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

xXx

Escthta shaded his eyes against a yellow star; it shone brightly down on him, in a dry grassy field, and the heat felt good on his shoulders. But why here? What was he doing on a plain in broad daylight when he had last been on the floor of his quarters, consoling a human female in her grief?

"Papa!"

Escthta looked across a greening meadow that rolled away from him down a hillside. At the top of the rise, a tenacious acorn had rooted itself and thrust up branches high and proud, their leaves still new and bright, as green as his blood. Beneath the tree sat a young human female, little more than a suckling. She got to her feet, her thin arms and legs sticking out at odd angles, and ran down the hill. He followed her with his eyes, listening to her call again, "Papa!"

As the hill leveled out, its gentle gradient disappearing, it gave way to the packed dirt of a doorstep, the stones of a stoop, the shingles of a roof. The little house was small, tucked in behind the hill, surrounded by small saplings, each of them laced with the yellow-greening of spring, and larger trees that broke the winds curling over the grasses, their dark green branches thrusting up like the spires of his own City.

Escthta eased down the hill, knowing on some level that the humans could not see or hear him. The grass felt shorn under his toes, an unnatural shortness for one used to the wilds of jungles, but its softness was a pleasure. The back door was open, and a tall human male approached the threshold, thin sand-colored hair in his eyes, his face permanently squinting against the sun. "What is it? Have you found a special flower?"

"Yes, Papa," and she thrust a flower out at him, the thin, sprouting stalk and flowers like small crushes of cotton. Escthta stood near them, and the girl, barely up to his hip, grinned at the man. The man crouched down and took the flower, examining it carefully; rubbing the stem between his fingers, and then looking seriously at the leaves. Finally, he lifted the small blossoms to his nose and said, "Ah, this is a special flower!"

The little girl grinned. It was obvious that she knew the flower, knew it well, and was pretending ignorance. "Really? What kind of flower is it?"

"It is anise!" and the man gathered her up in his arms, resting her on his hip. The girl—Anise, he knew her now—giggled and hugged him close.

It was a moment that Escthta felt oddly guilty witnessing. The love that yautja mothers had for their offspring was fierce, and tenderness was rare. The kind of affection between a parent and child was something utterly unknown to him, who had no family. Yautja had no paternal ties of any kind, and only with limited success could they trace themselves through their mothers. Their culture was not one that initiated a lot of physical contact, but seeing how heavily they were clothed, he wondered if perhaps the humans compensated for their lack of communal living with physical touch. It could only be so, he thought as he watched the man, now fully aware he was her father, lean near her soft cheek and kiss it quickly.

The young Anise squealed and clambered to be let down, seeming to have just remembered something. The man let her down and then began to walk around the corner of the house. Escthta followed him and experienced the disconcerting sight of a small child running through him as the young Anise barreled after her father.

On the lee side of the house, a small glass enclosure stood with the door open. Her father was stepping inside it, and Anise walked in after him, pieces of wood in her hand. "Papa, look," she said, offering up a stick that was capped on one end by a strange flat finial and a small bit of wood. "Gaston has broken his nose," she said, and although he could not see who or what she was talking about, Escthta heard the sadness in her voice.

Her father knelt down, and Escthta watched him fit a splintered plane of wood onto a freshly broken surface on the finial, and Escthta saw it whole, recognizing it for what it was; an image of an animal, a mock-up of a beast of burden. The man's hands slid the wood around for a moment, but then he looked at Anise apologetically. "There are pieces missing, cherie. I can glue it back, but it will not fit perfectly."

"But his nose!"

"Do you want me to fix it or not?" Her father's gruff response was a rebuff against the whining that had begun, and Anise looked appropriately chastised. "Please fix him?"

"I will do what I can for Gaston, if you will help me water my plants."

Anise brightened instantly, although Escthta could not know that being asked to help her father work was one of the things she loved most.

