11
Fásach had barely spoken to Roz outside of meals and equipment fittings since the Mummer had picked them up. Instead, he’d spent his time making sure Safia and Misi felt some semblance of normalcy. They’d brawl with their pillows and dolls, practice using their holotabs for typing, study with a basic tutoring app for venandi kids, that sort of thing. And while they snoozed watching educational vid streams, he’d sneak away to face Lugh twice a day.
So it wasn’t as if he was avoiding Roz and the conversation they needed to have. She even hung out with his daughters every day in between downloads and meandering walks around the ship. It drove him nuts, if he was being honest. There he was, left to stew with the chant rut, rut, rut repeating in his mind while the undertones of his symphony strengthened, worming into her words.
The next day, though, was the last full day they’d have on the ship. The girls were pestering Traveler on the bridge, Fásach wasn’t covered in blood or sweat… Now was his only chance to discuss his transition and the implications of—
Pacing outside of her room, he huffed with annoyance. Even his thoughts were awkwardly formal. He needed to just get it over with.
He stopped and requested access before he could pace a groove into the floor. The door opened immediately, Roz sitting on her bed, her fingers caught amongst the growing tangles of her tresses. When she smiled at him, his heart thumped against his chest with force.
“Hi, Fásach!” she said, waving with enthusiasm. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Oh?” He blinked, caught off guard. “Did you need me for something?”
“No, I just like seeing you.” Her voice tinkled like windchimes.
Fásach fought back a groan. Forge ahead. “I was hoping to talk to you about something… sensitive. Can I come in?”
Roz scooted over on the bed and patted the mattress beside her. Fásach sat next to her with a deep sigh. Why did this feel like giving Safia the matehood talk?
“What’s the matter? Your vitals are elevated,” Roz asked as the door closed. “Can I do anything?”
“Maybe.” Fásach pricked the pad of his opposite hand with his claws, brow creased. “Have you gotten a chance to learn about the yiwren yet?”
A slow, brilliant smile lifted Roz’s mouth. “Yes, I did. I learned about fluidity and Byddie—” Fásach snorted with amusement at the nickname for his homeworld. On Roz’s lips, it sounded like the name of a childhood friend. “And your fur! I spent a lot of time on that. There isn’t anything at all about how to take care of my silk so far, but I saw that yiwren just brush their tresses with their claws, so I’m giving it a try.”
Roz blew a curl from her forehead as Fásach studied her face nervously.
“And you learned about the transition?” he asked with a stone lodged in his throat.
She nodded, palms propped on her ankles. “You’ve been transitioning, right? Your dewlap is smaller, and your arms are thicker. Plus, all of your clothes look more like they fit.”
Fásach nodded, leaning his elbows on his knees. He was bulking up, but not much. His biceps butted up against his forearms as he bent his head to his knuckles, and his thighs were thicker…
But that was it. No thicker fur or longer tresses. His fangs hadn’t dropped either. It would seem like an impressive change to any other species, but for a yiwren, it was paltry. Almost inconsequential.
“It’s not fast enough, Roz,” he admitted. “You remember where we’re landing?”
“On the ice cap?” she said as if answering a test question. Fásach nodded.
“The moon’s small, so it won’t take long for us to travel into warmer territory, but I’ve spent half my life on a volcanic rock. My pelt’s thin. I need the thicker fur. I need to be able to eat raw meat and lug the girls around in their vital pods.”
“I can help with some of that too, you know. I’m stronger than I look.”
Fásach took a steadying breath. “You’re right, Roz. You can help,” he confirmed with a quick glance.
Roz smiled again, pleased that she was being included. Her emotions were written on her face like the Xenoden’s fluorescent sign. “Good! Tell me how.”
Fásach licked his lip. “Basic survival and sparring bring on the change more slowly than… than other things.” He cursed himself for chickening out, just when he was about to say the word.
“Like what things?”
He creased his brow. “Do you have self-defense protocols, Roz?”
