Anais Eternal

by Paige Graffunder

  "Are-are you going to kill me?" they whispered. I frowned and looked up at their reptilian face.

  "Why would I do that? I just fixed you," I replied. They shifted on their feet nervously, then looked up at me, their purple eyes rimmed in pink tears yet to spill over.

  "It's just that—" they faltered and looked down again, taking a deep breath before continuing. "If I have to die, I don't want to be inside. If I have to die, I would rather do it with the air on my scales, with this world," they gestured around them vaguely, "in my sights." They met my eyes again. “If I could have a choice at all, I would wish to never be caged again. If taking me prisoner is your plan, I would rather die, but please, just let me die outside.” Their tears had fallen and left pink streaks on their scaled cheeks. I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way.

  "I'm not going to kill you, Etachs, and neither will Tatiana. And if our conversation yields a different outcome, I will make sure your wishes are met. You are not our prisoner." I weighed my next words carefully, even now there were certain things a Fae could not say without invoking ancient magic, and I wanted to make sure that this creature was protected even if Tatiana decided to go against my wishes while I slept. “You are our guest.” I finished. Etachs considered for a moment, then nodded.

  "You have my thanks." Without another word, they stepped past me, taking the stairs sideways to accommodate their inverted knees. I sent a message to Ayesha through our bond, and she quickly swooped down from the branches above me and into the hole. After one more glance around, I descended the steps, withdrawing my magic from the tree as I went. The roots rumbled above me as the tree concealed our hiding place once more.

  I stepped into the room at the bottom of the steps and looked around. The space was not large, but nowhere near the smallest of our hiding spots. It was about 30 feet in diameter, and enough room between the floor and ceiling to stand. Etachs was hovering beside the stairs, nervous and waiting. Tatiana was sitting on a box of our supplies and glaring at them. Ayesha was atop a perch I had made for her the previous summer. “Tati, Etachs was worried that we would kill them, or hold them prisoner. I have invited them to be our guest, and they have accepted.”

  The tension in the air was palpable, guest-rights and hospitality were old Fae magic that could not be abandoned or broken. By making Etachs our guest if Tatiana tried to harm them in any way her own life would be forfeit. She was now obligated, as was I to provide food, shelter, drink, and aid unless Etachs proved an ungrateful guest. I didn’t think that would happen; the creature looked more terrified than we were. I could feel Tatiana’s rage rise again like a tsunami, and I didn't like it. Determined to break the tension, I strode across the room and dropped my pack off my back, stripping off my jacket and dropping it on top of the bag. I turned to face the center of the room and said "So... what a day, right?" Both Etachs and Tatiana looked at me with incredulity written on their faces. I felt my face burn, glad I hadn't yet dropped my glamour so the other two couldn't see it. "I-I only mean that it's not every day something like this happens..." I trailed off as the two of them kept looking at me with muted shock on their faces.

  Tatiana exploded off the box, striding toward me, the shock replaced with rage. "And what is it exactly that happened here, sister?" She hissed the last word, as though it were a curse she no longer wanted to be associated with. My instinct was to shrink away, but I fought it, looking at her levelly, but without challenge. "Because from where I am sitting," she continued, "It looks like we lost more of our kind, and Humans, to one of their hunting parties." She swung her arm around toward Etachs, an accusing finger extended at them like a knife.

  "And then when I had one in my sights and was ready to even the score, you stopped me." She was trembling in her indignation, her eyes narrowed and piercing. "Not only did you stop me, but you basically fucking exploded with magic all over the place. Despite knowing full well there was a hunting party out trying to kill us! I taught you how to control yourself, I told you how important it was, and here you are anyway, just flaunting how fucking killable you are!"

  As the last words left her lips her anger faded, and the rage was replaced with fear so deep it hurt me to behold it. Her shoulders slumped, her hand falling back to her side. "What would I have done if they had found us? If they had taken you? You're all that matters to me and you put yourself on the line for a murderous lizard with hair..." Etachs cringed at the insult, but wisely said nothing.

