AUTHOR'S NOTE:See Author's Notes at the end of this chapter.

xXx

He did not seem surprised, Anise thought. She had spent much of the previous day lying in bed, thinking of ways to broach the subject, but none of her imagined scenarios had changed with a different introduction. It was better to be direct. The words were strange in her mouth; her voice had faltered a bit in the accusation of murder. Even now, she almost regretted them- things might have gone on as they were, polite conversation at meals, silent afternoons spent in idle pursuits, and even some delicate wordplay. But the possibilities were shattered by her voice in the morning air. She reminded herself, lest she forget, that this man, this creature she shared a room with had murdered her brother.

Escthta eased out of his stretch. "Excuse me," he said, and stepped into the other room. She heard him go into the lavatory, and then the faucet running for a long time and the splash of water over skin. He came in, face freshly wet, drying it with one of the cloths. He tossed it to the side and then sat down on his bed again, their eyes meeting, nearly on the same level.

"Yes." He paused. "I did not know what he was to you at the time, but yes, I killed him."

"You murdered him."

"I saved him."

"He was fine until you got there. Fine until you and your bugs showed up…" Her voice strained. Dammit, she had sworn that there would be no weakness!

"Those bugs weren't mine. They inhabit that planet naturally. There are no less than three mature hives on Craxan Prime."

"Then why would the Company send us there, knowing that? Knowing we would die?"

"That is something only they can answer." He was calm, very calm, and she felt bitterness and hatred creep into her heart. He had no right to try to shift blame from himself to Weyland-Yutani. How dare he sit there quietly with his horrible face and atrocious society? How dare he pass judgment on her or Jake?

"But you killed him, not the Company."

"I did."

Her rage erupted. "How could you? He was just there, helpless. And you shot him through! There wasn't much left! At least with the Craxan flu, I could have had a funeral instead of a massacre!" Hysterics were creeping in, and she huffed, trying to breathe steadily, trying to settle her now-excited lungs down into something that wasn't sobs.

"And Lucas! You couldn't even leave me with a body to bury!" Her focus varied; she began to gesticulate wildly, throwing her hands up, sweeping her arms around, but there were no movements large enough to gather up her grief and push it away.

"You wouldn't have been able to bury him. The kainde amedha would have taken you, too."

"Shut up. I don't want to hear your stupid language or your stupid traditions. I can't believe I even agreed to this crazy stunt."

Escthta threaded his fingers together, waiting for her to continue. It galled him to be spoken to in such a manner by a creature little more than half his size, but he withstood her assault. This, he realized, was part of her grieving, and she needed to be angry at him. The less he said, the better she would come through this.

"It's not like I had a choice in the matter anyway," she muttered sourly.

Escthta rankled. That was a statement that could not go unchallenged. "You had a choice. You chose to come with me."

"Yeah, a choice between you and bugs. That's a great choice." Her sarcasm was calculated to flay his nerves, and it worked.

"It was a choice," Escthta insisted.

"You know, I don't think there was a choice at all. I think you set this whole thing up. Because if you came down by yourselves and said, 'Can you help us?' the whole planet would have taken one look at your ugly mugs and headed for the hills. So instead, you soften the population up by sending your attack dogs down to scare the living daylights out of people, eat a few miners. That way, after you've murdered their family, you don't feel any kind of guilt in tricking people to come with you."

His fist clenched, and Anise smiled to herself. Bingo.

"The truth hurts, doesn't it? Tell me, how many other humans did you kidnap? How many other women had their families destroyed by your bugs and your guns? How many other people made a choice with bugs breathing down their necks? It's not a hard choice when you give it to them that way, so you got all the humans you needed."

Her eyes were a murky green, darkened under her furrowed brow. "I bet they're all here, right now, each of them fed the same line of bullshit by your Matriarch. It's easy to fool humans if they think they're the only one that can do something. I bet you could speak to me the whole time, but it's so much easier when you can do that pantomime shit and play dumb."

