This story features an OC introduced in another Star Trek Enterprise story, "Beyond Carbon Creek." It is unnecessary to read that story to understand this one (this first chapter will give some background at the same time that it'll move the plot forward), but you might enjoy it if you enjoy the character Mestral from the episode "Carbon Creek." There will marginally feature another OC, Brenna Jones, who has two of her own stories, one in TOC and the other in Star Trek 2009 (check them out if you like tongue-in-cheek humor). I own nothing regarding the Star Trek franchise; I only claim the original ideas spawned from it and the OC's created here. If you like these OCs or this idea and would like to use them in your own work, please PM me and link me to your story and give credit where credit is due. Please leave comments/requests on canon characters you'd like to see, situations you think could be fun to orchestrate, and your critiques and/or praise. Thank you in advance for your support. Cheers!
What frustrated Elonat had little to do with pain. She was no stranger to pain. As they did their best to beat information out of her, Elonat remained stoic. Not only had they no right to her memories, but she had no information to give that would satisfy them.
The frustration was also not connected to her humiliation of being poked and prodded and paraded around naked, her modesty stolen from her as if she were nothing more than a lab rat. All her childhood she remembered the looks of fear mixed with disdain at her "otherness," and, in a fashion, it was almost a relief to have such blatant hatred thrown at her for her alien blood than for it to be hidden behind feigned polite consideration.
No, what frustrated her was the fact that it had all been for nothing.
The lottery that had "awarded" her cryogenic sleep had been for nothing. They'd drawn up the lottery in the last days of the War, seeking from among the refugees some who could survive and take with them the hope of a better future. She'd never wanted it and would've been content to die with her father and grandfather. But they'd insisted that Elonat's very uniqueness was all the more reason she should submit. They'd all but had to sedate her to get her to comply. There'd been many tears shed when it had come time to lie down in the pod (her grandfather had been distraught in his own Vulcan way). Her last sight had been that of her father and grandfather, standing on either side of her cryogenic pod, flashing her the traditional Vulcan salute, and waiting for her to fall asleep.
But what good had that ever done, her uniqueness? Her "uniqueness" had killed her mother. In those days, genetic engineering had already caused massive bloodshed, and it had attracted some to Elonat by her non-human characteristics (brown blood, elflike ears, obvious non-human mixture of genetics). They saw her as the perfect specimen to do further Augment experiments on. When the Augments had refused to hand Elonat over after they'd kidnapped her from the hospital, her family had used all their resources to recruit a rescue team. It'd taken the sacrifice of her mother and a few others. Though neither her grandfather or father blamed Elonat for her mother's death, a great many years passed for her to come to terms with it.
Her "uniqueness" had always been a barrier between her and the rest of humanity. They being doubly cautious of her because of her of alien blood and then because of the Augment serums that had melded to her DNA and changed her in ways that had yet to be fully understood even at the time of her cryogenic sleep. Due to her quarter-Vulcan now Augment altered DNA, she'd always been faster in mind and body, stronger, and quicker to heal than her counterparts, and that had done her no favors growing up in a society of distrust as it was prior to World War 3.
Even amid the refugee camp that their ranch became during the early years of the War, when people from all over and all walks of life came crawling to her father and grandfather for shelter—despite their own apparent alien and half-alien natures—humans had treated her with arm's length cordiality. They tolerated her family's non-human natures only because of the safety their ranch gave them; the technology Mestral built that kept them hidden when otherwise they might have all been destroyed. But while they'd tolerated the other members of her family, they'd given Elonat wide berth and rarely, if ever, allowed their children to associate with her. She was like THEM, the engineered ones waging this War. It didn't matter that she'd had no say in the engineering; she was tainted.
Though she'd once had dreams of following in her grandfather's footsteps and becoming an intergalactic science explorer, the wars and turmoil—not to forget the curse of her blood—had cut off that dream. She received a well-rounded education from her both grandfather and father, and the ranch hands that were more family than employees, and many other willing refugees who called their ranch home. Elonat was what they could consider a "renaissance woman" in that she had talents and abilities in several fields, but expertise in none. Eventually, she was called upon to educate the young among the refugees, and so, Elonat was finally given a cog-like task in the wheels of society.
But, despite this newfound placement, society had been uninterested in her soul. This rejection of the core part of herself, cut deep, and left more than a few callouses on her heart. Elonat had hidden it well enough behind grit and a determination to live up to the expectations she projected her mother and grandmother to have had for her. Still, it'd always hurt like hell the: passive-aggressive rejection she received.
