Keeping With Destiny

by Stephan Knox

  Generations ago, when Terra’s surface-crust flipped upside down, throwing the entire planet into chaos, most of what had been part of human life was destroyed. So the stories told. That included most of the power plants. The few that had survived intact were broken down mechanically. Some believed the plants would still work if there was just someone around who knew how to turn the buggers on. That was half their problem in survival. Not everyone who had lived was smart, and it took someone smarter than the average bagger to figure out how to get the old-world power stations running again. And one even smarter to repair and keep them in top condition. It just so happened the Skaddary had two plants and at one point both were working. After a hit from their nearby nemesis, one of the power grid stations went down and they hadn’t managed enough resources or smarts to rebuild it since.

  At least they didn’t have to worry about any more attacks from the now-deceased Blood Lord, Maegrethe, or either of his sons. Controlling most of the land nor-east of them— Lord Maegrethe had nearly destroyed both of the Skaddary power stations. The base’s last working plant wasn’t likely to survive the Blood Lord’s onslaught much longer. Not helping matters was Maegrethe’s Symbiote bride, whose union gave him the power not unlike being immortal, making any attack to over throw him futile. Assassins had tried many times, but there is a power when watching a man rise from his own pool of blood. His soldiers and bagger folk rallied behind him like he was a god and they fought even harder the second time around while the strength of the Skaddary slipped. Except, Maegrethe wasn’t truly immortal, and the Blood Lord was now dead, once and for all. His armies, broken because of it.

  But the news of the tyrant’s death was only a reminder of a much greater and more personal loss for Aari. Just eight moon cycles ago, word had spread that the Blood Lord’s melancholy bride of the last twenty or so more full cycles of the seasons, had taken her own life. It was in the morning twilight of her death that Maegrethe and his two sons were found dead as well.

  Nevertheless, the battle wore on as, Maegrethe’s brother, Jazirian, who already controlled Center Valley along with the self-named city Jazirian Capital and pretty much everything else in the middle of the continent, was believed to have already taken over. Except it was a far reach from Jazirian Capital and word was already spreading of Maegrethe’s lieutenant colonel, was turning usurper— self-proclaimed himself Lord Marshal and was assuming control over Maegrethe’s armies and city.

  Whether or not Jazirian approved of the Marshal’s self-elevated position, there was much speculation as to whether Jazirian’s power reached far enough to do anything about it against such numbers. Some even prayed for it. A civil war between the Blood Lords did promise advantages for everyone else.

  Until then, all meant little for Aari or the rest of the Skaddary. Their lives unchanged, nothing made better. One replaced the other, but for her, the sad came because Maegrethe’s bride had been Aari’s older sister. Both a sister of the same mother and she’d been a Symbiote breeder, just like herself.

  They had told her when her sister had been taken captive and forced into the union with the Blood Lord. For Aari’s kind, there was no worse fate. And while Aari grieved for the loss of her sister, she was also happy her sister was free from such a nightmare of bondage.

  Aari reached a steel utility ladder. She climbed up along the wall, pulled the ventilation panel, leading into the air vent system, open and crawled in, bringing her prize with her, and then closed herself inside. No one ever came back in the utility passageways except the maintenance guys and they weren’t likely going to be back here at this clock hour. But she didn’t want to leave a major calling card behind either. Under those circumstances, she made sure the panel was proper secured in its grooves. For what she was about to do could be misconstrued as treason.

  Tannin’s eyes popped open the second the scent of her hit his nose. He stared up at the air duct overhead and sucked in a deeper inhale. His eyes fluttered closed, his lips rolling in to bite back the yearning pleasure the scent instantly brought him. By Destiny, she smelled good. Eight months with his Symbiotai and he could catch a woman’s scent and tell if she was receptive for a man’s advances or not, even before he was in the same room with them, but drenn, if his heightened senses had ever caught a women’s scent as tantalizing as this one’s. He pricked his ears to listen— yes, someone was definitely sliding through the air ducts. Now what were the odds of that— he had to wonder.

