by Isabel Wroth
"I FEEL!" he roared to the ceiling, wonder vibrating with every hurried word he spoke. "I feel your heart beating inside me, Marahi. I feel the breath in my lungs, the heaviness of my solid form. I feel anger, sadness, joy. The pain was my heartstone returning all Astaria took from me. I am...I am whole."
His reverence made Deja whisper, "You look human. How? I don't understand."
Izax hummed, drawing her forward so he could bury his face in her hair, breathing her in before he drew back and explored his new form with curious pats to his own face, pokes at his chest and muscled abdomen. He even—dear god—palmed the length of his very human looking cock while making a sound of surprised delight. The flesh hardened before her eyes as he stroked experimentally.
"My heartstone is returned. I can take any form I wish now. I observed the humans as you asked and learned this body shape, but you do not possess such an appendage. What is it? I feel much pleasure from this motion."
Deja pressed a fist to her mouth in order to stem the immediate laughter, though really, watching a human shaped alien discover the joys of owning a penis was a sight to behold.
The muscles in his bicep and forearm flexed as he pumped his cock, his muscled chest and cobbled abdomen clenching in time to the pleasure his body experienced.
"It's the, ah...sexual organ of a human male."
Izax made a guttural sound, his lips pinched with bliss. "I understand now why I witnessed so many of them copulating. If I were to stroke your sexual organs would you feel pleasure such as this?"
A warm, wet pulse of absolute need jolted between her legs. Her temperature skyrocketed as she imagined Izax’s hands on her.
"Let's um, talk about that later and find you some clothes."
"Clothes?" Izax looked at her with a confused frown.
"Yes. You can't run around naked like that."
"I can't?"
"No." Otherwise, Deja would be too distracted by the sight of his inhumanly beautiful body.
AZURRYN~
She bled for them.
She hurt for them.
Azurryn could feel Deja's anxiety, her pain, as she pricked her fingers again and again, drawing blood from beneath her skin to free the remainder of the heartstones from the clasp of Astaria's cruel web.
Free from Astaria's control, Izax stayed right beside Deja, holding the precious stones she handed him, his face an ever changing mask of shock and surprise.
She appeared every bit as fascinated by Izax's transformation as he was. She shot him looks every now and then, her cheeks turning crimson with embarrassment when Arkhan caught her. With her skirt full of stones, she climbed into Arkhan's palm and asked his permission to try again.
"What if it hurts you like it did Izax?"
Azurryn would have suffered a millennium of pain if it meant freedom from Astaria's chains of servitude. Arkhan seemed to agree.
"Then I will know what it means to feel once more, Marahi. Do not be afraid. Azurryn will shield you from me if I am overcome."
Deja looked at him, and Azurryn wanted nothing more than to reassure her he would protect her always. That she would never have to be afraid so long as she was in his shadow.
He ached to speak, watching the way her brow wrinkled in concentration as she went through the heartstones to find the one belonging to Arkhan.
Her lips pressed together in a tight line and her hands shook as she struggled to hold onto the stones with swollen fingers. She’d exhausted herself, determined to free them.
The moment Azurryn had his free will returned to him, he would do everything in his power to ensure Deja was cared for in ways no others had or could.
Relief made her shoulders slump when finally a stone found its home within Arkhan's well, and while Azurryn was glad for his brother-in-arms, the way Deja turned to leap towards him into open air left him blind to all else.
His hands had been at his sides, yet she turned to him believing, trusting him to catch her.
Arkhan's howls only vaguely registered as Azurryn carefully clutched Deja to his stone chest. She hugged his hand as tight as her frail human arms allowed, her lips wobbling as tears and winces of sympathy twisted her beautiful features.
It didn't take as long for Arkhan to process the reintegration of his heartstone, and he, too, was able to absorb his armor and become corporeal. Become wholly male, as Izax had. When he was no longer a danger to Deja, Azurryn lowered her to the floor so she could go to Arkhan.
She murmured softly to him, brushing the silver and white hair from Arkhan's brow while he settled into the weight of his new form.
Izax helped Arkhan to his feet. The two of them smiled for the first time together, laughing as they revelled in the smells and sensations of their chosen forms.
Azurryn remembered standing frozen and silent at Astaria's command, watching helplessly as their shadows were forced into the crude vessels of their first exoskeletons.
Before the Creators had come to Sonhadra, his kind had truly been part of the shadows. Wraiths, watchers, part of Sonhadra itself with no purpose in particular he could recall.
None of the other Creators had taken the same sort of interest in the darkness of the planet the way Astaria had. The others had chosen ice and fire, perverting the native tribes into monstrous beings to be used as weapons.
Astaria was clever, knowing how easy it would be to spy on her own kind, as there was no place the darkness could not go.
She used gems pulled from the ice mines to the north and infused them with pieces of the shades she captured, using the stones and her black blood to create a physical link to bind and control them.
The other creators took exception to Astaria’s spying, attacking the territory she had claimed, driving her deeper into the darkness with the warriors they had created.
Realizing very quickly her shadows had no form of substance to protect her, she used her alien technology to create exoskeletons from the stone of what was now Penumbra.
