#and her hands are Very Muscular and Very Stocky to use those claws to their full potential

[rxttenfish]

POV youre holding hands with miranda

#all the care guide says is 'biomass' #this isnt even exaggerating either #miri's claws are. very big. #and her hands are Very Muscular and Very Stocky to use those claws to their full potential #it even has the same kind of beans as miranda's hands have! #which is to say. pads of sandpaper scales on the inside of the palm #for better grip on slippery prey- #...... this is why Fun Times with miranda will not involve her fingers alas-

[neptunusscribit]

I woke up with my hands tied above my head, bound with a rope that dug into my skin. My feet were still touching the ground, but only barely. I looked around groggily. I must have been in some sort of cave, the air was cold and damp and there was very little light.

As my eyes adjusted I took stock of my situation. I was still wearing what I had on in the tavern last night, a tunic and some cloth pants, but my boots were missing. I tried to feel around for my pack, but my arms were bound too tight. I didn't feel its familiar weight hanging off my shoulder, so I assumed the worst.

I tried to think back to the tavern. We had been carousing, I tried to earn a few drinks with my lute and my wiles, in that order. Wasn't there something about an amulet? I got it in a haul a few months back, I was showing it off when someone must have recognized it. Drat. That was when the town guard showed up, grabbed me and hauled me off. But this didn't feel like a barracks, at least not any I had been in.

My eyes had adjusted pretty well, and so I took a good look around. A faint hint of light came in around a corner, that must be the way out. If only I still had a dagger on me- wait, was that a person? It was standing so still I thought it was part of the scenery. I saw it take a step towards me, just barely towards the light.

"You there!" I commanded, as best I could from my position. "Release me! I demand it!"

I couldn't see the figure's expression, but I swear he grinned. I also heard it in his voice, deep and amused: "What have they brought me today?" When I didn't respond, he took a few paces forward, and I could start to see his face. Human, maybe? If so, it was the most angular human I had ever seen. But his body was too muscular to be elvish, too smooth to have tiefling blood. When he grinned he looked mischievous, and his teeth stood out in an uncanny way. All it took from there was seeing a glint of light reflect off of his pure-silver eyes for me to recognize what I had encountered: a dragon.

The beast had shifted into its "human" form, though plenty of his features were still off. The skin was just slightly scaled, his fingers and nails just a bit too claw-like. His eyes, of course, were a solid mass that cought the light like a predator in the night. I'm sure he could have shifted to be a pure facsimile of a human, he just chose not to.

"Ah, she recognizes me." A teasing growl. "Good. I like my playthings to know what's about to happen. It makes them taste better." I shivered. Few ever escaped the clutches of a dragon, especially those of the Iron Dragons.

My haughty facade gone, I started to plead: "Please, let me go and I can make it worth your while. I have an amulet, it's priceless, you can have it and everything I own if you let me go." I couldn't kneel, or I would have. I tried to lean forwards, to walk as far as my bonds would allow, and the dragon seemed even more amused.

"Why would they have sent you to me if you hadn't done anything wrong? I can sense from your mind that you are guilty, and only the truly guilty are brought to this place."

I considered for a moment, and gave up my last bit of dignity. "If it isn't precious gems you want, maybe precious acts will sway you. Take me instead, and then set me free. I swear I will change my ways."

He smirked even more than before. "Oh. Oh, you sweet thing. That was already in the cards." In a flash he was directly in front of me, his scaly tongue pressed against my lips and his claws ripping my tunic open. I tried to pull away, but his grip was firm and his nails dug into my side. Soon my tunic was in shreds, my undergarments in ribbons as he clawed his way through the material. I swear his hands morphed, extending out from fingers into wide, padded claws. His chest felt like armor, hard and cold, but his mouth was hot. Within seconds I submitted. He groped my body, from my fingertips held high in the air down to my face, my neck, my exposed chest, my waist. His claws made a distinct impression, cold to the touch, padded in the center with sharp claws at the end, digging at my skin. He never drew blood, but I'm sure a couple places bruised with his eager grip. As he pulled his head away from mine, I saw his features had become even more angular. His hair had coalesced into scales, his ears subsided. His nose and mouth formed more of a snout than they had before. It was that snout he turned to my neck, where he licked across my collarbone, up the side of my neck, and up the back of my head.

He took his leave as I shivered, though I'm not sure if it was from the cold air or his touch. He stepped behind me, tracing my back with a claw, cutting away some more of my tunic. Almost like he was appraising me, inspecting my body. He made some contented noises, and I assumed he found me satisfactory. From behind, he took his claws and ran them up my legs, slicing my pants into thin strips from my knee to my crotch. He did the same from the back, letting my tattered pants drape around my thighs. With one last cut along my crotch, my last shred of decency was gone and I felt warm flesh slide between my thighs.

