The Vixen War Bride

by Thomas Doscher

  At that moment, Bao Sen walked back into the Aderen, followed by several other Va’Shen in various states of dress, grim looks on their faces. By now the entire community would have heard of the Dark Ones’ arrival or seen them walk through camp. They knew what this Aderen had been called to determine.

  a young girlish voice called out.

  Alacea looked up just in time to catch a teenage Va’Shen girl in her arms. The young vixen’s pink hair, blotched here and there with red, bounced around her head in pigtails as she laughed happily.

  Alacea cried, hugging the girl.

  another vixen wearing a similar hanbok to Pavastea’s cried as she rushed toward them. Light blue-tinted glasses framed a friendly round face and partially obscured her yellow eyes. Her blue hair, interspersed with flashes of white like a waterfall in a painting, fell off her shoulders and nearly reached the floor.

  Alacea bowed to them. Alacea reported. She took the Va’Shen woman’s hands in hers.

  Hestean told her,

  Alacea’s ears drooped.

  Pavastea’s ears flattened, and her tail swished behind her in distress. she swore.

  Alacea told her.

  Hestean asked.

  Alacea was brought up short.

  Yasuren called to the group, breaking up the conversation.

  Everyone found their seats, pre-determined by their station and social status as it had been for thousands of years, though the representatives were mostly substitutes for others that could not be there. Sixteen Va’Shen were arranged in an oval, sitting on the floor. At the head of this oval sat Yasuren while at the exact opposite end was a nervous Alacea. The other fourteen were arranged around the oval between them. Along with the sixteen members, some had brought assistants, a role Pavastea was playing for Hestean. Bao Sen had another huntress with her as well, a teal-haired young vixen who appeared no older than eighteen, but carried her hardlight rifle over her shoulder with the ease of grizzled veteran.

  Yasuren bowed to the group.

  The others bowed to her in return.

  she continued.

  The question had come from one of the few men at the table, an older brown-haired tod of about forty years old in a stained monpei.

  Yasuren’s tail gently slapped the floor.

  Whispers came from the group as well as their tails as they swished against the floor in apprehension.

  a vixen from halfway down the table asked.

  Yasuren didn’t answer immediately, and Alacea raised her head.

  As one, their tails went motionless in shock, except for Bao Sen and Yasuren, who had already known this information.

  Pavastea asked out of turn but in fully justified shock.

  The priestess rose to her feet and faced them head on. This news would not be easy for her to share, but it was impossible, and wrong, for her to try to hide.

  Alacea told them.

  the tod from earlier ventured carefully. Alacea’s actions might be in question, but she was still the Na’Sha and due a certain level of respect.

  Alacea said softly.

  another vixen further down the table asked.

  Alacea took a breath. she said. She swallowed nervously, the poetic phrase she had rehearsed stalling in her throat. she finished quickly.

  The group erupted, some physically leaping to their feet. Pavastea and Hestean looked at her in shock. Even the usually unflappable Bao Sen seemed surprised at the confession.

  Yasuren raised her hands and motioned for the Aderen to retake their seats.

  They weren’t hurrying to comply.

 

 

 

  Yasuren called, and the others finally began to calm down.

  Alacea remained on her feet. she told them. She bowed low to them.

  No one was sure what to say to this. Bao Sen rose to her feet and faced Alacea, the look on her face one of grim determination.

  she began.

  The Mikorin’s tail twitched in puzzlement.

  Bao Sen said nothing. The look in her eyes and those of her armed assistant behind her told her all she needed to know of their intent.

  Alacea’s eyes widened in alarm. she cried.

  another tod sitting next to Bao Sen asked.

  Bao Sen’s ears drooped. she said.

  Alacea agreed.

  the first tod asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Alacea’s eyes went wide at the implication, and several other Va’Shen hissed at the tod in reproach. Pavastea leapt to her feet and turned on him.

  she cried, her hands balled into shaking fists.

  Alacea’s eyes dropped to her feet, her tail and ears went limp. she argued softly.

  The tod was not cowed. he pointed out.

  The fox priestess raised her head, her eyes burning with determination.

  Five years ago…

  “I can’t believe we have to get rid of this place!” the blonde woman complained before falling theatrically onto the maroon couch in the center of the living room. “It’s the perfect apartment!”

  Standing in his bedroom, emptying his sock drawer into a green duffel bag, 2nd Lieutenant Ben Gibson shook his head at his roommate’s antics. “Not my fault,” he called to her.

