Xenon nodded. She imagined he must be relieved to finally understand what she was saying. “And what passed with this sister upon your eighteenth solar? Did she die?”
“No,” Fensa answered on a wince. “You see, my Aunt Tu—really she’s my cousin, but in my family, we call everybody old enough to be your mom “aunt” no matter how they’re related to you. Anyway, Aunt Tu and her husband have this leadership camp, and though I didn’t want to go, my papa made me because he’s a Viking. So I did. And one night, Ola woke me up to go to the latrine with her. We got to talking afterward. I thought I was whispering, but I guess Aunt Tu and Grady were still up and they saw me…talking with Ola. They watched me with her for over an hour. I guess they were trying to figure out what to do about it.”
“I do not understand. Though my brother has little familial feeling for me, and I for him, I cannot imagine it being considered a terrible thing to converse with one’s sibling well into the night.”
Fensa clamped her lips, finding it hard to push out the next words. But somehow, she managed to force them out of her head and into his. “The thing is, no one can see Ola but me. She started off as an imaginary friend of sorts, but when my parents started to get worried about me still talking with her, I began pretending I couldn’t see her anymore. But I did. I always did.”
“Until I was eighteen. With Aunt Tu’s help, my parents committed me to a mental facility. And I was diagnosed with…well a bunch of stuff. But the main label that counted was schizophrenia. They gave me drugs. And Ola went away. So I guess they had a point. But then I missed her, so I stopped taking the drugs. And after I stopped taking the drugs, Ola came back, and I got caught up in a new obsession. Arizona has a time gate. I had this feeling I should go there. I can’t tell you why. But it was like Ola: undeniable to me, crazy to others. So after like a thousand escape attempts, I finally made it to the gate. I wasn’t going to say anything, I swear. I only wanted to look at it, to try and figure out why it was calling to me so insistently. But then the people from the facility caught up to me. They were running up the mountain toward me, and suddenly the words my papa had given me, but only for emergencies, slipped out. And now here I am.”
Xenon was quiet for a long time. So long, Fensa feared he might never ever talk again. But then he asked, “And this twin sister…do you see her now?”
Fensa shook her head. “No. But that might be a bad thing. I’m afraid. Like, really afraid I’ve had a full-blown mental breakdown. That you’re not real. That none of this is real. I mean, with my history, how can I be sure?”
Another digesting silence. Then more words appeared inside her head, “Perhaps you should ask.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My father suffered from similar delusions after my mother passed. It is not uncommon on our planet, and is referred to as ‘The Widower’s Madness.’ Often did he think he saw my mother. Admonishing him for not being reverent enough. Cursing him for giving her a second babe so that she should die after miraculously surviving my brother’s birth. My mother would come to my father with these accusations, not only when he slept, but also when he was awake, making it hard for him to perform his duties as king. After receiving his diagnosis, the doctors advised my father to ask his delusion if she were real. You see, delusions can make suggestions, and they can talk to you, but they cannot lie. If you ask them a question such as this, they will either deflect or be forced to tell you the truth. I would give you this same advice. If you fear I am not real, then ask me.”
She blinked. Mind a little blown by his acceptance of her back story, and his solution. “You’re saying I should ask if you’re real? And if you say yes, that means you are?”
“And if I attempt to distract you onto other subjects, that means I am not,” he added.
“Okay…” Fensa said, both her heart and voice tentative. Then she met his unblinking gaze and asked, “Are you real?”
“Yes,” he answered, almost immediately. “Yes, I am real. I have many titles, including Prince of Drakkon, Brother of the New King of Drakkon, and Son to the Old King of Drakkon. I cannot be chased away by drugs or reason. This, Female 7-133, you can believe as truth.”
With those words of reassurance, Fensa let out a deep sigh of relief. Believing in his existence outside her mind in a way she’d had not been able to believe in Ola’s.
