“So, that’s the secret you’ve been keeping from me is it?” Gentia asked sweetly of Thantis. The two of them, along with the other high priests of the village, were seated around another large fire in the middle of Alyra’s temple. In addition to being one of the more comfortable places in the village to take a load off on account of the woven pillows and blankets, it was also one of the only temples that did not see evening foot traffic outside of rare exceptions. On that night in particular, secrecy was the topic of the hour. Thantis smiled kindly at his mate.
“It was not my secret to tell, my dear. And while we have already heard from both our High Priest and Huntress regarding their thoughts on the matter, I feel it is appropriate to add further context. This proposal, at least when it was made to us officially, came from Winters’ sister. I have spent a decent amount of time with both her and this human leader with dark skin, and I believe her to be more trustworthy on the whole. Though I am perhaps being unfair to those in positions of power,” the death priest looked apologetically at Antoth from across the crackling fire. “But I believe intent is important.”
Thantis’ final sentence put a lid on any scathing retort Ratha might have had. Instead the huntress drew her knife and picked at the underside of her claws. “He has a point there. Anyone else?”
Ratha tilted her head in annoyance but said nothing as her mate nodded approvingly and tossed another log onto the fire. Well dried after more than a season of warm, indoor weather, the wood caught and snapped almost immediately, throwing sparks towards the ceiling. “That is a point to consider, Thantis. And by now I’m sure we all know that Winters and his spirit can hopefully be considered allies, if not friends. However the admiral, Natori, outranks them within their hierarchy of warriors.”
“Could have fooled me. That human’s skinny as a kina pole,” Staroth opined with a chuckle. Antoth grunted in agreement.
“And yet even after several cycles, he is still in command. We must assume that he is the one we will be dealing with, for better or worse. Now, Ratha, Thantis, and myself have all had time to consider this offer from the humans. Nerazek, Staroth, Alyra, and Gentia, I would appreciate it if you could share your thoughts now as well. There are no easy answers here, but I reiterate my conviction that we must act as one people on this matter.”
Gentia shifted on her pillow, pointing her walking cane at him. “Ha! There is an easy answer but you feel the need to be diplomatic so your mate doesn’t tear at your feathers when you go to sleep! We can barely care for our own like this, Antoth. The harvest is coming in and we review the situation daily. Our stores for this winter will be adequate, but barely. We lost many good males, and some females as well. There is a good chance we may need to deny food in order to have enough seeds for planting. We have all witnessed the difference that Winters has made in Veera’s life. If the human leader demonstrates goodwill and a coherent plan, we are fools not to take it. And I say that as the one of the two among us who are least likely to survive the trip.”
Nerazek exhaled deeply as he stared into the flames, one of the hallmarks of his trade. Elbow on knee, he stroked at his singed chin fur and shook his head. “They have a lot of metal, those humans. And don’t even get me started on how they manage to make it fly. I understand the perspective of those here who think we should join that world, but other than personal fears, which I will try to leave aside for now, where is the place for my lads in a world like that?”
“Your temple employs females as well, old friend,” Alyra remarked pointedly. He smiled at her.
“And if you’d take your head out from under your fine cotton dresses every so often you’d know that the females are also lads within the temple! Antoth, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can in good conscience support this when the humans can make everything they want on a whim. How is a craftsman supposed to earn his daily bread that way?”
“Or her bread.”
“Alyra!”
“I know, I know, very serious conversation,” she waved her hand and feathers calmly. “But I need to take every opportunity to continue our friendly rivalry.”
“Do so once we’re through here, if you don’t mind. You’ll have your turn soon enough,” Antoth advised. “Nerazek, have you anything more for us?”
The head smith raised his feathers shortly. “Not without hearing more about what exactly the human leader plans on doing to make such an… ambitious undertaking successful. Until then my vote is no. Our walls and homes are repaired and we have built grand new creations with a bit of help from Winters, knowledge instead of handouts. There is much more within the tome he provided us. Gods prove me wrong if they so choose, but I believe we should stay.”
