Boop. I'm a big loser and I'm going to regret uploading this before the story is actually finished but whatevs. I've been getting a lot of beautiful support (I don't want to embarrass anyone by mentioning names) and thought I'd do something spontaneous. My judgement is also impaired due to the hour. Might go through in the next couple days and clean out some typos, but for now it's readable.
Chapter Nine: Connate
connate: latin
adjective
1. united; to cause to be in a state of mutual sympathy, or to have a common opinion or attitude.
2. being in close accord or sympathy; congenial.
3. existing at birth or from the beginning; inborn or inherent.
She dreamt of fingernails. Of claws tearing into rockbed, of gravity seizing treacherous authority over her. She held fast to her scarce purchase on the edge as her body hung freely over nothingness. Around her, forms surrendered to it, leaping from the cliff. Limply they fell, eager for their fated demise. Bloody viscera rained around her from those too slow to hurl themselves forward. Their chests burst and they tumbled to a stop, curving fingers and dead eyes peeking at her from where they lay sprawled at the top of the cliff to which she clung.
Something kicked her awake, a shriek on her lips that she managed to quell before it reached fruition. The first thing she saw was Marcus, still sitting as she'd left him. Edmund was a seat down from her, looking frightened. Runite's back got smaller as it receded through the seating bays.
"What happened?" she asked Edmund, groping for the knife Siwili had left her. She found it in the seat to her left.
"Sorry, I didn't know he was going to —"
"Is anything wrong?" she insisted.
"No, it's been quiet."
"How long?"
"A few hours."
"You didn't know who was going to do what?" she asked, scouring the darkened corners of the fuselage. Now that the ship was out from beneath the nebula, there was nothing to see by but the seating bay lights which provided only brief oases. They were set into structures that rose above each circular seating arrangement. As the limbs stood silhouetted against the spangled curtain of space, it was easy to imagine she was sitting beneath a tree. She settled herself into this fantasy, praying it would allow her to slough off the nightmare she'd endured.
Edmund pointed in the direction of Runite. He was standing in the light of a seating bay and throwing them short glances.
"It just came over here and kicked you as he walked by. Sorry, I would've woken you up but I didn't realize in time."
Nasira put her head in her hands, rubbing the numbness of sleep from her face.
"Were you having a nightmare?"
She touched the beads on her hijab and nodded. She was aware of Edmund watching her, so she kept her face averted.
"I mean, you were like that for awhile, so maybe I should have woken you up."
"It's alright," she said.
"I thought you needed the sleep, so I just left you."
"A fitful sleep is not always preferable to none at all," she said. She had yet to shake the vestiges of her nightmare from her, and it made her words tighter than she'd intended. "I'm sorry. Thank you for your concern. Truly."
There was little for her to do now than to stay awake. Though the consequences had not been severe this time, it was clear to her that if there was danger on their horizon, he would likely not have time to wake her. She looked to Runite, standing in a far seating bay. He'd shown no restraint in rousing her, though she wasn't sure of the reason behind it.
Edmund broke off any chance of her deliberating it further.
"I'm sorry about earlier, by the way. I've had some time to think about it. I didn't mean it to sound like I thought they —" he gestured to Runite "— were less than…well, I don't know." He turned to her, his expression beseeching her to understand. "How have you learned it? I struggle to avoid comparing things — people, I mean — to humans. If they're not human, I don't have a word for that. I don't have a basis for anything. I just…I can't."
"You mean you hold all lifeforms to the same standards you'd expect of a human? Of intelligence, of societal roles and values?" She shook her head. "You can't apply that to them. You cannot. You have to look at it objectively."
She set her hands apart, trying to demonstrate the inherent separation between every encompassed species she knew to be true.
"Once you have acknowledged all people as unshakably so, regardless of their species or racial origin, you learn to refer to them as they are. Not humans, no. But equals who are just as deserving as you. Deserving of allowances, of recognition. Deserving of empathy. Lifekind writes itself — its lessons are there for you to adopt, if you let yourself. That's where you learn it. That's how you live in a universe that is no longer solely your own."