They went into the enclosure, and Anise began to measure water in a cup, using a small dropper to add or remove water. She used the same amount of water for each bit of green that sprang up, making sure that no single seedling got more than it needed, or less than the others.

Even her tireless focus grew humdrum, and Escthta sought out her father, walking out of the building. The horizon grew hazy, as if its limits were reached, but the small shed alongside the greenhouse seemed solid enough, and it was there that Escthta caught the sound of whittling, the firm strokes of a knife cutting into wood. A step into the shed confirmed it, and he watched her father re-shape the hobby horse's nose, until it seemed less a stallion and more a pony. He sanded it quickly, blowing the dust away as he worked, and finally gouged out two new nostrils with a chisel. Escthta stood next to him as he appraised his work, and while it was not the charger it had been, it was a fine enough steed for a girl.

Her father set the horse to the side and Escthta watched the human rub his wrists, as if age lingered there. And then he stood, carrying the hobby horse out into the yard. Anise met him at the door, the watering cup empty in her hand. Her father knelt, holding out the wooden horse. Anise looked thrilled, but she looked closely at his nose, and her face fell.

"He's not the same."

"Did you think he would be?"

"I thought so," she said in a small voice, rubbing her thumb over the freshly exposed wood.

"When you pick a flower, it dies. Can you make it alive again?"

"No."

"When things break, we cannot put them back together exactly as they were. We can make them better, but they will never be the same." She hugged her father, though she was not satisfied with his answer. His large, rough hands smoothed over her small shoulders, and he tightened his arms around her. "I am not saying you shouldn't be sad Gaston broke. But if you cannot fix him exactly the way he was, does that mean you should stop loving him altogether?"

She shook her head vehemently.

"Good girl. If you remember that the different things are still the things you love, you will never be unhappy."

xXx

The meadows had changed, and Escthta caught immediately the feeling of time passed, of summers and winters come and gone. Trees grown in the blink of an eye spread branches over the small shed. He looked for Anise, but did not see her. He walked around the house, seeing that a walk and a small road now passed near the house. A black car had just pulled up, the dust from its tires continuing on out over the hill. Two men got out of the car; one was a large human, broad-shouldered and tall, almost six and a half feet, tanned and brown-haired. The other was pale, shifty-eyed, with slicked-back hair that matched the car. He was carrying a small case, and the two of them walked down the hill to the house together. The pale man looked uncomfortable, his leather shoes unsuited to the countryside.

"You're back!" said a familiar voice. Escthta turned, finding Anise, the one he knew, although her hair was longer. It was plaited on either side of her head, and she had the sleeves on her yellow dress rolled up. She approached the tall brunet, embracing him with an intimacy that he returned. The thin man smiled, although he looked as if he might faint. Anise pulled back from the man, and then smiled back. "Scott, you didn't say you'd be bringing company out here. I'm sorry," she said to the thin man, "I'm Anise Desorcy."

"Yes, I know your father's work well. He's done a lot of good with his work in plant proteins."

Anise's smile faded some. "Most of his work is academic now."

"A true loss to those of us at Weyland-Yutani."

"Weyland?" Anise looked at Scott, and her gaze was uncertain. Scott flashed a goofy smile and dropped a kiss on the top of Anise's head. "I just signed a contract with him."

"Oh."

"And he said, if I knew anyone that might need a job, they were looking for others."

"Oh, really?" Her reply was weak, and she smiled as faintly. "So why bring him here?"

Scott looked hurt. "I thought Jake might be interested in making some money. They're looking for good strong men."

"We've found a very rich carbauxite deposit on Craxan Prime," the suit said. He offered a business card, simple and clean, as Weyland-Yutani needed no introduction. The small type informed her that this was one Robert Shedway.

"Craxan? So far away?" The system was relatively new, the colony only three years old.

"We understand that it's difficult to leave Earth, but we feel that we can offer a competitive compensation package."

Scott leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and Anise's eyebrows flew up in surprise, and Escthta caught the smallest gasp, "So much?"

"We take care of our workers," said Mr. Shedway.