Ratha smiled with satisfaction as Antoth hummed his acknowledgement of Nerazek’s points. “Well spoken. Staroth, I would hear your thoughts next,” the sun priest commanded.
“You know, for a moment I thought I was getting the better end of the deal on this changing of the hats,” the current Guardian chuckled ruefully. “The situation is difficult, Antoth.”
“I’m sure it is, my friend. Go on,” he encouraged.
“Well, you know how bad our losses were last winter so I won’t rehash those details. Subsequently, new recruits are rather sparse on account of hands being needed to plow fields instead of swing swords. As Gentia pointed out, every guardsman is a net drain on our food stockpiles as well. I’m hopeful that next year more will consider joining thanks to that water wheel saving some time and effort when farming, but I can’t be sure. The walls remain strong but, as we all know, they can be breached. And we have even fewer men left in the event of trouble. I assume convincing Winters to stay is a lost cause?” he wondered. “He’s worth an entire contingent.”
“I think it goes without saying that when the humans leave, Winters will go with them, along with Veera,” Antoth supplied. The elders glanced around the fire at one another in silence for several moments, allowing the knowledge that no matter what their decision one of their number would be leaving to sink in. “My understanding is that were it not for his emergency landing here, they would not have walked on our world at all. We should assume that when the humans leave it will be for good. There will be no second chances, at least not in our lifetimes.”
“As if we needed more pressure,” Staroth grunted, shaking his head and scratching at his brow. “For now I throw my lot in with Ratha and Nerazek. I’ve got a cub on the way myself. I would prefer a certain future for them than an uncertain one.”
Gentia looked as though she wanted to argue Nerazek’s point, but Thantis placed a gentle hand on her knee and gestured to Alyra. His mate held her tongue, allowing the final high priest of the village to give her initial impressions of the question before actual debate ensued. “So I’m the tiebreaker then?” the priestess of the Twins questioned.
“Pending further discussion, so it would seem,” Antoth agreed. Alyra flared her voluminous crest to full expansion and furrowed her brow.
“We should all be on that ship tomorrow, picking out the best beds for ourselves,” she insisted with finality. Ratha stabbed her knife into the wooden floor.
“Are you insane?!”
“Hold your tongue, Huntress! You had your turn and now I’ll take mine,” Alyra refused to back down. “Do you know what color human claws are?”
Ratha stuck her head forward and squinted across the fire at Alyra. “Excuse me?”
“Do you know what color human claws are, naturally?” the priestess repeated. Antoth, Staroth, and Nerazek looked at one another with that universal male confusion that tended to arise whenever female aesthetics was the subject of conversation.
“The same color as their skin,” Ratha replied confidently. “What of it?”
“I’ve had the pleasure of spending a bit of time of late with Winters’ sister, the human that lives on the eastern edge of the village and calls herself Alice. Do you know what color her nails were today?”
Ratha looked at her mate. “Are you really going to entertain this?”
“I am, Ratha. We have given our perspectives on the matter and now it is Alyra’s turn. I daresay this will be a most interesting tangent by the end of it. Alyra, if you would kindly make your point with a few less questions?”
“As you wish, sun priest,” the blonde Cauthan agreed politely. “Today her nails were a bright pink, a color the likes of which I have never seen before. Yesterday they were also pink but the day before that they were black, in preparation for the human Hallow’s Eve festival. Before that they were green, and blue, and red, and yellow. She changes them as one of us might change our tunics, and she has more colors at her disposal than even the richest of us have tunics.”
“So you think we should go with the humans and color our claws?” Ratha scoffed.
“I wasn’t finished,” Alyra countered, holding up a claw that had been, to everyone’s surprise and Gentia’s delight, painted that same bright pink. “Though I will say I don’t think pink is quite my color. I’ll have to speak with Alice again soon and acquire some of the magical liquid she uses to remove it. No, Ratha, I would not be so air headed to suggest we leave everything we and our ancestors have ever worked for just for some shiny trinkets. How many of you are familiar with the human healer, the one who has been tending to Asha?”
