Lisinthir went to his luggage and pulled out the clothes he'd worn in the Empire, when he'd worn any at all. He discarded the Eldritch garb he'd donned to make the trip away—the last remaining outfit he had, the rest having been shredded long ago by enthusiastic talons—and he no longer wanted to feel the touch of a culture he no longer respected. Then he dropped himself on the bunk, with the hekkret and the flask, and rested his head back on the pillow, one hand on his stomach, the other at his brow where the smoke could drift down. His skin stippled with gooseflesh at the cold in the room, but he left it for the memory of violence. That time with the talon that had skidded in his own blood and gone too deep…he'd been in a poor position to answer, trapped under the Emperor, but he'd reached behind himself and grabbed the male by the horn at his jaw and yanked it down until he could claw at it. Felt his ragged nails catch, break against pebbled skin and then something slick just before the Emperor had jerked his head away, pinned Lisinthir down and snarled an imprecation.
That orgasm had been blinding. After that, though—
Lisinthir pushed the Emperor's head away. "Off. Did I get anything serious?"
The Emperor snorted. "You would like to think so." But his eye was shut on one side, and Lisinthir reached up to turn the face, frown. "It's nothing, Ambassador. Maybe a scratch on the—"
That word he didn't recognize. "The what?"
The Emperor repeated it for him. "The shield over the eye? The thin clear layer."
"You mean not the lid…?" When the dragon nodded, Lisinthir dragged a word from a distant memory of too many physicals administered to an ambassador-in-preparation: "The… cornea."
"I suppose." The Emperor shoved him down, more friendly suggestion than invitation to tussle. "It will heal."
"I scratched your cornea. That sounds serious."
"It isn't. Your nails are sharper than they look."
"My nails are a ragged mess, you mean, and I keep them that way so they do more damage. Otherwise I'd not make a dent in your hides." Lisinthir stared at the ceiling, and a laugh surprised its way out of him. "I know the Chatcaavan word for cornea. I don't even know the Eldritch word for cornea."
From the door, the Slave Queen asked, "Is there one, my lord?"
"I have not the first notion," Lisinthir said. "But I doubt it. Or it probably has a name like 'shield of the eye.'" He shook his head, winced and touched his side. "Ah, you are a bastard. That one hurt."
The Emperor craned his neck around to look at the wound, spread it with his fingers. Hot blood seeped over cold skin, and a cool tongue scraped it up. "Looks worse than it is."
"How would you know, O One-Eyed Exalted?"
"Did something happen? Should I fetch the Surgeon?" the Queen asked, her voice taut with concern.
"We'll be fine. But a bath, my Treasure. That would be welcome."
Lisinthir sat up after she'd left and touched his fingers to the Emperor's nose, turning his face more gently so that the injury faced the light. The lids were closed, and seeping clear fluid—it looked too thick for tears, and he wondered at it. Some adaptation for flight, perhaps. "You're certain? I didn't mean to catch your eye."
"I didn't mean you to catch any part of me, save the one I was using on you." The drake grinned, bright ribbon of teeth against dark flesh. "I mean it, Perfection. I have suffered worse. I will check with the Surgeon tomorrow if it isn't resolving itself." He leaned down and trailed his nose up the claw wounds. "And he can see to these then. If you need it."
"I'll be fine," Lisinthir said, then laughed. "We are cut from the same cloth, we two. Unwilling to admit to pain."
"There is living and there is death," the Emperor said. "Pain is irrelevant unless it leads to the latter." He traced an arabesque of blood up Lisinthir's side to his chest until it petered out. Glanced over his shoulder toward the sound of running water before saying, "But I had a question. Speaking of Surgeons, and pain suffered in silence."
Lisinthir studied his face, wondering at the closed expression in that good eye. Even through their skin, he couldn't tell what the Emperor was thinking, feeling. "Go on."
"Your Alliance surgeons. Could they heal an old wound?"
"Perhaps? It would depend on the wound, I suppose."
"The Queen cannot fly, nor have children. Both those things were taken from her." He canted his head so the light gleamed on that one fluorescent yellow eye, fingers splayed on Lisinthir's ribs. "Could they restore them?"
