by Loki Renard
“I don’t think so,” she says. “Not anymore. I think that song has gone away forever. I think it fled me when I was tied to the starving board. It had no use for me after that. I was not worthy of it.”
She is part mourning, part pouting. I find that adorable, though I know I should not be encouraging it.
“I am sure it has not left you. It is part of you.”
“It is not. The song is not mine. It came from my mother, and it fled her at her dying and came to me. When I was almost dead, I felt it leave me too.” She looks at me with hollow eyes. “I do not belong in this world anymore. When you leave, so will I, one way or another.”
That is a dark threat, but I sense the truth in it. She was barely part of her tribe, and their rejection of her was final and complete. I can understand why she would not want to try to become part of this world again, having come so close to leaving it. I cannot tell her that her life will be joyful. She will likely experience pain and disease, a death which will come too early and…
BING BONG
The communicator beeps into life again.
“This is not a good time,” I tell it.
“You’re damn right about that.” It’s Krave’s gruff voice. “It’s the worst time. Broken time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m watching human history,” he says. “They’ve started to incorporate ancient images of what look a lot like space ships and Galactor symbols. You know anything about that?”
“I can hardly be blamed for Galactor being down here too,” I say, silently cursing myself for not taking care of them as soon as I saw the markings. “Some of them were obviously sucked in when I was.”
Tres is listening intently, learning far too much. I should be shielding her from this, but I don’t want to. She’s right. She’s a person out of time as much as I am. Some of this knowing may be of use to her in the uncertain future yet to come.
“Kill the Galactor forces before they do any more damage,” he orders. “I’m not removing you from that planet until they are dead, their remains so thoroughly disposed of they will never be found.”
“I could throw them into the volcano. Nothing comes out of there once it goes in.”
“Good. Do that. Let me know when it is done.”
The communicator powers down. He didn’t say a word about Tres. Which means either Tyank didn’t tell him, or Krave thinks that’s a problem for another time.
Tres
“Well,” Vulcan sighs. “I’m going hunting. Stay here. Again.”
“You should be careful,” I say. “If you’re planning on hunting others out in the wilds. If there are others like you, there could be human hunting parties. The people who live down below are fierce hunters.”
“And?”
"They could hurt you.”
He laughs with genuine amusement. “I don’t think you understand what I am, Tres. I cannot be hurt by humans.”
“They take down prey larger than you.”
His demeanor changes.
“I. Am. Not. Prey.,” he snarls.
But he is. We all are. I am used to being small and weak, but Vulcan does not know how to be anything other than an aggressor. The notion of being hunted by our kind offends him, but I have heard stories of hunters who wear skins of animals many times more powerful than them. They bring down beasts which should rightfully slay them. Vulcan might not be an exception.
“They do not care if they die, as long as the tribe wins,” I explain. “They will send as many warriors and hunters as they can to claim you as trophy.”
“What is wrong with humans?” The talking rock activates again. The gruff man is gone. It is the nicer one again, Tyank, I think his name is. I am glad to hear his voice. He seems to make Vulcan relax. He certainly makes me feel as though we have allies of power. We need them.
“I’m trying to tell Vulcan that the other human tribes might be hunting the Giglactor…”
“Galactor,” Vulcan corrects me.
“That we will be hunting them too. There are very good hunters. The best hunters.”
“She’s right,” Tyank says. “You should be careful. Galactor warriors are dangerous, and having ancient humans in the mix won’t help.”
“I don’t need pep talks,” Vulcan growls. “I need to get on with the hunt. As soon as I kill them, Tres and I are coming up off this planet. Start working on a way to do that. She’s made it clear she wants to come with me, so it’s not an abduction.”
“Oh, sure. Let me get right on screwing with the entirety of history just like you,” Tyank says, sarcastic.
I smile. Vulcan is finally talking about taking me with him. I must have made my point, and he must actually want me. I’ve never felt as happy as I do in this moment, sitting beside my highly agitated alien mate, arguing with a talking rock.
“Humans are trouble,” Tyank says. “Maybe get rid of them now. Save the universe a whole lot of trouble.”
He’s joking. I think.
“Given they end up as an extinct species, the remnants living in a prison simulation, they’re not that much trouble.”
“That’s what happens to us?” I speak. “We die out?”
“Yes,” Tyank says, apparently forgetting that I am not supposed to be told anything “The aliens Vulcan must hunt, they poison the planet with mutagens which make it impossible for life to be sustained, and a small population are taken off-world to live inside a simulation, which they do not know exists.”
There are a lot of words there. I really only understand a couple of them. “We die out?”
“A very long time from now,” Vulcan says, trying to calm me down. “And I truly mean, millions of years from now. Dying is the fate of all species, in the end. Do not fret.”
“I’m going to fret! I don’t want my kind to die out.”
