by M. Modak
The door he had come through slid open and he watched as all the exiles from outside began to fill the room as they spoke to each other in his native tongue. They brought with them the last containers of water and poured them into the pods, filling, them to the brim.
He knew everyone in here, because he had fought with most of them before. Now would have been a good time to act but Sleven and a few others were missing. He moved to the far end of the room, next to the door and shelf that held the round, metal collars that the real humans had just removed. He listened as one of the exile women, Harrass, continued her conversation, “But how long do we have to act like these weak humans. All this smiling is starting to hurt my face?”
“As long as Sleven deems it necessary,” A dark haired male he knew as Bocagh said, “These fools still think our energy crystals grow naturally from the, “Special water,” our mountain provides. They believe they’ve stumbled onto the greatest source of portable energy in the galaxy. As long as we can keep them thinking that this is our world. That it takes a special technique to harvest the water, and only we can make the crystals, then our efforts to gain real power over these half sized humans will go smoothly.”
The small group laughed. Another woman, Onel said, “Sleven has them believing it’s the water that has made us so much bigger and fairer than them…”
“Being an ugly and weak human is bad,” another blue haired man, Anojh said, “but at least we’re superior to them.” He flicked a wrist toward the smaller humans.
“Do you smell something?” Harrass asked. In response, they all started sniffing the air, “I do smell something…it’s…human.”
“I’ve smelled all the humans on this ship and that is not one of their scents. It reminds me of…home” Harrass said. The group began to move around the room, noses first, sniffing as they searched. Drahca quietly moved as far away from the group as possible, wishing he knew how to mask his scent. Then the ship shook a little and the main crystal chamber increased its rotations. The door next to Drahca opened and a tall dark skinned woman, dressed in a silver colored uniform entered. There was a calm look on her face but he could feel that deep within she was very disturbed. She covered it well but he and all the exiles knew she was not happy.
Her sensual form stopped as she took in the aliens gathered in the room. Drahca noticed something different about her. She stood out from the other humans. There was a silent strength she controlled, which appeared both graceful and powerful. Her soul felt like one of the majestic trees on TOL. He remembered how he loved to coil up under one of them and listen to its roots grow deep into the soil, drinking from the rivers below. Both his eyes remained locked on her as she stood silently watching the exiles. Instinctively, she knew something wasn’t right with these humans.
He instantly wanted to know this human woman. He felt something rising in him that he hadn’t felt in centuries. The sensation, in a human body, was surprisingly pleasant and compelling. He had an intense urge to touch her hair, taste her sweat and smell her butt. It was a natural reaction for a dragon ready to mate. He smelled the pheromones coming from the other males, and some of the females, and knew they had detected that innate attractiveness she possessed.
The exiles had stopped searching for the origin of his scent and had turned to greet her with wide smiles. Bocagh spoke in a very different tone than he had used before, “Captain Fael, is it time to leave?”
After glancing around the room, pausing on the ten exiles standing above the small pods filled with the enormous crystals, she looked him in the eyes and returned the fake smile. She said, “Yes Bocagh, please inform your people that it’s time for them to return to their quarters as we start to take off.”
Bocagh nodded, “But those quarters are so confining. Can we arrange something a little more…communal?”
“That is not an option on this trip. We have already discussed this with Sleven before we departed and agreed to the arrangements.”
Bocagh nodded again as he looked around the room. He allowed his heart rate to increase as his thyroid and adrenal glands excreted specific chemicals the others like him could detect. This human would be the first to die when they returned to the moon base where Sleven waited. They all seemed very pleased with that as they each began to exit the room returning to the hallway they had come from.
Chapter 3 At first sight
Drahca carefully took one of the collars from the shelf and followed the Captain, quickly slipping through the automatic door just before it closed behind her. He hoped the suit would expand to fit his large frame but he prepared himself for the tight squeeze if it didn’t. The collar adjusted itself around his neck and disappeared under his cloaking field. He pressed the patch on the leading edge and the invisible fabric emerged and covered his entire body. He relaxed a little as the suit adjusted to his exact size.
As a dragon, he never wore clothes. There wasn’t any need for bodily coverings; his skin was more than capable of absorbing the sun. However, as a human, he sometimes dawned a loose covering for his head and shoulders or a full but open robe when he was closer to TOL’s equator.
His heart was beating wildly. This feeling had become a desire that was now a need. For a 10,000-year-old dragon, the need for a female, in that way, had long ago subsided. It had toned-down with most other physical appetites he once enjoyed as a youth. As his-self expanded over the centuries his need for bodily expression came into balance with his mind and spirit. But this feeling produced emotions in his new body, which felt wholly different.