He lost a breath, sucked in a new one, ignored the lancing pain of the puncture. "You would ask?"
"Should I not? The womb was her sire's doing, on realizing he would lose to me. The wings I did myself. Either way I am responsible for her mutilation. It is mine to fix. If it can be fixed. So tell me, Perfection—Ambassador—can it?"
"I... I am no surgeon, Exalted. But it would surprise me if it could not be addressed."
The Emperor looked again toward the bathroom. When he spoke, his voice was low. "There are obstacles, which is why I don't ask in front of her. The Empire would have to be in a place where I could send my own Slave Queen into it without causing… issues. In the court and in the Alliance. Unless it could be done here?"
"I doubt it. You would need a true hospital. The closest the Alliance has to a mobile one would arrive on the largest of their warship classes."
The Emperor snorted. "That would be a very interesting day." He resumed petting Lisinthir's side, and with the touch came his resignation. "It would not be soon, then. But if it could be done… of course." His smile was very close to a grimace. "Someone once told me that even the wingless need the sky. I didn't understand him then. Perhaps I do now."
Lisinthir cupped the Emperor's jaw, leaned forward and lapped along the edge of the long maw. In that kiss he put all his pride, all his approval, all his wonder… and the Emperor licked him, languorous, accepting.
...and then his fingers skidded on the leaking fluid from the eye and he laughed against the Emperor's mouth. "A fine mess you are, Exalted."
The drake huffed, amused. "It will pass." And added, with all his characteristic curiosity, that could catch on a concept and not forget it until understood, "What is a bastard?" And when Lisinthir explained, "What a strange and useless concept. Tell me, how do your people accomplish anything, Ambassador, if you cannot even claim your own seed properly?"
"Poorly, when at all, I admit."
"My lord," the Queen called from the door. "My master. The bath is ready—oh, Master, your eye!"
Lisinthir felt the sigh through his fingertips and hid his amusement.
The memory clung to him—not just that moment, but the ones that followed in the bath, an almost dreamlike tenderness that brought the flush up his skin and revived him enough to see to his own needs. But it was the Emperor's promise that resounded long after he'd stepped through the Pad to clean himself. In some universe the Emperor could conceive, it was possible that the Slave Queen could journey to the Alliance to regain the gifts that had been stolen from her. And for that universe to be manifested, someone must work toward it on the Empire's side...
...and someone else on the Alliance's.
Lisinthir looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Beyond how it had made him feel, he'd been indifferent to his condition. For months now, he had been surrounded by dragons who could fly, and their bodies were narrow as swords, poured like metal into a shape meant to cleave the air. It had been difficult for him to maintain an image of what he should look like when all the people he saw daily were so unlike. But Jahir's unwanted invasion had given him Eldritch eyes again, enough to look at himself and see just how badly off he was. He could understand now why all three of the healers on the ship were adamant about his frailty. He was nothing but the muscle needed to kill wrapped around a skeleton and stretched over with enough skin to impede a blow.
But he had to survive. If he wanted to help his beloveds at all—if he wanted to see them again—he had work to do on this side of the political equation. And since the alcohol
was more likely to kill him off, he would have to accept his House cousin's offer, and accede to the damnable treatment.
He didn't have to like it. But if the alternative was dying alone among the wingless, then he would do it.
Lisinthir sighed, lifting his hands and observing their tremor. That was nothing to the nausea, though he was no longer sure now if that was related to the poison or to the fact that his House cousin had twice forgotten to feed him... had in fact left so precipitously he'd forgotten the medical kit on his table. Lisinthir thought about administering it himself, but decided it was better saved for the inevitable discussion, where the sight of it would keep his would-be Eldritch healer off-balance.
No, he would finish smoking the hekkret and dictating more of his observations of the Empire. Hopefully by the time he finished he would be capable of the trip to the psychiatrists' den, and the request he would have to make there.
The ship was making him claustrophobic.