"I guess so," Anise mumbled.

"You said that there was another young man here?" Shedway said, eager to get out of the clean air.

"Yes, my brother," Anise started, but she was stopped by the icy stare of her father, who stood at the doorway of the small house.

"Who the hell is that?"

"Papa, he-"

"He looks like he's from Weyland."

"I represent the mineral exploration division of Weyland-Yutani," Shedway offered, unaware of his precarious position.

"Then get the hell off my land. I have no business with you, and neither does my family."

"Papa!"

"I mean it. Get off my land, and don't come back." The old man's eyes glittered fiercely, alive with an anger that rarely showed itself.

Shedway looked sickly at the outburst, and he inclined his head. "Thank you for your time," he said quickly, hurrying back up the hill.

Scott looked at Anise, then her father, and then turned, following Shedway and offering apologies. Anise looked back and forth between the man in the doorway, leaning heavily on the wooden doorframe and the man on the hill, Scott, tall and strong. Escthta felt her indecision, her torn allegiances. Mate or family? Love or Clan? He knew which she would choose, even before he saw her take the tentative step up the hill toward her lover. Escthta knew that the ring she bore on her left hand had come from this human, Scott, whom she had chosen over her father. He saw the door swing to on the small house, the older man eclipsed by solid oak planks. It closed with a heavy sound that turned the sunny countryside black.

xXx

Yugmnelsh stirred. As a center of activity for those species which could Speak, he often slept as the thoughts traveled; after all, his duty was not to regulate the content of such thoughts, but to ensure that the paths did not become so entangled as to stop Speech altogether. With his many arms, he was perfectly suited to the task of untangling the sticky webs of sentient thought that floated through his domain on a current of telepathy. He often turned his mind to other things while doing so, and he absentmindedly sorted out thoughtpaths as he watched the drama unfold in front of him.

Escthta, the yautja protégé, had joined his mind with the human's, their thoughts flowing back and forth like tides, some of her memories boiling to the surface in his brain, some of his memories bubbling up in hers. It was an intimate moment that Yugmnelsh, cynical and jaded as he was, was loath to disturb. The connection had been foreseen and expected, and in this particular case, engineered.

Part of this was his contribution to the work of Paya. A deity unto himself, Yugmnelsh need never have bothered with Paya's pet project, but the young yautja piqued his curiosity. Something had passed between the Hunter and Oggohlb that prompted the latter to awaken his latent Psionic power. Yugmnelsh was skeptical, but watched over the fledgling Psionic with more than a shade of interest.

The human's memories had proved to be tragic, almost ordinarily so. They bored Yugmnelsh with their regularity, for he had seen the thoughts of the most miserable creatures in existence, and humans and their brains held no mystery for him.

In truth, Escthta's reactions to her memories were more interesting than the memories themselves, but only slightly more so. Escthta was seeing into a different world, one where young were reared with love and a gentle hand, the polar opposite of his own upbringing on the Yautja broodworld. The confusion such an idea created, as well as the small sense of personal loss, the 'what might have been' that had slipped away, told volumes about the Psionic, and Yugmnelsh wondered if Paya might succeed after all.

xXx

"Okay. You be the sabraa, and I'll hunt you."

"But I was the sabraa last time."

"I never caught you last time, so you're still the sabraa."

Escthta rolled his eyes and put his hands on his small hips, exasperated. "That's not fair."

"C'mon, Escthta, don't be difficult." Cthinde was trying out one of the phrases he had picked up from the older females, and Escthta smirked.

"Fine." Escthta crouched, his youngling body strangely bent between his knees and his arms tucked into his sides.

"You need to bend your back more."

"I can't, Cthinde."

"…I guess this will have to do." Cthinde launched himself at Escthta, his fist pulled back to land a blow on Escthta's temple. Escthta scuttled out of the way, flapping his elbows in an imitation of the large flightless bird. The only thing he lacked was the bird's vicious beak, but he was able to approximate that by jabbing Cthinde in the ribs with a finger.

