Epilogue #2
I’m not afraid of a lot of things… But I am afraid of getting an infection and so is Krellix.
And childbirth itself kills women. I would’ve trusted one of the physicians left at the encampment if I’d had no other choice.
I could have used the medbay in one of the spaceships docked.
But I have another option, one I like much better.
I have friends. Trusted friends. Friends who’ve already been through it and, fortunately, have the technology to help me through it as well.
Thankfully, this trip isn’t happening at the worst time. The encampment, though always going through some small crisis or another, has a steady supply of water now.
Food is still a partial issue. More people have arrived over the months, mainly coming from smaller camps that were created from the chaos at the beginning.
There are many of them, I’ve realized, all scattered, made up of clusters of ships, big and small, that happened to land near each other.
Not everyone knew where to go, and most didn’t even know there were several military operations here to begin with.
Those that risk the trip of leaving their own camps are always in search of a bigger, more established settlement, like ours.
It's those that can’t risk the trip, those that don’t have enough fuel to fly their vessel or are impaired, or are just plan lost, that are still in real trouble.
Despite the losses we incurred in the coup, we’ve since gotten a new radio and security system established, pilfered from one of the larger spacecraft.
It allows us to get in touch with others around the mountains, and even offer aid in some instances.
Having moved the spacecraft inside the camp’s walls, the ship’s cockpit has become a new center to our home.
There are always multiple people manning the stations and keeping tabs on the radio—we’ve even paired it to several of the orbs the nagas keep, so we’re able to get in touch with them when a need arises.
We’ve landed several other spacecraft inside the barricade as well, if the refugees that own them are willing to repurpose them for community showers and common spaces.
One craft happened to be a cargo ship hauling crates of beer and cigs, and between those items and other useful ones like weapons, tools, and food, a market area has formed where people trade and barter.
Outside the gate, we’ve raised a pavilion tent with tables beneath where the items and kills the nagas bring are placed each day to be divided up by volunteers.
The nagas are becoming more commonplace and accepted thanks to their gifts.
Krellix, Nepsh, and Kodyx, as well as several of the female nagas, are now known by everyone living at the camp.
They are often seen coming and going freely.
There are many who still fear them but there have been no more attacks.
And as the days continue on in a hard-working peace, a comfortable pact has begun to form.
The nagas are the encampment’s main supplier of meat. In return we offer goods, tools, and knowledge. We offer company… some of them, community…
So far there have been no incidents of any of the male nagas trying to take one of the women in the camp.
We have had some new visitors, those that are interested in forming relations with us humans, but nothing has come from that yet as none of them have been proven trustworthy enough to enter.
Still, they bring their offerings, hoping to be allowed around the common area.
And though Krellix is unaware, I have noticed Kodyx watching Olivia.
And Olivia is not ignorant of his attention, she’s been eyeing him too.
When I notice them near each other, I make certain she has her mask on.
Though she’s old enough to make her own decision on the matter, I’m going to do my damnedest at trying to guide her.
Mating with a naga is not something to be rushed.
Everyone—and I mean everyone—has been warned to wear a mask or cover their noses if they’re around a naga, even the females.
And the nagas have been warned to keep several feet away from any human they’re dealing with.
I made sure everyone was aware of the effect of the naga’s pheromones but I can’t babysit everyone and there's so much we still don't know. If something should happen… I just hope it’s entirely consensual.
There’s a knock on the door. “It’s me. Can I come in?”
I lightly curl my arm over my breasts. “Sure. I’m just lying here. Doing nothing. And loving every moment of it.”
Life is going to be very different once the baby joins us.
Luckily, I’m not alone.
Daisy sits on the floor next to the tub, crossing her legs under her. “Krellix and Zaku are talking about where you’ve been. You’re living at the facility now? At the camp there?”
Sinking down to my chin in the water, I relax against the tub’s back wall and tell her everything.
To my surprise, she’s excited about the camp and that there are survivors, but most of all she’s relieved to hear about what happened to Sada, the Boa, and that Krellix got rid of him.
I haven’t thought about the Boa at all in the past few months.
He completely slipped my mind. But not hers.
Also to my surprise, she’s not shocked about the nagas I found underground. Apparently, Gemma has seen something similar; Vruksha showed her in the mountains.
There are more of them. Until now, I wasn’t certain. How many more? I’m afraid to know.
In turn, Daisy tells me everything that has happened with our… clan.
Our clan. Gemma, Shelby, Celeste, Laura, Vivian—a woman I have yet to meet—Daisy, and now me. A clan of women, brought together by the males they’ve chosen to love.
Vruksha and Gemma have been filling the tunnels of their bunker with stored goods from their weekly salvaging expeditions in the ruins of a nearby town.
Zhallaix and Celeste, often with them, have been making a map of the area, while also keeping tabs on several spacecraft clusters that landed near their home.
Having made contact with two of them, they’ve learned that Minton Volp never made it off The Dreadnaut.
It’s the first definitive news I’ve heard on that front.
I’m not sad. No, what concerns me—which is the same news everyone is searching for—is when help will arrive.
The Sovereign would know about The Dreadnaut by now.
They probably knew of its demise almost immediately.
Though it would take the colony ship a couple of years to get to us, they could send smaller, faster ships ahead with aid.