“These words you believe?” he asked inside her mind. At least, it sounded like a question. His voice had a dark monotone quality that made it hard to tell question from statement of fact.
“Yes,” she answered. “I don’t know why I believe you, but I do.”
“Good. It pleases me to know you no longer have question concerning my reality.”
Her, too. Her, too. Especially because at long last, she had the answer to the question that had haunted her for years: where was Ola?
Ola, as the doctors had been telling her for years, was not real. Therefore, Ola’s whereabouts didn’t matter any longer because…she didn’t exist.
Fensa missed her sister, of course, but an odd solace stole over her. Her spirit lightening because this dragon, unlike the wolves she’d left behind, not only didn’t judge her but had just given her the first clean bill of mental health in her adult life. Of course, this still left two other questions still unanswered…
Where am I? When am I?
“Please. Please tell me whatever you know.” That was the thing. She couldn’t stand the not knowing. Fensa’s tone took on a throaty quality as she begged the dragon to tell her everything he knew. Even if the answers to her questions might horrify her.
He looked away. It was a simple act. But on an otherwise unblinking, expressionless dragon, his slight gesture seemed the equivalent of a clear statement that he was torn about how to proceed.
Sensing a weakening in his resolve, Fensa took his hand in hers. Thankfully not webbed—like his foot—and without a scale in sight. Really, it was the most human thing about him. And well designed, as if he’d taken the best things the human body had to offer, but ignored the other stuff like feet that didn’t help one swim or fly faster, and genitals that left a male’s baby makers exposed and at risk of injury, or worse.
Of all his parts, she found she liked his hands one most of all. And she pressed that oh-so-human hand to the side of her face, seeking comfort in it. In him.
“Please,” she whispered again. “You’re the father of my baby, and I don’t even know your name. Just give me something. Anything. Please.”
Just give me something. Anything. Please.
The begging was his undoing. The same as when she begged him to give her claim instead of handing her over to the Group 7 males. Female 7-133 sat naked upon his exam table, her chest flame burning with anxiety as she pressed his hand to the side of her face. He had no idea why she would do such a thing, yet this simple act of physical contact made him feel powerless to resist her.
As if he’d ingested a truth serum, Xenon found himself speaking. “My given name is Xenon, as your given name is Fensa. However, on my planet, I would not be referred as such. There, we use titles alone. For most of my life, my title was Second Prince of Drakkon. But shortly before I arrived here, my title changed. I am the second son of the former King of Drakkon. However, he died a few rotations ago, and now my brother, the former Crown Prince of Drakkon, sits upon our throne. He is the King of Drakkon, and I am now the Prince of Drakkon.”
He paused to see if any of his words made sense to her. Although she seemed to hail from an advanced civilization, he still found it hard to believe an upright primate would be capable of understanding advanced ideas, much less more complicated concepts like a line of succession.
And indeed, her eyes lowered, her chest flame reddening over with sadness. But when her eyes returned to his, instead of expressing confusion, she said, “I’m sorry for your loss. My father recently passed as well. Losing a father is hard. I’m sorry you lost yours.”
“I did not lose him, as you say. He d
ied. After a very long life. And he left behind two sons. Most would commend him for living a more excellent life than most.”
He said these words because they were true. Yet at the same time, his chest flame suddenly flared with anger. “Yes, my father lived a long commendable life. But he sent me away on his deathbed for worry of what my brother might do to me after his death. And then he died before our ships reached your planet,” he confessed to Female 7-133.
Xenon remembered, then, the ugly flame that had lit his stomach and chest for his first few rotations on this planet. A strange loneliness overtook him because both he and his father had known this trip was more exile than opportunity. “Sometimes my flame burns with anger toward my brother.”
“Resentment,” she supplied. “Because he was so busy playing Cleopatra, you never got to say goodbye to your father.”
“I do not know this Cleopatra.”