Alyra waited several seconds as most of the priests assembled indicated that they at least knew of Yvonne Dupuis. She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m not sure how closely you were looking, but one day she changed the color of the fur atop her head from black to a silvery gray. When it didn’t change back several days later I asked her about it, and she was more than happy to share the process with me. It is substantially different from the fun little powder that they came up with for Hallow’s Eve. She was able to treat her fur once and maintain its coloration for cycles, or even seasons, with minimal maintenance.”
“Correct me if I’m mistaken but we still seem to be discussing… shiny trinkets?” Nerazek opined. Alyra was more polite with him than Ratha.
“Always so direct, servant of Tyrdus. But I am getting there, I promise.”
“Before the next cycle of the Twins if you please, Alyra,” Antoth encouraged.
“As you wish, Antoth. Tell me, you’ve been to their ship before. Would you say that it’s designed to function like my temple? Is its purpose to take raw materials and create luxurious goods whose purpose is mainly comfort or beauty instead of practical application?” Alyra asked. It was easy for the black-furred Cauthan to reply in the negative, moving his hand across his body from left shoulder to right hip.
“Absolutely not. It is first and foremost a military construct, capable of immense offensive and defensive feats. The majority of those aboard, including Winters himself, are part of their species’ army,” he described. Alyra looked around the fire with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
“These humans are an unfathomable distance from their home after travelling through the realm of Kel. They are an army, or something like it. They grow their own food. This alone is incomprehensible to me. I’d like to see you do such a thing several year’s journey from here Staroth, no offense.”
“None taken,” the Guardian said as Alyra continued.
“And not only that, they engage in such frivolous things as changing their appearance whenever they wish! Do you have any idea how unreasonable this is, how exceptional their resource management must be for someone like Alice to change her nails almost every day and not be reprimanded for it? You ask me which world I wish to live in and are surprised or offended when I tell you I would leave behind this earthen existence where I carve what little wood and weave what little eurlass is left over after we make our plates and houses and baggy garments? You ask me if I wish to crawl in the muck as a so-called ‘free female’, with dirt under my claws every day, or live among the stars with the Twins? I would take the stars even as a slave.”
A heavy and uncomfortable silence fell around the room as Alyra presented the choice before them all in a stark light. “So, I guess now we debate?” she finished quietly.
“That was one hell of an opening statement if so,” Nerazek pointed out. “I didn’t even need to lend you a hammer.”
“And if yours breaks, much of my labor over the next year will be spent making something we can trade to get you another,” Alyra pointed out, twisting the knife of her point home. “Though let it never be said that you aren’t grateful.”
“I never said you weren’t, but your words are always more biting than your needles,” the smith replied, well acquainted with Alyra’s mannerisms after years of collaboration and competition between their temples. “I guess it’s your call then, Antoth. We appear evenly split.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the sun priest advised. “This will hardly be the only meeting between us all on the subject. If all of you felt that this was a fool’s errand I would have simply dropped it. That is not the case. Would any of you like to speak further? I don’t want our tails to cramp before we decide on next steps.”
“I’ve said my piece,” Ratha declared with finality.
“As have I,” Alyra followed immediately. Gentia silently motioned to Antoth to get a move on. He stood to command their attention.
“Very well. I will request that the human Admiral meet with us here in order to explain his plan for transporting our village in detail and to answer our questions on the matter. I will also insist that all of us be permitted to review the human ship in full before making a decision. If at any point we feel the humans are not being honest with us or we don’t like what we hear, we will decline the offer.”
“Seems reasonable to me,” Staroth agreed. “What about the rest of the village?”
Antoth wore a difficult expression but squared his shoulders as he replied. “For now I believe it is best that we keep this between the seven of us. The question has created division and passion the likes of which we have not seen in a generation. That burden should be borne by us and us alone, for now. Our people must focus on the harvest. If there is nothing else, thank you all and good night. I will send word when the human Admiral agrees to meet with us. Selah.”