"Gotcha."

"You're no fun, Escthta." Cthinde sulked where he sat, folding his arms over his chest.

"Now can I be the hunter?"

"No!" Cthinde got to his feet and then growled, "Again!"

Escthta rolled his eyes and dutifully crouched. Cthinde's attack came again, foretold by his battle cry, and Escthta moved out of the way again, pushing back into a somersault away from his opponent. Cthinde lunged for him, but found his hand buried in the loose sand where Escthta had been only moments ago. A pivot found Escthta only a few paces away, and Cthinde whooped as he moved to jump. The feint worked, Escthta dodged and found Cthinde rolling under his guard, planting a foot on his chest. He grunted, or rather, squawked in surprise, much like the sabraa he aped, and fell on his rear.

"HA! Gotcha!"

Escthta rubbed his chest, grimacing. "Didn't have to kick me so hard."
"If you were a real sabraa, you'd have pecked my eyes out by now." The birds were easily excitable, and any attack not calculated to kill risked blindness or disembowelment by the bird's sharp beak. Cthinde was practicing for his first hunt, and he had already picked out the sabraa he wanted to kill. Many times he had insisted Escthta come look at it, but Escthta, being more survival-minded, had refused. Today, he had agreed at last, and they were going to strike out for the plains as the sun set. The sabraa were diurnal, and settled for the night in their nests on the savannah as the sky burned orange.

Anise watched the young Escthta, things moving around and through her, as if she were in a holographic simulation. And yet, she could smell the dirt, the sweetness of drying grasses, other scents whose significance was lost to her. She allowed a small smile as she followed the pair, noticing how serious Escthta was, even in his childhood. His companion's name was provided for her, along with the understanding that Fang and Cthinde were the same person. It was her first time hearing another Hunter's voice, and she rather liked the rough-and-easy Cthinde, whose laidback nature reminded her of Jake.

She moved with them as they stalked through the forest, at times taking to the trees. They responded to cues that she could not perceive, even in an enhanced state. Their claws dug into trees when they vaulted off of heavy branches, and she saw the wood fragment, the blue reflection on the thick foliage, their dappled haunches in the darkening shadows of the trees. The clarity was dizzying.

The sky was a deepening purple, faintly red at its edge, when they reached the grasslands. They were totally silent, their steps making no noise. Cthinde's eyes seemed to glitter even in the dying light. Escthta's head was bent, and the coiled power in his legs made Anise tense herself. Anise felt uneasy watching them stalk their prey. At this age, their small frames gave no hint as to their eventual height; Cthinde only came up to Anise's shoulder. They were still only children, but already they were indoctrinated, schooled into Hunting by their society. She wondered for a moment what should happen if a child did not want to Hunt, but only for a moment; something told her that those children did not last long in this world.

A voice spoke in her head, but it was no voice she recognized. The decision not to Hunt is a privilege of the honored and venerable. Those that live long enough to pursue education and idle pursuits are the best of the yautja race, and the only individuals capable of keeping our society from falling apart.

"But there is trouble, isn't there? Your society is falling apart."

There was silence, from the voice and the scene before her as the children crept through the grasses.

Yes. It is. It was a soft acknowledgment. But then again, that is why you are here.

"Me? Why am I so important?"

A response never came, pre-empted by a howl of victory. Anise stared, in spite of herself, at the gory trophy Cthinde held aloft. His cry woke the other birds, and as the smell of blood filled their nostrils, they screeched back at him. It would be only a few seconds until the closest one gained its feet, and Cthinde whooped as he vaulted off the still-warm body of his target, running off into the woods. Escthta, who had begun to move as the bird's throat was cut, waited impatiently at the edge of the savannah, his fingers flexing, dancing from foot to foot and preparing to sprint.