“She’s a queen from long ago. One of the last Egyptian jackal shifters. Famous for being a great seductress, but even more interesting, I think, is that she was the lone survivor of a bloody sibling rivalry for the throne. I’m pretty sure she was exiled for a while, too, but it’s been so long since Aunt Alisha told me that story, I can’t be sure.”
The female must have sensed his confusion because she broke off and said, “Tell me more. About you. About your home.”
“You have my title, so there is little more to know about me save my home. I hail from Drakkon, a planet about one-hundred-and-eighty thousand wing hours from here—”
He stopped when her flame sparked with confusion. “You do not understand the concept?” He’d been afraid of this; that the female anomaly, despite her high level of intelligence, would still be unable to fathom things like planets, or space travel.
But then she said, “I understand everything but the term ‘wing hours.’”
He thought about this and reluctantly confessed, “I have no way to explain this to you. It is a unit of measurement based on the average speed of drakkon flight. However, we came to this planet in ships that also used that unit of measurement. I am not sure how to put it in terms a non-drakkon would understand.”
Her lips turned down at his words, but her flame did not change color. And he realized she was trying to puzzle the issue out when she asked, “Does your planet share the same sun as our planet?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then you’re in our solar system. And is your planet hotter or colder than this one?”
“Much, much hotter. We call it the fire planet. It has a daytime temperature more than eight times this planet’s highest temperature. And at night it drops to nearly three times the coldest cold of your planet.”
“Does it have an atmosphere?”
“Yes, of course.”
Female 7-133’s brow creased at his answer, but her flame continued to burn bright with more curiosity than confusion, so he continued to what would certainly be the more upsetting part for her.
“Our planet has always used yours as—I suppose you would call it a sort of hunting ground. A place to cull fresh meat, since we possess no animals on our planet. Only nutrients, like those in the tubes. And the anthrohomonids are the most desired meat of all…and now does your flame burn upset. This is why I had no wish to tell you these things, Female 7-133.”
“Well think about it. You just told me you guys come to this planet to hunt and eat us,” she answered. “Can you blame me for being at least a little upset?”
“Not you,” he felt compelled to correct her. His stomach turned at the thought of eating one of the lupins. “Your hybrid species is one we don’t find appetizing. However, our Royal Geneticist experimented with a few anthrosplices. Your species was meant to be a gift to my father. To assist in the royal hunts.”
Now her eyes open and closed, so rapidly, the action felt more deliberate than biological. “Okay, are you trying to say you came back here to use my people as hunting dogs?!”
Much as he’d anticipated, he did not like the turn this conversation was taking. Her flame burned offended and appalled. Which was why he rushed to inform her, “No, that is not the reason my team returned here. This Fenrir you mentioned before. Can you tell me whom you believe him to be?”
Her head jerked a bit, and her flame sparked with surprise. “Um, ok. Fenrir. He’s the Norse god of werewolves. He’s also my father’s god—one of many. My mother believes in a single deity, though.”
Xenon’s flame flared triumphant, a few more hypotheses falling into place. “Yes, it’s just as I thought. Your father has been god-spoken.”
“God-spoken?” she repeated.
Yes, god-spoken—which was just as easy to explain to another with no concept of drakkon culture as “wing hours.”
Instead of trying, he said, “On Drakkon, Fenrir is drakkon for Royal Geneticist. It is possible your father hails from the original experiment group the Royal Geneticist worked with in Zone 2. As I said, he created your kind as a gift to the King. However, over time, the Royal Geneticist came to feel much the way you do about our hunts. He has petitioned the Drakkon court to give this planet sanctuary status which would permanently eliminate it from the hunt. He believes if left to your own devices, your species, both the anthros and lupins, have the capacity to evolve into a civilization on par with our own. And because of this, he feels our hunts would irreversibly disrupt a native species capable of higher thought.”
“Irreversibly disrupt,” she repeated.
“Yes, and for this reason am I here with a team of about one hundred other drakkon. We have been tasked with conducting a 1000 solar rotation study of your species.”