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
-----
“I’m not sure I like this dynamic where you get home after me while pregnant,” Russell told Veera as she returned her cloak and spear to their rightful place in their home before moving to both warm herself by the fire and occupy Winters’ lap. Fenrir was forced to move his head from the human’s thigh, but he obliged lazily after a bit of poking.
“Well I don’t know what you expect; it’s the harvest and I’m not just going to stand there with my pointy stick looking around while they need help moving carts through the mud,” she insisted. “I’m already lucky enough knowing that I won’t be Asha’s size while working the fields myself.”
“Human perspective then, I guess,” Russell reasoned, tilting his head to receive a small kiss from her as he rubbed her legs. “I just worry sometimes.”
Veera purred and nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder, letting him know she appreciated it to an extent. “Good father. The harvest will be over soon and you know I’m still not quite half way along yet. You should get to chopping another tree down perhaps so we can all keep warm this winter.”
Winters hummed to himself, glancing up at the sky through the smoke hole in the ceiling. “We won’t be here when the snows fall this time around. Not that I mind the work.”
“Oh right, I forgot,” Veera replied quietly after a few seconds of silence. “They’re never going to see this planet.”
“You know that’s not true. I’m sure we’ll come back,” Winters insisted kindly, moving a hand to her belly. “But yeah, it could be years. And space travel is still dangerous to an extent. Not sure we’d want the little ones coming all the way out here.”
“I guess this is what my father meant when he said that having a cub changes everything,” she reminisced.
“Sounds like a wise man. My parents said the same sort of thing but you never really pay attention until later when you think back and realize how right they were.”
“Speak for yourself,” Veera chuckled. “I always listened to my parents.”
“Really?” he asked incredulously, rubbing his hand into the white fur of her tummy. She swatted lightly at him but allowed him to continue.
“Of course I did. When everyone else wants nothing to do with you… well not everyone.”
“I get it, I do,” he assured her, tapping his foot and bouncing her a couple of times before smiling. “I hope our cubs are as well behaved as you then. Their grandfather is a no nonsense kind of man.”
“And something tells me that when he becomes a grandfather instead of a father that might change,” Veera replied sagely before confiding a worry of hers. “I finally feel like I’m beginning to fit in among my own people and I’m going to leave it all behind. Our cubs will be just like me, different. They won’t have anyone else who’s like them.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asked quietly, without accusation. She shook her head.
“No, even if they’re different, your family will still be our cubs’ family. They’ll still be your cubs. Here, they will have no grandparents or aunts or uncles or anything like that, and that’s something I want for them. I just don’t want them to go through what I went though,” Veera explained sadly. Winters took her hand in his and rubbed her palm.
“I can’t make promises for their entire lives, but I’m pretty sure my mother and father will be over the moon once they actually realize I’m back. Not to mention Alice. As for the rest, it’ll make them stronger,” he asserted. When Veera threw an unpleased expression his way he shook his head and squeezed her fingers gently. “Just like you.”
“I told you, I don’t want them to grow up like me,” Veera lamented as her husband cast about for a better way to explain his perspective.
“And they won’t. You and I won’t be departing the mortal plane anytime soon. If we do, there will be people I know and trust, not to mention Io, who will be there to look after them in our stead. And I think there will be plenty of humans they encounter who will be excited to see a different kind of alien. That might get grating on them too, no doubt, but it’s better than the alternative. As for the people who do decide to come after them, bully them, or whatever, I think overcoming that makes you stronger in the end than someone who’s never had to deal with jerks and assholes in their life.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” Veera declared hotly. He nodded.
“Of course not, but that’s why we’ll teach them the final lesson, which is how to finish fights that other people pick with them. They’ll have claws and talons. No one’s going to want to throw down with them behind the school building,” Russell said proudly.
“You are a little bit too excited about that notion,” she reprimanded him, poking his nose with her own claw. He smiled broadly.
“Look, let’s just say that you aren’t the only one who’s been on the receiving end of that sort of stuff. I didn’t deal with it that well on my own, but now that I’m here and look back on it all it’s hard to say I would change any of it, right? I mean, it’s been rough for sure but I met you. Who’s to say whether this whole adventure would still happen if you went back and started changing things?”