He was visibly upset now, both fists clenched, his mandibles twitching. His eyes glinted dangerously, their yellow-green flashing with promised violence. One more push would send him over the edge, and Anise knew instinctively what that push would be. "They're all women. That's why no one is freaking out about me being here. That's why no one is asking questions. Tell me, Talon," she said, using her original name for him, "where do you keep the human women you rape? Do you let them live or not?"

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" He moved the distance between them in one stride, his hand around her throat, pressing her down into the mattress. "How DARE you say such things! I killed Gulchak for less, ripped his throat out with my bare hands for daring to breathe such insults!" He tightened his grip around that white column, watching her eyes roll down to maintain contact with his.

She was defiant even in such a position, supine, pinned under his weight. Escthta crouched over her, moving directly into her line of sight, so that their eyes met and his meaning would be unmistakable.

"I should kill you right now. Nothing, no one would stop me. I can snap your neck as you lay here and no one would care." His rage nearly blinded him, surging through him and powering him as the Hunt never did.

"You think there are humans all over this planet? Why not just throw you all in a cell? Why bother giving you real beds and meals? Why should I bother protecting you if you're all over the place? You think I like knowing my species is beholden to creatures like you, vermin? Do you?"

She closed her eyes and he emphasized his point with a shake, jerking her head to look at him. "Look at me, damn you. Look at me." She did, and he sighed at the resentment he saw in her eyes.

"Like it or not, we are in this together. I have sworn to protect you from attempts on your life, even if those attempts are mine." His anger began to drift away. The conversation, one-sided as it was, was calming him down. "It is difficult enough for us, as a people, to acknowledge weakness. I shouldn't have to have my honor destroyed in the process. I need you to cooperate with me. Please."

His hand loosened, came away from her neck, and he saw from the redness that there would be bruising. She turned her head away from him, coughing, and finally murmured, "Fine."

They stayed like that for some moments, Escthta thankful for the reprieve and Anise sulking underneath him. Finally, she turned back to look at him, her stare sullen, rebellious. "Are you going to get off me now?"

Escthta eased to one side, sitting upright. She sat up, rubbing her throat. "But I don't have to like it. Or you."

He sighed, realizing that this might simply be the way things were. "Fair enough."

Escthta stood, looking down at her and cocked his head to one side. "Your name means 'she of mercy'. Do you know why?"

"I don't. Should I care?"

"You helped us, even though you had no reason to. You held a knife to my throat but did not kill me. There are many ways you are merciful."

"Cowardly," she spat. "I wish I had killed you."

"You are no killer, H'chak-di. Even alone on a ship, a stranger among strange people, you could not kill when you had the opportunity." He flexed his mandibles in a smile. "That is why I do not fear for my life when protecting yours."

"Even after all this?" Her voice was incredulous.

"Even after all this."

She was quiet, looking at her bare feet. "You're a fool, Escthta."

"Perhaps I am. But I trust you." He moved to the sumcom and keyed in a command.

"The morning meal will be here soon." He indicated the separate lavatory. "If you wish to bathe, I would recommend doing so."

Anise slid out of bed reluctantly, scrubbing her skin with a diluted solution of the brown soap and rinsing as quickly as she dared. She toweled off with the other of the two cloths, and then shrugged into her shift. By the time she stepped out, the meal had arrived, the uncovered bowls steaming. They ate in silence, but by the time they left, Anise felt the tension from yesterday nearly evaporated. The fight had helped, it had straightened things out between them, so that neither one was operating on false pretenses. As they got into the now familiar robotic car, she reflected on it, deciding that this was for the best. Honesty was, after all, the best policy.

xXx

Hir'cyn displayed an unhealthy curiosity in the body and its functions, so he stayed in the operating room to watch. It was against protocols, but the medic, Gthren, was not affected by the presence of another person in his OR. Besides, in an illegal activity such as his, the protocols didn't really matter anyway.