  Tatiana sighed and dropped her eyes to the floor. "And then you gave the beast guest rights? You bound me into service until we leave this place to one of the creatures responsible for our mother’s death. For the death of everyone who ever loved us. You can't just do things like that, Anais." She raised her eyes to mine again and the intensity in her words pierced me like a spear. "You're all that is to be protected, and I can't protect you when you do things like this." She waved her hand vaguely at Etachs again.

  I stepped forward before she could say more and wrapped her in my arms. She stiffened at my touch but didn't pull away. When the Devastation killed our Pod, I was still very much a youngling, and Tatiana had been much taller than me. These days we were roughly the same height, but she was still a few centimeters taller. I hugged her to me tightly, pressing my cheek to hers.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered, and I meant it. My apology wasn't necessarily for what I had done, but I was sorry that I had put her through so much anguish. After a few moments, she lifted her arms and wrapped them around my back, giving me a tight squeeze, before pulling away. We both turned to Etachs, who shrank against the wall making themselves as small as possible. I flinched at the sight; their fear of us was difficult to reconcile with all we had seen of their kind.I forced my furrowed brow to soften and spoke in a gentle tone. "You have the protection of guest rights, we cannot harm you, even if we wanted to. You do not need to fear us. If you try to harm us your life is forfeit. This magic is ancient, powerful, and ruthless. Do not test it’s limits. Now tell me, what were you doing there, Etachs? When we found you?" The Himlani raised their eyes to me. As different as their face was from my own, it was still remarkably expressive. Right now, they appeared to be weighing all that I had just said to them, replaying what Tatiana had just said to me, finding the confirmation that they sought they nodded their head a little.

  "I was running away," they whispered so softly it was barely audible. Tatiana and I exchanged a look.

  "Running away from who?" I asked. All I knew of the Himlani was their precision and lethality. What could hurt one as badly as this one had been hurt? What could possibly make one run?

  "From the others," Etachs said, in the same quiet whisper. "From other Himlani, that is," they clarified after we did not say anything.

  "But why?" Tatiana said, her eyes narrowed, and laser focused on the alien. I had shrunk before that shrewd glare many times, and did not envy Etachs’ position, being caught in Tati’s sights with nowhere to run.

  "Because..." Etachs started, before turning their purple eyes to us, pink tears again streaming down their face. Their expression so hopeless I felt my heart shatter at the sight of it. "Because they mean to kill me.”

  Built Not Born

  There was liquid. There was silence. There were flashes of light. There was pain, everlasting. There were thoughts both fleeting and lasting. There was the sensation of information being placed instead of learned. There was the growth of nerves, of bones, of scales. There was hair floating suspended in the liquid. There were the clicking tones of a language they never learned but understood. There were images flashing of a world lost to catastrophe, of trillions dead, of evolution. There was a sequence of understanding. There were more voices, more light, and then there was air, cold and harsh. There was gasping and choking. There was the use of muscles never stretched. There was an opening of eyes. There were clawed hands grasping, scrubbing, cleaning. There was life.

  ◆◆◆

  I glanced at Tatiana, her gaze was still focuse
d on Etachs, who stood pressed to the wall next to the stairs. She had an expression of open hostility set on her face, but I saw a flicker of uncertainty pass behind her eyes. I took a step back to the boxes and pulled one down, opening the lid. I rooted around inside it until I found what I was looking for. I removed the square of cloth and approached Etachs. They cringed away from me, but I held out the cloth to them anyway. They looked blankly from the cloth in my hand to my face and back again. I shook the cloth lightly.

  "Take it," I said gently. They looked at me puzzled for another moment. "It's to wipe the tears from your face." I shook the cloth again. They tentatively reached out a clawed hand, taking the piece of fabric more gingerly than I would have believed those claws capable of. My duties as host fulfilled for now, I stepped back to the boxes.