As she spoke, her gaze drifted to Runite. His back was still towards them, but his head moved in wide arcs as he surveyed the room. Half of his dreadlocks were free of the bindings and smacked into his back, just between his shoulder blades.
Edmund was quiet for what seemed like a long while. Nasira's mind was lost in the glints of light reflecting in the bands wrapped around Runite's hair.
Finally, he spoke. "Do you think we'll learn it?"
"We?"
"Humans. All of us."
She leaned her head against her chair, not moving her eyes from where they were even as she answered him. "I hope so."
After that conversation, the resulting silence became progressively weightier. She could not settle herself, so she got up from her chair, tucking the knife into the holster alongside her weapon and picking up the spear. Her legs felt weak, like they protested holding her. Sweat stung her upper lip. Her heart fluttered with unease.
She looked to Runite to see if he'd noticed anything.
The ceiling collapsed atop her in a mass of black weight, of spindly, roiling limbs. The spear was flung from her as she went down.
She fought against it, kicking the weight off of her, forcing her legs between herself and the alien's bulk. Looping her arm around, she stabbed out with Siwili's knife, felt the resistance of the alien's exoskeleton.
The alien squealed and pedaled its enormous claws against her, mauling her legs. She stabbed sideways this time as she rolled out from beneath it.
The alien righted itself, tail lashing for balance. It was then she was able to get a good look at the creature - it was smaller than the one she'd encountered in the infirmary, and a crest crowned its head. The crest was smooth, with two sharp blades protruding from each side like the ends of a hammerhead. The alien's gaze was as blind as all the others, an iron mask dropped over its face. Set close to its head were pustules that glowed a sickly yellow.
The alien backed up, its bowed legs assisting a bobbing gait. Blood streamed from its ankle where she'd stabbed it. It looked almost tentative to attack despite its earlier ambush.
Nasira held the spear ready, vision narrowing around its emaciated frame. Somewhere in the room, she knew Runite and the two humans were present, but she had no room for them as she faced down with this monstrous creature.
The alien bared dull teeth, raising its head. Its neck snapped bizarrely, a blur of motion and a flash of white fangs. Something wet slapped the seat behind Nasira. She heard the fizzing of acid on the upholstery.
Spit.
The alien had spit at her.
Its neck snapped again. Nasira threw herself to the side to avoid the next gob, which hit the column that supported the lights and began its work dissolving the metal.
She zigzagged towards the alien, avoiding acid flung at her. The creature kept backpedaling, leaping up onto chairs to avoid her. Nasira flipped the knife in her hand, careful to avoid the remnants of acid still on the blade and stood still.
Perched on the seat like a gargoyle, the alien hissed, and she saw the bubbling foam of acid collect in its mouth. She stood her ground, holding the knife ready.
The alien's neck snapped. Nasira hurled the knife and ducked out of the way.
It let out a shriek, a hissing, clawing mess on the floor. She avoided the alien's thrashing limbs and leapt at it, plowing the end of the spear into its ribcage. The alien's last hideous cry rattled out before acid squeezed around the edges of the spear. The chest filled with blood, drowning any sound the dying creature attempted.
Breathing hard, she watched it for a moment longer to make sure it was truly dead, then seized Edmund's arm and pulled him to his feet. She marched him over to Marcus, a safer distance away.
Runite was beside her now, looking down at the kill as it sank into a crater of hot slag. The spear still stood up in the alien's corpse.
Runite tilted his head at her. He pointed down at her legs and made a sign - splaying his fingers, he jerked his hands towards his middle in a violent motion - asking whether she was injured.
She signed a negative, twisting a fist like she was shaking her head. Though she felt that the alien's claws had indeed opened gouges, her pants had stopped the worst of it. Made from dense woven fibers, her uniform was more resilient than it looked.
Runite tapped the wrist of the hand that had been holding Siwili's knife, complimenting her usage of it.