  He kept still, waiting. She still had some distance to travel, especially at the effort she made to do so stealthily. Not bad actually. If it hadn’t been for his keen sense of hearing, he might not have heard her either; not until she was right on top of him that is.

  There had been a time, back when he first took the Symbiotai that caused the changes in his body, that even the soft muted sounds the air duct thief was making would have driven him wildly mad to the point of pain. Like a freight train roaring in his ears, it would register. Every little twitch and quiver the world made was like thunder claps of uncontrollable noise in his head at unbearable decibels. Insects— the bristling sounds of trees— people traveling nearby— the wild beasts as they bugled out their mating calls— by drenn, even the sand as it sang against itself in the wind screamed at him. He had been ready to rip the Symbiotai from his back by any means possible if it would silence all that his ears heard.

  He’d near turned into a raver and recalled a number of times of jumping into nearby lakes or rivers, submersing himself. The water drowned out the noise for a moment, giving him some respite.

  His Symbiotai used those times to its own ability. Somehow flooding Tannin’s body with endorphins. The chemistry helped calm him enough, so he could meditate. Though even still it was challenging, and with no one to guide him, he struggled every step of the way.

  Over time, he had managed to get his heightened auricular under control. Now he could filter the sounds out as needed by will alone. It had been the same lesson of adjusting to his other predatory afferents; having to learn to control the amplified information that inundated his system. His keen eyesight gave him such headaches that lit up like white lightning behind his eyes, forcing him to keep them shut only to be bombarded with the infrared images registering in his mind.

  It had taken time and training. Three months had passed before he had even dared venture close to civilization again.

  While learning to utilize these magnified senses was still an ongoing process, he had finally found a level of containment through established discipline, not just of himself but of his sym, enough to tolerate them.

  Now, the ability to hear this female approach made him happy for some reason. He felt the heat build on his back then a wave of liquid warmth that rolled out in every direction, over every nerve-ending like a pulse, and then of course his cock jerked to attention. “You stay out of this, old man,” Tannin scoffed at his Symbiotai, “She’s not for you anyways. She’s mine,” he staked the claim knowing full well Sif could neither comment back nor argue. But, the breeder would belong to them both in the end. It was inevitable.

  The faint shuffle drew closer and he finally pushed up to his feet, taking his place directly under the bars that separated him from her— where he waited with great anticipation.

  A few moments later, the shuffling stopped right overhead. He took a deep inhale, drawing in every molecule of her aroma and let it swarm around his head and throttle down into his cock like a bullet. Drenn, if her scent didn’t do to him what a firkin of dark ale would do. He waited, but she said nothing. His neural processing mapped her out down to the sound of her heartbeat and her nervous deep breaths. The warmth of her body. But her scent wasn’t singular. Someone else had touched her. That smallest bit of perception irked him in some unexplainable way.

  Up in the dark duct work, she kept her face away from the small amount of illumination from his cell, but his heightened sight could make out the slender shape of her jawline and perhaps a faint
curvature of her lips. The cool air flowing through the vent blocked any infrared readings. “Come to set me free have you?” he called up to her, offering a playful grin.

  “Why on Terra would I do that?” she whispered back from the shadow of the duct work.

  “Perhaps it is my destiny to bring new peace to the land,” he gave his proclamation a rhetoric twist of teasing rather than try to convince her with a monologue.

  “False prophets like you are a credit for every count one could make on their hand.”

  Tannin shrugged but couldn’t stop the slight grin from deepening over his face. “Then why are you sneaking about in the air ducts?”

  “There are women aplenty on the base that would give up their credits for a run with a man of your looks. I know the secret way in and out.”

  His nose twitched at the shift in her scent. She wasn’t even close to confessing a truth, but the playful tone prevented the scent of aspersion from turning completely pungent. “And what of your credits?”