It was hard to think, he had to warn her that these people were not men, they were blood thirsty dragons waiting for the perfect moment to devour her. They had done it before back on TOL. However, his first priority was to stop them, not fall in love. He realized that if he could somehow destroy this ship right now then at least, 90% or more of his enemies would die. But, that idea could no longer be entertained. He would never let harm come to a single hair on this woman’s head.
In mid stride, she stopped, turned around and looked right at him. He glanced down at his hands thinking he may have lost concentration and revealed himself. They were still invisible. Her stare lingered on him for a moment longer before she looked around the hallway and whispered, “Space ghost,” Then she turned and walked on.
He slowly took a deep breath and followed, still lost in the memory of her eyes. His stomach was turning and he felt lightheaded. He walked a few feet and ran face first into an angled ceiling making a loud ringing noise as he stumbled against the wall.
Startled by the loud noise she turned and looked around. He thought maybe she could hear his heart thumping as she looked right at him again before scanning the rest of the hallway.
“Who’s there?” She said into the air, “I can smell your sweat,” her face darkened, “It’s sweet like one of them. What kind of technology is this… where are you?”
Drahca held his breath, wondering what he should do. Half of him wanted to drop the cloak and tell her that she was the most beautiful human girl he had ever seen. But the other half knew he needed to fulfill his mission, billions depended on him.
He struggled with this feeling for what felt like an endless moment. What is the point of life, if not to love and be loved, he concluded. He took a deep breath and calmed himself, drew upon his pure feelings for her and slowly opened the energy he held in his heart. He let everything he felt flow naturally from him directly into her. Then he released the cloaking field. It glowed faintly and his huge form materialized before her. He lowered his head to her level and spoke softly, “I am here to save billions of lives. But I now know that the real reason I was sent out of my universe and into this world was to find you.”
*******
Her heart raced. Excitement bordered on the edge of fear, but she knew herself and she understood people enough to hold her judgment a moment longer. She had known someone was there; her heart could feel his electricity. However, the excitement she had known a seco
nd ago changed as he spoke in his strange language.
His face glowed like an angel. She looked through his helmet’s plasglass bubble and stared into his blue eyes. As he waited, she could feel him looking deeply into hers and her heart melted. This wonderful man could see right through her even as he sent his love.
*******
He had spoken from his heart, sending all his energy into his communication. Then he realized, she couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Normally he would lower his tail, spread his wings and turn his back to her so she would know he was not aggressive. He wanted her to see that he respected her, but, that kind of body language wouldn’t work here. Frustrated, he thought, Human love rituals are so complicated.
A smile spread across her lips. It was a smile of amusement at first, then, as she looked deeper into his eyes she stepped closer. She looked stunned and seemed to be on the edge of an abyss. He could hear her heart beating wildly, in harmony with his own. Slowly he reached out, took her hand and went down on one knee. He spoke from the depths of his soul, “I pledge my life to you, human girl Fael, though your mind may not be as old or filled with the same knowledge as my own, I know our heart’s match. We burn like the star of TOL.”
Emyeu blinked as her smile grew. She took his hand in both of hers and said, “Angel of God, man or alien, I feel your true heart and reject what my training is telling me to do right now. Because of you I will break all the rules, all my rules, and grant you a place in here.” She placed his giant open palm on her chest.
He didn’t know what to do or what she said. She had spoken from her open heart and he could feel her giving into him with each new moment. He stood up and pulled her gently to him, not knowing what humans would do now. He wanted to lightly bite and stroke her tale but she had no tail. His old ways of love did not apply. She would have to make the next move.
She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and waited in a poise of surrender. With all the saliva he could draw into his mouth, he licked her starting from her chest, sliding up her neck and cheek and ending where her thick, black hair began. She opened her eyes in shock then started laughing. She said, “Is that how you do it where you come from?” He just stared at her as he started to figure out that he had done something wrong but she wasn’t rejecting him…
Softly, she slowly pushed him away, still holding onto one thick finger and had him follow her down a long hallway. The door opened to a small but beautifully furnished room and she took him to her bed. She motioned for him to sit down, and he obeyed. Then she said, “I have some official duties I need to attend to, but I will be back in a few minutes.” A hand gestured to the whole room, “Make yourself comfortable until I return. Then we’ll see about teaching you some other ways of communicating with that tongue.” Then she turned and walked to the door, glanced back with a big smile and took off down the hallway…
Chapter 4 Translation
From across the room, Drahca watched the world outside tip and rotate as the humming coming from the vibrating crystals in the engine room increased. He could feel the gravity around him reaching toward that room and he felt lighter. Then the gravity was redirected through the conduits of the ship’s propulsion system; forcing the ship slowly away from the mountains below. The power increased and the vibrating amplified until its pitch reached its zenith and all went silent.