Now-Elonat winced but kept her mouth shut against the scream she knew they wanted to tear from her throat-now she was pissed off because the sacrifices of her family had been for nothing. The cryogenic chamber she and the others had been in may have survived centuries after the War, but none of them had woken up to a world they'd hoped for. They had killed many in the chamber in the very process of being discovered. Only her pod and a half dozen others had survived. However, where the others had been welcomed into the bosoms of the group of individuals who'd done the discovering—who she now knew to be a hyper xenophobic militant group called Terra Prime—she'd been taken aside to be tested and experimented on. How could it be, they wondered, that a 2/3rds Vulcan-human hybrid could be cryogenically sleeping in a chamber that had been buried long before "first contact" was officially made between Vulcan and Earth? Her very existence challenged the core of their beliefs, and they would not stand for it. They would exact their revenge on the truth of her life with her green blood.
Despite the pain they'd exact, as long as Elonat could help it, she wasn't about to tell them a thing. Though they questioned her of her parentage, her connections to Vulcan, her ties to the Augments, they didn't deserve to know. She would not tell them about the love shared between the voluntarily marooned Vulcan Mestral and her grandmother Jodi Madsen in the 20th century. Somehow Elonat felt that in the telling, she would tarnish their memory. They also didn't need to know about the health problems her father Murac had had to overcome in his childhood to survive to adulthood when he'd found her mother Edith and had created a life bond with her. And they sure as hell didn't need to know about the Augments and her family's reluctant involvement in the Eugenics Wars. They already knew she had Augment-influenced DNA, but they hadn't pushed her so far that she'd felt inclined to explain why. No, she was content enough to let them stew in their confusion even if it meant further pain.
And besides, the pain from their torture seemed to have brought at least one glimmer of good. At least, so far, Elonat assumed it was good. Either her mental status was becoming disrupted, and she was retreating further into a fantasy world with every passing day, or, well, Elonat wasn't sure what the alternative was. For it seemed, from time to time, her mind would drift into memory, not her own. Or she would think of a fact that she'd never studied and could find no connection to. It felt as if two very distinct consciousness were now sharing her mind, filtering in and out of the forefront of her brain, depending upon how much pain she was in. Although it would be hard to explain to someone in words, Elonat recognized the "feel" of the consciousness of both her father Murac and her grandfather Mestral. The strongest thoughts and memories seemed to be the most foreign, and she attributed those to Mestral, while the weaker ones seemed to hold the "feel" of her father, Murac. She didn't know how, or why, they were weaving about in her mind, but they were they, and they were most assuredly a comfort.
"Maybe we should toss her in with the cat." One of her current torturers interrupted his torture and her "not memory" of meditating on a cliff overlooking a sea of sand. She could barely see since her eyes were near swollen shut from the beating they'd administered just moments before. The Augment serum allowed her to heal faster than most humans naturally, but she still got bruised and bloodied the same as any other. Plus, they'd yet to unhook her from the stream of electricity that kept her incapacitated. From the moment she'd awakened, they'd kept her hooked up to it either through restraints on her ankles and wrists or through straps held against her forehead and torso. Her body had not the time to recover, either from the cryogenic sleep or their torture. "We haven't fed him in a few days," the man continued, "could be fun to watch to see who comes out on top."
His companion responded from further away, closer to the door, "I'm bored with this, anyway. They didn't say she couldn't get maimed a bit. They'd probably not look too kindly at a lost limb, and we obviously can't let her die without their say so…"
"Of course." Torturer One reached down and pressed in a code on the panel of her chair. The bone-jarring electricity ceased, and she momentarily felt her natural energy and vitality return. But they placed restraints on her wrists and ankles, and the electricity returned, sapping her once more into a state of reluctant compliance. "Get the others. We'll see if we can get some bets going on who will win."
Elonat was dragged from the room, and soon enough, there was a small crowd filling the corridor behind her two torturers. She did not understand where those in charge had disappeared, the ones who had ordered her tortured and tested, the ones who'd tried the "nice guy" route of getting information from her before they'd resorted to the "bad guy" route she was currently getting. She hadn't seen them in some time and had been left with the thugs of this organization.