  There was a slight pause and he heard the deeper breath. “I already have someone to satisfy me.”

  Tannin’s amusement drained. He took another inhale of the deepening scent of subterfuge along with the stench of the other male on her. It wasn’t strong, but that only meant the man might not have been too close with her tonight or it could have been a lingering smell from a previous day. If the breeder had already given herself up, then his plans were doomed, and as far as he had learned, she was the last. “How is it you’re not in his bed this hour instead of peeking in on prisoners?”

  “He lives off base.”

  “You don’t say,” he murmured. The moment the clear-cut lie was spoken, Tannin picked up the pungent shift in her body’s musky scent. It lost its sweetness with it. It was one of the few times he liked it. “Well, come on down. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him and then you can report to the other women if I’m worthy of their credits or not.”

  “Fucking drenn. Is that all men ever think about?” The retort came as a surprise.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what he said that ruffled her feathers. She started the conversation by talking about pimping him out. Still, he found her saucy attitude humorous as well as stimulating. “You mean, there’s something else we should preoccupy our minds with?” Ruffled or not, he noticed the sweetness that she put out earlier coming back with the loss of her lies. Ruffled ego was healthy apparently, it kept her honest. He heard the soft sound in her throat and decided to push a few buttons to ruffle her more, “You’re not fucking anyone,” he spoke with a gotcha tone.

  “I am,” she spoke too quickly in her defense, “and even if I weren’t, it’s no business of yours.”

  Tannin grinned. He knew she’d been lying; now he knew of what part. “Show me your face,” he softened his voice, turning on the warm seduction in hopes it would lure her out of the shadow. Just enough of a glimpse so he could get more than a shape of her face or the few strands of wavy black hair that fell between the bars.

  She didn’t show herself. Didn’t speak either. After a long moment, he half wondered if she’d curled up and gone to sleep from an emotional overflow created by her sym that made her feel safe and content in his presence. A security she couldn’t afford to have amongst those she hid with; like an innocent, surrendering to the warm protection only he could offer.

  What the drenn?— Tannin grimaced at the thoughts not his own and quickly snapped his arms back, forcing his shoulder blades to pinch his own sym. The sharp movement delivered a shock that snapped it from the emotional shift with which it was attempting to overthrow Tannin’s own baser thoughts. He stilled, craning his neck to angle an ear towards the vent, listening carefully. Letting his hearing reach out farther. It was faint, but he finally detected her breath and how it measured out her still relevant nervousness. Next, he found her staggering, unsteady heartbeat. She wasn’t asleep. She was afraid. Of him.

  So much for her sym sedating her. Strange, given the sweet honeysuckle fragrance, which had returned and filled his nostrils, was so succulent it both aroused and sedated him at the same time. Why had it not done the same for her? “Why did you come?” he asked, noticeably serious now.

  “They want you freed,” she whispered.

  “So— uh— who’s they?”

  Guess it was the wrong question because immediately she was scampering down the ductwork and not nearly as quietly as she’d come. He fell silent, closing his eyes, trying to acquire a clear view of her face. Deep breaths still delivered her scent. His eyes had been only able to map out the line of her jaw, heat sensors that gave him a little more of a mental shape, but it was not enough to create her face in his mind.

  He wanted to see her face. See if she was as beautiful as she smelled. Would she kiss as well as her sent tasted? His eyes flashed open and he scowled, “Knock it off, old man. I have no intentions of falling in love with a Symbiote. She is merely a means towards my destiny.”

  Tannin dropped to the floor and stretched out, placing his hands under his head, allowing his body to revel in the scent he had gathered, but refused the emotions to join in as he drifted into a light sleep.