Rathde was fully sedated, and Gthren checked on his heart rate and brain functions before making the incision. He opened up the misshapen foot, seeing that it had in fact been broken, and not once, but several times. The ossifications, hard nubbles over the improperly set breaks, had been broken themselves at least two other times. It was a sad state, even for a slave. Gthren didn't imagine it was done under anaesthetic, either. He saw that Hir'cyn had made the right decision; such bones would never have healed properly in a resetting. There were no less than forty years of damage in that foot by his estimate, and without the surgeries Gthren was about to perform, he would never run or Hunt again.

There were no laws on the mistreatment of slaves. Slaves were property, and in that regard, property could be used or misused in any way the owner saw fit. He half wondered if Hir'cyn was responsible, but he doubted it.

Gthren moved up to the knee, slicing through the skin. He carefully cut the muscles and tissue away, moving down to the bones. The connections around the ankle were far too delicate to risk damaging a donated foot; better to just replace the lower half of his leg. He pulled the tissue and muscle back, exposing the glistening bones. Green glimmered from the crevices between them, and Gthren carefully clamped the blood vessels before cutting them. The tendons he cut altogether, but the ligaments he gingerly peeled away with the help of a scalpel. The fine nerves were equally babied, carefully pulled back and arranged out of the way. Attaching them to the new limb would be the most problematic part of this procedure, but he would charge Hir'cyn accordingly.

He moved down a step, taking Rathde's leg in one hand and then nodding to his assistants to steady the patient. With a neat twist, he disarticulated the condyles at the knee, and with a sucking sound, the leg came free. A quick slice of the lower skin completely freed the leg of its owner, and it was laid into a slick tube of liquid nitrogen.

"Replacement," Gthren muttered, as he moved up and the replacement leg was removed from its cold bed, laid in line with the bare-ended stump. He checked Rathde's vitals again, constantly keeping an ear out for trouble. A slight bump as the eminence scraped a condyle didn't deter him; with an equally efficient motion, he articulated the new leg with the old knee. He brought in a thin tool, attaching ligaments to the new bones and lining them with fluoroapatite, and then lowered his electron camera to reattach the nerves.

xXx

The laboratories were vastly different than the buildings Anise had been to before. Here, at last, were the gleaming minarets, the spires that rent the sky. Three of them, tightly clustered, met at the base; between their curved exteriors lay an entrance into their sheltered shadow. The grounds around them were uncluttered, and the car drifted right up to the entrance. Escthta saw, to his dismay, that Thtarok's tall, lanky frame was silhouetted against the translucent doors. He was waiting.

Escthta emerged first, turning to help Anise clamber out. The doors slid open and Thtarok walked down the steps, smiling in his own sinister, toothy way. Anise took him in, his long legs, skinny ankles and frail chest. He wore the simplest of any costume she had yet seen; it was a simple dark brown, a sleeveless tunic that went to his knees, and a small token around his neck on a leather thong. He wore the cuffs around his wrists, as did many of the Hunters, but his lacked the ornamentation. His dreadlocks were held out of the way with one large strip of cloth, tied behind his shoulders.

"Escthta, a pleasure to see you." Thtarok turned to Anise and then smiled, that toothy, wide display that Anise had come to recognize. "And the human, H'chak-di," he purred. Escthta translated as the scientist spoke, and she nodded.

"Come with me, right this way," Thtarok lead them into the laboratories, talking as he went. "We have taken all the proper security measures to protect our benefactress. The whole complex has been cleared of personnel who don't have a high enough clearance to see you," he said directly to Anise, as if she would be able to instinctively grasp his words. Escthta found his speech distasteful; it was syrupy and thick and he didn't trust it.