She didn't even know how long it'd been since they'd first woken her up. Her days and nights had been relentlessly strung together with intermittent interrogation, testing, torture, and repeat. She'd hallucinated the sounds of her family, their faces too. Her brain was so fragile from lack of sleep. Once, she'd imagined herself flying back over the fields of their ranch, her noncorporeal body reaching out for the arms of her mother, only to be slammed back into the reality of the electric chair when an exceedingly painful needle was jabbed into her temple intending to extract brain tissue for study.
They emerged from the building and dragged her across a reddish hued ground. Blinking at the light of what felt to be two suns overhead and coughing at the air quality difference, Eloant realized that this was the first time she'd been outside. She didn't bother trying to look around, the surrounding crowd was too thick, and her eyesight had still yet to recover from the beating. She didn't need to look around to know that wherever they were was most assuredly not Earth. Everything about this place she'd experienced so far bespoke an otherworldly truth.
"Here kitty, kitty, kitty." They drew to a stop at the edge of a circular basin lined at the top with an invisible barrier—she could hear the hum of its existence even if it couldn't be seen with the naked eye. "We brought you a chew toy."
Elonat had no warning. One moment they suspended her between her two torturers, whom she'd called Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and the next she was tumbling head over foot over the jagged edge of the basin. Her already abused and broken skin only flayed open more in her descent until she landed in a dusty and painful heap at the bottom. Naked as she still was, there was no protection for her body from the burning suns overhead nor the burn of the dust. It felt as if the dust itself had some acidic nature in it that further aggravated her wounds. It took a moment for the world to stop spinning, and once it did, she felt the electricity from her ankle, and wrist cuffs stop.
"Some comfort," she mumbled against the dirt.
Once her body adjusted and began its recovery, Elonat raised her head just enough to take in her immediate surroundings. About ten feet away from her on her left, there was a single pipe jutting out from the basin wall, a slow trickle of water coming out of it and emptying into a wooden trough. She looked both ahead and to her right. Ahead of her, perhaps another ten feet away, was a shadowed area that belied a cave-like entrance. On her right, there was a pile of rubbish, the items most noticeable to her being bleached bones stacked neatly against the basin wall. Whatever "cat" they'd tossed her in with it could organize at least, which told her he could have some reasoning capacity.
"Water," Elonat interrupted her thoughts with her most pressing need. If there was to be a fight, as her torturers so desired, she would need water.
She dragged herself over to the pipe, unable to stand just yet, and braced her hands on the side of the trough. Her body weight was too much for the thing. Instead of offering a solution to her dehydration problem, the trough overturned on top of her head. It at least offered up a partial solution to her bath issue. Overhead, she heard her torturers laugh and jeer as numbers back and forth between them.
Elonat shook her head, the water turning the dust in her shoulder-length brown hair to muddied dreadlocks. She pulled herself into a kneeling position over the last remaining part of the trough was in one piece large enough to still hold water. Her hands were shaking too much to be of use to hold water and so she set her lips directly against the water and sucked it in. It felt as if all the cells in her body were reviving just from these few sips of liquid. She felt more alive in this one moment than she had since they'd woken her.
Just then, she felt the sun's warmth disappear as a shadow passed over her. Elonat shifted her body weight to the side, one hand reaching for a broken piece of wood—pathetic excuse for a weapon—as she fell backward and pointed the wood upwards. She couldn't see the features of the shadow; it was framed on either side of its shoulders by the twin suns in the sky. All Elonat could tell at this point was that the shadow was bipedal, tall, and had two arms. It also had yet to attack despite the encouraging taunts from her torturers above. She kept the wood in her hand and scooted until her back was against the basin wall. The shadow began to crouch towards her.
"Here," the shadow held out an earthen cup to her, "take this."
Elonat stared at the contents—water—then looked to the hand that held the cup. It was more of a paw than a hand, and the muscled arm attached to it was just as covered in black fur as the paw. Elonat's eyes continued their curious, and confused, journey until her eyes rested on an unmistakably feline-featured face: high cheekbones, pointed chin, broad forehead, elongated ears with tufts of white fur growing out of the edges. Yellow eyes that held a sentient light peered out at her from a black-furred face. There was nothing about this "cat" that hinted at aggression, aside from the retracted claws she could spot in his paws and the sizeable canines in his mouth when he spoke again.
"I added nothing to it, in case it worried you that I contaminated it." He shifted closer until the water was within easier reach.
