if the reaction was because of his feigned refusal to acknowledge the species was really that infuriating, or if something else was at play. All he was sure of was that he wanted to quell the disparaging part of himself that still believed her.

“Following their death, you reset your progress in escaping to fulfill a perceived desire of said alien, proceed to liberate an unspecified quantity of our kin—the majority of whom had also miraculously ‘bonded’ to members of this unknown species. You lead them through combat to procure a ship, yet the resulting size of the group who were able to take said ship was but a fraction of those under your presumed command. Upon lifting the restrictions to the cockpit, your life is saved by a third member of the unknown species, yet again costing them their life. You are then forced into the escape shuttle against your will by a grieving male, and consequently ejected from the ship mere moments before it succumbs to an enemy anti-aircraft missile barrage. The explosives that were previously placed are then activated by you via a monocopter that had fallen out of your bag, acting as a relay.”

Heroon didn’t bother to hide the exasperated huff. “After demolishing the facility, you do not recall much besides setting the travel vector of the shuttle, the subsequent crash landing, waking up from your induced slumber inside the medical wing, then being transferred to your current containment… Is that everything?”

The female nodded silently, though he could see the combination of anger and sadness in her eyes. He released a long sigh, wondering what about the tale urged him to place faith in the words of a defect.

But it was only when one separated from their instincts that they could truly trust them, and his instincts told him something was missing. Something that should have been unveiled before now, yet had remained concealed. He had a feeling that he knew why as well.

He just had to be right.

The brown-furred male once again adjusted the collar of his suit, preparing the final bait that would put him under heavy scrutiny. Hopefully, it was worth the reprimand. “I offer my sincerest apologies, low one, but we simply lack evidence to support your claims.”

She snapped her gaze back to the wall between them, her pupils wide in both fear and disbelief. He continued before she could spiral into the panic attack brewing beneath the surface.

“Where is the other terminal?”

Illia stopped transcribing, turning to look at him with palpable confusion, yet the High Quesitar held the stare of the defect, ignoring the barrier between them. It was fortunate that he did. Otherwise, he would have missed the vengeful, bloodthirsty expression before it was forced into neutrality.

“It is in your possession, yes?” he pressed tersely. His heart beat just a bit faster. Just a bit harder. He wanted any other reaction, but seeing the near instantaneous slip only replaced his dismissive demeanour with one of true caution. For the briefest of moments, he prayed she would say no, or would be scrambling to cover the oversight with haphazard reasoning to support her tale.

“What might have inspired such an assumption?” the pale-furred female inquired coldly instead. All hints of nervousness or hesitation faded from her visage, an almost vicious undertone coating her words. It was a challenge. A threat. He had stepped on something she was willing to court death over.

Heroon tensed unwillingly. “You have not regaled us with the moment of its loss, but it does not rest with the other objects submitted as evidence. I have it on record that you all but attacked the medical staff during your treatment, yet you have been perfectly compliant since removed from their touch.”

A lingering silence was her response. She seemed content to let him finish his thought, boring into the mono-transparent wall with a glower that would melt steel.

“I would wager that they were going to clean your stomach wound,” he drawled, putting confidence he didn’t feel into his lowered voice. “Would they have found a foreign object in the process? Did the fear of having it taken supersede the haze of chemicals? The thought of your form sealing it away makes it itch, does it not? That is why you have been diligent in slicing the flesh anew; you wish it available on a whim. Why have you not submitted it?”

Illia took a breath to berate him for humouring the defect’s delusions, but he silenced her with a raised paw, giving his den-mate a look that asked for patience. She acquiesced, though not without making her displeasure known through a disgruntled huff.

The defect maintained her quiet glare until a shimmer of dampness formed in her eyes. A blink redirected her gaze. “I am surprised you deign to consider my feelings in such a deduction.”

“‘Be he who gazes upon his form as he gazes upon his antithesis, and be he who sees beyond the veil of self,’” he quoted sagely.

“‘Or be he who sacrifices his form, scattering his fragments to the wind, for he who views the world through a thousand refractions is he who sees truth within the shards,’” she uttered in a mechanical, reflexive manner.

The verse slotted into a vacancy in his memory, though that did little to settle his unease. The Crystal Lens, Aspect of The Stars—the opposite Aspect of his own. He didn’t have time to question why it put him on edge before she posed a question.

“What would the church make of my tale, high one?”

He mentally reeled from the non-sequitur. “Pardon?”