Vasiht'h knew he had an anxious disposition. One didn't expect it of his race, given its members' phlegmatic natures, and he had inherited the Glaseahn placidity in full. But it didn't stop him from bouts of nervousness, and when stressed that nervousness always found a way out. He'd learned to channel that energy into productive activities, like cooking, baking, cleaning, rather than the fidgeting and chafing he'd been prone to as a youth, but the room they'd been assigned had no kitchen, which suggested none of the rooms did. Somewhere, on this ship, there was a place to make food. Unless they all ate genie-made food, and he couldn't imagine doing something so energy-inefficient as a matter of course.
Looking for the equivalent of a cafeteria kept him moving when he was already feeling restless, too confined by a world that had become far too finite. For someone accustomed to the freedom of a world, and who had moved from a planet to a starbase so large it had an artificial sky of its own, complete with stars, even a large Fleet vessel would have felt frighteningly small. The courier, built to accommodate a maximum of forty people, was positively tiny.
It would have been bearable if Vasiht'h hadn't felt like everything else was falling in on him.
Jahir wasn't lying to him. But Vasiht'h couldn't imagine things being as easy as 'I'm not interested, so it's not relevant.' And while Vasiht'h never got any of the emotional data from the patients Jahir brought back from seizure or coma, he did receive Jahir's reaction to that data... and the revulsion and shock had been instantaneous.
So had the fascination.
To hear that Lisinthir might die despite their best efforts, and after all that the Ambassador's arrival had triggered in their heads and their relationship, was... just...
It was more than he could handle without moving. Without doing something productive and useful. And if he couldn't cook, then he could at least heal.
The computer directed him to the cafeteria, which it called the mess. There he found Borden, thankfully, along with two others in the crew. He knew the moment he saw them that he'd been right to come; their dejection was palpable.
"Ah, I hope I'm not interrupting?"
"Of course not, alet," Borden said, tired. "What can we help you with?"
"I was wishing for company," Vasiht'h said. "If not a kitchen I could use to cook them food."
That made the other two smile despite their weariness. The Asanii female offered, "Unfortunately the galley's offline so we can conserve power. But you're welcome to sit and share our..." She squinted at the wrapper on her protein bar. "Kalven nut and chenfruit bars."
"Exotic," Vasiht'h said, sitting at the end of the table.
The Tam-illee foxine sitting alongside the other stranger chuckled. "You sound so skeptical."
"It says it has real fruit and nuts in it, and I'm sure they are real," Vasith'h said, accepting Borden's offering and eyeing it. "But it tastes like the inside of the wrapper."
"Mmm, mmm, plastic," the Asanii said. She managed a laugh, touched her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "I am tired, because I can laugh and not care about it."
"Might as well," the foxine said with a shrug. "It's laugh or cry, right?"
"Is it so bad, then?" Vasiht'h ventured.
They glanced at him. The strangers looked at Borden, who flicked her ears back. The healer-assist broke her bar in half and then into quarters, her movements deliberate and not at all masking her agitation. "I'm afraid things don't look very promising, alet. We don't see a way to restore the ability to Well to the ship."
"Not... at all?" Vasiht'h asked, voice small.
"It's well and truly rhacked," the Asanii said, the expletive making her companion flinch. "We're not getting out of here on our own power. Not quickly, anyway. We can use what's left of the in-systems to limp somewhere, but I'm not laying odds we can do it before the dragons catch us again. And then..." She drew a line over her throat, evoking a collar. "We're for slaves."
"Don't scare him, Reya," the foxine said, irritated. To Vasiht'h, "Fleet sends Dusted patrols into this zone all the time. There's a Fleet-secure channel we can use to summon them—"
"—which will bring all the dragons barreling in on our location—"
"There's a good chance they'll get to us first," the foxine finished, voice firm. "We're going to try steering our way into one of their known patrol patterns, which isn't too far from here. If that doesn't work, we'll send the call."
"How long will all this take?" Vasiht'h asked.
"Probably another three or four days, to get to where we might be seen. I don't know how long the Captain will leave us there."
"Could be weeks," the Asanii—Reya—said.
"Doubt it," Borden said. She sighed and shook herself. More clearly, "We don't have the power to wait here for weeks. Once we get there, if we're not found quickly, he'll send the signal." She managed a smile at Vasiht'h. "You can see why I'm hoping for your help. We could use all the morale-boosting we can get."