“You were willing to lie there and die in a cave at one point,” he reminds me. “Don’t worry, the species hasn’t entirely ended, not even in the time I am from. There are still humans alive. Not on this planet, but…”
“What happens to this planet?”
“Well, er…”
“The scythkin destroy it and turn it into a refueling station,” Tyank says. I’d almost forgotten he was still here, because he’s not here. He’s very, very far away. And he’s somehow influencing all of this. I feel more helpless than ever. I don’t know what a refueling station is, but I know whatever it is, it cannot be better than having this world intact. It seems to me that the future of humanity is cursed, and already written.
“Is there nothing we can do to change that?”
“There’s nothing we should do,” Vulcan says. “If we change anything of any significance here and now, there could be massive repercussions in the future. People who exist now might stop existing completely. History was written one way and it is fragile.”
“So I have to play out my life like a puppet? Knowing nothing I do matters because the future already happened?”
“Technically,” Vulcan says. “All of time has already happened. We just get to live in little slices of it.”
“If that is supposed to make me feel better, it doesn’t. It means nothing is real.”
“Everything is real. It’s just that choice is a very complex illusion. You still have to make the choices, even if you’re not actually making them.”
“Stupid,” I scowl. “I don’t want to live like that.”
“But you have already,” he says. “As I have.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He’s so accepting of the horror of what he is saying, it’s as if he doesn’t really understand the implications of it. I am a simple ancient human, apparently. My people will become very advanced over time in ways I can’t even imagine, but even I can see that this kind of life is one that is barely worth living. If I am nothing but fate’s puppet, then I don’t want to be here at all.
“Don’t let your temper get the better of you,” he says. “I don’t want to have
to discipline you properly.”
I think back to the little taste of punishment he delivered me earlier. It led to excitement. Connection. Orgasm. I’m not afraid of punishment.
“Hurt me if you want. I don’t accept that this whole world is ruined by stupid aliens.”
“You know I have no intention of hurting you, sweet little human. But I have every intention of ensuring your obedience.”
“I’m not disobeying you. I’m thinking differently. If you will not allow that, you're no different than Trelok.”
“It’s just a warning,” he says. “Think before you let your temper take hold, before you say and do things you might regret.”
“And what might I regret?” I narrow my gaze further.
“Disrespecting me.”
The answer is as simple as it is barbaric.
“I thought you were supposed to be from the stars, a place better than ours, but you act just like the brutal men who steal and claim and kill. You expect me to respect you because I am small and weak and you have the power to harm me, but I will never respect any living creature for that reason.”
“I expect you to respect me, because respect is necessary for discipline, and discipline is necessary for order, and order is imperative if I am to keep you safe. This is a dangerous world, Tres.”
“I have noticed. And it is also a world in which there are no choices, apparently. Everything has already been lived once before and we are puppets to fate. So I choose to be wild, because if what you have said is true, then what happens to me will happen to me. I will not be able to die before my time - and when it is my time, there will be no way to save me.”
He stares at me so long and so silently I think I may have encountered the time without knowing it.
“You’re right,” he says, stunned. “You’re absolutely right. This is… You have a better understanding of time mechanics than any of our scientists.”
“I do?”
“You said it yourself. If history is already determined, then you cannot die before your time. That means that plank was not your time. It also means that my presence is no accident. It was ordained. I am not polluting this timeline. I am part of it. I have been here before.”
“How is that possible, if you were born millions of years in the future?”
“The universe doesn’t really care when things happen,” he says. “I need to speak to Krave, but there’s no way to initiate contact from my end. We will have to wait until he gets in contact with me. Until then, we do what we please.”
“Okay, well, I’m sure I shouldn’t have been listening to most of that existential crisis,” Tyank says. “I’m going to let you go, and see if I can get Krave back on.”
Vulcan
“I like that man more than the other one,” Tres says when the communicator falls silent.
“Neither one of them are men, but yes, Tyank is much more easy to deal with than Krave.”
“Those are the names of your tribesmen?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “Krave is the oldest of us. He is the leader.”
“He talks to you like you have to do what he says,” she observes shrewdly. “Is that why you said before that I can’t come with you? Because you’re worried he won’t let you take me?”
Oh, she has impeccable instincts, this little human. She is needling me in my ego. I do not like taking orders from Krave. I never have. That makes me a bad scythkin. Usually there is little to no disagreement in a clutch. The first hatched has ultimate authority. But Krave has a hundred of us to command and over the years I have become accustomed to making my own decisions.
“It won’t be him who decides,” I tell her.
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like he is the one with the power. Maybe I should beg him for mercy…”
I let out a growl underneath my breath. She is continuing to toy with me, taunt me in her own soft, feminine way.
“It’s not Krave you answer to. It is me. And if you keep needling me, little human, you will feel my sharpness.”