  “It is totally your fault!” she cried back at him. “You’re the one who has to move out!”

  “You’re the one who’s about to lose her job!” he shot back.

  “Ugh!” she cried. Jessie Butterfield, soon-to-be graduate of Persephone University, looked out the window of their fourth-floor apartment overlooking the colony’s main square and sighed. “The view,” she whimpered.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Junior officers have to live in the dorms,” he reminde
d her. As a newly-minted second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Ben wasn’t exactly thrilled that he was going to have to give up his college digs for an ugly dorm room on Fort Accetta while he waited to go to Ranger school, but the rules were solid, put there so the Army could save money.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jessie replied. “And non-students can’t take student jobs. It just sucks!”

  “Get yourself a sugar daddy,” Ben suggested, upending his shirt drawer onto the bed.

  “You are my sugar daddy, as sad as that thought is,” she shot back with a vengeful grin.

  Ben snorted. People got the wrong idea about them all the time given their living situation. Most people just assumed they were sleeping together… which they had… once or twice… when they were drunk. But for the last four years, they had been nothing more than good friends and roommates. His ROTC scholarship helped pay for half the rent, and her job in the student cafeteria paid the rest, and it really was a great apartment.

  Jessie’s head suddenly appeared from behind the couch. “Why couldn’t you be my sugar daddy?” she asked.

  “Well, if I am you better start putting out,” he parried.

  “No, I’m being serious,” she said, rising to her knees on the couch cushions. “Jay and Wanda are doing it.”

  Ben’s face scrunched in confusion. Jay was another cadet in his ROTC class. He was reporting to Fort Accetta as a Pawnee pilot trainee. Wanda was his fiancé. “Jay and Wanda are getting married,” he countered.

  “Right! And because they’re married, Jay gets a housing allowance and doesn’t have to live in the barracks!”

  “You want to get married?!” he asked her in amazement.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “To me?” Ben clarified.

  She shrugged. “Eh, it seems pretty convenient to me. You don’t have to move out, and your housing allowance can cover our rent until I get a job.”

  He looked at her in complete shock. “You’re serious about this!”

  “Dude!” she cried. “It’s no big deal! We go to the Post Office, fill out the card and have a quick kiss! After that, we’re on easy street! Later, when we’re ready to move on with our lives, we fill out another card, drop it in the box, high-five and go on our way!”

  “Yeah, but… it’s marriage,” Ben told her uneasily.

  “Yeah, it’s marriage,” she said with a laugh. “We’re not co-signing a car loan! And most importantly, we get to keep the apartment!”

  “Yeah, but it’s marriage,” he said again.

  “Don’t be so old fashioned,” she said. “It’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s not the twentieth century anymore, you know. And I promise, no strings. We can check the pre-nup box. We can still date whoever we want, we’ll just be… you know… married.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Jessie smiled. “Come on,” she said. “You could do worse.”

  Ben snapped out of his memory by the sound of the tent entrance swishing open. He counted himself fortunate. He had been daydreaming and was probably only a few moments from actually falling asleep. He looked up as Ramirez entered the tent and tossed him an MRE.

  “Hey, Boss,” he greeted. “Everything at the cave entrance is good to go. Burgers has an OP set up on top of one of the ridges and everyone else working on the hole. No contacts so far.”

  “Good,” Ben replied distractedly. He went for the mini-kabar on the front of his vest and stopped in mild frustration, remembering that he had given it to Alacea. He was already regretting it. He took the multitool from his belt and used that to open the plastic MRE packaging instead, wincing slightly as his grip on the tool brushed against the bite Alacea had given him.

  He looked down at the mark on his hand, his thoughts going back to his daydream. It seemed weird to him as a modern American. That alien woman had shown more ceremony to agreeing to be his assistant than he and Jessie had to getting married. He opened and closed his hand a few times, working the tingle out of it.

  Patricia moaned quietly and rolled over, sitting up as she tried to blink sleep out of her eyes. “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “Good as can be,” Ramirez told her, tossing her another MRE.

  She looked at the meal and squinted at the name. “Omelet? Never had this one. Is it any good?”

  “Here, I’ll trade you,” Ben offered, handing her his.

  She took it, not understanding the bullet she was dodging by doing so.