"MOVE, Cthinde!" he bellowed, for he saw what Cthinde could not; the pack of sabraa abandoning their fallen comrade and charging after him, flush with bloodlust, their long legs easily gaining on the young yautja. Cthinde gasped for air as he ran toward the break between forest and grassland, having been not quite prepared for the speed of a fully enraged sabraa. He slowed, his fatigue showing, and the snap of a beak directly behind him forced more power into his calves. He looked for his way up into the trees; he was almost there.

Another beak snapped, this one by his other ear- they were surrounding him! Escthta was straddled over a low branch, his hand outstretched to his exhausted friend. Cthinde flung the decapitated sabraa's head at the one closest to him, and with a final lunge, caught Escthta's arm. Escthta grunted, and then whimpered as a muscle in his arm tore with Cthinde's full weight on it, but he did not let go, pulling Cthinde up onto the branch. It groaned under their weight, and they moved closer to the trunk and up into the tree, away from the snapping sabraa below. The murderous birds launched themselves at the fleeing yautja, their beaks tearing large chunks of wood out of the lowest branch.

A few hundred yards away, Escthta had his good hand pressed over his now injured arm, leveling a sour look on Cthinde.

"What?" Cthinde puffed between breaths.

"You know what. This will take weeks to heal." Escthta's grip tightened over the muscle, and he seethed when it became painful.

"It was worth it," Cthinde replied, still out of breath.

"You didn't even keep the trophy," Escthta groused.

"Why would I? Who wants a filthy sabraa trophy? Soon, I'll be hunting the Hard Meat."

"You're full of yourself," Escthta sulked.

"I'll hunt anything that moves," crowed Cthinde.

"You'll die for it, too," said Escthta. "Your timing sucks."

xXx

The scene changed in front of her, like the quick flip through television channels on Earth. Many times she saw Cthinde's face or the horrible long heads of the xenomorphs, before the image stabilized. It was a scene she knew, but from a very different perspective.

Fang- no, Cthinde- was there, and he turned to Escthta. "Are you sure this is the one you want?" Anise saw herself in a pathetic pile at their feet, gibbering with fear. She was almost ashamed, but even now the terror of that day bubbled up inside her freely.

Bagthak grunted. "It doesn't have any kind of sense at all." He jerked his head back toward the deeper tunnels. "The Hard Meat are already back there. Going back there unarmed is like inviting death." It was something Anise knew now, knew better than she had ever wanted to know, and she appreciated more the danger that she had been in. A few seconds later and the bugs would have killed her. A few seconds later and she might never have known about Jake.

"Maybe it has young." Anise smiled weakly at the conjecture. They wouldn't know that she was widowed, of course. There hadn't been enough time for thinking of a family.

"Humans live in family units and feel strong attachments to relatives. If there are relatives back there, it will try to get back to them." Yes, she thought. That's exactly what I was doing.

"So we should… do what, exactly?"

Bagthak rumbled, "Any relatives must be dead or hosting by now."

"You and I know that, but maybe it doesn't." No, Anise thought, her mind blank of everything but response, No, I didn't know. I had never imagined.

The next few moments blended together, as Escthta helped her up and extolled her intelligence to the other two Hunters, as one lays praise on an exceptionally well-behaved puppy. Then they were going down the corridor. She saw herself lean against the limestone walls, remembering the sick sobs, the nausea at Lucas's hollow corpse. And then, it was time. She would live her brother's death over again, but this time from inside the mind of his murderer.

Anise saw herself laid over her brother's lap, the blubbering nonsense that she had tried to convince herself with, and a wave of regret, loss, and pity washed over her. How pathetic she looked. How little she had known then. A new type of vision wiped over her eyes, and she clearly saw the alien, the bug that nestled inside her brother's abdomen, curling and uncurling its serpentine tail. Another surge of sorrow threatened to upset her shaky calm, but she swallowed down the sobs, continuing to watch the scene, as she had in many dreams since that night. She saw herself thrown out of the room, and remembered how she had gone sprawling in the hallway, contorting herself to avoid the destroyed facehugger and its acid that still foamed on the walls.