“And I wouldn’t have met you if I wasn’t working my dingy little dato farm all the way out on the border of the plains,” Veera thought back with a hint of fondness now that she was no longer actively participating in agriculture. “I suppose you’re right to an extent, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy about it!”
“Nor will I,” he assured her with seriousness in his voice. “But that’s another good life lesson, I think. Learning how to surround yourself with people who are constructive influences and friends instead of the opposite. I really do believe that if they’re born into human society and grow up with it from day one they’ll be ok.”
“You’ve been thinking a lot about this, haven’t you?” Veera murmured appreciatively. He grinned back proudly.
“Everything else seems a bit less important now, you know? Though at this very moment I am wondering instead whether you want to use that water for cooking or for cleaning your feet.”
Veera purred and arched her back in a stretch as she contemplated the idea. “Would it be you washing me? I had plenty of food while on patrol.”
Winters encouraged her off his lap and seated her in the other chair before standing and removing his shirt. “Well, given the way bath time usually goes around here I’d be a fool not to. Sorry boy, dinner’s going to be a bit late tonight. Now let’s see, where did I leave the soap…”
“Has Io been gone long?” Veera asked as he rummaged around their belongings, glancing over at his gauntlet which had sat inert at the end of the bed since her arrival. He grunted in affirmation as he finally found the used bar of soap wrapped in a rough washcloth.
“Yeah, she popped in once or twice while I was out with Fenrir but she’s been aboard the ship for most of the day. Said something about new projects that she’s working on thanks to Natori, optimizing crop growth and such,” he reported, rejoining her by the fire. “Man, this is the best time of the year.”
“Oh, and why’s that?” Veera wondered, offering one of her legs. He shrugged and went to work, ensuring the water wasn’t too hot.
“Other than not sweating while cooking, it’s pleasant. I guess the air on Mara is pretty darn pure all year around, but back home it’s noticeable in the fall and winter. It gets this particular smell to it. Not to mention open flames feel so much better when they’re warding off a chill in the air. I don’t know, simple stuff?” he concluded. She smiled at him.
“I would have figured it might be the spring since that’s the season of your birth, but that makes sense to me. I enjoy it too, especially once my winter fur comes in!”
“Gotta say that’s a pretty handy thing,” he agreed, wiping the day old mud from her feet and playing gently with her talons as he did so. Veera leaned back in her chair and relaxed, a far different scene from their first, more adventurous bathtime. “It doesn’t itch when it comes in?”
“Oh a little bit,” Veera told him. “But that’s just an excuse for a nice brushing or grooming. Once we finish working the fields for the year it’s actually a bit of an indulgence. I remember wanting my mother to brush me all the time and then getting excited when it was my turn to use the brush. I guess back then everything was exciting.”
“The mind of a child,” Winters agreed thoughtfully. “It’s a terrible thing to waste, isn’t it?”
“Is that you saying our cubs will have a nice, long, innocent youth?” she asked affectionately. He pressed against the pad of her big toe softly and cocked his head as he replied.
“You and I both know that life doesn’t always allow your plans to pan out, but yes, that’s the plan. Lots of brushing at a minimum,” he chuckled. “So, stew again or do you want to roast something?”
“I’m happy with stew so long as it isn’t fur flavored,” Veera giggled. He returned a small grin as her expression suddenly shifted thoughtfully. “Is human life this simple? Will we still be able to do things like this when we’re on Earth?”
Winters took a moment to think through his answer, humming to himself as he finished with one of her legs and motioned for the other. “Yes and no. Things are a lot more complicated in some ways, but other things that we worry about every day here like food, water, shelter, and heat, those sorts of things you only think of once in a blue moon, at least in terms of being worried about running out or needing to find more.”
“But Auril is always blue,” Veera responded in confusion. Winters stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. She tried to poke at him with her feet. “Hey, what’s so funny!”