They passed through the base of one pillar, into a triangular courtyard. "My laboratories are just across the park. We'll be meeting my partner for this experiment there, hand-picked by the Matriarch." Thtarok sounded half-pleased by the attention, but irritated at sharing the experiment. "We'll begin by taking down your vital statistics as of today and we'll monitor your changes as the experiment progresses."

Anise looked ahead; they were almost to the other spire, and there was a tall Hunter, as tall as Escthta, standing outside. She realized, as they neared, that this Hunter was female. She wore a fitted hide harness that covered her breasts. Anise suspected, from the way the thing was lashed together over her body, that it was as much for privacy as it was to get the damn things out of the way. Over this, she wore the same long brown tunic that Thtarok did, hers also belted at the waist. As they closed their distance, Thtarok gestured to the female and smiled.

"This is my assistant-"

"Da-kvar'di."

Thtarok blinked and then looked icily at Escthta. "I was not aware you had met before."

The giant female inclined her head. "Once before. We have a working acquaintance." She turned her ochre gaze on Anise, sizing her up. "And this is the human we'll be examining?"

"Her name is H'chak-di," offered Escthta.

Da-kvar'di's face soured. "We don't need to name it," she said in disgust.

"I gave her that name weeks ago." There was a challenge in Escthta's voice, but Da-kvar'di didn't rise to it. "Suit yourself."

Anise looked up at Escthta, confused by the exchange and able to tell from their tone of voice and body language that something was not quite right. As they moved into the building, she looked up at him. "Do you know her?"

"Only in passing." Escthta flicked his eyes to her. "We mated at this past Council, the same one where I was given the mission of bringing back a human female."

"Me."

"Yes."

"So she was your last partner?"

"….yes." Escthta was strangely discomfited by this line of questioning.

"Does that happen often?"

"Does what happen?"

"Mating at Councils."

Escthta smiled weakly. "It is the reason we have Councils. For one month, the females come and choose mates. Then they return to the broodworld to whelp. When the males are old enough, they are brought here. The females remain on the broodworld."

They had stopped walking, and Da-kvar'di and Thtarok were both looking at them, Thtarok with suspicion and Da'kvar-di with impatience. Escthta chattered apologetically, placing his hand on Anise's shoulder and pushing her forward.

They entered a large room, and Anise looked around unabashedly, surprised to find nothing entirely unfamiliar. The walls were beige and seamless, broken only by power conduits and translucent terminals that hummed with red lettering. Even the Hunters had their institutions and they were as soulless as any Earth could offer. She reflected on their similarities, remembering that the average Weyland-Yutani representative had seemed very much like the tall male scientist, thin and scholarly, but slick and cold with an impersonality she couldn't stomach.

The examination table in the room was large, obviously sized for a full-grown Hunter, and the metal restraint cuffs barely reached her arms and legs. When she put an arm through one, it slipped cleanly in and out, rendering them worthless. She looked at Escthta for guidance. Thtarok was perplexed; it was a simple enough problem to solve, if only tests were delayed until an examination table could be specially built. But he wanted to begin now! Thtarok paused for so long that Anise began to stare at him. Escthta sensed the imminent unraveling of Thtarok's control— the sick certainty he held in such high esteem was near failure. He was brilliant, Escthta realized, utterly unrivaled in his intellect, but it crippled him. His mind was unstable to the point that any stress might cause a fracture in his mask, a wrinkle in his caricature of himself. Such was the way of any Hunter with a highly developed brain, he mused, ignoring a microscopic voice of warning at the back of his mind.

"I will restrain her, if it comes to that," Escthta offered.

Thtarok blinked and while the offer was not the best situation, it would do for the immediate future. He nodded, unsure how much of his discomfiture had been obvious, but deciding not to worry the issue more. What was more important was the human. She was lovely, small and white, her limbs like the spidery corals that grew in massive colonies off the near shore of the city and gave up their skeletons to the sea.