"Oh, yes!" The Tam-illee's ears pricked up. "I heard about the dream therapy. Kordreigh told me he feels so much better now. I don't suppose I could get it too?"
"You'll all get it," Vasiht'h promised. "The moment you sleep. Hea Borden will take us to everyone in turn."
"Does that mean we'll be able to dream without having nightmares?" For the first time since she started talking, Reya sounded tentative. "Because the things I've heard about what happens to people who get taken by the Chatcaava...."
"At least the women survive," the foxine muttered. "Men they kill outright."
Borden made a sharp motion with a hand, as if to say 'enough.' "The last slaves taken by the Empire came back, remember?"
"Yeah, because the Ambassador got them sent back. But he's not there anymore, is he."
Vasiht'h cleared his throat and put all the reassurance he could muster into the words. "There won't be any nightmares on our watch, alet. I promise you." He smiled. "Think of us as the Fleet patrol for your subconscious."
That made them laugh, and there was hope in that laugh. Not about the situation, but at least about something, and that he had contributed to even the smallest lift in their spirits buoyed Vasiht'h's up considerably. If the kitchen had been operational, he would have baked celebratory cookies and brought some home to Jahir....
Except that they were far, far from home. And it was looking very much like they might not make it back.
They might not make it back.
"Hea Borden," he said. "I should finish preparing for our next few sessions. If you'll excuse me?"
"Of course. Take the bar, though. You'll need the energy. I'll come for you in half an hour."
He nodded his thanks and then excused himself. Halfway down the corridor he was running, the news of their danger driving his feet until he burst into their room. He didn't know if it was his abrupt arrival or the fear in the mindline that jerked his partner's head from his arms... but Jahir's sleep fog dispelled the moment he saw Vasiht'h's face.
"What's wrong?"
"They can't fix it." Vasiht'h droppe
d down across from him. "They're going to try to put us in the way of some secret patrol, but that patrol might never cross our route… at which point they're going to have to send a distress call."
He'd been expecting alarm, and there was some, enough to make the fur along his sides bristle. But it was subordinated to the mindline growing heavier and more opaque, as it did when his partner was thinking through a puzzle. Some of Jahir's thoughts echoed in Vasiht'h's mind, dream-like and distant, but not enough for him to pick up more than the sense that the Eldritch somehow didn't find the situation as hopeless as he did.
"Arii?"
Jahir's eyes focused on him again. "I don't believe that we will die here."
"You can't be sure of that." But Vasiht'h wondered. Was this a pattern-sense thing? Maybe? He could hope?
"It's not," Jahir answered. "At least, I don't think. But I still believe." He passed a hand over his eyes. "Did I sleep? Is it time?"
"Almost. And you must have, because our mouths taste like cotton."
Jahir managed a chuckle. "I will see to that, then."
This time, Vasiht'h allowed Jahir to lead the sessions Borden had arranged… and it wasn't until they'd dispelled the nightmares of the second that he began to get his feet under him again. But by the fourth and final, Jahir had soothed his nervousness away, better than any walk, better than any kitchen. Vasiht'h followed the Eldritch back to their rooms, tired but feeling whole again. They would live through this, somehow.
"I am very ready for bed," he said once they'd gotten back. "Will you sleep or go back to work on the drug analysis?"
"I think I will stay up," Jahir said. "The nap gave me some energy. But I will be back before you wake."
Vasiht'h grinned. "You mean you won't forget to lie down or eat this time?"
"I will set an alarm," Jahir promised.
"Good. Then I'll see you then."
Jahir sat at the table and read while Vasiht'h arranged his nest of pillows so the Glaseah would have the familiar psychic background noise of his partner's presence while he fell asleep. There was enough to read, with all that he didn't yet understand about the mechanisms of action of the hekkret, so he spent a profitable half hour refreshing himself on the possible chemical causes for the symptoms Lisinthir was displaying. Once he was certain Vasiht'h was asleep, however, he set the tablet down and rested his hands together on the table. He could do what he planned. Moreover, he had to, for the apology was rightfully owed. That there was a hint of some hope for their situation in his borrowed blood-streaked memories only made his errand the more important.
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