  They sniffed at the cloth; their eyes locked on me as I moved away. Etachs lowered their gaze and wiped the pink tears off their cheeks, dabbing daintily below their eyes, in a gesture so delicate if the circumstances had been different, I likely would have laughed. They looked at the now-stained cloth, then extended their arm back to me with it held gently in their claws. "Th-thank you," they stammered. I smiled and waved my hand dismissively.

  "Keep it." I put the lid back on the box and sat atop it. "So, your own people want you dead? Is that what you said?" Etachs shifted uncomfortably, not looking at me, wringing the cloth in their hands.

  "Yes," they replied without inflection, their eyes cast to the floor, shoulders slumped forward. Tatiana huffed an exasperated sigh.

  "Listen, Beasty, if you want us to not kill you after we leave this place and your guest right expires, you're going to have to be a little more forthcoming than that. If my sister is intent on your drawing breath, then I will oblige, but only for as long as you aren't a danger to her, to us. And right now, all I know is you can cry on command, so out with the story. I still have a score to settle and you're not helping me feel like leaving you alive is justified at this moment." I twisted on my seat and glared at Tatiana for a moment, before turning back to Etachs who was staring in wide-eyed horror at Tatiana.

  "B-but” the young one said you would not kill me inside, not in this hole, I just—" Etachs was rambling, their words coming fast, in a panic.

  I shot another glare at Tatiana. "I meant what I said, Etachs. You will not die in here. Besides, you have guest rights until we leave this place.” I turned to look pointedly at my sister as I growled, “Tatiana knows that, and would never jeopardize us by harming you in here." The Himlani found my face with their eyes, the terror still written across their face.

  "I have your word, Faerie?" they asked.

  "You have my oath, as my guest." I replied. Tatiana hissed. Faerie oaths were not lightly given and could not be broken. With my words, I had bound Tatiana further. Etachs would live if we were inside this place. "Now, why would your own want you dead?"

  Etachs nodded hesitantly, then lowered themselves to a seated position, their back against the wall, legs folded beneath them. "You know we are not born? That we have evolved past the biological imperative to reproduce. We have no—" they gestured at my body, "No organs with which to reproduce."

  I hadn't known that, actually. I knew they rarely wore clothing and that there were no apparent external shows of reproductive organs, but I had thought maybe, like some of the scaled creatures on our world, they laid eggs perhaps. But I nodded anyway, not wanting to interrupt their story any further.

  "In ancient times when our planet still lived and thrived, we had cracked our own genome and began to enhance some things and get rid of what was considered... unnecessary." They said the last word with a touch of scorn that was not lost on me. "As a result, the ancient ones looked dramatically different, they forced a rapid evolution, but they did not know enough. They went too fast, and every time they created a new generation that was, in their eyes, better than the last, they destroyed the previous information store. After 100 years of this, they had increased our life span, but our gene pool was dangerously shallow. They could modify genes, but they could not make new ones, you see?"

  I didn't.

  "The last of us that were born, were born... wrong. So, with the final generation of us created in this way, harvested from living hosts— um— parents?" they stumbled over the word. "I am sorry, I think that is the right word?" Their inquisitive look into my face almost made me weep. How could a person grow without a mother? A family? I had lost my mother very young, but I had Tatiana. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live without her.

  I nodded. "Yes, parents. A family" Etachs bowed their head in gratitude and continued.

  "They removed the elements of our DNA that would allow for further unauthorized reproduction. So, we are not born anymore."

  "Then how did you come to be?" Tatiana interjected.

  "I was grown here, during the initial contact. Once they figured out the other species here... hoomens?"

  "Humans," I corrected gently.

  "Sorry. Yes, Humans. Once my people discovered their genetics were compatible with ours, and that the gene pool was so young and relatively untainted, there were some authorized creations. I am a clone of a Hunter named O'Han, modified of course, but the base of my genetics was made from them."

  "I don't understand," I said. Etachs frowned again and thought. Before they could answer, Tatiana spoke, but very quietly, like she was trying to contain her emotions.

  "Remember when you were a youngling and I used to make you copy letters so you could learn our language in writing?" I glanced back at her. She hadn't moved, but her hands were now gripping her elbows hard enough that even her glamoured knuckles were turning white. Her eyes were closed.

