by Renard, Loki
While Bad and Boss growl and snarl, I make my way quietly through the undergrowth. This is unfamiliar territory, and I need to clear the forest as quickly as possible. The hungry plants are everywhere and they are not even the most dangerous creatures around. I need to find cover, a source of water, and maybe if I am very fortunate, some food.
Reaper
“Listen. We don’t have any more time to argue. We have to take her, get back to the ship, and enclose her somewhere safe. She’s in danger every second she’s down here, and if we lose her…”
“Where is she?” Tarkan interrupts.
I turn around to see that the fuck-drunk girl I left lying on the ground is no longer there. She must have sneaked away while we were arguing. Again, Tarkan has managed to distract us from our true purpose. He should be ashamed for what he has done, but I don’t have time to further lecture him. We need to find the girl. Now.
“She should have known better than to run away into the wilds. She was only just caught by one of those plants. And she's a long way from where we found her. She’ll be lost already,” Tarkan growls.
“It is frustrating when someone who should no better does something stupid, isn’t it?”
“Don’t start with me, Reaper,” he snaps. “What she’s done is worse.”
Tarkan
“She is disobedient,” Reaper snarls as we begin the search. “You both are.”
“How can she obey us when she can’t understand what we say?”
“She knows we don’t want her running away, that’s just obvious.” He grabs a fistful of foliage and tears it out of the ground. “She did this on purpose.”
“I’m sure she did it to escape the monster who fucks her at every turn.”
“She likes it. She wants it.”
“Not enough to stay, apparently.”
It’s my turn to smirk. Reaper has some odd expectation that the human will be obedient. He sees her as something easily controlled because she’s so small and we can’t understand what she says - and because she hasn’t been given a chance to exert her will until now. She’s been little more than a toy for both of us, something to be fought over and possessed, but it would seem she does have a mind of her own, and that mind has decided to take the rest of her away from us.
“Tarkan, please, get the scent.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go find her? You’re the one who has been ravaging her every minute since we found her.”
“You know you’re a better tracker. Go find her.”
“I plan to keep her when I do.”
“You’ll bring her back to the ship, and we’ll work on the next step.”
“There’s an old Earth expression that covers this situation…. Like hell.”
He narrows his eyes at me and bares his fangs. “Tarkan, I am not in the mood for your disobedience.”
“I don’t owe you obedience. Not after you’ve been pumping her full of your mating fluids. I find her, I’m keeping her.”
* * *
I throw myself into the undergrowth, knowing that there is danger all around, and that at any moment I might be assailed by some beast as yet unthought of. Earth has pumped out some truly aggressive lifeforms in the last thousand or so years, I’m excited to discover more of these animal scourges which have destroyed what was left of the human species after whatever disaster originally befell them. We haven’t worked out what that was as yet, we have had our hands full with the little female who has become Reaper’s mate.
In spite of what I said to Reaper about taking One for my own, I know the girl is his. I keep saying I am going to take her, but she has twice taken him and that makes her his. I saw how they were together when he mated her in front of me. It was more than pure lust. It was a bonded connection. I know the difference.
Now I am retrieving her for him. He knows it. I know it. I do it anyway, because of all the roles I have had to take on due to our diminutive clutch size, I have taken to hunter the most. If anyone is going to bring her back, it is me.
I enjoy tracking and following, catching wary creatures who don’t want to be found. The girl is not that hard to follow. Reaper’s seed and her own copious arousal make it easy to catch her scent and trail her all the way to the edge of a pool where I find her splashing about in waist high water washing herself and drinking. That can’t be sanitary. She has no idea what pathogens the water holds. Perhaps her stomach is acclimated to a wide range of bacteria and protozoa and other organisms that have, in the past, caused never ending misery to humans. Or maybe she’s thirsty, reckless, and disobedient.
I clear my throat. She freezes.
We have a wordless conversation in which she lowers her eyes and then looks up at me with an expression which qualifies solidly as incredibly cute. Then she lifts her hands out of the water and gives me a little shrug.
One
Bad is crooking his long, clawed finger at me in an unmistakeable gesture. Come. Here.
I suppose I didn’t actually expect to escape these creatures. They have found me out everywhere I have gone, seen through my every ruse. It’s nice to bathe though, feel water lapping around my naked skin. When I lived in the desert water was such a rarity I could never spare a single drop of it. Now…
Something slimy slips around my ankle and pulls tight. I let out a half-cry before I am yanked beneath the water by something I can’t see, but which is far more powerful than I. My breath is cut off, my lungs burning as water rushes up into my nose. Struggling is impossible and worse than useless. This is how I die, dragged through the water so quickly I have only seconds of consciousness left.
Just before I am forced to take a big gulping lungful of water, I am yanked to the surface, a disembodied bloody tentacle still attached to my leg.
Beneath my flailing body, the pond water is churned with blood and chunks of meat. I am no longer clean. I am drenched in the life essence of whatever beast dared try to take me right in front of Bad. I am gasping for air, thanking him profusely with all the words I know.