Instead of feeling the wind knocked out of her, she saw Escthta turn back to her brother. These parts she had seen, but there was, again, a clarity like that of the previous scene, a sharpness to every edge that seemed unreal. And this time, as she watched Escthta's huge clawed hand close her brother's eyes, a voice rose up out of nothing, and it was a voice she knew.

There is not much time. I can feel it here in my chest. I don't know what you are, but you are here, and you are the only one left. In the name of anything you hold dear, take care of her.

It was Jake's voice, one she could barely remember anymore. In the months before, he had stopped talking, communicating through blinks and breathing. "It's a trick, it's a goddamn trick," she murmured, before screaming, "STOP FUCKING WITH ME! Stop it…" She crouched in place, and the scene faded as Escthta's cannon fired. The space around her was a soft sort of grey, and then it was no color at all, just a nothing that enveloped her.

"Why did you show me that? Why? What are you trying to do to me? Isn't it enough that he's dead? Isn't it enough that I came here? Why the fuck do you have to torture me?"

Sometimes, the truth is hard to hear. The first voice, the one that was neither Escthta's nor Jake's echoed in her head. This is truth, as he remembers it. A form materialized at the edge of her vision, but as she turned her head to look at it, it shifted to the edge of her vision again, nebulous. The presence danced about, there and not there, like smoke or haze. She could tell only that it was a Hunter, and not Escthta. He does not show you this to torture you, or make you feel pain. Indeed, your brother's last words were a gift that only he could give.

"A gift…" she said quietly.

From a chosen one, who may speak with the minds of others. Only through him have you heard the last of your brother's thoughts, and only with his guidance have you come through your ordeal unscathed, the voice admonished her. He is the only thing standing between you and certain death. If you wish to join your brother soon, by all means, continue to alienate him. But trust him, trust him, and he will be the force to bend the will of Paya herself.

xXx

Anise came around only a few moments after Escthta, but he had already shaken off his disorientation.

"What was that?"

"I don't know." He rubbed his head with his palm, and then looked at her. "Are you okay?"

"A little queasy, but yeah, I'm fine." An awkward silence filled the gap, and then she smiled sadly, shaking her head. "Why didn't you just tell me what my brother said? It would have saved you so much grief."

"Would you have believed me?"

"….no, I suppose not."

Another pause, and this time Escthta broke the silence. "Did you ever see your father again after that day?"

"Yes, when we left for Craxan Prime the next week. He told me that if I ever left Weyland-Yutani, there would be a place for me on the farm. I never came back, and he died the next year."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Anise rubbed at a patch of rough skin on her ankle. "We all have to live with our regrets. Just gotta keep going, and not stop to think about who we've disappointed or why no one loves us." She flicked a flake of skin off the raised bone. "Sounds like a shitty way to live, actually."

She stared off into space, and Escthta watched her, finding no words that could refute her statement. "Sleep in my bed," he offered suddenly. She blinked and then nodded slowly. A good night's sleep was what she needed. Everything would look clearer in the morning, whether she wanted it to or not. Anise stepped into the bedchamber, climbed into his berth and laid down facing the wall. Escthta sat on her bed with the remnants of the pillow and the black blood of the lizard-thing and stared into the night.

xXx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another chapter finally makes its way here. I wish it hadn't taken so long, but such is the nature of college; it sucks your time away in amounts you didn't think it could. However, I have completed a paper and finished a Powerpoint presentation, so I figured I would celebrate with a chapter.

I agree with the reviewer that Escthta and Anise have really taken over this story. At its inception, Quality of Resonance was Cthinde's story; Escthta was only a side character, a Lancelot to Cthinde's Arthur. Since that time, the story has changed so drastically that it bears little resemblance (thankfully) to its original plot. I do not feel that Cthinde has much of a place in this storyline anymore. Which is why, at a certain juncture, he will get his own story to himself, without all the heavy-duty socio-political drama. I think he deserves that, and I plan to give it to him.

Thanks to Drakonlily and Chocobo Goddess for their infinite patience.