  "Yes," I said slowly, frowning, not sure where she was going with this.

  "What Beasty means is that, instead of having parents, their body is just a copy of someone else's. Like copied letters on a piece of paper. Not the original. They were never born, they were made. Constructed." Tatiana said the last word like she had eaten something rotten.

  My frown deepened and I turned back to Etachs, but their cheeks were flushed with a pretty shimmering purple and their eyes had gone bright.

  "Yes!" They exclaimed. "Yes, that is exactly it!" They beamed a strange and reptilian smile at my sister, whose eyes were still closed, then turned back to me. "I am a copy! But not a true copy, there are some parts of me that are different. For example," they lifted their palm to me.

  "Look closely," they said, beckoning me forward. Tatiana hissed at me to stay away, but I ignored her, rising up from my seat and closing the distance. As I peered down into Etachs' hand, I could see that while the palm was still scaled, the pattern was not uniform. It looped and swirled. I turned my own palm over, my Human glamour still in place, and compared. I also had lines and loops and swirls on my palm. I looked back up at Etachs in surprise. They smiled at me. "See! Not a true copy!"

  I retreated back to the box I had been sitting on and regarded Etachs again. "But what would some lines on your palms have to do with your own kind wanting you dead?"

  "With each bit of genetics we borrow from the Humans, we gain some of their traits. Some are little things like that, but some are..." They trailed off, looking at the ground again, the happiness and excitement draining from their face. "Well... some are quite a bit bigger..."

  "Like what?" Tatiana growled.

  Etachs shrank back into the wall, their shoulders resuming their slumped demeanor. "It's hard to explain. We are an incredibly old species. And with that age, and messing around with our genetics, we have lost some things. Things you don't realize are precious until they are gone. Until there is no hope of getting them back. I know you think we are all monsters and, for the most part, you're right. But I am not one of them. When they introduced Human genes, they got some unanticipated consequences..." They trailed off again.

  "Foolish," Tatiana spat, scowling at Etachs. "Utterly foolish." She turned to me. "Did you know that the Humans tri
ed this God-meddling crap once?" I shook my head, rather perplexed by her hostile tone. I didn't think that Etachs had said anything that could justify this escalation in Tatiana’s anger. My sister was quick with her temper, but this sustained rage was more than I had ever seen. Every single word Etachs spoke seemed to make my sister’s fire burn hotter. I was afraid she would melt if this conversation continued.

  "Yeah, they discovered they could make copies of living things, did it with rabbits, sheep, camels, fish, you name it. We were fine letting them play with making copies of the beasts. But once they mapped their own genome, and started messing with their DNA, we had to intervene. It required decades of work, of influence, to get them back from the brink this idiot's—” Tatiana tilted her chin in Etachs' direction. “people gleefully jumped over.” My sister seethed on, her fists balled at her sides, knuckles white the muscles in her arms bunched with self-restraint. My own muscles felt weary just looking at her. “And now they have to kill the universe, trying to save themselves from their own stupidity." Tatiana shook her head, her whole face a picture of disdain.

  "Tati, that's not fair. It's not like Etachs did this," I said quietly, uncertain in the face of this Tatiana that looked more like a loaded weapon than my sister.

  "It doesn't matter. They are a product of it. We wouldn't be here with Beasty if their ancestors had two brain cells to rub together," Tatiana scoffed.

  "She's right, you know," Etachs said quietly. "We're only here because someone, eons ago, was foolish. And my species removed the parts of themselves that could have saved them. They did more than remove their physical traits, their susceptibility to disease. They removed their ability to feel, to connect, to empathize." Etachs hugged themselves. "They don't know love, or fear, or concern. They don't know what it is to feel emotional pain, to feel joy. They only know hoiw to feel superior, how to gloat in that superiority. They know they want to survive, and without the consequence of conscience, they will do whatever it takes to succeed. They want what you have. They want magic, they want life eternal."