Bad makes a sound which I am guessing means “be careful” or maybe it means “nice tentacle”. I don’t know. He tucks me under his arm and carries me naked and dripping from the water, his feet squishing in the muddy bottom of what I now know to be a dangerous pond of aggressive life.
He carries me back the way I came, making occasional word sounds. Now, more than ever, I wish he could understand that I’m grateful not to have been drowned by the animal that attacked me, and that I won’t run again. I have always known that this world is too dangerous for me to go alone. But it used to be I didn’t have a choice.
My survival this long has been a matter of luck and living in a very small corner, never going any further than I have to. My cave was my life, and now that I am too far from it to ever return, I am dependent on these creatures for my very survival.
Boss makes a series of sounds that could be approving when Bad comes striding out of the undergrowth. Bad tightens his grip on me as he gets closer to his counterpart, as if he’s afraid that I’ll be snatched away again.
Tarkan
“Found her in a small lake, nearly being eaten,” I say.
“What is it with the two of you and being consumed?”
Reaper’s testiness hides his relief. He is no hunter. He is a leader and a warrior, but he couldn’t track his own head. I should have taken longer to bring her back. I should have made him sweat. She did almost die, and if she had, it would have been because he decided to grandstand instead of simply saving the pair of us.
“Let’s get back to the shuttle,” I suggest. “She needs nutrients and liquids, and cleaning.”
“I hope that’s not her blood that has been shed.”
“Of course not. It was the creature who tried to take her. Some cetacean variant.”
He reaches his arms out for One. “She’s coming with me,” he says. “Just in case you decide to play hide and seek with her again.”
I narrow my eyes,
but extend my arms to his, allowing him to take hold of her naked, squirming form. Is it my imagination, or is she somewhat reluctant to leave my grasp? Probably imagining things, I think. She has twice bonded with him, and most human females are at least theoretically monogamous. She has her ‘man’ as it were. There is no need for another.
* * *
Little is said as we return to the shuttle Reaper took to the ground. He and One board it, leaving me behind on the rumbling ground as they depart for the ship above. I suppose I should follow. But I do not find myself as eager to return as I might be. What is the point? To see him claim the spoils of our journey and act as though his hatching first means that he has right to everything first? I may have wronged him by taking One down to the surface with me, but he wronged me before by inserting himself into her tender flesh, making her quake with orgasm and no doubt release the bonding hormones which regulate so much human activity. She will love him without knowing why. She will be slave to him without question. She will follow the orders given by her instincts and he will be her hero, though he has barely lifted a claw to save her.
I walk back to my shuttle alone, feeling my own biochemistry swimming with bitterness and aggression. I found her in the first instance. I saved her just now. All Reaper has ever done is try to unsuccessfully impose his will on me and use sex as a punishment for the both of us. He made me watch him take her, and that drove me nearly mad with lust, but instead of throwing her bloodied body down on the lake bed and surging inside her whenI had the chance, I bought her back.
She is everything I could want. She is the only female left. And I just handed her over. Because I know she’s not mine.
Maybe it is I who follows the order of my instincts, instilled by the order of hatching. In all the years we have known one another, I have disobeyed Reaper, but I have never directly challenged him. Unless I count the fight on the ship, but I don’t. That was symbolic, and I let myself be beaten. If I were truly to unleash my full fury on him, he would be obliterated.
With these thoughts, I find myself back at my shuttle, staring at the thing with distaste. I look around at the world, and it occurs to me that I like this new Earth, where everything battles for survival. I enjoy the rough and tumble of this harsh planet which does not guarantee survival. This is place where the strong might emerge and thrive.
My thoughts go back to One. She is so small, so fragile and yet she might be the strongest form of life I have ever encountered. To have lived on her own for as long as she seems to have done, to have evaded the predators which stalk this planet at every turn, to have laid eyes on Reaper’s terrifying features and not immediately died from terror, is all very impressive.
I snap back to myself, realizing that I am standing there, gazing off into the distance, thinking about a woman. Never in my existence have I given more thought to a female than it took to mate with her. I thought love was something that happened to lesser life forms, a kind of cloying clinging to one another, like the way some ants do if they find their nests flooded. I thought love was the domain of the weak, but I know I am not weak - and yet, I think I might love this woman, who I cannot share even one word with. It’s not the love I thought it would be though. It’s not a romantic bond. It’s the love I have for one of my kin. She is become my brood mate, one of my clutch, and I will always protect her.
The longer I think about that, the more I realize that Reaper might not have the same intentions. He mentioned trying to force reproduction earlier, but I do not think One is ready for such a thing. I do not know if she is even interested in it. And as I look around at this planet which is forming new life every moment, I don’t know if I agree that it is even a good idea.
One
“Where’s the other one?”