“Hmm.” Roz went blank, retreated into herself. She returned with a flicker of her eyes as they recalibrated, focusing on his face. “Not self-defense, but related protocols, maybe. I have struggle, resist, cry, beg—”
“Stop! Fuck.” Fásach jumped to his feet, hands trembling. It twisted his gut that some of that made his cock pulse with interest. He resumed his pacing the same as if he were standing outside her door, with barely two strides of floor space in the tiny room. “I can’t do this.”
But Roz shrugged, unaffected. “I don’t think they’re bad, Fás. From what I understand, a lot of clients like those protocols. Or I have slap, boss, demand, bite… oh, and a random safe word generator–”
“Do you?”
“Huh?”
Fásach stopped pacing, staring down at his companion with an intensity that bordered on anger. “Do you like those protocols, Roz?”
She shrugged, color rising to her cheeks. “I’ve never used them before, so I don’t know. Thank you… for asking.”
Fásach stared at her, his heart hammering into his sternum like a battering ram. Mouth opening and closing, Roz linked her fingers together in a nervous knot.
“It’s not a priority of my coding for me to enjoy them, so I never thought anyone would ask.”
Fásach sighed, rubbing the velvet of his forehead. His jaw creaked from how hard he clenched it, so he sat with a bounce, thumb pressing up against his chin to relieve the pressure. “Have you had any…” Rapists? Creeps? Maybe those words would cut too deep into her, so he decided to use her phrasing instead. “Clients?”
Roz shook her head. “Rosy has memories, but they’re fuzzy for me. Just voices and sounds. But my unit is fresh off the factory line. Well—” She looked down at herself with a little laugh that eased the tension. “A nano-foam did attempt to eat me alive, so maybe I’m not so fresh anymore, but you know what I mean.”
Fásach smiled.
“...There was an overseer, though,” she said with discomfort. Fásach’s ears flattened, his hand curling into a fist. “He was in the middle of-of quality control when Imani and Vindilus ran after my originator.”
“The memory you showed me,” Fásach growled, rolling one shoulder. “The venandi that Mijka yanked away.”
“Yes. He touched my breasts and was testing the heat between my legs when—”
Fásach stood again, baring his teeth. He snapped them as he breathed in and out, trying to rein in the indignation and disgust. His fur nearly burst, and without conscious thought, he began to pace again.
He had been a good boxer and wrestler, but he’d never craved violence before, a concerning turn of events.
No, a predictable turn. He”d never gone into rut before, but it was on the horizon for him now, and nothing fed the need quite like war. He wanted to mount the man’s head on a stick and park him right out front of Roz’s room. He wanted to serve the man to her on a platter. To witness her scratch out her own vengeance on the gift he”d given her, then drown in the gifts she”d surely give him in return for such a glorious hunt.
There was no way he could ask her to do what he needed now. Not after learning that she had been used like that. He wouldn”t contribute to that basket of horrific memories in any way.
“Absolutely not,” he growled to himself.
“You mean I can’t help?” Roz tilted her head like a pup, her light of excitement dimming.
Fásach’s eyes widened. Unbelievable, really. She was so sweet and genuine. He rubbed his facial velvet and the back of his neck in an attempt to flatten his own hackles.
“Maybe slapping and biting?” he blurted, trying to thread the needle as his feet picked up their pacing again. He chuffed with bitter amusement. “Gods know I deserve it. It could be therapeutic for us both. Should we try that? Or maybe I should download all those bullshit vids people swear make it go quicker.”
Stuck in the thick mud of his own thoughts, Roz caught Fásach off guard when she stood up on her bed and spun him around. She grabbed him by the scruff and slapped him hard enough that a bright white light exploded in his vision. He barked with surprise, and then she…
She bit him.
Hard. On the neck, and with enough pressure that he yelped. Her soft palms and fingertips pinched into his pelt, but unlike sparring with Lugh, the pain sent a bolt of searing excitement through his belly. He pushed her back against the wall behind her bed, climbing onto the mattress and bearing down on her with his own mouth and hot breath. When he slid his claws into her tresses and yanked her head back, she grunted, wide eyes finding his fangs and sticking to them as he showed them off with a growl.