  Aari crawled as quickly as she could, trying unsuccessfully to not bang about too loud and give out her location. Once back in the passage, she hurried out, but rather than go to her quarters, she went off to where her transport scamper was stationed. A restored and well-maintained armored vehicle from old-world. The scamper was bulky compared to some of the other armored vehicles they used, but necessary in order to travel long distances safely and carry plentiful supplies. Attacks were part of everyday life; from the Blood Lords and from rogue colonists. Refugees, or Bandits, depending on how you looked at it were also a threat. But no different from the Skaddary, they were just people trying to survive without the controls of the Lords or the Militia.

  She climbed into the back, glanced out the rear window behind her then pulled a panel from the floor board and tucked her prize away inside, grateful when it actually fit. She replaced the panel, then wrapping up in one of the supply blankets she kept amongst her stock. She stretched out in the back and stared up at the roof of her vehicle, still seeing in her mind the clear blue eyes that had been looking up, waiting for her. How stupid could she be to go crawling in the air vents to spy on the man? What the hell was she thinking?

  But she knew the answer to that.

  She wanted to see if the man was worth saving and perhaps— no, she definitely hoped— wanted him to be someone special for her, because she was tired of being alone. But instead, she discovered he was only another man. It had been outright foolish for her to mention Them. He didn’t even know who They were.

  So then, why would They want a man, who didn’t even know about Them, to be freed, and at the risk of being discovered herself? It was hard to answer that one, given, she wasn’t entirely sure who They were herself.

  For some time, she thought perhaps They were the surviving priests from the temple, but how could she know for sure? They never showed themselves at all, and even if They did, she hardly remembered the faces of the priests, having never seen any of them again after the temple where she once lived, was destroyed.

  Her body felt heavy from the disappointment and the loneliness that refused to release her as she lost herself to an exhausted sleep; her mind drifting off— dreaming—

  ~~ “Well hello, little one,” the soft gentle words of a man spoke to her.

  Little Aari folded over her pinned legs and peeked out from under the slab of the collapsed altar to find the kindest elder face she’d seen, kinder still than the faces of the priests and tenders of the sacred pools. Somehow his voice managed to break past the pain she felt in her legs, still pinned under the slab of marble that had fallen on her when the altar collapsed during the attack. She could do little else but peer out.

  A gentle and warm smile melted over the lines in his face as he looked upon her tear-soaked eyes that peeke
d up at him through a trundle of black, wavy locks. “You can come out now, little one. They’ve gone, but we must leave lest they return?”

  Little Aari could only whimper as she looked out at the man. A closer look from him and he could see why. “Dear, cherished child. You are trapped.” He glanced around then brought his gaze back to the slab and laid a gentle hand on its surface. The stone hummed with an ethereal note then slowly lifted by no visible force she could see save for the touch of his palm. The large slab edged over and away from her legs before resting back down to the ground and went silent. Aari, despite her pain, managed to crawl out, but the bulges caused by the broken bones in both blood-soaked legs were a clear indication to the man she would not be able to walk on her own. Right away she found herself scooped up into his arms.

  She dared a glance over his shoulder to witness the aftermath as he bore her away. The bodies of the temple priests were laid out everywhere, many of them burned beyond recognition. The air reeked of their demise. Ash and death. Amongst the dead were also the bodies of the Symbiote hosts that lived at the temple just as she did. All forced to lay face-down on the floor— their spines, and the Symbiotai that rested within the spinal cord, severed so neither the host nor the Symbiotai survived.

  With a swift stride of his long legs, the elder rushed her from the great hall, down a narrow passageway and out one of the back entries.

  Once outside the ruined walls of the stone temple, he carried her down a path that took them through the farm fields, and down to a nearby river, leaving the dead and the peaceful world Aari once knew behind. When they reached the river bank, he placed her down on a soft patch of green grass, then brought some water for her to drink while he washed the blood from her legs. Little Aari watched as his expression kept changing, the way he felt around her legs— his hands confirming what his eyes tried to tell him— her broken bones were no longer threatening to break through flesh and the open gashes that had bled were gone. Rather, he found she had healed completely in the small amount of time it had taken him to bring her down to the river bank.