I’m trying to communicate with Boss, but it’s not working very well. I’m also trying to ignore the fact that we appear to be flying from the surface of the planet into the stars. That can’t be right. I’m probably hallucinating from the effects of the fuck plant. If what I’m seeing is real, then my ideas of real are going to have to radically change. I have been mentally referring to them as aliens, but I didn’t truly think that they came from another world.
He turns to me and makes a calming gesture with his hands as the world outside gets darker and becomes consumed with star light. We have risen from the planet and gone where only the gods can go.
These beasts are so strange because they truly are alien to this world. They are not from Earth at all. There can be no denying it, not when I am riding a comet into the sky.
I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know if it matters. The entire world is filled with dangerous predatory animals, why not the space outside it as well? The little specks of light I see at night are stars, my mother used to tell me, with little worlds orbiting all around them. Now I know those worlds are inhabited by massive monsters who are capable of coming here and doing unspeakable things to innocent humans. She left that part out.
Maybe she didn’t know.
I don’t think anyone knew what was out there. We didn’t even know what was happening on our own planet until it was far too late.
Boss has seated me on a chair in front of the star window, which gives me a view of all we are flying through. I am simultaneously terrified and enthralled. When I try to get up, he reaches over and pushes me back down gently. It surprises me how strong and brutal these creatures are, and yet how they can avoid hurting me when they handle me.
I need a bath. I am still covered in the blood of the creature which tried to claim me in the water. I should have known better than to submerge myself into water I couldn’t see the bottom of, but I was covered in the sticky sex juices of the plant, the beast, and my own desire. I wanted to clean myself, to reclaim my body and maybe my mind. Since they came, I have not been sure who I am, or even what I am. I have been transformed in so many ways, I barely recognize myself. Every moment of my existence used to be directed toward simple survival. Protein, water, shelter. But those needs are met now, and new needs are being dragged out of me, like the sexual urge, which I never felt before as anything more than a light twinge every now and then swiftly overcome by the much more simple desire to keep on breathing. Now, orgasm feels as important as breath. Twice now when Boss has made me spiral into pure pleasure, it has felt like the same thing.
Sitting here, in a little box hurtling through the stars, covered in animal blood, I no longer know what the world is. That makes me very, very scared. Fear rushes through me, a jolt of adrenaline which demands I take action.
I leap toward Boss, my body charged with fear and adrenaline and some kind of fucklust that doesn’t know how to express itself. I cling onto him with my hands, wrap my legs around his waist and I bite down on an exposed piece of flesh. Hard.
I want to see what he is made of. I want to feel his flesh between my teeth. That is the only way I know something is real. I make it bleed.
Reaper
“Ow?”
I stare down at the little female and wonder what she is attempting to achieve. Obviously aggression will not be tolerated, but I’m not sure that this is aggression. She is gnawing on my forearm like a determined little beast, making soft little snarling sounds under her breath.
I have never enjoyed being attacked before, but this is plain adorable. She is biting and suckling and making rough tingles run through my sensory system. I like this. She can’t hurt me, but I can feel the passion in her, the animal need for release, and more than that - domination.
My fingers settle on the nape of her neck and squeeze, not hard enough to truly hurt her, but hard enough to let her feel my strength. Human anatomy is fascinating, and intimately tied into human psychology. Humans respond in a submissive manner to being held at the nape of the neck, it is a holdover from a time when they were not human at all. She makes a small mewling sound and releases the grip of her teeth on my flesh, her legs curling up instinctively. If she had a tail, it would be wrapped
up between her legs.
I shake my head at her. “No.”
“No?” Her eyes light up with understanding.
We have found a word we share, a first point of linguistic contact. I am greatly excited by that. We need to be able to speak with One. She may be able to explain some of what happened on Earth, or at least, what she understands of it.
“No,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she nods.
Another word that seems to have stood the test of time. Good.
The shuttle is approaching the ship now, there is a soft thunk sound and a sense of sudden inertia. The door locks interface with the shuttle airlock, and slides open. I’ve got her home. She’s safe. I feel relief, and a slightly dark urge to seal the entire ship up and whip around the dark side of the moon to keep Tarkan from returning in his own shuttle. Let him wander the planet, lost for all time. That would serve him right. I don’t do that, even though the matter of his betrayal is yet to be resolved. I have trusted him our entire lives. I no longer know if I can. He brought her back to me, but he was also the one who took her away. He and I will have to have a conversation later.
First this fuck scented little animal needs to be bathed. She is still attached to me, her legs wrapped around my waist. Though she released my arm with her teeth, she did not pull away from me completely. I think she liked the treatment.
There was no need to be rough or aggressive with her. A simple touch calmed her and made her behave. But I still see a spark of mischief in her eyes, as if she is not entirely settled yet. The civilized human women I used to know liked to be treated with a firm hand. I think this wild one might need it all the more.
I carry her into the shuttle, feeling proud and relieved to have her back in my possession. I suppose I owe Tarkan some thanks, though he was the one who abducted her in the first place, so perhaps not. The less encouragement he gets, the better.