Elonat nodded, dropping the wood, and took the cup with both hands. She sipped, her eyes ever on her feline companion. When she finished, he took the cup, refilled it, then brought it back again. As she drank more, the cries from the crowd registered again. She eyed her companion with renewed apprehension.
"They seem to think I am the type who would like to fight and eat human females." The feline's lips curled into a smile, his smile seemed more like a human snarl and did not leave Elonat comforted. "Though," the feline pointed to Elonat's face, her ears, and then his eyes traveled down the length of her broken body smeared with dirt and her brown blood, "you don't appear to be wholly human either."
Elonat cleared her throat, "I hope that doesn't put me back on the menu."
The feline blinked at her words then let out a strange sound, a combination of a roar and coughing like sound. It took Elonat a moment to realize that he was laughing.
"No," he shook his head and swiped a paw at a bug that flew by his face, "it does not. I am a Caitian. It would go against my nature and my culture to bring you to any harm. You are weakened, and without defense or a protective clan, it would be a dishonorable kill." He took his warm gaze from her and sent an exasperated look towards the lot above them. "These barbarians haven't bothered to do their research on my kind or else they would have known to have thrown you in with the Andorian female adjacent or even the Romulan commander further down the way if they'd wanted to see some violence."
The crowd above grew silent then, and both Elonat and her Caitian companion shifted to see what could have brought the silence. Elonat frowned. It was one of the "nice guys," and he was listening with a neutral expression as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum both attempted to explain why she was down here. There was much gesturing, the words too muffled to be caught down here, and eventually, the "nice guy" signaled to some other goons, and her two torturers were escorted away to some unknown fate. The "nice guy" looked down at her, spoke to the men standing closest to him, then disappeared. Both Elonat and the Caitian waited, but soon enough, it became apparent to them both that for whatever reason, for the time being, she was to be left with him.
"I am Mr'ish." The Caitian placed a paw over his heart and bowed his leopard-like head to her.
"Elonat." Elonat put her hands down on either side of her hips and pushed, but very little happened aside from her near toppling over.
"If you will permit me," Mr'ish held his paws out towards her, pads ups, "I can assist you into my dwelling place. I have some rations to share, and I believe my coat will provide better protection for you than your natural state."
Elonat slumped against the wall with a sigh, "Mr'ish, I will do more than permit you. I will require you to carry me I'm afraid."
Mr'ish let out a purring like noise and Elonat guessed that this was his version of a controlled chuckle. It felt strange, his soft fur rubbing against her sensitive skin as he placed an arm under her knees and another beneath her shoulders. He wore leggings, boots, and a simple t-shirt, most likely the undershirt of whatever outfit he'd been wearing when he'd first been brought here. She could feel the power of his well-muscled body as he moved silently across the floor of the basin towards the shadowed opening she'd spotted earlier. It was such a harsh difference from everything they had exposed her to so far; this gentleness Mr'ish appeared to be showing her that Elonat was overcome, and she fell asleep with tears in her eyes.
When she woke again, Elonat immediately noted the fact that she was clean for the first time since Terra Prime had awakened her. The dirt and crusted blood from repeated beatings had all been washed away, and her wounds were as dressed as they could be given their surroundings. She lay in a concave circular straw-filled sleeping area covered with a thin blanket, wearing the promised coat. When she peeled away the blanket and began to sit up, Elonat noted the military-esque insignias on the coat.
"I wonder..." She spoke more to herself but tensed when Mr'ish replied.
"I am a Caitian ambassador," Mr'ish spoke up from just over the edge of the sleeping area, the tufts of fur on his ears the first thing visible to her roving eyes. "Or at least I was until Terra Prime abducted me. They are holding the Andorian ambassador and myself hostage hoping our people will withdraw from the proposed Federation of Planets charter." He looked over to Elonat, expecting her to know what he was talking about. He tipped his head to the side when he took note of her blank expression. "You know nothing about what I'm saying, do you?"
Elonat shook her head, "No, I don't."
"That is most curious." Mr'ish picked up the bowl he'd been heating over a single burner and retrieved a spoon before sitting on the edge of the sleeping area near her. "Elonat, would you be willing to explain to me who you are and why they treat you as they do?"
Elonat smiled, "How do I know you aren't working for them, and this is just another ploy for them to try to pry out my truths?" She took the bowl from his offered paws and nodded at his semi-offended facial expression.