She was hauntingly familiar, and as he began to take measurements of her arms and shoulders and record every morsel of information, he became enslaved by her cooperation. She did not cringe from him, and that alone made him nearly powerless with delight. Oh, to have such a creature at his disposal, free to do anything and everything with her, with or without her skin on!

Da-kvar'di stepped up, snapping sterile gloves over her hands. "You'll have to wait outside." Thtarok's lust evaporated, killed by the giantess and her brusque nature.

"I will not leave her." Escthta's statement was met with a furious glare from Da-kvar'di.

"This is a scientific experiment. All data must be collected in controlled and precise procedures." Her voice became accusatory. "You are not permitted."

"How do you expect her to understand your instructions when you've locked her translator out of the room?" Escthta's objection held truth, and it was with great reluctance that she locked only Thtarok and his data in an adjoining laboratory and returned to the table.

"Tell her to strip down."

Escthta turned to H'chak-di, whose face was openly confused.

"Remove your clothing," he said, closing his eyes as he felt her recoil from him.

"Not with you here."

"Would you like me to turn my back?" the suggestion was, to him, a silly one, but she nodded, almost shyly, and he reluctantly complied. The faintest hiss of fabric over smooth skin reached his ears, and he heard Da-kvar'di gasp.

"What is the matter?" he asked urgently, half-turning.

"They're animals. Look at the hair on her." He turned, seeing H'chak-di as he had seen her before, the dark thatch of curls between her legs, the small prickles of fuzz that covered her legs and peeked out from under her arms. She folded her arms in front of her breasts, lifting one knee to close her legs tightly, trying to hide her nudity. Her hairiness was less than that of the males, Escthta had noticed in the baths, but he assumed that was the way their species was differentiated.

Da-kvar'di was repulsed, but also embarrassed; even with her strength and skill, the race had to turn to naked animals like the one before her. She made another noise of disgust and then clenched her jaws and patted the table, as one summons an animal onto a surface.

H'chak-di balked, and she gave Escthta accusing looks. "You broke your promise."

"I never promised not to look. I only promised to turn around."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"If you're finished chatting," Da-kvar'di interrupted, "I would like to get on with this tasteless exercise." Escthta watched her for a moment, and then picked up her shift off the floor, handing it to her with his face averted. Anise smiled gently, taking it from him and tying the shirt's sleeves around her so that it covered her breasts. He spent the rest of the exam trying to lose the memory of the words he translated, the gasps of "Cold!" and the seething "Be still!" He kept his eyes elsewhere, respecting her rights, such as they were, to privacy and dignity.

xXx

Hir'cyn watched the medic close up Rathde's newly acquired leg. He had never bothered to ask how they got their parts; it was something one was better off not knowing. The Medic packed in the familiar blue gel in places where muscles had been damaged in the reattachment; such procedures were rarely perfect, but this one was well done. He added the blue gel as an extra boost to the slave's natural regeneration process. Whole parts of limbs took longer than simple fingers or feet; the recovery window for a surgery of this scale would take at least seven years.

During which time… what would happen, exactly? Gthren rarely saw his patients again, but whether it was because they did not dare be seen near his outfit or they were killed by the occasional attentive Hunter who noticed their surgery was unclear. Add in the anti-rejection drugs that the transplant required while the cells were being replaced during the body's natural processes, and it made a clear picture of illegal activity. But some druggists were sympathetic. He scrawled a prescription on a piece of holofilm, pressing his thumb to a sensitive pad on the base, and handed it to Hir'cyn.

"Fill this prescription only with the druggist in the South Quarter Spire. He is a supporter of mine and will keep things closely watched." Hir'cyn nodded, looking to Rathde.

Gthren followed his eyes. "The sedative should wear off in two hours, by which time the warming packs and sugar solutions will have that limb operational again." The Elder met his eyes as Gthren explained, a kind of respect that was little afforded a medic that ran a trade in body parts. If Gthren had known why Hir'cyn was repairing this slave, the Elder would have had instant access to an underground abolitionist movement. It warmed the cynical doctor's heart a little, and he could not help asking, "Why do this for a slave?"

