Wide Awake_A Breath of Life

by Aeryn Jaden

  He didn't feel the ground as he dropped out into the spewed water. He didn't see the purple-eyed demon catching him before he cracked his skull on the stone platform. Than wasn't awake to see the wonder blossoming in the alien's eyes as he looked down at the unconscious human he was tenderly holding.

  * * *

  K’Aran was lucky. If his species believed in luck that is. As it was, drakars were quite pragmatic and knew to their core that everything happens for a reason. He would have fought the other contenders and won, he knew that, if only he would have smelled the human in time to know he needed to fight for him. K’Aran was “lucky” that the others had been distracted by the commotion happening at the other auction block close by and everyone had left to see what was the fuss about. Now that he'd smelled the human, now that he'd seen his ingenuity and bravery as he acted fast to prevent what he'd thought was his death, well, the drakar was hooked. The only thing that bothered him was that he won't have to fight for the human, that he will end up paying the low starting price with no other contenders. His future kadush deserved more, this was practically an insult to his kadush' worth. He loathed having to part from his intended even for one second but the genims needed to check if the kalas had done its job and purified the human's body of diseases, simultaneously adapting him for life on Arkana and prolonguing his life span by a couple of millenia, just enough to match theirs. The kalas was harmless and couldn't actually kill no matter how it was used but it had been obvious that his human thought otherwise and had been struggling for his life. The new arrivals weren't supposed to be awake for the procedure, K’Aran's soul had cried in response to his future's kadush distress. Nothing could have been done but bear it once the procedure started and the drakar hoped the genims would say it had been enough, he didn't think he could watch again as his human fought for his life, without breaking some heads himself. He slowly deposited his precious burden on the examination table, frowning in warning at the chattering genims gathered around and eager to start. Reluctantly, he stepped back, letting them do their job, eyes carefully watching every procedure done on his mate. Nothing invasive, a scan, some blood tests and then the priest's soul-searching. On Arkana they tried to keep up with the modern technologies but it was all embedded in ritual and tradition. Adaptable all but everything had its purpose. For example, the auction blocks helped find the best adoptive family for the newest stranded aliens that crashed on their planet. It didn't happen that often, Arkana was heavily shielded and protected. In fact, they hadn't had any humans in decades. And the last one, a human, had looked nothing like his human. She'd been willowy with inky darkness etched on her skin. K’Aran shied from the memory of what had happened to her. Her auction had caused a ruckus when a savage pathra had won, regardless of the priests forbidding their bidding as a improper match. It had not ended well for the human woman. In the end, neither for that particular pathra, as the clan had been all but decimated by the woman’s half pathos child. Arkana was peaceful at large but its wilderness still ruthless in its judgement.

  K’Aran refocused just in time to see the priest's eyes go wide as he was checking his human's spirit and he barely abstained from cursing a storm in front of the holy man. As it was, his tone was brusque and edgy.

  "What? What' s wrong?" His hands fisted and his leathery wings fluttered slightly, barely held closed as K’Aran's stomach rolled uneasily with nerves.

  "Kenil K’Aran. We humbly apologize for the situation. On behalf of Arkana's Priest Kasta we will like to offer you an open favor of your choosing and your' kadush' choosing as well."

  K’Arans breath stuttered and his purple eyes flashed with ire and astonishment. A favor from the Priest Kasta was rare and more valuable than anything else on their planet. An open favour without any conditions to it was almost unheard of. Two of them, impossible to conceive. They had screwed up, they had harmed his humna. His chest constricted and he lost the struggle to control his wings as he stumbled closer to his human's side, reaching quickly to gather his prone form closer, protective, to his chest. He could barely breathe and his chest was rumbling on a high growl of distress. The priest averted his eyes and the genims scattered as the most powerful kenil on the planet lost his composure.

  "What."

  Fortunately, the priest understood and answered the court word as if it had been the sum of the drakar’s confusion.

  "Your intended. His spirit was already blended with Arkana's core. We did not notice this and unwittingly subjected him to a second blending. Thus the reason he woke up. We apologize. For a human, doing the blending awake equal to torture."

  "Already? How."

  He looked down in wonder, his human still unconscious but instinctively nestling closer to K’Aran’s two hearts. The priest noticed this too and his eyes narrowed as he tried to see further in this human's peculiar spirit. He gasped again as he reached the root of the strangeness and quickly stepped back, hands slightly trembling with the truth he'd glimpsed.

  "Oh. Oh. I need to call the Council. I need to commune with the sacred core and see more. Oh, my."

  "What? Speak priest, before I forget myself and lose it completely."

  The priest blanched, no doubt having heard of head kenil’s ruthless reputation that had made him the youngest kenil to rule over the others of his kind. The drakars were simple as a race, highly independent and considered almost savage with the head kenil, K’Aran for the last centuries , the worst of them all, especially as he was still without an official kadush. Hopefully, that will change soon.