“What’s wrong, Fás?” she breathed, her voice strained, smoky and alluring. “Are you going to fight me or are you a helpless pup? Too afraid to take what you want, is that it?”
Fásach’s snarl stretched open, exposing black gums and a wide, pink tongue. He pressed his face to Roz’s neck, right where her pulse sprinted as fearfully as a prey-fluid doe. Of course, she was right on all counts. He was helpless. Afraid. He wanted her so badly he couldn’t see straight. She was sweet hellfire, and he was burning, burning…
“Fruit basket!” she gasped in her own voice, her esophagus bobbing against his cheek as she swallowed. Fásach blinked, stumbling back. He plummeted off the bed and his shoulders thunked against the door, arms outstretched with his claws scraping into the walls with shock. The room spun as she spoke with her fingers over her thick lips. Something about a safe word maybe, checking on him, gingerly touching her bite mark on his neck…
But the sound of her voice wasn’t just laced with his symphony. It swayed to and fro like a pendulum, almost as if he could see the music. It was fuzzy, blurred just slightly, and his inner ear swooped like the Mummer was tossing side to side in a storm. Too unsteady to stand, he slid down the door, not sure which way was up.
“Fás! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry I scared you! I activated my biting and slapping protocols like you asked, but maybe I misunderstood or-or–”
He scrunched his eyes closed and grabbed her hand, teetering on his haunches. “It’s okay,” he panted. “It’s just…” Harmonic vertigo. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
Roz wilted, lowering her face. “I’m so sorry, Fásach. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“It is.”
His heart skipped. Was he talking about harmony with another person or her stunt? He whined like a pup when he admitted to himself that both were true. Being a loner wasn’t natural for the yiwren and he was no exception. It was half the reason he joined the guild, hoping it could replace what he’d lost.
Fásach pressed his head back against the door and smacked it hard. The distortion was still there. Undeniable and disturbing. “Sorry for doing this to you.”
“How can I help? I’ll do anything to help.”
“Just give me a minute.” He leaned his head back against the door with a huff as his balance swung like a pendulum.
Roz bit her lip and leaned back. “Okay.” Then she waited, hugging her knees. But she couldn’t hold off, taking in a sharp breath to speak. “I meant it when I promised I would get us to the colony. Anything it takes.”
Fásach opened his eyes just enough to meet her determined, na?ve stare, aware that they were each having a different conversation.
“So will I.”
He swallowed hard, eyes lidded with interest, the fan of his lashes obscuring his vision. Maybe… maybe harmonic vertigo would be enough.
What yiwren in history had ever believed that crock of shit? He creased his brow, ears pulling back.
“What I mean is, I’ll make sure my intentions are clear.”
“Here, let me help you up.” Roz smiled and offered him a hand. “Do you think you can stand? Your vitals are evening out.”
Fásach took her hand and twisted it to see her palm. It was so different from his. So thin, covered in crisscrossing creases like a hjarna with all her green veins visible against the surface. He brushed his thumb claw against her skin, then let her pull him to his feet with a heave.
“There!” she said brightly, trying to diffuse the moment. “Right as rain.”
“What does that mean?”
Roz paused, then shrugged, her cheeks turning red. “I don’t know. But I know it means that things are right in the world.”
Fásach huffed, disbelieving. Of all the things for her to say when her voice chimed like so many lovely bells with harmony…
“Maybe they are.”
?
I stood outside Fás’s quarters, fingers interlocked, squeezing each hand this way then that. It was late, and according to Rosy’s memories, most children would sleep early, but I needed to talk to him about the niggling thought repeating through the ribbon of my LMem like a glitch.
What if he didn’t want to change?