"I have not owned a slave in a long time. I received this one as a… gift from a friend. I prefer them able-bodied."

xXx

The pelvic exam was only one of several indelicacies Anise was put through. She underwent tests for magnetism, pH, salinity, sugar levels, hormone identification; numerous phials of blood filled her rack in the chiller. The day seemed as if it would never end. Escthta stayed by her side, averting his eyes at hint of her flesh, though by the end of the day's tests, his patience with her tormentors had reached its end.

The sun, which had hung in the sky for what felt like far too long, finally began to sink into the hills beyond the City. On their way back to their quarters, Anise saw her first glimpse of the City at night. Thousands of windows incandesced with the sodium lamps that the Hunters favored, their glow a mockery of the titian sky that increasingly gave way to dusk. The waning sun shone strong against the spires, still blinding off the sides of the pyramids, painting the world in orange and red.

By the time they pressed the sumcom and stumbled into their quarters, H'chak-di was visibly weakened, her steps dragging and her shoulders hunched.

Escthta chanced a question. "Are you eating this evening?"

"I think I'd better," she said tiredly, although she felt like simply collapsing.

Escthta rang for the evening meal, listening to H'chak-di in the lavatory, and then the hand shower turning on.

Escthta fumbled with the catches on his shinguards, sliding them out of place and unfastening each cuff. His forearm guards came off as well and were set to the side with the rest of his armor. The wristblades glinted, his leg knife sliding half out of its sheath. He sighed, wondering if he would ever use them on humans again without seeing H'chak-di's accusing face. How his life had changed in the past months!

The shower finally shut off and his pricked ears caught the sound of her toweling off. The evening meal arrived, and she wandered in, her thin shift still clinging to wet spots on her skin. The meal went relatively quickly, though H'chak-di seemed to be falling asleep in the middle of her bites. Finally, Escthta took the paddle out of her hand.

"What! What?" she exclaimed, disturbed out of her drowsiness.

"You're not going to get any eating done like that."

"I'm sorry…" she began, but trailed off. He knelt down and picked her up, her weight lighter than many kills he had carried.

He carried her into the bed area, but the darkness was complete and he couldn't see her bed. Rather than risk dropping her off the side of her bed, he turned up the light, using his hand underneath her knees to brighten the room. As he did, something stirred.

He heard it, but he did not see it. His senses picked up immediately, and for once, he wished for thermal implants so that he might see his enemy. Hoping to surprise it again, he lowered the lights, but there was no sound. Gently, Escthta carried H'chak-di back into the common area, setting her down and closing the cuff with his wristblades on. The ki'cti-pa shone, and he hoped it would not be too dull.

"What's wrong?" She was awake, and there was the note of uncertainty in her voice.

He saw no point in lying to her; the Matriarch had warned that there would be attempts on her life. "There is something in our room."

"Something? Not someone?"

"I am not sure yet."

It was then that she saw the blades and grim understanding filled her. She stood, getting out of his way, afraid that an extended fight would come out into the main room.

He went in, looking under their berths, in the corner, and in the bedding. There was nothing. He searched more thoroughly, checking the drawers and cabinets, but to no avail; the aggressor was gone. His brain was riding high on the threat of death, struggling to calm itself after the sudden peak in excitement. Her step came through the door and he turned, sighing as he saw her.

"Is- Is it gone?" The fear, so strange to his ears, made her voice quaver.

"It would appear to be, yes."

She didn't look convinced, and sat on her bed uneasily.

And then he found it again, the movement. The surge of the Hunt came again, and his brain began to move again into the Hunter's mindset. "H'chak-di, be still. Do not move unless I tell you to." She stiffened, her breathing tightening. "What is it?"

"I have found our intruder. It is under your pillow."