“Nothing, nothing! It’s just a human saying is all. Our only moon looks very much like Eiur. I don’t know the physics behind it, but every so often it appears red or blue in the sky, but most of the time it’s just gray. That’s the meaning behind the phrase. I guess the best way to describe human life is that depending on where and how you choose to live, it can be as busy or as laid back as you want it to. A lot is going to be different, but I’ll be there.”
“I should hope so,” Veera whispered, falling silent for the remainder of her quick bath. When Winters was done she hopped up and gave him a kiss of thanks before sending him off for more water, his armor proving necessary to handle the dangerously hot cooking pot. Left alone for a spell, Veera cast a glance at her idols and shrine as she set about preparing what they would need for a stew, waving her feathers slowly and muttering a prayer. “If I’m making the wrong decision, please give me a sign?”
-----
“Is he finally asleep?” Lachlan whispered as Sentaura rejoined him in the living space of her home.
“Either that or he is imitating sleep rather well. The life of adults is strangely compelling to cubs. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him scurrying off back to bed the moment I retire,” the mother replied, rejoining him around a small fire that was keeping the wooden home warm and furnished with some light, in addition to the sparse moonlight reaching the village from above. Lachlan leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his hands together, feeling the chesko and vegetable stew sitting heavily in his stomach as he tried to come up with a polite way to broach the subject on his mind.
“Mum, there’s somethin’ I think we should be discussing,” he began tentatively, nodding his head at the doorway to the bedroom. Sentaura was more than keen enough to get his meaning, silently standing and drawing her cloak around her before gesturing that he should lead the way out into the streets. Lachlan stood and ducked outside, nodding to a passing guardsman with lantern in hand as the young Cauthan mother whose home he’d shared for several weeks joined him.
“Winter is on the winds, but still a short way off,” she remarked idly, inhaling a deep breath of fresh air. “Now, what is it you wished to speak about regarding my son?”
Lachlan smiled briefly. “Nothin’ gets past you, does it? I just… we’ll be leavin’ this place soon. I don’t intend to be tellin’ ya how to speak ta the lad about it, but I think it might hurt real bad if one day I just up and said goodbye without nay so much as a warnin’.”
“I understand. You have your own home and family, of course. When will you be returning?” she wondered. Lachlan’s face fell and he worked his lips across the front of his teeth for a moment before delivering the news.
“Mum, there’s a good chance none of us e’r come back here. And even if we were ta return, I doubt I’d be a part o’ that mission. I’m sorry. I don’t want ta be makin’ promises I can’t keep.”
“I see,” the Cauthan replied neutrally, drawing one hand across her chest to grasp at her upper arm in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety and doubt. “It appears I have made a grave mistake then. Do you intend to tell him yourself?”
“I’ll do what I can if you think it’s wise,” Lachlan assured her.
“And when will you be leaving?”
“Soon. It’s lookin’ like shortly after yer harvest festival. That’s what I’ve been hearin’ from Alice at least,” he reported.
“And so another male will walk out of my son’s life forever,” she concluded bitterly, her feathers shaking in distress. Lachlan held out an uncertain hand.
“Mum, it’s not like I wanted this ta happen or-”
“I did not say that I blame you or your people, but that does not mean I will bid you farewell with full, waving feathers and a smile. Perhaps this is Meylith’s punishment for thinking I could replace my beloved with a human, if only for the sake of my son,” she seethed quietly, controlled but more emotional than Lachlan could ever recall. Sentaura closed her eyes and breathed deeply, straightening her shoulders and stilling her feathers. “If there is nothing else, Lachlan, we should head back inside. I will consider how or if you will speak of this to Ursol.”
She turned her back to him, prompting the Marine to reach out and take her wrist gently as she made to walk away. “Wait, Sentaura. Shouldn’t we maybe be hashin’ this out together or- Begging yer apologies,” he finished, releasing her immediately as he realized what he’d done. She fixed him with a hard look.