  Ramirez opened the tent flap and leaned the MRE’s heating element against one of the tent poles before pouring water from a canteen into it. The water inside started to bubble, and he carefully placed a food packet into it to cook.

  “So what’s next?” Patricia asked, scooping some spaghetti out of her meal pack with her spoon.

  “Hopefully, Alacea’s giving them an accurate idea of just how stupid it would be to try to fight it out,” Ben told her. “I haven’t seen many weapons with them, but scared people have done stupider things.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So, we wait until they decide to either come with us or stay here.” He shrugged noncommittedly.

  “You don’t care either way?” she asked.

  “I’d rather they come with us,” he said. “But I’m not about to use our guys to try to force them back down the mountain. That’s just going to make things worse.”

  “Shoot, if they do resist, we’ll have to level the whole mountain to get them out,” Ramirez added.

  They put their conversation on hold as a dark-haired Va’Shen girl about seventeen or eighteen years old came into their tent carrying a tray with three steaming bowls sitting atop it. She saw them all looking at her and froze for a moment, as if unsure of what to do. Finally, she bowed her head and gracefully knelt down in front of them, the bowls and the scalding liquid inside not so much as twitching.

  She gestured to the bowls and then pointed at her mouth.

  Patricia told her, reaching for one of the bowls. She saw a dark brown soup with a few floating, but unknown, chunks of vegetables floating in it.

  Not wanting to be rude, Ben and Ramirez took their bowls and nodded in thanks. Ramirez flashed her a big smile, and the girl looked down at her lap.

  Patricia asked her kindly.

  The vixen’s tail twitched at being addressed, and she bowed her head again. She looked up at the sound of cracking and found Ramirez crumbling a couple of white squares into his soup.

  The Ranger suddenly stopped and looked at them. “Wait,” he said. He looked at the Va’Shen girl for a moment before looking back at Ben and Patricia. “What if the oup-say is oisoned-pay?”

  “I don’t think you have to use code,” Patricia told him. “They don’t know any English.”

  “But you’re right,” Ben told him in mock seriousness. “You eat yours first.”

  Ramirez looked at the vixen and then back at the humans again. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I ain’t eating this soup until you eat yours,” Ben told him.

  The Ranger paused, glancing down at the soup. “I mean… I’m sure it’s fine…”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Patricia sighed before taking a big gulp straight from the bowl. She licked her lips and nodded appreciatively. “It’s pretty good.” She turned to the Va’shen girl.

  The girl’s ears twitched and she bowed in thanks.

  Patricia turned to Ramirez. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  Ramirez’s eyes narrowed. “Some poisons are slower than others.”

  “Fine, I’ll eat yours,” she said, holding her hand out.

  Ramirez covered his bowl with his hand. “No way! This is my soup! Eat your own!”

  Ben shook his head and ate a spoonful of the soup. It was a little thin, and he wondered how much food these people actually had left. He looked up and found the vixen looking at the remains of their MREs.

 
“Ask if she would like to try some of our food,” he told Patricia.

  she asked the girl.

  The girl reached out, but instead of taking one of the food packs, she took the clear plastic bag that held the remains of Ben’s condiments. she asked.

  “She’s asking if we’d like her to take our trash out,” Patricia said.

  Ben nodded. “Sure.” He turned to the girl and bowed his head. “Thank you.”

  Patricia translated.

  The girl quickly gathered their empty MRE packets and put them on the tray. Rising to her feet, she quickly left the tent as if she was escaping with her life.

  “She was nice,” Ramirez commented.

  Outside the tent, the huntress tasked to watch over the Dark Ones, Alzoria, looked up as the young Mikorin, Idriza, stepped out of the tent with a tray full of strange containers.

  Alzoria asked. Her bow rested on her thighs while a quiver with six arrows fought for space on her back with blonde hair interspersed with patches of black. She wore camouflaged shorts similar to the ones worn by Bao Sen along with a white furred vest made from the skin of an animal killed by the Huntress years ago.

  Idriza took a calming breath. she told the huntress.

  Alzoria arched an eyebrow.

  Idriza whispered, concerned that the female Dark One might hear her through the tent.

  the huntress asked, nodding at the MRE packages.

  Idriza said.

  The tips of Alzoria’s ears bent sharply as if pointing accusingly at the other vixen.

  Idriza said defensively. She put the tray down and picked up the clear condiments packaging. She dumped out the contents and held it up in front of her face, so Alzoria could see through it.