She shook her head. “But I don’t understand. Why would you need to study us? We already have a civilization. At least we did, before—whatever turned Earth into a frozen post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
Now, it was his flame’s turn to burn with discomfit. He’d known some of his explanations about the origins of her species would confuse and anger her. But he imagined what he was about to tell her would truly distress her, without a flame of doubt.
“Female 7-133. Do you understand that my species has a longer lifespan than yours?”
“Yeah, I got that when you told me you were over 2000,” she answered.
“But again, it should be noted I am relatively young by Drakkon standards,” he explained gently.
The female repeated the deliberate opening and closing of her eyes. Then said, “So you guys live a really long time. I guess that makes sense. My father’s time feels like a long time ago. But if your Fenrir’s still alive…”
He resisted the urge to sigh steam. She was proving herself not to be unintelligent. But… “Female 7-133, my advanced tools have confused you,” he told her, keeping his voice as calm as he could. Even if speaking to her about these matters broke almost every mission protocol he’d been given for interacting with the native population. “Please, show me several images as you did before. Show me a day in your life.”
She hesitated. But then he began to see the pictures again. An alarm of some sort was buzzing. From his mate’s point of view, he saw himself wake to a hot drinking vessel of brown liquid on top of a small box. He took a sip, then disappeared into a room. This part appeared to be censored because his mate’s thoughts lit with embarrassment before the mind’s image emerged, fresh and clean, in a simple short-sleeved shirt and a pair of what looked like short pants. He then walked through the door of a single room with a bodily evacuation facility, down the hallway, to a room filled with other lupin hominids. They were gathered around what looked like long examination tables, set low to the ground with platforms for sitting. But instead of undergoing medical procedures, they ate what looked like meat, an unknown yellow substance, and a food composed of some manner of brown plant. After this, he and a few other lupins gathered in a group with a man wearing a white coat. This being her viewpoint, he could not see anyone’s flame, but he sensed through her knowledge that the man in the white
coat was not flesh-and-blood “real”, but something called an avatar. One who visited with this group because he charged with overseeing their mental health.
This avatar confirmed Xenon’s hypothesis. “That is satisfactory,” he told her.
Then because it had seemed to give her some comfort before, Xenon placed a hand on her cheek. “What you showed me is clear evidence of an advanced civilization. Not one as advanced as my own, but an advanced one nonetheless.”
“Great! Then you have your answer to Fenrir’s petition. You can go back and tell the others we’re a viable species.”
“I could, but they would not accept my word as truth. Because according to our early calculations, it will take nearly half a drakkon’s lifetime for the advanced lifeforms of this planet to accomplish the level of sophistication you have shown me.”
“Half a dragon’s lifetime,” she repeated. He could see the fear and panic burning in her chest, as bright as when she was first brought to him. “Exactly how long do dragon’s live?”
“Approximately twenty thousand of your planet’s revolutions around our sun.”
“Oh, God…”
And though he braced himself for her flame to redden with distress, it cooled instead, as if something unfathomably cold had washed over her.
“I cannot tell if you are upset, or do not understand my words.”
“Both.”
“Do you wish for me to explain this to you more slowly?”
The female shook her head. “Sorry. Where I come from, we say we don’t understand something when what we mean is we don’t want to understand. But yeah, I get what you’re saying. I didn’t go forward in time; I went back. Like, so far back, my father’s Viking Age divorce code doesn’t work on the gate. Because it hasn’t even been created yet. And that’s why you don’t get half the stuff I say. Most, if not all, of my references happened a hell of a long time from now. Including poetry and sarcasm and videogames and books and just about everything I love. And so, yay! I haven’t had a complete mental breakdown. I don’t have to worry that my civilization was blasted back into the stone age. I’m in the actual Stone Age. My aunt, the historian, would be totally freaking out if she’d landed here. Like totally gassed. Too bad…”
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 27