"You do not know Caitians then if you would think me capable of that, but I would gather that you know little about Andorians either." He paused and watched her carefully. Elonat smiled over the edge of her bowl and sipped at the broth he'd warmed up. "Or Romulans." The broth was salty and savory, and she knew that though it lacked spice, it would do her body good. Mr'ish shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. "You are an enigma, Elonat, and much stronger than any other human female I've encountered." He stood up then and set about his small dwelling place organizing things he'd used to help clean her up. "While I promise I did not take liberties with your body while you slept, I could not help but notice the strain these people put you under." His searching gaze had Elonat's cheeks warming, and she hid behind her efforts to drain the bowl of broth. "What I know of Terra Prime tells me that they would never do that to another full-blooded human and while they've been more than unpleasant with the Andorian female and me, they have not sought to torture either of us since we are more valuable to them in relatively good health than not. You, however, seem to be unattached and expendable to them."
Elonat finished the broth and handed the bowl back to Mr'ish when he came to retrieve it. "It is as you say, Mr'ism. I do not have a government willing to ransom me, and I am not fully human for them to claim ties. I'm human enough to be spared immediate death but not human enough to be spared the rest of what they've done to me or intend to do."
"Have they," Mr'ish averted his gaze, "have they harmed you in any intimate ways?"
"No," Elonat found it curious that he would ask that, but it satiated her curiosity when Mr'ish sighed and explained himself.
"Though they have acted as monsters to you, I am glad to know they did not do that. Already, if given a chance with rescue, I would be gratified to see all these men suitably punished for their wrongs. However, if they had harmed you in that way," Mr'ish shook his head, "Caitians do not take kindly to individuals with such disrespect for another's freedom of choice. I told you before that it is not in our nature to bring another to harm if we can help it. However, we do believe that there is a time and place when such violence can and should be released."
"That is comforting, Mr'ish." Elonat pulled herself out of the sleeping area and swung her legs over the edge. "Thank you." She tipped her head to the side. "You mentioned a Federation of Planets charter that you and the Andorian female are being held hostage against." Elonat knew she was taking a chance to expose her displacement in time by asking the question, but she couldn't help her curiosity. "Could you explain that to me?"
Mr'ish, if he suspected anything other than her genuine curiosity, did not show it. He went through a basic summary of events that had led up to his abduction. The development and implementation of earth space exploration to other solar systems and from that the tentative alliance among different planets and species with the humans. He mentioned names of known races at such a rapid pace that Elonat's head began to hurt a bit, but when he noticed her pinched smile, he slowed down.
"The Andorian female being held here is ambassador Atharia Sh'avholnihr. She was already not a fan of 'pink skins,' as the Andorians refer to humans, and I fear this episode will only further wall her against having more to do with them than occasional trade. It was hard enough convincing them to be on the same planet with Vulcans." Mr'ish scratched a paw behind his ear.
"Andorians don't like Vulcans?" Elonat's grandfather had spoken little of the other alien races he'd known before coming to Earth. He'd spoken of his home on Vulcan and his clan but never of any others. However, as she asked the question, a responding sensation from her grandfather's consciousness confirmed.
Mr'ish snorted, "Once that would have been an understatement. However, through the efforts of Captain Archer and his crew onboard the Earth starship Enterprise, the relationships between the two groups has warmed marginally. I don't think ambassador Atharia would immediately try to gut you if she saw your Vulcan ties."
"How did you know?" Elonat touched the tip of her right ear. She used to be frustrated at its sensitivity, and the harsh teasing she'd received from her peers because of it, but then she'd understood the illogic of being consumed with ideas about something she couldn't change.
"I know of few other races from this quadrant of space whose ears are such as yours. It is true that Romulans are assumed to be distantly related to Vulcans, and so have ears and blood like yours; only they have distinguishable eyebrow ridges that you lack, and they are more given to duplicitous actions and aggression than you have displayed." Before Elonat could challenge his assumptions, Mr'ish smiled. "A Romulan hybrid would never have felt safe enough to fall asleep in my presence, regardless of how exhausted they were. A Vulcan hybrid would see the logic of resting and would do so, assessing the danger of remaining awake to be higher than that of taking a moment to rest."
Elonat chuckled, "Touche."
"What does that mean?" Mr'ish tipped his head to the side. "I am still learning Earth languages, and I'm not familiar with that one."