It had been so long ago and Azurryn couldn’t remember the physical sensations of being pulled from the darkness by Astaria’s double pronged staff.
The very first moment of awareness inside the rigid confines of his exoskeleton had been confusing, his shade unable to escape or drift from shadow to shadow, trapped inside the vessel Astaria had forced him into.
He had gone mad trying to escape the confines of the stone armor, destroying Astaria’s workspace in the process as he struggled to acclimate to the exoskeleton.
After realizing he now held considerable power, Azurryn began to purposefully annihilate everything within reach, cursing her, doing his level best to crush the stones she intended to use on his people.
After she gained control of him, it became a game to Azurryn, trying to find ways to circumvent the commands Astaria gave him. Ways to fight back.
In the early days he had taken any shape he wanted, the unique stone of his exoskeleton hardening or softening, growing or shrinking to suit his desire.
But the more he rebelled, the more Astaria punished the other shades, until they were all nothing more than mindless drones. Bound to one form, bound to obey.
Now Deja came to him, freedom held within her small hands.
It didn't hurt the way it had for Izax and Arkhan. It was like a thousand pinpricks of starlight on his skin, the shadows shifting as his heartstone allowed him to solidify, to once more shape his exoskeleton at will.
Deja's beautiful face became larger as he himself grew smaller, small enough that his hands were able to span her waist instead of encompassing her entirely. Small enough for him to wrap his arms around her and feel the softness of her skin on his, breathe in the scent of her hair, and feel the pulse of her heart beating in his own chest.
Her hands trembled, clumsy when she hugged him back. "Are you alright?"
His throat worked, breath filling lungs he had never had before, his entire being vibrating as his throat produced sound. His first words since Astaria had cursed him to a
life of silent suffering were a raw, crude and ugly rasp.
"I am. You are not."
Her gasp was sharp with surprise, her eyes wide with it when he swept her up in his arms, stepping into the shadows. This form they had chosen, this human male form, was so physically sensitive it was difficult to process all sensations bombarding him. Foremost was the warm weight of Deja in his arms, and the frigid air all around them.
It was icy cold within the dark pathway, the realm where his kind had first manifested and how they were able to travel faster than any other valo.
Wherever the light cast shadows, wherever there was darkness, the Shadow valo could go, covering miles in a few steps with no more than a thought.
Deja shivered when he stepped out into the light of the revitalization chamber, holding his gaze as he laid her down on the crystal table. She watched him while the healing beams did their work to replenish what she had given for them.
"You asked me if you were safe here." It hurt to speak, but Azurryn welcomed the burn. "I could give nothing to reassure you, but I vow to you, Penumbra is impenetrable to any but the Shadowed. I would give my life for you."
"As would I." Izax stepped out of the shadows to stand by his side.
Arkhan appeared a second later. "As would I."
Deja looked at them in turn, pushing up to her elbows when the light finished its work on her fragile body. "No."
"No?" Arkhan repeated, glancing at Izax with a confused frown.
Deja swung her legs over the edge of the table, sorrow feathering through the bond her blood had created.
"No. You have your heartstones back, your lives are your own again. You can't give them up for me when you just gained your freedom,"
"Freedom we would not have without you." Azurryn interrupted. "I feel your weariness, your hunger. You've done enough for tonight. It is our turn to care for you."
She put her arms around him without protest when he lifted her up, her head finding a natural pillow in the curve of his shoulder.
"Your voice is different than I imagined it would be."
The cold of the shadows prickled at him, or perhaps it was his body's reaction to Deja's lips brushing against his skin.
Her warm breath caressed his throat and instantly a ripple of sensation shot straight down to the heavy wedge of flesh between his thighs. He felt the blood in his body rush to fill the shaft, the weight of it. The pleasure brought on by the whisper of cold air on the heated flesh was so intense it nearly made him stumble.
"It is coarse, I know."
"Not coarse," she murmured. "Softer, deeper."
NINE
~DEJA
Deja watched with no small amount of fascination while Izax and Arkhan roasted the animal they had hunted for her over some strange black stones that put off a radical amount of heat.
They had gone from colossal to merely large, though they still towered over her. And for some reason both of them had chosen to look like her. Pale skin and hair, with their beautifully vibrant eyes shining out of faces too handsome to be human, despite how very human they appeared.
Azurryn had set her down on one of the plush lounges and ordered her to stay, to let them take care of her, and he stood over her now with his arms crossed over his lithe chest, feet spread wide, ensuring she didn't get up. Ensuring she rested.
More for her own sake of modesty than theirs, as they didn't seem to care whether or not they went around naked, she had made sarongs out of the bedsheets for all three of them.
Deja couldn't help ducking her head and smiling, thinking how the three of them looked like sultans, barefoot, bare chested, swathed in black silk from hips to calves.
Did that make her their sultana in this fantasy?
"You only smile that way when you disbelieve what your eyes see."
Deja turned away from the sight of Izax bending to turn a section of meat to glance up at Azurryn. He was heart stopping to look at. Such a contrast to the others with his pitch black hair and opalescent skin tone.
