Chapter 10
TEN
ARTURE
When we step outside, the heat clings to me like a second set of scales. The mist from the forest edge hovers just beyond the grassland, coiling lazily, waiting for the right moment to drift further in. The wind from yesterday is gone, leaving the air heavy and still.
My gaze sweeps across the horizon automatically, my senses scanning for movement. Horses, Nic-coal called them. Liabilities, I say. Where are the blasted creatures?
Nic-coal comes to stand beside me. Her presence heightens my nerves, because I have to protect her, but at the same time it reminds me I'm not on that dusty desert planet.
From the corner of my eye I see her rounded assets, accentuated by the pants I made her.
She looks good in them; the fabric I molded for her enhances her pert ass and thighs.
Her breasts push against the abaya I helped to sculpt, her muscled shoulders and arms beautiful, her stomach a strong core.
She looks like a wild warrior-clan woman from our ancient history, minus the scales of course.
Instead, she has soft skin with very fine hairs, which must be exceedingly sensitive to the gentlest touch.
Nic-coal points out the herd and my attention snaps back to them. Small clusters of dark shapes move against the distant grasses, grazing as though the world is peaceful and without threat.
"They seem pretty tame,” Nic-coal says. “Could be domesticated, or maybe nothing hunts them here. Either way, they’re not likely to bother us if we leave them alone."
She says it so easily, but her words only half-reach me. My gaze locks on the herd, my breath shallowing. I know exactly how dangerous large animals can be. These aren’t the same creatures, but the primal memory in my body doesn’t care.
I take a breath and force myself to ask, "What would make them stampede?"
Nic-coal glances at my clenched fists, her tone calm.
"If they’re like horses on Earth, they startle for short periods of time when there's loud noises, sudden movements, things like shadows passing over them.
Anything unexpected could frighten them.
But a prolonged stampede doesn't just happen—they’d need something chasing them for that many to bolt together. "
I grunt in response, not trusting my voice to keep steady. I turn away from the herd, but their presence burns into my back like a targeting laser. Sweat beads on my forehead, and my hearts beat as quickly as if I'm maintaining another form.
Nic-coal’s voice cuts through the discomfort. "Where do you think we’ll find water?"
The question redirects my thoughts. I sniff the air, then nod toward the forest. "The trees are likely gathered around a source. I’ll check.
" I bring forward the Gerverstock shape, my body swelling, scales shifting to a deeper blue.
My senses and mind sharpen to match, the air filling with new scents, guiding me as I turn away from the forest and point instead toward a faint glimmer on the horizon. "It’s actually that way."
She smiles. "I’m glad you checked." She starts walking ahead, giving me the space to shift back. It’s a small gesture.
I catch up quickly, trampling a path through the grass. My ears stay attuned to the soft snorts of the herd behind us, though they’re farther now.
"I wasn’t expecting you to make friends with the wildlife," I say.
She laughs, light and warm. "I wasn’t either, but the horses were right there when I went out. It just sort of happened."
I don’t know whether to admire her for befriending something so powerful or berate her for taking such risks. Either way, her calm steadiness wraps around me, and I almost forget the thunder of hooves that haunts my memory. Almost.
“What is a horse, anyway?” I ask.
Her face instantly becomes animated. “Horses are four-legged herbivores, and they make excellent companions. They’re very attuned to the emotions of the people around them, so they’re used for therapy a lot.
In our past, we used them to lift and shift goods and people; our roads are based on routes carriages frequented way back when, and every single farmer and many tradespeople had at least one horse.
Much better than our modern machines, if you ask me. ”
The tiny human’s voice takes on a soothing rhythm as she explains, hands taking on a life of their own. When I'd taken her hand as a Selthiastock to add precautionary antibodies to heal the cut from the brambles, I'd noted how work-worn and calloused they were.
“Ah. So they’re useful for tasks,” I say. That I can understand.
“They’re also great friends.”
Hm. Back to this. “Did you just… walk up to them? Say hello?”
She chuckles, swiping a grass stalk aside.
It’s got some of the seeds I collected for the seed cake, and she stops to pick them.