"Well, the original term was for sword fighting, but in colloquial terms, it means point taken."
Mr'ish repeated the word a few more times to himself and nodded, "I like that."
"You said there was a Romulan here, this distant relation to Vulcans?" Elonat watched Mr'ish's facial expression fall. "Is he not also being held hostage against the charter?"
"No, I'm uncertain why he is being held here for it was he, or at least his crew, who first abducted myself and admiral Atharia and sold us to Terra Prime. Only he was betrayed and taken along with us. It is most strange for Romulans rarely venture this far out of their system. We are on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant at this abandoned colony. However, though, I have not pieced together why a Romulan commander would be motivated to get involved in such matters when it has little to do with Romulus."
Elonat yawned then at the same time that Mr'ish did. A singular moon, bathing everything in a silver glow had rapidly replaced the light of the two suns. They shared a smile of understanding. Elonat looked around the small area and saw that there would be no space large enough or comfortable enough for Mr'ish's six foot+ frame to sleep. Mr'ish didn't comment and appeared to be attempting to settle into his seat by the entrance.
"Mr'ish, I do not mind sharing this space with you." He looked surprised. "I don't know what your culture feels about sharing sleeping arrangements with unattached females, but there truly is no other space for you to sleep, and I promise I'll keep my hands to myself." She put her hands behind her back and gave her best innocent smile.
"Are you implying that my hesitancy to sleep with you is because I fear you'll molest me?"
Elonat laughed, "Not really. I was joking. But seriously, Mr'ish, you are the only gentle and kind creature I've known in a very long time. As you saw for yourself, I've not had the best treatment here for some time, and so I'm rather desperate for comfort. Having you by my side would help a lot." She may have laid on the passive-aggressive guilt trip a bit heavy, but it worked. Soon enough, Mr'ish settled in beside her, his back against hers, and Elonat smiled at the shared warmth.
She'd never shared a bed with another male outside of her family, and even then, that'd been when she was very young. She knew males of any species had higher temperatures, and Mr'ish was no different. She didn't find his warmth nor his furry nature bothersome; however, and she did feel the assumed comfort, she said she would feel. With an internal sigh, she settled more under the blankets and asked, "Are you attached Mr'ish?"
"Are you asking because you want to attach to me?" Even without seeing his face Elonat detected the teasing lilt in his deep voice. Elonat pushed her back against his and felt his purring chuckle vibrate through their touching bodies. "Yes, I am married. One of my wives is on my home planet Feresa with my six children. The other is waiting for me on Earth, having preceded me for the conference. And you?"
"No. Before I came here, all I've known is hardship in the realm of romance. I was born in a time of war, and the last I knew there was still war. My non-human ties never endeared me to anyone enough to merit a romantic relationship." She sighed and burrowed further under the blanket. "It seems that'll continue to be a trend."
Mr'ish emitted the closest thing to a growl she'd heard since she'd met him, but it didn't frighten her. She somehow knew that he didn't intend it for her.
"Elonat, they will not take you from me easily. You said you have no government willing to fight for you, so then I will."
Elonat turned to face him as Mr'ish turned to face her. She reached out and petted a hand down his furry cheek.
"I appreciate that Mr'ish, but I can't allow you to do that. You have too much at stake to risk your life for an unknown and, in all honesty, expendable female you just met. You are an ambassador and worth far more alive than dead." Mr'ish opened his mouth to argue, but Elonat shook her head. "Please. Think of what sort of future you want your children to have. If joining this Federation will ensure them a better future, then you have to let them take me so you can survive this place and continue on your mission. Their future is worth more than my life."
Mr'ish was silent, his yellow eyes near glowing in the dark as he studied her. After a few moments, she saw his white teeth in a smile. "Are you sure you aren't Caitian and Vulcan?"
"Why?" Elonat smiled.
"Because what you just said sounded very Caitian." Mr'ish rolled onto his back and, without preamble, pulled Elonat against him. She knew it was a comforting gesture and not romantic and so settled comfortably by his side. "I will call you Sister Elonat, for that, is our way. When you meet my children, they will call you, Aunt Elonat. And you can rest now knowing that you are not alone for you have a Caitian brother at your side."
Elonat yawned, "Are all Caitians so optimistic?"
"It is the key to our survival. Now sleep, Elonat, and regain your strength."
She didn't need to be told twice. Within moments of his silence, she was asleep in the arms of her Caitian brother.