She saw nothing of the silent stone warrior in his features, nothing but those eyes ringed in a sliver of gold. If you weren't standing close to him to see the rainbow flecks dancing in his irises, you'd have thought his eyes were white. Glittering white.
"What?"
Azurryn lifted his hand, hesitating for a moment before brushing his knuckles along the slope of her cheek.
"Whenever you spoke to me of your life before and of how fantastical Penumbra was in comparison, you would smile the way you were just now. What are you thinking of?"
Deja pressed her hand to her cheek, blushing clear to the roots of her hair at the idea of sharing her blip of a fantasy.
"How unreal it is that when I woke up today, the three of you were monstrously large stone warriors, and of all the wonderful things you might have chosen to shift into, you chose to take after humanity. I suppose I still don't understand. Why choose human forms?"
Azurryn blinked long, feathery lashes at her, taking his turn to give Izax and Arkhan long assessing looks. When he looked back at her, Deja swore she could feel it straight through to her heart.
"Because you are human, Mara—"
Deja flung her hand up the second that word started to flow from Azurryn's handsome lips.
"Please don't call me Marahi ever again. Just Deja."
"Because you are human, Deja." Azurryn amended, wrapping her name in the same silken reverence he did when Izax and Arkhan called her Marahi.
Deja didn't understand how their exoskeletons had morphed from stone to flesh. There was a hell of a lot she didn't understand, but there was no denying each of them had manipulated their figures in a way that guaranteed the capture her undivided attention and make her aware that though they were aliens, they were very, very male.
"Why did it hurt Izax and Arkhan to have their heartstones returned, but it didn't hurt you?"
Azurryn's eyes glittered, his lips pressing in a tight line, memories obviously raking across his thoughts.
"I was not enslaved in the same way Izax and Arkhan were. They spoke yet felt nothing, remembered nothing of themselves before Astaria. I was silent, yet felt all. Remembered all."
"Why?" Deja asked.
A dark frown pulled at Azurryn's brow, his hand absently rising to rub at the center of his chest, at his heartstone, like he was reassuring himself it was still there.
"I was not the first captured by Astaria, though I was the first to survive her creation process. I watched what she did to those who came before me. I spoke out against her, cursed her, fought her.
“As punishment, she stole my voice, my free will, yet left me able to feel the rage and guilt-ridden helplessness as she forced me to help her capture more of my kind."
Guilt Azurryn still carried. It was painted on his face when he glanced up at Izax and it broke Deja's heart.
"Knowing I could do nothing to stop her doesn't seem to make any difference," he said.
Izax burst the somber moment by bringing an ornate bowl filled with steaming, deliciously fragrant meat the color of the jumpsuits issued to the prisoners on board the Concord. Bright orange. How could something look so fake and smell so good at the same time?
DEJA SAT BACK WITH a satisfied groan, licking the last bit of meat from her fingertips, still trying to compare the buttery textured, slightly gamey flavored meat to something she'd eaten before, but came up with nothing.
Izax had told her the name of the animal, but in her haste to consume the bounty of meat and fruits, trying not look too closely at the creature Izax hacked and butchered with a wicked sharp looking blade of stone, she had forgotten what he'd said.
She suddenly noticed the silence and opened her heavy lids to find three fascinated male faces staring at her from across the low table.
Self-consciousness energized her enough to wonder if she had remnants of food on her face. A quick swipe of her hand and a glance down reassured her she hadn't made a mess of herself.
"
Are you, um, not hungry?" she ventured, unable to find a more ladylike position to sit in, her belly so gloriously full it ached.
Izax blinked his vibrant violet eyes at her, his body angled forward towards the table like he was starving, but the look on his face had little to do with food.
"We have no need of human food, Mar...Deja."
Having never actually thought about it before, Deja gave a thoughtful huh.
"You don't eat?"
"No. We draw our nourishment from the darkness itself."
Deja rubbed her tongue along her teeth, searching for any lingering bits of food while she tried to make sense of how an organic based lifeform could draw power from darkness.
Obviously she knew plants could draw energy from the sun and the moon, solar or lunar synthesis, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine there was some kind of photo or proto-synthesis able to nourish the Shadow valo.
"I see. So, can you change back and forth now, between this form and your armored one?"
Already standing, Arkhan shifted, expanding up and up until his black armor covered him once more, then shrinking back to his humanesque body. Shifting again, his skin turned to burnished obsidian, his features smoothing as he took his phantom form. Each transformation taking only seconds to make.
Izax grinned at her openly amazed expression. "Describe an animal to us from your home world."
Deja didn't have to think very hard. She curled into the corner of the lounge and did her best to describe her most favorite animal.
There were things not quite right about the four legged form Arkhan took, but it was what made his interpretation of what Deja had described so much more incredible.
"What is this creature called?" Arkhan asked. A giddy sense of joy filled her to hear his voice coming from the long snout.
"A horse." Deja got up in absolute awe to circle Arkhan, startled into laughing when she reached out to curl her fingers through the shadow-horse's mane, expecting to pass right through it like mist, only to feel the solid muscle of the elegant arch of his neck.