“As your assistant has demonstrated, our faithful find the prospect of obtaining the Mother’s gift from one not of our kin to be distasteful. Furthermore, to discover that her ‘abandoned’ kits are compatible? To learn that a species held from us might be the missing piece many Lilhuns have been searching for?” She shook her head ruefully. “Were my possession to fall into the wrong paws, it would disappear into obscurity, and with it, my purpose. I could not trust those unknown, High Quesitar. Many would react in such negative ways.”

The female dragged a paw off the table as she spoke, a dull sucking sound punctuating her grimace. Bloodied claws dropped a strange device on the previously off-white surface.

“If the worst were to occur, then the information contained on this terminal would spread like wildfire, bringing forth factions we had once worked so hard to bury with time. Some would seek to purge all heresy related to perceived false words, others could seek to wage an isolated war against the Union for tampering with the divine, and yet more—however few—might see such as an affront to the Hunt Mother herself, blaming the rest of our people for discriminating against those we call ‘defective.’ Conflict would consume us all during a period we can only afford unity.”

Heroon wanted to dismiss the assertion as his attention fell to the crimson-stained object that now dominated the containment. He wanted to call it all pointless drivel…but he was well within a station to know just how precarious of a balancing act the UM performed to quell the populace. And that was just dealing with the lingering age-old feud between the clans of millennia ago—feuds brought back to light since the Union made themselves known. If one of the medical staff happened across the device and were overly curious, then decided to make the contents known…

“You sought to prevent a species-wide civil war?” he choked out, shocked at how…possible the absurd claim was. A mirthless laugh poured through the speakers in a single, defeated bark.

“No,” the contained one admitted wryly. “It merely holds the last information I have pertaining to my bond—his name, his lineage, his kin… The moment it is submitted as evidence of my experience is the moment I lose the only thing I have left of him. I am familiar with protocol enough to know that I will never see this again.”

He took a surprisingly difficult breath, struggling to process the existence of an object he had mostly assumed to be fictional. Illia’s silence didn’t escape his notice.

“It was… Your tale…?” he whispered.

The defect nodded softly, grabbing then fiddling with the oddly shaped terminal. When she placed it back on the table, a video was playing underneath the sheen of red; the recording showed a Lilhun male strapped to a chair…and a furless…biped…

Heroon shot out of his chair and left the room before he could even gather his senses, deaf to his den-mate’s shouts of confusion. By the time he registered that he had moved at all, he was standing before the containment doors, the overhead hiss warning the occupants of an additional person. The room opened before him, the off-white contents differing only where a pale-furred female sat, and the bloody device atop the table. The diminutive Lilhun glanced over with a morbid smile.

Yet all he could focus on was the smell of bloodlust radiating off of her.

Sunundra turned in her chair to face him, inadvertently displaying the matted, ichor-sodden fur of her stomach. “After our kin strike down the Union, when the High Elders send our forces to find the humans—and they will, if only to assuage their curiosity—I wish to be aboard the first ship.”

He resisted the instinctual urge to defend himself, clenching his fists to discourage his claws from extending. His voice came out dry and growled. “Why?”

The amiable facade fell from her face, shifting to an expression that matched her scent. “There is a promise I must uphold, high one, and I will allow nothing to prevent me from doing so.”

Heroon stayed steadfast in his composure, paying no mind to the creeping feeling that he was but one wrong word from choking on sharpened shards of shattered glass.

“Assistant? Push the transcript. Priority.”

= = = = =

Sunundra gasped awake, her heart hammering away in her chest. It took a moment to drag the spectres of the past away from the reality of the present. She closed her eyes long enough to calm the desperate breaths into something that could scent the air, letting herself quell the ever-present sense of unease.

Pale moonlight poured into the room through hexagonal skylights, only slightly dimmed by the translucent solar cells embedded into the glass. Alien woods of brown coloured the walls and ceiling, yet the stark difference from the greys and whites of her memory bled off the worst of her disorientation. It was a shade one would rarely ever see on Iras or aboard a UM ship, but it was also one she had since come to find familiar. Comforting. Her dried tongue passed over her lips as she calmed down, and a clicking facsimile of a purr dragged her the rest of the way to cognizance.

She tilted her head down, a gentle smile forming on her muzzle as she confirmed the source of the noise. A massive yellow insect cuddled into her side atop the large bed she was resting on, ignoring the fact that it was twice her size in order to indulge in closeness. Six segmented legs were folded beneath a broad arachnid abdomen, the mantis-like upright torso laid flat during its rest, the two scythe-ended arms safely tucked to its chest. Scales and hard carapace adorned its exoskeleton in alternating stripes that shimmered pearlescent hues in the soft illumination.