“I sat for a while, observing them. The lead mare who's in charge, she came closer, watching how I move, what I sound and smell like. I let her get used to me being there. Then, I offered her a treat. Give me your hand.” She opens her own to show me the seeds she harvested.
I offer my palm and she drops some seeds in it. I toss them back into my mouth, chew and swallow. “Thanks. And that’s enough to allow you to approach?”
“Not yet. First was more watching, more waiting, seeing how she responded to stimuli. When I was sure she was calm, I tried moving. Not too slowly, but naturally, how a human moves. If I only get her used to me creeping around, she’ll freak out if I try walking around her.”
I scan the landscape. “And then?”
“Then, when I’m sure she’s cool with me being nearby, being myself, I move in. I let her sniff my hand, and I make sure to radiate calm.”
Nic-coal certainly radiates assurance and serenity. Even on another planet, she's collected and confident.
The grasses ripple in waves of gold and green, broken only by jagged stretches of dark rock jutting from the earth like the bones of a long-dead giant.
I’ve seen plains like these before—on Gherall, where the grass blades were blood-red and sharp enough to slice flesh, or on Kivern-7, where they swayed beneath a sky so heavy with storms it felt like the world might collapse.
While the grass is benign and the sky is a pale, unrelenting blue here, the sun beats down without mercy.
As we reach a boggy stretch, the ground turns treacherous, swallowing our boots with each step. Nic-coal quickly scrambles through, hopping to reach the rocky areas.
“I can carry you through these parts,” I offer.
“Hah, no worries.” She climbs up the rocky face and over, swinging her legs to the other side. We travel like that for a while, squelching through the boggy parts and over the rocky ones, until we hit another relatively dry plain again.
She offers me another seed and I swipe it with a light brush on her warm palm. “So, do you do that dance for all Earth creatures?” I glance down at her. “And aliens?”
She laughs. “Well, as many as I can. Mostly horses, yeah.”
“And you… help them. How?”
Shrugging, she explains, “Help make them better, from both physical and emotional ailments. I… am the vet others refer clients to when it seems all hope is lost. They called me Nutty Nicole as a bit of a joke at first, but it’s stuck, because I take on serial biters, kickers, those who buck their riders off, or try to roll on them. ”
“Have you ever been hurt?”
“Yes, actually.” She touches her cheek. “You… probably noticed my face is all squiffy.”
The nanites offer no translation. “Squiffy?”
“Yeah.” She turns to face me. Bright light casts her in a warm, golden glow, highlighting the layers of Olorian clothing she wears.
The thin, overlapping fabrics loop gracefully over her shoulders, and underneath, her skin gleams like a pearl.
The tease of transparent layers on her upper body is nearly too much.
Just looking at her as a Vestifexstock told me her breasts are a generous overflowing handful, and I remember them well, pressed to my chest as I kissed her in front of the Nexas.
Drok na, I can’t breathe.
She points to her right cheek and chin. “This side is more pronounced and my right eye appears bigger, see? There's a metal plate underneath my skin, complete with pins.”
I compare the right and left sides of her face. “There’s an infinitesimal difference, one I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out. You have replacement parts? Why?”
“A horse kicked me. Three months before my wedding.” Her hand drops, twisting into a stray strand of the abaya she wears. “Turned out to be for the best.”
“Wedding…” Mating ceremony, my nanites supply. A sudden fear grips my chest. “Are you mated?”
“No, no.” She tucks her hair behind her ears, eyes dropping down.
I don't have to be attuned to animals to guess at her thoughts. I take her chin in my hand. “Nic-coal, I truly didn't notice. And Samarastocks revere perfection, exemplified in the Prif herself.”
Thinking of Samara naturally leads me to compare the small human with the tall, willowy leader of the females on Oloria. Samara is cool, angled, untouchable, whereas Nic-coal is warm, rounded, strong, and real.
She pulls free of my fingers, walking onwards. “You didn't see it, huh? I don't think so.”
I hurry to catch up to her. “I’m not lying to you.”
“It's so obvious.”
“Who says so? Who told you it was anything other than a slight difference?”
Turning her face from mine, she says, “My fiancé didn't think it was slight.”
“What's a fiancé?”