  "He's soul bonded to the sacred core. Your human had been chosen by Arkana itself."

  K’Aran saw yellow as his purple eyes flashed with anger and determination.

  "Mine! If I have to leave this planet, he's mine!"

  "Now with all due respect, kenil-"

  The drakar leaned over the unmoving man resting on his chest, teeth sharp and venom rising to the surface as his instincts commanded him to seal the promise of the future he could glimpse with the human at his side. The priest shouted something, K’Aran closed his eyes as he did the unthinkable a betrayal of the trust his brave human was showing him by slumbering peacefully.

  He bit down and bound the human to himself. Their destinies were now one.

  * * *

  Arkana was vastly different from most of the planets in the known universe. For one it had one ever changing continent, surrounded by the sacred kalas. The soil behaved at times as if was aliv,e as if it was the very skin of the planet they inhabited and who knew? Maybe it was. There were many things that only the priests knew and much more that were hidden from them too. It was a peaceful planet in general. Its inhabitants did not have the instinct to conquer, they were satisfied with their inherited territories and kept to themselves. Funny thing, no matter how many they were, how far they stretched on the planet's surface, it almost seemed as if Arkana itself adapted and stretched with them, providing them with more space, more resources and everything that they needed. It wasn't a surprise therefore that most of the creatures living on its surface were peaceful and satisfied with the nurturing natural environment. The drakars were one of the few exceptions to that. As the only actively aggressive race on the planet, their kind was the warrior kasta, the ones that protected their secluded quasi-idyllic environment. They were as necessary as the guardians of the old ways, the priests, and often collaborated to avert discovery and danger. Unlike the priests though, the drakars were not seen as being approachable. They were respected and feared, their word almost a law in itself but often, due to the same things that made them natural protectors and warriors, their own neighbors shied away from interactions or avoided even to be in their sight. It made for a lonely existence. Maddening at times, and some of them caved to the quiet and went insane long before they had the chance to find a suitable mate. Their families usually had to put them down as the rabid animal they had become. It was kinder. K’Aran was still young but already past his prime age for finding a mate. His horn
s were starting to color, a sign of maturity but also of a high level of hormones in his bloodstream. Soon he wouldn't have had a choice but to mate with the first amiable potential mate presented to him by his family or the other families he steered, else his fate was sealed.

  Now though. Things were finally looking up.

  He slowly moved the veil aside, peeking in the resting room he'd commanded to be built for his future mate decades ago. It had been a long wait but K’Aran had been foolishly stubborn and had kept hoping his true match will come to him somehow. He'd for sure not expected that to be in the form of a diminutive humanoid, all golden to the tips of his hair. The drakar found the differences fascinating, and he knew from the way the human had reacted in the kalas tub that he was a warrior himself. By the looks of the humans in general, his human could probably be considered large and strong as the humans seemed to be smaller made. Next to K’Aran or any drakar really, his intended seemed almost childlike in stature. It made K’Aran leery of approaching, scared of even looking too hard in his direction, less he terrified the brave human more than he'd already been through his ordeal with the kalas mishap.

  It had been two passings of the moons since then and the human had woke up a couple of times, ate a bit of what K’Aran had left him while he’d been unconscious and continued to shy away from drinking the kalas. That won't do. The drakar knew that soon he'd have to show his face, so different than a human's and be brave in front of whatever reaction his mate will have. He only hoped that the human will not run. It would just make everything worse if his drakar natural instincts were aroused even more. He quickly let the veil fall back, a small grunt rendering it opaque once again as he continued to peek through the gap between the two silvery curtains. His human was awake, he was sure of it. He could hear his heartbeat pick up, a slight stench of apprehension slamming K’Aran right in his face as the figure resting on the shak, their traditional hammock bed, froze in his stillness as he probably took in his surroundings. K’Aran smiled, proud of the clever human tied to him. Once he explained himself and begged for forgiveness maybe his human would like to train with him a bit. He reckoned the human would like to be able fight his own battles, he did seem the independent sort. K’Aran wouldn't have him any other way. He'd always preferred a partner in all things instead of the gentler unions some had with softer soul matches. His papa was one of the gonan, practically drakars’ cousins, physically slightly smaller and with a sunny disposition. His father still worshipped the ground papa walked after practically an eternity spent together. That type of quiet lifestyle just wasn't for K’Aran.

  "I know you're here. Watching."