The ship shot straight up, hovered for a split second and then blasted off into the sky. The spacecraft left the world’s field of gravity and he began to float.
This was an entirely new sensation for him. He hadn’t felt this sense of weightlessness since he swam as a dragon deep under the ocean. The process of being teleported here also felt a little like this. However, once he had become a spark of energy and had moved into the roots of TOL, spread throughout the starweb, his body had felt more ethereal. It had been like drifting through the many dreams he had entered over his lifetime. However, he had explored those dreams without a solid form. He had a solid body now and because it couldn’t tell up from down his stomach was turning. The disorientating, weightless feeling made him nauseous. He was grateful he didn’t need to eat. If there had been any food in his stomach it would already be floating in the air. His new mate wouldn’t find that attractive.
He floated to the window and looked out. The world below was completely barren, not much different from what he had seen when he was in it. Lavar had truly done his best to exile the red dragons to a place where there was no one else they could hurt. The ship continued accelerating as they passed the first of three moons. The cabin began to vibrate again, this time with a deeper humming sound he could feel in his bones. Then suddenly all the stars of the heavens stretched like long stalks of wheat grass. The humming stopped and he felt gravity began slowly to return to normal. As his body sank, he pushed off from the window and maneuvered over to the bed, landing on the soft cushions.
A few minutes later, the door opened and the Captain walked in. Her presence washed through him prying his mind away from the wonder of space flight and back to the wonder of her. She was holding something in her hand and as she approached, she lifted it up so he could see. Without asking, she clipped it to his ear, adjusted its position on his temple and tapped it once. Instantly he saw an image followed by a sound and a tingling sensation. Then another image flashed a little faster followed by a sound and a different sensation. Then another image, sound and sensation came. It went on like this for several minutes until he felt her tap him on the head and ask, “What’s your name?”
He replied before he understood what he was doing, “Drahca.”
She smiled and said, “My name is Emyeu.”
He said her name out loud several times and then again in his head before asking, “What does Emyeu mean?”
“My love, or my lover, depending on how you say it.”
“Do you let everyone call you that,” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“Unfortunately yes, it was the name my parents gave me at birth. What does Drahca mean?”
“Long thought… or, how do you say, oh hmm,…deep meaning. The, meaning, is where you are…Your perspective.”
She crossed her arms and put a hand to her chin. Her lips puckered and then she dropped her arms, sat down next to him and asked, “Who are you, where did you come from? Am I losing my mind right now?”
He asked, “Losing your mind…can your people, lose your mind? Can someone lose it for you?”
She turned her head and cocked it to one side, “How about we start with who you are?”
“I am a, wind,” He paused then shook his head, “Spirit, I am a spirit living in body, linked,” he gestured with his hands, “by my mind.” he said matter-of-factly.
Her eyes searched the room as if the answer she was looking for could be found somewhere else other than his lips. She said, “Okay, how about where did you come from?”
His eyebrows drew down. He spoke, “I come from?”
“The place you came from,” she added as she pointed to the window, “Were you born on that world back there?”
“The world I came from…” He paused considering the window she was pointing at. “Ahh!” He smiled. “My world. My people call it TOL. It’s… placed in another… universe, into the future.”
“You’re from another world, not the one we came from,” she nodded as she spoke and watched him nod back. “You’re also from a different universe and it’s in the future?”
His smile broadened, “Yes.”
After taking a deep breath, she looked up at the ceiling and let it out slowly as she placed the Linguistic Overlayer back on his head. She was determined to understand him.
When an hour had passed his eyes found her eyes again as she took the device off him. This time he could feel her specific emotions match the questions she was about to ask, “Why are you here?”
He smiled sincerely and took her small hand in his large one and repeated slowly, “I am here to save billions of lives and stop the Drago
n Exiles, but… I know that the real reason I was sent past my universe and into this world. It was to find you.” He let his electric feeling for her flow freely as he struggled to control his breathing. He continued, “I pledge my life to you, Emyeu, though your mind may not be as old or filled with the same knowledge as my own, I know the wisdom in our hearts match like TOL and the star she circles.”
She leaned closer and kissed him on the lips. “I thought that was what you said,” she whispered. “Angel of God, man or alien, I feel your true heart and reject what my training is still trying to tell me to do right now. Because of you I will break all the rules, all my rules, and grant you a place in my heart.” She reached over and pressed a square patch on the suit he was wearing. His sleeves withdrew into his shoulders as the rest of the uniform retracted into the belt around his waist and then shrunk into the collar around his neck. He was naked again.