“Oh, a mate.”
“As in best friend, or enemy?”
She laughs, and her usual lightness is restored, joined by something real and raw. Feelings released. “He turned out to be an enemy, yeah.”
As we continue, so do my thoughts. “So, your mate—your fiancé—he told you… your injuries were asymmetrical?”
Her shoulders square. “He said a lot of things, but slowly, and couched in care.” She starts counting on her fingers.
“For our engagement dinner, he made me have a salad. As a Christmas present, he got me a membership to a weight loss organization. When I got injured, the first thing he asked the doctor was whether I could get nose surgery at the same time.” Touching her nose, she mutters, “Joke's on him, this was the second time I'd broken my nose.”
“He… controlled your food? He wanted you to reduce body mass?” I gape at her. What male would want his female to be starved? What male would reject Nic-coal’s abundance of strength and muscle underneath achingly beautiful curves?
Rage surges through me as if I'm really a Gerverstock, and my fists ball so hard my knuckles crack. I want to punch her unworthy mate for making this strong woman ashamed.
“And then he wanted me to stop working with horses. That was the last straw,” she says firmly.
“But… they are dangerous. You got hurt.”
“It's a risk of the job, and I'm not having this argument with you. I do what I do, and that's the end of it.” The human heaves herself up another rock formation.
Now I’m torn between wanting to break his face for not supporting her and the idea that I, too, would want her to be safe if she were my mate. Large animals are not safe.
I ask, “Why do you do it?”
Nic-coal stops midway up the rocky face. “Because every creature deserves compassion. Something happened to that horse, something which hurt them. If I can unravel that, I don’t just get my client their horse back. I free the horse from its own personal hell.”
It's… noble. Compassionate. Stubborn. Everything I've seen from her so far chimes with this truth.
She forges ahead of me, picking her way over the rocks, her face flushed from the heat. She slides back down into boggy ground again, which sucks at her boots. She huffs, running a hand over her head, sweat beading at her temples.
I offer her my hand. "I can carry you," I say, half-teasing. The idea of lifting her through the muck appeals to me far more than watching her struggle.
She hesitates, then accepts with a small nod. “Sure, but if I get too heavy, put me down.”
Hm. As if she’s used to trying to make herself smaller.
I step closer, lay my left arm along her back, and duck to sweep my mechanical arm beneath her legs.
She startles, a soft gasp leaving her as she grabs my shoulders.
She’s all tension, ready to pull away, then she exhales and lets herself settle.
Her hands slide slowly up around my neck, tentative at first, then surer, her forearms warm against my skin.
I adjust my grip, drawing her closer to my chest. The scales where we touch pulse, a quiet, unconscious response. Her breath stutters. So does mine.
“Your weight is nothing compared to some of the things I’ve hauled across harsher worlds.
” That earns me a soft laugh, breath brushing my jaw, and the sound threads through me like a tether.
I wade into the bog, the suction and drag of the mud fading into insignificance.
All I can feel is the steady press of her body against mine, the trust in her grip, and the way she leans into me instead of bracing away.
It also allows me to study her at leisure. She's pinker than before in parts, across her cheeks, forehead, nose and the tops of her shoulders and breasts. A reaction to my proximity?
“Your skin has changed color,” I note, hoping to tease out whether she's as affected by me as I am by her.
She sighs. “Yeah, I'm getting a sunburn.” At my expression, she explains, “It's getting exposed to too much ultraviolet radiation and is getting damaged as a result.”
“Your skin can't protect you against UV? What good is it?”
She laughs again. “It's a good barrier against most things, except bugs and the sun.”
On a whim, I curl my left fingers, stroking her back. She arches, mouth opening in surprise as she looks at me.
“Sorry, I… I wanted to see if you could feel that.”
She nods, flushing deeper than the pinkish hue forged by the harsh sun of this world. “Uh… uh-huh. I feel that.”
And then it's my turn for my scales to change color, this time nothing to do with a shift to another clone. The black of my chest where I hold her cradled against me turns alabaster white to match her abaya, and glinting in the joints between my scales is the healthy pink of her skin.
I can't be early mate bonding. I can't.
And yet all evidence points that way.