  Huh. Peculiar. He truly was a warrior considering humans shouldn't have the senses to know when they were watched unless they honed them from young and tested them often. K’Aran wondered about the strange language, being the first time he’d ever heard spoken standard earthian. The inhabitants of Arkana could understand any language in the universe, due to the kalas practically being a part of them. It was somehow hard to speak some of them though, as some sounds could be physically impossible for the drakar physiology. The purifying ritual for newcomers helped integrate better the stranded aliens, granting them a certain knowledge of the languages spoken on the planet. Arkana had a strict isolationist policy that worked for them. Once you stepped foot on the planet or even glimpsed it, you were theirs. Rare exceptions were made for those with strong outside connections but even then, it was decided before the Council and after an elaborate process of testing the souls of the contenders. None of those who were allowed to live held any memory whatsoever of the planet and its inhabitants. The practice was dangerous and could irrevocably delete other parts of memory also if rushed. Few ever chanced it.

  "Hello?"

  "I'm... here."

  Odd language, and as expected, almost impossible to modulate with the drakar built. The drakar language was made of growls and vocalizations more and didn't have the same cadence at all or complicated structure. He seemed to have reproduced the language well enough as his human startled and fell off the shak with a shout of surprise. His wide eyes were rapidly scanning his surroundings in search of the owner of the voice most likely and K’Aran hesitated before parting the veil again. It needed to happen for them to move forward. He waited for the panic and disgust to manifest, eyes averted as he stepped further into the room and let his human get a first good look at him. When a couple of seconds passed without any reaction, K’Aran raised his eyes and looked head on at his kadush. The human was seemingly at a loss for words as he stared at the drakar, mouth agape and frozen standing next to the shak.

  "Shit. I'm screwed."

  The language was funny, K’Aran could understand the basics but he doubted his human had said what he thought he'd heard. He wasn't that lucky. Most likely it was an expression and if K’Aran was to judge by the apprehension he could almost see wafting off his human, it was neither an invitation, nor an expression of good things.

  "I am K’Aran Kenil of the Shab family and overseer of most of the drakar race."

  His peculiar human snorted as his wide eyes glinted in amusement. K’Aran noticed that he also inched back a bit, hands hidden from his sight as he fiddled with something hidden. Clever, brave human.

  "That sounds really important and all that. Not that I'm not into it but you know, I'm just not into it. My name is Than Smith, lieutenant in the AEF- The Alliance Exploration Forces. I demand that I'm granted my constitutional right to contact the federation, right guaranteed under the Unification Peace Treaty of Earth year 2234, concerning the retrieval mission of myself and the rest of the surviving crew. If you bastards haven’t staged more torture shows to kill them!"

  Whatever else the human mumbled went straight over K’Aran’s head as he pretended to listen carefully and had no idea what his kadush was saying. He got something about retrieval mission and his hearts clenched as he prepared to break the bad news to his human.

  "I'm afraid that won't be happening. The retrieval thing. Arkana is completely closed off. There is no way off the planet and even if there was, it is forbidden."

  "What!"

  It happened fast, almost faster than K’Aran’s eyes could see and that was a feat on itself, considering the drakars were biologically superior when it came to their senses, to most of the races inhabiting the universe. They knew it from ancient times, from the great war and the battles some were still alive to tell the youngsters about. As a rule drakars lived almost forever, their lives usually cut shorter by battles or kashas, the ritualic ending of a drakar gone mad. For K’Aran, currently the best in battle of all the drakars still battle trained, to be almost caught unaware by a human of all things, well. A surprise and a reason to be even prouder of his warrior mate. He caught the small dagger as it flew to his neck, appreciating the aim and spot chosen to attack. His human regrouped quickly and the drakar found himself blocking hits left and right, studying the technique and finding it very original and advanced. It was similar to some of the basic training the drakar youngsters started on and K’Aran was glad to see how his human had mastered it and adapted it to his body's limitations. He had much to teach his kadush, if they ever reached a certain level of trust and communication. He surely hoped so, otherwise K’Aran was a dead drakar. Bonded pairs needed to consummate their bond physically in a certain time interval or the drakar part of the bonded went insane and had to be put down. K’Aran had done it that's for sure, bonding himself to an unconscious newcomer, a human at that. Everyone knew humans were strange and intolerant at best towards some of the more different species out there, and it didn't get any more different that the drakars and various other species inhabiting Arkana. The kenil had once read in his cultural studies that humans were among the races that had stories about drakar similar beings, and they called them demons, considering them the incarnation of evil. Yeah, K’Aran had really done it this time. His papa had always said that his penchant for acting before thinking will be the end
of him one day. It was looking very likely that the day had come. At least it seemed that he'll die in battle, even if that battle will probably be with his own mate. Drakars as a rule prefered to die fighting than going insane. It was easier on their family. His human stumbled back, breath hash as he regained his footing and probably rallied his forces for another attack. He rushed to say anything that would help calm the human, thinking that maybe if he explained more about the human’s new home, it’ll seem less scary.