“Is that a threat?” She looks at me with surprising bravery. “I am not afraid to die,” she says boldly. “I would welcome it. So you do not frighten me.”
“I’m not talking about killing you,” I inform her. “I am talking about whipping you until you know who you answer to.”
“Krave?”
I let out another snarl at the same time she lets out a giggle. She is enjoying this, far too much. I need to work on her respect for me. I have to make sure that she understands precisely what I am to her. These last days, they have been about restoring her strength. But now that she has it, I will put her in her place.
“Say that name again, and I will make you regret…”
“What name? Krave?”
The word becomes a squeal as I pull her from her sitting place and throw her over my lap. This is how humans have been punished for millennia, and it is how she will atone for her impudence, the flat of my palm finding the soft swell of her cheeks. I teased her with this punishment before, but this time it is much more real.
Human females have ample buttocks, a delightful feature of their kind, and a rather useful one when they need to be disciplined. Even Tres has a beautiful covering of fat which renders her soft and jiggly as my large palm descends and covers her cheeks with a swift slap which draws another one of those pretty cries from her lips.
“You are hurting me!”
“Only because you asked to be,” I tell her. “You wanted to know what would happen if you taunted me, and now you know. I will hold you over my knee and make your flesh blaze red. I will use my hand, or perhaps thin branches taken from this world of yours and I will make you feel the consequences you so desperately crave.”
With that, I tear at the leggings which cover her lower parts, pulling them down, exposing her. When she was naked, there was intensity in seeing her flesh, but something about the partial exposure of her skin is far more thrilling.
“Beast!” She cries, half-laughing. “Unhand me!”
She is wailing quite prettily as I punish her, but she is not struggling to escape. She is quite capable of wriggling and pulling away if she wants to. I am being careful not to be too rough with her, not to leave a mark besides the blush of red which quickly covers her rear.
She wants my touch. Not in punishment, but she will take pain if it means I am laying my hands on her.
I have looked at her with lust. From the first moment I saw her, all I could see was her beauty. Now, with her writhing body spreading over my thighs, her legs parting to reveal the soft chalice between her thighs.
I hesitate, not because I do not want to touch her, but because I know once I start we will both be caught in another torrent of cause, effect, and orgasm which will have consequences stretching across eternity. I stopped myself from spending inside her once before. I will not again. This time, what we do will be forever.
Tres has stopped complaining, now she lies quiet and compliant, her hips lifting toward my hands with open invitation. I have activated her instinctual mating response, but I have to make sure this is more than a simple animal encounter. There is too much at stake to fuck first and think later.
“Do you want me, human? Knowing what I am, do you still want me to claim you again for my own, tear your innocence from you, make you entirely incompatible with this world?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I am yours. I was yours from the moment I saw you.”
She feels the way I do, putting the very thing I thought must be strange and unnatural into words said with such sweetness I find myself wondering why I ever doubted the thought. We are connected, this little human and me. We have never connected in the way so many of my kind have with human females, but I feel as though we have lived a lifetime together already.
Tres
There is something he’s not telling me, something more important than the many things he has not told me, and it has something to do with our mating. He is lustful, powerful, and yet
I have sensed that he has been holding something back from me.
“We may die at any moment,” I tell him. “We do not have time to be careful. We have to make love while we can.”
“That is the mating method of prey," he growls, but his fingers are sliding down toward my sex, their long, hard length pressed against my lower lips. He caresses me there, and I can feel the thoughts which he is trying to use to keep himself from an act of impulse.
I do not know what he is afraid of, but there is no place for it here, as my lust grows. I have to have him. I know that with utter certainty.
“Take me, Vulcan. Don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid?” He slaps my cheeks sharply, then swats my lower lips lightly. “I am not afraid, human.”
“Then take me,” I say simply.
“I’ve already taken you.”
“Take me properly.”
His hand fists in my hair, his claws scraping lightly over my head. “What do you mean, take you properly?”
“I mean,” I say, looking into his fearsome gaze. “Stop holding back. Stop hiding from me. Stop being afraid of what will happen…”
“I am not afraid,” he growls again, slapping my sex lightly. It sends an impulse of pleasure through me. I am already aroused, and the sensation of punishment has already been transformed into something much more primal.
“I think you are,” I whisper. “I think you’re afraid of me.”
“Of you, human?”
“Of being mine, as I am yours.”
“I am not afraid,” he repeats for a third time, the claw retracting from his finger before the digit plunges inside my sex, stretching me, his palm slapping against my tender lips with a punishing swat.
“If you’re not afraid, then give me more than a finger.”
I am challenging him. Instinct tells me I need to. I have to break down the invisible wall between us, the barrier which keeps us as two separate things. We have rutted before. He has given me pleasure, but I have not had all of him, not yet, and I know it.
“I would break you if I did that, human.”
“I was not made to break,” I hiss back, grinding my sex against his rough palm.