His vitals had been erratic all day. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on his holotab, but I couldn’t help seeing his echoes as they raced through the Mummer’s river. More like I couldn’t stop looking up at them. It should have been easy to simply not look at the ceiling, but as I stood in front of his door, I saw exactly the same thing. Thready vitals. Public network searches on transitioning vids. Hastily muted audio.
Fásach was definitely awake.
I took a deep breath and reached out to his linguitor.
[Link established.] “May I come in?” I asked when the connection beeped in my aural sensors.
“Roz?” Fásach murmured, his voice deeper and quieter than normal.
“Oh! Yes.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I thought you’d know it was me.”
“You don’t have an iden-number. Pretty sure you bypass the whole comm system,” he hedged.
The door slid open, dim light from the hallway spilling into the room. Fásach sat in a nest of pillows and blankets on the ground between two dark bullet-shaped pods. Safia and Misila snored softly from within, the younger pressing the tail of a roly-poly advenan doll against her nose. Fásach ran his claws through his tresses and hugged his knees with a loose grip, motioning for me to come inside.
“Sorry for intruding,” I whispered, sitting cross-legged just outside of his nest.
“You don’t need to whisper,” Fásach said quietly. “Our place had thin walls and Huajile never sleeps. And you aren’t intruding.” His brow drew together. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you abou—”
[Priority] “Me too,” I interrupted, leaning forward on my palms. With conviction, I held his blue eyes. In the dark room, his horizontal pupils had blown open, so they were nearly round. “You don’t need to transition if you don’t want to, Fásach.”
One of his brows hiked up high on his forehead. His ears fell back with a mixture of hesitation and confusion.
“You don’t need to change who you are,” I insisted, holding up my hand to keep him quiet. “I can do a lot of heavy lifting if I can charge more often, and my digestive system is universal, which means I can test out foods before you eat them now that I’ve got yiwreni profiles in my database. I also installed some hand-to-hand combat and trap-setting protocols this afternoon. If you want, I have enough space to add weapon-handling and stabilization softwa—”
“Stop.” Fásach covered my hands with his, the thick pads of his palms calloused from years of dry heat and work. He squeezed my knuckles. “A yiwren is both predator and prey by nature. Everything in between. Moving further down either end of the spectrum doesn’t change who I am or my sense of self-worth. It’s not tied to gender or sexual orientation, likes or dislikes, authority or rank… I’m just,” he breathed a laugh. “I’m just me, Roz.”
The way he echoed my own feelings about myself resonated. I closed my mouth and swallowed the rest of my words. “Just you.”
He nodded. “Honestly, I’m more comfortable in my pred state anyway. I went prey for Safia and Misila when their mother died, and it was a huge learning curve.”
“Oh?”
He scratched his ear bashfully. “Pred state makes it harder to tell if food is rotten. I was worried, since cooking was new too.”
I tilted my head, my mass of silk shifting sideways. “So that’s not what’s making your vitals so unstable?”
There it went again. Fásach’s heart rate spiked, and I pointed at his chest as if singling out the culprit of a crime. He licked his teeth with a grimace.
Instead of answering, he twisted away on his seat and reached his arm back for an open bag on the ground. When he returned, he held out a square of thick plas, all but one inch printed into a dozen evenly spaced long teeth.
“We need to detangle your tresses,” he said, motioning for me to spin around. “Otherwise they’ll get matted, and you’ll have to shear them off.”
With worry, I dug my fingers into the mass of silk that felt thicker at the base of my neck. “Is that the koom?”
He smirked. “Comb. Technically it’s a pick. We’ll use this to get some of the tangles out, but you shouldn’t use it too much. Otherwise it’ll hurt your tresses.”
“I can learn and then do it myself, so I don’t bother you.”
Fásach blinked at me, then glanced at the pick, his ears flattening. “Do you mind if I do it for you? I’ll teach you, but…” He cleared his throat. “Yiwren like to groom each other. I haven’t gotten to do that in a long time.”
My face prickled, blood rushing beneath my skin. I smacked my cheeks lightly, honored that Fásach would ask such a personal thing of me. “Okay. If it makes you happy. But if it’s a burden, I will do it myself.”