“Ursol has grown attached to you and you have been a good influence on him, but do not think for a moment that that gives you the right to make these sort of decisions, to tell him that he will need to experience loss again. That is reserved for the male who shares my heart. You have shared only my home and hearth. Know your place, human,” she demanded in a strained voice. Lachlan stood tall and straight in response, marshalling his own conflicted thoughts and forcing them down.
“As ye wish, mum. And thank you again for yer hospitality,” he said politely.
“Just… get inside, please. This is no longer a conversation for public consumption.”
Lachlan found himself in agreement with that, if nothing else, and followed Sentaura back inside before stoking the fire and rearranging a couple of logs for better airflow. The silence was not comfortable, but tolerating uncomfortable situations was part of his job description and, after some time in thought and reflection, his host spoke to him again.
“I apologize for my outburst, Lachlan. It was unbecoming.”
“It’s narry a problem, Sentaura,” he replied in a low voice so as not to wake Ursol. “Yer right, of course.”
“Being right is not an excuse to be rude,” the Cauthan pointed out. “And I am… happy in some small way that you have grown fond enough of him to consider his feelings in all of this. That does not make things any easier.”
“No arguments here, Sentaura. Figured it was better than up and leavin’ one day though,” he reasoned. His wording had her staring into the flames.
“Is it though?” she wondered, suddenly very far away. “I am not so sure about that. What sense is there in dreading the inevitable?”
“I’m not sure sense has much ta do with it,” Lachlan murmured.
“Yes, not much at all.” Sentaura held her head in her hands briefly before standing again and making for the door, her cloak still around her shoulders. “Please get some sleep. I know that I have imposed greatly upon you in asking for your help with the harvest. I will take a walk and think about what you’ve said, Lachlan, but I would prefer if someone remained here in case Ursol wakes up.”
Lachlan’s expression softened. “I’d be happy to, mum. And it’s no trouble at all. I’m sorry for telling ya all this now. I shoulda waited until tomorrow.”
Sentaura paused with her hand on the rough wooden doorframe, the other holding aside the chesko pelt that separated her home from the outside. “You did what you considered to be right. That’s not something you should apologize for. I would ask that, for now, you keep this from Ursol. I must decide what is best for him.”
Lachlan nodded in reply, watching the door long after Sentaura’s departure. Despite the warmth of the fire, his bedroll was little comfort as visions of the future played through his mind. He hadn’t lived among the Cauthan for a long while, but the scope of their life was small enough that he felt he had a pretty good idea of what sort of life the young cub might end up leading. Even those that didn’t end in tragedy left him feeling depressed and helpless, and when Sentaura returned a little less than an hour later he was forced to feign sleep while she tended to the embers and then retired to her bedroom. He had a feeling that both of them would be rather sleep deprived come daybreak.
-----
‘You really should take me out to dinner first before getting me a new chassis,’ Io joked, standing beside Natori in an isolated laboratory where the robotic Cauthan from the Forge lay inert on an examination table. The small room was cut off even from the Event Horizon’s internal networks as a security precaution, and so she’d been forced to operate her body in order to directly view the specimen. Natori exhaled strongly, a combination of reluctant laughter and exasperation.
“I can never tell if I should be frightened or reassured around you, Io,” he stated, walking around the motionless robot with his chin between his fingers and a furrow along his browline.
‘I think both of us understand how incredibly stupid it would be for me to attempt a direct interface with this thing even if we were to somehow power it again. Given the destruction wrought on the rest of the facility by its own mechanisms, I wouldn’t be surprised if every single circuit inside of this bot is fried… assuming this alien race even used circuits as we know them.’
Natori was about to reply when a yellow light began blinking calmly just above the door that would lead them out of the Faraday cage, an indication of a call from the bridge. He smiled knowingly at Io. “My apologies, I should probably take that call.”
Io followed behind him at a leisurely pace, picking a spec of lint off her uniform as Natori opened the line to his first mate. “Good morning, Turnwell. What news?”
“Yes sir, it’s a hail from the surface team at the village. The Cauthan leader has requested your presence, something about a council meeting?”
Io perked up at the report, a confident expression on her face. ‘I believe you’ll want me to come along for this one, Admiral.’