Leaving him, Nasira circled the seating bay. The alien could not have dropped from the glass ceiling, almost fifty feet above. The column holding up the seating bay's branching lights was still intact despite the acid that had struck it. Craning her neck, she looked up into the the limbs. With the lights shining in her eyes, there was no way to see through the structure itself. She stepped onto one of the seats, but the glare was still harsh enough that it blocked her view. She grabbed one of the structure's limbs.
Runite rattled an inquiry at her as she climbed up onto the back of the chair. It still didn't give her the height she needed, so she pulled herself up by hooking an arm around the limb.
She felt Runite move beneath her and look up as though perplexed by her antics. She ignored him.
The lights beneath her now, the darkness was extreme. She hung there, waiting for her eyes to adjust so she could see how the alien had managed to clamor up into the structure and hide.
Pinpricks of starlight shone off a curving dome atop the structure. She squinted at it, unsure of what it could be. It was off center, situated strangely.
And then it moved, tilting upwards. The alien's lips skinned away from fangs in a hideous snarl.
Nasira dropped, banging her chin against the limb in her haste. Surprised, Runite did not move away in time, and she landed on top of him. He was hardly staggered by her weight compared to his own, but he roared in offense. Nasira scrambled away from him, out from under where the alien perched in the structure.
"There's another," she rasped, pointing. His head jerked to follow her motion and, like its brother, the alien squirmed between the limbs of the structure and thew itself onto him.
It clung to Runite's body, tail lashing but too close to be of use. Runite pried the alien loose and threw it - the alien skittered away on all fours, vanishing into the darkness between the seating bays.
Runite's shoulder cannon blared blue light over her as he fired after it. Sparks rained down on the distant seating bays in a shower. There came no squeal, no surge of yellow blood. He remained tense in the direction it had fled for a further few moments before standing straight again.
Nasira's body unwound so suddenly her arms stopped holding her up. Laying on her back, her chest heaved. Her mind replayed the scene with savage cruelty - the way the stars rippled across the alien's skull as it drew even with her own face. Instants. That was all it had been. If she'd been a second too slow in seeing it…if she'd been turned the wrong way upon pulling herself up…
She sat up, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples.
Two of them. Smaller than the one in the infirmary, but that meant there were at least three.
Runite clicked. She looked up to see Tresses and Siwili reentering the fuselage. A rapid conversation passed between them before they even reached each other. It ended with all three of them staring at the dead alien. The acid sacs on the side of its head were dimming, deflating with the rest of the blood as it pooled on the floor.
While they were distracted, Nasira picked herself up. Marcus and Edmund were still cowering at the edge of the seating bay. Edmund caught her hand as she passed. He held it between both of his own.
"You saved us," he said, his face white as a sheet.
The predators turned towards the humans. Nasira gently extracted her hand from Edmund's and put it on his arm instead. She didn't smile — she was thinking of how any officer of Adrara would accept gratitude: formally. Graciously.
"You're welcome."
Tresses conferred with Siwili, cocking her head in Nasira's direction. He glanced at her and then nodded.
Nasira ducked her head but found nowhere to look but her kill. She was far enough away to spare the acid eating the soles of her boots, but near enough to see the damage she'd wreaked on its skeletal body.
The neck had contorted almost immediately post-mortem, the skull wrenching backwards towards its spine. The arms and claws were still reaching, still intent on gutting her, even in death.
Nasira shivered and knelt to look at its face. Without eyes or any sort of expression, it could easily be faking death. She grabbed the knife and wrenched it free of the mouth. It fell closed almost gently. She gripped the spear and pried it from its ribcage. It popped out, its end coated in blood.
She was just debating how to clean it when Siwili approached her, his knife catching the light above and glinting from its place on his thigh. He surveyed her kill, then held his hand out for the knife she'd used to dispatch the alien. She passed it over and watched as he planted it on the knuckle of one of the alien's claws. The claw came loose, and he caught it in his palm. Still kneeling, he skimmed the point of the claw over the top of the foaming acid.
Deadly claw in hand, he gestured to the mark on the brow of his mask. Nasira's eyes went from it to the claw. When she hesitated, he pointed to Tresses and, more distant, Runite, who of course bore identical marks on their own masks.