I turned around and Fásach scooted closer, his blankets butting up against my back. He separated out sections of my silk, tying the majority of it out of the way with strips of an old shirt he ripped apart with his claws, murmuring instructions and reasons.
[Recording]
This kind of fabric is better for wet tresses than normal towels.
Scrunch, don’t rub.
You want to tie up your tresses when you charge so the strands don’t get stuck in the port.
Use oils on the lengths to keep them springy. No, not motor oil.
Use the pick, then run the curls through with your claws. Er, fingers.
Every scrap of precious information he gave me, I stored away in a piece of my LMem, committing the experience to memory with my highest definition sensors. I kept my eyes closed and my vitals low so that the light scrape of his claws and the tingle in my scalp took priority over all other sensations, permeating the warmest depths of my body. I felt more receptive and relaxed, as if any touch against my skin would be pleasant, and a purr of satisfaction escaped my throat.
Then a thought struck me, and my eyes popped open, Fásach’s claws running through a freshly detangled section of curls at the nape of my neck. The burn in my cheeks became a burn of embarrassment that I remembered from Rosy’s biggest arguments and mistakes. I grabbed Fásach’s hand against my neck to stop him.
[Analysis] He hadn’t gotten to groom or be groomed in a long time.
“My turn,” I breathed.
“What?”
I turned around to see his wide-eyed expression. “Isn’t it my turn to groom you?” I hesitated, unsure if my deduction was correct. “Or is that not how it works?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Please?” I turned around fully to face him, sitting on my knees. Though emotions and expressions were coming more easily to me every day, I still had trouble interpreting motivation. Emotions were coded into me as a sort of performance, but other than complying with instruction, I was built to be devoid of my own reasoning. Persuasion, deception, the general why of things were elusive concepts. Especially for myself. “I want you to feel good because… you make me feel good. Is that not acceptable?”
“...Are you sure it’s because you want to, Roz?” Fásach asked with hardened concern. “It’s not because you—” His tongue darted out of his mouth, snagging a fang, then disappearing just in time for him to snap his teeth together with a solid thunk of hesitation.
I didn’t recognize the expression, but I knew where his train of thought had gone. I lowered my gaze to my fisted hands, and the boneless ease of his grooming dissipated with the ratcheting of tension in my chest.
“I can’t help that I was born a doll,” I reminded him. “Does it bother you that much?”
Fásach growled and snapped his teeth together with more force. “No,” he said with finality. “But I don’t want to take advantage of you. Earlier today, when I asked you about biting and slapping, you—”
Safia rolled over in her pod with a big sigh that made her mandibles quiver. We both watched her, frozen, until her breath deepened into sleep once more.
“You used your doll protocols for me because you thought that’s what I wanted, but Roz…” Fásach continued more quietly. “I never want you to confuse me for a… client. Not because you’re bad, but because I don’t want to use you. You aren’t obligated to do anything but try to get us to Renata. Ever.”
Something hot in my stomach gurgled up. A feeling of… indigestion? No, indignation. I snatched Fásach’s hand and bit the soft spot between his thumb and index finger, baring my teeth with a scrunched nose. He yipped and jumped backwards, but I held on with both my hands on his wrist and slid into the blankets and pillows after him. I didn’t want to give up my hold, so when I toppled forward, I caught myself with an elbow near his hip and bit him harder. Only once I’d thoroughly drooled all over his velvet knuckles did I let go.
“Scocite!”he swore, shaking out his hand as I began disentangling myself from his long legs and blankets.
“That,” I panted, wiping my mouth on his knee, “was because I’m mad at you.” His ear twitched as he rubbed the distinct teeth marks I’d left behind. “Using my protocols doesn’t mean I’m on autopilot! I’m not a-a sex bike or-or a dildo that you just flip a switch and–”
“Mara, shhhhh,” Misila groaned. She kicked at her blanket, one frustrated toddler sob bubbling out of her chest. Fásach slapped his hand over my mouth as she complained at her mother in her sleep. I stopped breathing, instantly aware that I’d been too loud. When neither girl opened her eyes, we both sighed with relief and his hand slipped away.