Nothing has shown up in that regard yet, though.
Meanwhile, Azsote, Laura, Vivian, and Syasku have been spending their time building and re-fortifying their new territory and taking turns watching the kids, which includes Zhallaix and Celeste’s, Odessa, while they’re currently helping those in the clusters.
Shelby and Vagan are nesting. I’m hoping to send them an orb before I leave here and convince them to come out for a visit. It has been too long since I’ve last seen Shelby.
Everyone is healthy, everyone is well.
Another knock on the door sounds, and both Daisy and I look toward it.
“It issss me,” Krellix’s muffled words come through.
Daisy sits back. “I’ll go and let you guys have some time. One second,” she calls to Krellix as she gets to her feet.
Sitting upright, I bring my knees to my chest and share a parting smile with her as she opens the door and scoots by Krellix.
He slides into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him with his tail, barely fitting in the small space.
Staring down at me, he dips slightly beside the bathtub, where Daisy had been. For a moment, there is only silence.
“How was your talk with Zaku?” I ask, eyeing him back, noting how private and alone we are finally, and how dangerously intriguing he looks towering above me.
“He issss aware that he should not fear soldiers or their machines coming from the north any longer, and that with the destruction of your home ship, our human enemies have been mostly taken care of.”
“Good.” Although the Eastern military base is still being run by those who were already in command before The Dreadnaut’s fall, they have aborted their original missions and turned to what everyone else has focused on: survival.
Krellix lowers further and reaches out to sweep the hair plastered to my bare shoulder behind my back. I lean up and give him a soft kiss on the lips. “Thank you for bringing me back here. I know how much the journey worried you.”
I sit back into the water and he crosses his arms on the tub’s edge, settling close. The tension in his frame has lessened and the near-constant gleam of paranoia in his eyes has lightened. I know he’s enjoying having the walls around us as much as I am.
“I would rather you give birth to our child here, where you are safest, than anywhere else.”
“Still, I know it was hard for you.”
We’ve made a nest. Not a perfect one, but a nest nonetheless. As I’ve taken on more responsibility around the encampment, and with the added spaceships—which are also being used as proper housing—I’ve been given a bigger tent to accommodate Krellix and his size.
The camp knows we’re together, but that’s not why he’s been so stressed.
His naga instincts have been in play since the moment my pregnancy became clear.
Our tent, or what had started out as such, has been completely barricaded off right up against the camp’s wall.
A makeshift fence has been built around it, with piles of kindling and wood stacked up on either side.
Krellix gets his nagas to collect a steady supply of it to replenish our nightly fires and arranges the rest for added security and privacy.
When he’s not out in the forest with them, he’s at our nest, adding new stakes to the dirt for “tanning” or fussing with some other project, always finding further ways to make our home safer and more comfortable.
Olivia, Benjamin, and Quinton have benefitted from his nesting instincts too, their tents being near our own.
I think he’s halfway adopted them into our burgeoning clan.
He wants his baby to live in the safest place, and that means being surrounded by allies.
Kin. I know he’s disappointed that it couldn’t also be born at our nest—within the land he now views as his again.
That it goes against his every instinct.
It makes him so moody. Sometimes I forget which one of us is the pregnant one.
“This journey was not nearly as hard on me as it was for you.”
I hmph with agreement. “I’m still debating whether or not I even want to leave this bath—ever, I might add.”
“I am glad we are at the end of it,” he says.
I sigh languidly and briefly close my eyes. “Me too. I’m going to miss this on our trek back.”
“Enjoy it now while we are here.” He shifts upward and reaches his arm over the side of the tub, resting his hand on my belly beneath the water. “The most I can do when we get back is heat water for your feet.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
He shows me everyday why I’m the luckiest woman on the planet. In all my life, no one’s made me feel more loved than him. But in a life like mine—and for most people, I think—real love is rare. So when you find it, you grab hold of it and you don’t let go.
“I will take you,” he hums, beginning to caress my stomach with the pads of his fingers.
I lean my head on the side of the tub and smile at him, beyond relaxed… “You can have me.”
My belly jumps and Krellix flattens his palm on it. “There they are.”
“Soon,” I say, slipping my arm up and around his shoulders.
He peers at me, his golden eyes warm in the dim light of the bathroom. “Ssssoon.”
Later that evening, after my Yulen scan reveals everything is normal and that our baby is only weeks away, I lay my head on Krellix’s chest on the bed within the room I once inhabited.
He’s exhausted, slumbering deeply, his chest rising and falling under my cheek, and I can’t help picturing what my life would be like if he wasn’t in it—if he hadn’t found me when he did.
The very idea brings tears to my eyes. I’m profoundly grateful that’s not how things played out.
He has my life and my love, and those are the most precious things I can give him.
Listening to his softly pounding heartbeat, I run my hand back over my belly, imagining another fluttering away, just beneath my palm.
Curling my leg tighter over Krellix’s tail, I hold him a little harder, knowing, if I’ve ever known anything, that he’s going to be the best dad.
And that our life together is only just beginning. Finally, something that is not ending.
Feeling sleep take me, I snuggle deeper against his chest, and curl a strand of his hair with my finger. I spent so long searching for a place to belong, when it wasn’t a place I should’ve been looking for at all. It was him.
And now with our baby, it’s them.
Our family.