Most would see the alien as a walking weapon, and given the sheer lethality the species was capable of, they’d be right. Yet the defect stroked along the kind insect’s back, pleased when its purrs shifted into those of a deep slumber. The Atmo queen often spent her suns with the nest, but would occasionally find her way into the pale-furred female’s bed when sleep seemed to escape it, despite having another as her advisor. Sunundra never complained; those moons tended to match up with when she had nightmares, so the company was appreciated.

So much had happened since she first came across the imposing creatures. When she commanded her pack to pursue the trails of escape shuttles, the last thing anyone expected was to come across the natural walking Void that were taller than most Lilhun. At the time, she saw an enemy to be disposed of. Or she did, until they got close enough to see a significantly smaller, yellow insect screeching while desperately trying to elicit a reaction from an unmoving other of its kind.

The Atmo youth had lost its caretaker almost immediately after crashing onto an unknown planet, and was far too overtaken by grief to notice potential predators creeping towards them. The other insects who gathered around in sympathy were equally unprepared, yet were unable to ask their adolescent queen for direction on what they should be doing. They weren’t ready for the looming threat of death that Sunundra and her pack represented. The other insects were stuck between fleeing and aiding their young leader’s escape, despite the latter’s unwillingness to leave behind a newly deceased loved one.

The defective was but a word from ordering the execution of the venerable weapons. Then, the comparatively tiny, sorrow-stricken Atmo saw them.

A kit was what stepped forward, gesturing for the others to seek safety while approaching the ones who sought her end. A kit was what begged for mercy at the cost of her own life, though the language barrier made such a request difficult to convey. Indeed…it was a kit that had lost everything it cared for, yet was willing to sacrifice what little it had left to see its kin live another sun, because that was what its loved one would have wanted.

Sunundra had stared down the barrel of her firearm at a young soul doing the only thing it could think of to make its suffering worthwhile, the wounds of mourning painfully visible in its every action.

‘You’re a kind person, miss.’

The defect shook her head. Too much time had passed since then, yet she still found herself wondering what would have happened to her if she hadn’t given the Atmo shelter amidst her pack. It seemed like a bitter urge to help a past version of herself, in a way, yet the decision had given her much over the years. She took care to get off the bed and leave the room without waking Daisy.

The hallway was wide and tall, the left leading to more bedrooms, while the right led to the rest of the den. She went right, passing through the double doors to enter the hub, then another set to access the facilities wing of the building. A stop to the kitchen let her grab a drink before she headed back, passing by the other rooms of various utilities. She never spent much time in them, save for when Pan wished for company while Sunundra was visiting. As interesting as watching the others work is, there was a limit to how comfortable she could be while interrupting the normal flow of things. This was not her den, regardless of how accommodating the Heads were and how insistent their leader was. She was fine with just being allowed to stay as often as she did.

The hub opened up for her once more, the broad circular space illuminated by a domed ceiling sporting more paw-sized skylights. Tables and furniture transformed the huge space into a commons area, where meals were shared amongst friends, and members of the pack lounged with those of different stations with little concern of whose authority outranked who. It was a frequent sight for the lowest members of the pack to converse with those at the top, neither party much bothering with formalities. Kits would storm the building to find their favourite alien, groups of nearly-blind young following their Atmo chaperone to and fro. Violet adored the attention, and sometimes offered rides to the smallest.

Sunundra felt a chuckle building in her chest as she remembered a certain someone bemoaning his new menagerie of Lilhun kit-shaped accessories after his Atmo daughter decided to deliver them all at once. Despite the complaints, the scent of jovial resignation was just as clear as his groaning. His mates certainly found amusement in his predicament.

She went back to the dormitory wing, only somewhat paying attention as she followed her nose past her assigned room, stopping at another near the end of the hall. The sounds of soft snores and tiny mewls effortlessly escaped the partially open doorway, and she found herself pushing it the rest of the way, pulled by something far deeper than thought.

The room was the same size as her own temporary lodgings, albeit furnished differently. A desk with various half-finished projects lay against the side wall, a dozen prototypes littering its surface. A stringed instrument hung off a simple holder near the window. What would have been an absolutely excessive size for a bed instead proved its value, the pile of bodies filling it perfectly, no matter how many of the den decide to occupy it.