They marked themselves with the blood of their kills? She was used to having to remain impartial — one could not bear every honor bestowed upon them. Her refusal was cut short by Tresses and Siwili laying a fist over their chests in the same congratulatory salute they'd used earlier. Runite moved behind them and then made the same motion, bowing his head to her.
She could think of no reason to deny them now - it seemed that for her to do what they suggested would afford her some kind of respect. The unison of their gesture made her feel want. She wanted to form an alliance with these predators the same way she wanted to be accepted as a peacekeeper in Adrara, as a representative for her species.
Nasira held onto the spear to steady herself, and then gave Siwili a curt nod, moving the fabric of her hijab aside so he had room to work. He leaned in and stopped. His free hand went up to her forehead, and between two fingers, he caught a lock of her hair where it had escaped the confines of her hijab. He followed its natural curl, coiling it around one talon before giving it a gentle, almost halting, tug.
Confused, she leaned back a bit, but with an excited rattle, Siwili dropped her hair and pulled something free from beneath his armor. It was a piece of twine fashioned into a necklace, with a fang riding between two metal bands. They looked like those that encircled the predators' hair. He held it out for her to see.
It shocked her when Siwili grabbed her arm and drew it to his middle so that she was touching him. His skin was hot and dry, with a pebbled texture. Beneath her hand, she felt it interrupted by rough scar tissue.
A child's voice came from his mask.
"Alexa."
Her eyes widened. When had this hulking predator encountered a human child?
She didn't know what to say, and when she didn't respond, he dropped her arm and made to push the fabric of her hijab up further.
Several things happened in the single instant following. Nasira's hand shot up to grasp Siwili's wrist, stopping him in his tracks. An enraged snarl sounded from Runite, who was suddenly between them, his forearm blocking Siwili's from moving any further. The bizarre triangle came to a standstill.
Tresses' head whipped around at the commotion. She started over to the three of them, but Siwili stepped back. He moved away, stopping to hand the claw over to Tresses. She barked a question at him. He ceased walking and held out a fist; Tresses let him draw his knuckles over her palm. He leaned into her, the foreheads of their masks resting against each other. Then he drew back and continued walking.
Tresses stared at Nasira, who adjusted her sweaty, nervous grip on the spear. She turned to Runite. She clicked a command at him, holding out the claw. He took it, and she left after Siwili.
Alone with him again, Nasira found the air pressing in around her, making it hard to draw breath. She fought the desire to wipe her palms on her clothes.
Silent, he took up the job Siwili had abandoned. Runite's talons tapped the side of her neck as he held her steady. He was remarkably careful, one finger curling in, causing the point of his talon to trail through the fabric of her hijab and over her skin.
She was so distracted by the sensation that she almost forgot what he meant to do - the touch of the acid-tipped claw between her eyebrows almost made her struggle away. She ignored the searing pain as it marked her skin, examining him as he worked to distract herself.
He gave his task his utmost concentration. As he tilted his head to follow the motion of the mark, his dreadlocks slid over his shoulders. With his hair tied back the way it was, he looked like a thoughtful artist adding the final decisive touches to a cherished masterpiece.
When he finished, he tucked the claw into his fist, but still laid the tip of his talon where her new mark ended. As he did, he also brushed the escaped lock of hair back under her hijab, then replaced it where it had fallen on her forehead. It was inexpertly done, for she could feel it already threatening to slip back out again, but she made no move to fix it. She made no move in any direction.
His talon hovered above the beads on the crown of her hijab and chittered in askance. She held a breath and inclined her head. His talons tapped the beads in the same way she habitually traced them. He must have seen her doing it earlier. Was that why he'd gotten so upset with Siwili for trying to touch them?
Finally, he stepped back, making a chuffing sound and shaking his shoulders. He turned away.
Nasira's hands twitched at her sides as she watched him go.
Marcus and Edmund were still watching. She touched the scar on her forehead, trying to tame the waves of adrenaline, of pride, as they crested within her.