“You’re right,” Fásach murmured near my ear. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“It’s fine. I need to get used to it,” I said, swallowing a bitter pill. “When we get to Renata, who knows if they’ll accept me? My originator… I don’t think she was a good person near the end.”
We fell silent, and I listened to my own heart beating. Fásach swallowing. The mingled rhythm of our breath. He opened his mouth once, twice, wet his lips, angled his face towards mine… Then he righted some of the curls around my face rather than speaking.
“Why are you sleeping on the floor, by the way?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I can’t sleep without the girls snuggling into me anymore. I feel hungover the next day when I try,” he admitted. “You need to tie this up tonight before you charge. Put the shirt neck around your hairline like a headband. Don’t forget.”
“Could I try? Snuggling,” I asked in a small voice. Fásach froze. “And grooming. They’re things you miss about being with other yiwren, right?”
“Thank you for offering,” he managed. “But you should charge. We drop tomorrow.”
“I can be the big spoon, so you aren’t tempted to use me.”
Fásach squeezed his eyes shut and groaned with a whimpered huff at the end. Ah, so he’d thought I wouldn’t know why he was turning me down. Maybe I didn’t understand motivation well, but I knew a lot about having sex. At least, in theory.
He shook his head, then nudged his face against the underside of my jaw.
“Enough,” he huffed, ruffling my curls. “Go charge so you’re topped off for tomorrow.”
“You’re right.” I stood up and snuck out of the nest, careful not to bump the girls in their vital pods. “But it’s cold where we’re landing.”
“It is,” Fásach confirmed.
“And my coat isn’t nearly as warm as yours.” I stopped just short of the door sensor and looked back to meet his eyes in the dark. They reflected back at me, iridescent discs like a hunter watching me at night.
Perhaps Fásach thought I couldn’t see him, but I could see just fine. He licked his teeth in a slow, deliberate way, lingering on the points of his canines as his stare coasted over my bare limbs, and I remembered a concept that had come up more than once in the data packet the Mummer had given me.
Harmony.
Like a lot of migratory animals, the yiwren apparently had the ability to sense or even hear the magnetic field of their planet. Over time it evolved into a more sensitive instinct, affecting their relationships with others. Harmony was when they found dynamic balance with another person.
Dynamic being the important part.
If Fásach wanted to become predatory, I could help him transition more quickly if I was prey-like, or maybe even a threat. Now that I understood he was more comfortable in his predatory state anyway, I was more than willing to help him however I could. Biting, fighting, hissing, punching. Whimpering, bending, struggling, pleading. Whatever he needed, I was happy to switch on a dime. Because helping Fásach didn’t feel like I was a pay-to-play slot machine; I felt like a dance partner. A wingman.
When he didn’t say anything, I pushed him a little further, my voice apprehensive despite the exhilaration coursing through my veins. “Are you willing to keep me warm, Fásach? If I need you.”
His ear twitched, claw sinking into the plush bedding with a growl that was definitely subconscious. “You will need me.”
“Yes, I think so.” I paused for a heartbeat, then waved at the dark room with a bright smile. “Well, good night!”
Then I stepped into the relative light of the hall, turned immediately for my room, and spent the rest of the night charging, thinking about Fásach and how to help him transition faster. The look he’d given me in the dark that made me feel powerful and warm. The oily crackle of meat on a grill in Little Havana and licking lime off my lip. About how the colony smelled like mulch and the humidity was thick enough to drink. The way my feet carried me from one home tower to another, and the hilly footpaths that made me pant for want of exercise.
Even though my systems were locked down for charging, my heart raced. I’d lulled myself into a glitch of thought. Running and running up those black dirt paths lined with long black grass, never reaching the important thing I was meant to reach. Whoever was at the top of that hill…
They needed to be warned.