Furs of various colours took up the sleeping space. Pan’s white was nestled inside of Tel’s gunmetal grey. Nalah’s blonde was mixed with Sahari’s black. Jax’s own dark coat blended into Harrow’s orange, his arm covering his mate and cradling the two infants that shared a mix of their blood-parent’s hues. A purple carapace lay stretched across the bottom of the bed, either on top of or underneath various feet without complaint from anyone involved. All of this surrounded the single participant who lacked fur at all—the one who each and every other person would face the Void itself for, as he would for them.

She moved before she could really question it, gingerly stepping over the mass of tangled limbs that unconsciously shifted to allow another occupant. A moment’s deliberation had her choose a spot that was close to the centre, but not directly imposing on the others too much. Although she was welcomed many times to join their rest, she typically refrained unless one of the others threw her into the pile. She quietly mumbled her protests when that happened, knowing that no one was actually listening. It was best that they didn’t.

The pile shifted again once she was more or less situated and ready to forget the nightmare that plagued her every so often. It never truly left her. She would escape her doomed lifestyle, find Bill, fall hopelessly in love with her bond, then crumble as she failed to do anything again and again. It never got easier. It never stopped hurting. Nothing ever combated the sense of loss.

Well, almost nothing.

She felt an arm wrap around her back just as she was comfortable. The owner of the limb pulled as he always did, dragging her entire form until she was pressed against his chest, his chin resting on her head. No matter how much she chastised herself for it, she knew why she came into his room when the nightmares struck, and why she visited his settlement as often as she did.

It was for the well known habit he possessed that rendered any in his bed as a potential sacrifice to his slumbering embrace. It was a habit she would never admit to cherishing, nor taking advantage of, though she also knew that the others were aware and just chose not to say anything. She didn’t resist his unintentional caress. Not that him being awake changed much; he was a very physically affectionate human. Still, she adjusted for the position, and the pile adjusted with her, swallowing the otherwise empty space. Soon, all were as peacefully asleep as when she entered, some including her in their protective postures. Daisy would be along whenever she awoke, joining her purple-coloured sister in the mix, and the pile would shift anew, welcoming yet another addition without fuss.

Until then, Sunundra was allowed a brief period where none would notice her dampening fur as she nuzzled ever deeper into the male’s touch, all but drowning herself in his scent. Ever since the first moon he inadvertently pulled her in during his rest, where she wept uncontrollably for far too long, she craved the feeling of fulfilled melancholy that came with it. The smell of pheromones that were different from her bond’s, yet were not wrong, and would never gouge her soul. No, it didn’t complete her like Bill’s did, but it soothed the jagged edges left behind and warmed the frozen depths his absence caused.

It was the scent that told her she had found what her bond desired, if only by immeasurable chance. Even when she had failed a part of his wish so horribly, she could still uphold some of it, and it was sleepless moons like this that she allowed herself the comfort that came with being reminded of that.

A sudden inhale from the male cradling her in his arms made her stifle a sob, a groggy mix of Lilhun and English crawling out of his throat, gravelly and soft. “Wassup, Sunshine? Bad dream?”

Her words caught in her throat, a tiny nod being all she could manage as a response for the only other person she would allow to use the moniker.

“Mm. ‘s okay,” Joseph murmured, tightening his hold and rubbing her back with his five-clawed paw. White and grey tails navigated the pile to add the touch, unconsciously following their mate’s concern, while roused others made sure they included her in the shared snuggling. She was enveloped by their care without protest, one of the kits catching and cuddling her tail. “We’re here for ya, m’kay? Jus’ lemme know if you need sum’in.”

She nodded again, melting more than she thought possible as the pile fell back asleep.

‘You should know…what it’s like to be around…people who care… People who love you.’

Sunundra’s tears returned with force, as they always did every time this set of events happened. She found herself swimming amongst the warmth of those who not only knew of her altered condition, but who welcomed her in spite of it. Swimming in the scent that wasn’t Bill’s, yet carried so much of it that it was unmistakably of his making.

The pale-furred female smiled, succumbing to her fatigue. The nightmare was put aside for another moon, for the remainder of this one was a wonderful dream instead—a dream that was somehow real.

After everything she suffered, and everything she sacrificed, she had found what she was looking for. She found a way to uphold the promise that wasn’t hers, a pack that accepted her regardless of her condition, and a people who loved her for who she was. Finally, after losing what she most held dear, she found a reason to live. To be happy.

Just as she always should have been.