"Shit," she whispered. "Shit shit shit shit." She hardly dared to breathe, but the more she tried to quiet, the more excited she got, and the shorter and needier her breaths became. Adrenaline flooded into her blood, and it told her to run, to get far away, to escape, and fighting that urge took as much energy as it would have taken to give into it.

"Hush," he said, as he flexed his hand and the twin serrated blades slid out, a bright edge catching the light. Whimpers crept in on the ends of her breaths and she tried to suppress her panic, but it took hold of her, gripping her tightly until her breaths were fast and deep, but provided her no air.

Escthta used the edge of his blades to lift up the pillow and then tip it up off the end of the bed. The exposed creature hissed, large irises narrowing to a pinpoint. Its jointed back bristled with long spines, and with the weight of the pillow removed, they flexed up, a glistening drop of poison suspended at each tip. The animal seemed part reptile, part insect; its dorsal side plated, its ventral side covered with scaly skin. Escthta did not need to examine it more. Any animal here was placed here by someone and did not mean them well. He stooped down and picked up the pillow, gently placing it on top of the animal, ignoring its muffled hiss.

With a quick downward thrust, he stabbed into the pillow, the spreading black blood announcing the creature's death. He stabbed again, knowing that four cuts would separate the whole into pieces. And again he struck, the pillow becoming a black, ripped mess. The corpse was visible now, mutilated by the numerous strikes, and Anise felt moved to pity by its severed head.

"That's enough," she said, and then louder when he pulled his arm back for another blow. "Escthta!" He froze, looking at H'chak-di, blinking as if she had just appeared.

"It's dead."

"….yes. It is." He looked at the mess he had made of the bed, the animal's carcass and entrails spread out over the bed, and then at the black blood and pillow down that coated his wristblades. His mind had vanished for a moment and there had been just the kill, when all his thoughts and actions had been focused on eliminating the assassin. He stepped out to clean the blades, zoning out as the water in the bathroom washed them clean. He moved without purpose, putting them away with the rest of his armor.

A touch on his arm brought him out of his trance. He turned and looked at H'chak-di, seeing her whole and preserved. She looked shaken. "Was it really so dangerous?"

"I don't know what world it came from, H'chak-di. It could have done anything."

The realization hit him; it had been his first real test of his Protector duties, and he had taken care of the threat, saved the human.

H'chak-di was beginning to come down from the adrenaline. She began to shake, her brush with death taking hold of her. "I don't want to die," she blubbered, tears spilling over, running into her mouth. "I don't want to die. I don't want to die." She hovered on the edge of total breakdown, and then crouched on the floor, the litany disintegrating into inarticulate sobs. He took a step toward her, and then another, kneeling next to her as she bawled.

"H'chak-di," he began, sitting next to her on the floor cushions, "I will not let anyone or anything harm you. I swear it." He pulled her hair away from her splotchy face, lifting her chin up out of her cower, and brushed his hand over her forehead, smoothing away the wrinkles in her brow.

Something changed as he moved his hand over her head; time shuddered to a stop, and the small glint of light he saw in passing became a brilliant spectrum, passing through and around him. The light bent away, and then the world melted around them.

xXx

AUTHOR'S NOTE:Another cliffhanger! Another chapter of reasonable size! In less than a month! Might we have a pattern?

With this chapter, the story begins a headlong plunge toward what will be an upset in the storyline. Beginning now, I am going to have to think very carefully about how I want time and space arranged, and chapters may be farther apart. I am also under a heavier strain from my classes, with two mandatory field trips out-of-state in the next month or so, as well as exams and then finals coming up all too soon.

Thanks to you, the reader, for continuing to be so patient with my sporadic writing, and continuing to read. I love to read your reviews and see how you like the developments in each chapter.

Thanks also to Chocobo Goddess for being this chapter's beta. It's benefited much from her input as well as that of Drakonlily and Solain Rhyo. I love you guys :)