His cock, still warm in his human form, slid against my skin as he kicked my legs out from under me. Forced to stand with my legs spread and my arms in the air, he groped me from behind as he slid his cock over my entrance. Looking down, I could see its considerable length, pewter and black in the dim light. It was large, and growing every second. The sensation of his claws, his breath on my neck, his chest on my back, his cock rubbing my lips, it all got too much for me. I let out a moan, terse and short, but he latched on to it. Sliding faster against me, groping me harder, sliding a claw around my throat, he teased: "I think the plaything is enjoying herself." I moaned again, unable to help myself. In response, he took his claws and wrapped them around my hips, pulling my ass out towards him. Then he took the tip of his cock and pressed it gently against my entrance. "Will she beg for it?" he mused, and I could hear the toothy grin in his voice. "Will she cry out for me even before I've fucked her?"

I tried not to, but my traitorous whimpers turned into a plea. "Please, fuck me... Oh, please. Pleasepleasepleaseplease-" my quiet plea was punctuated by the shift of his hips, the length of his cock slowly sliding inside of me. Inch by inch, I must have been wet because it slid in without resistance. I gasped as he filled me up, and I leaned back to take more and more of him inside of me. The flesh was warm, though I felt the rest of him morph even as he began to thrust. His arms had begun to take on the iron sheen of his scales, and his legs had grown wider and more stocky. Each thrust had the animal power of a lion, each grip pulling me closer and closer to his iron chest. Soon he was lifting me off of the ground, his body growing larger and larger as he reassumed his beastly form. For my part, I took him as deeply as I could, sliding in rhythm with his hips, his pulse, his every movement.

Soon he had grown so large that I was several feet in the air. While my hands were no longer held high above me, they were still bound. I held onto the rope for support as he pounded into me from below. Soon after that, though, I felt a grunt as he leaned back and sat me fully on his dick. He spun me around so I could see his full form, sprawled out along the cave floor as his arms continued to bounce me on his length. His snout had formed fully into a dragon's maw, his arms and legs fully scaled like his chest. I thought I could pick out wings on the ground, though my vision was too blurry to tell. The one thing I know I was was those silvery eyes, piercing into my soul.

With my hands in front of me, I took the opportunity to touch myself. I hoped he wouldn't notice, or care, but he merely commented at my neediness: "The poor little thing wants to cum on a dragon, eh? How pathetic." His voice had deepened into a full growl, and though it was animal it wasn't angry. I whined as his cock pounded into me, as he slid me up and down like a little plaything. I rubbed my clit, feeling the repetitive bulging of my midsection every time he took a stroke. In and out, full deep thrusts guaranteed by the claws digging into my hips. I rubbed myself thinking about the cock buried deep inside me, about the clothes literally ripped to shreds around my body. I put on quite a show for the dragon, my half-covered tits bouncing as my back arched and I came around his cock. My body clenched, hoping he would take pity and slow down, but I had no such luck. He continued at the exact same pace and I swear I heard a cackle come from deep inside him. I shook, gripping the rope to avoid falling off while I came, gasping my breath with every new impact. I rode waves of pleasure as I rode the dragon himself, until I let out a long, shuddering moan. Only then did he stop, and even that was simply to readjust. Limp in his grasp, he reached up and sliced the rope holding me, letting me fall into him with my entire weight. Standing up to his full form, his full height, he rotated me so I faced away from him as he started his pounding once more. Limp, I shook in his grasp. He eventually took a more natural position, leaned over me and pounding into me from behind. I moaned and gasped in his grip, shaking and clenching is repose to pure stimuli, no longer capable of thought. For several minutes he pounded into me, and he grew more and more fervorous, more disgruntled. I slowly realized the cock he had been using was still warm, was still human. He must be consciously trying to hold his human form to avoid hurting me, I thought.

"I can take it. Give me your full power," I whined between thrusts. "Please, I need it. Give me everything. Please."

I felt him relax, felt his facade finally drop completely. The cock inside of me stretched and bulged, growing into its own. No longer just flesh, it became plated, ridged, and more than anything cold. I felt another shiver, and this time I knew where it came from. No longer holding back, the dragon hold my puny body in his grip while he took his last dozen thrusts. The metal ridges flexed rhythmically, almost like they were breathing, before they flared out as he came inside of me. Overstimulated in every way, I could do nothing but lie there, limp, as the dragon's cock twitched and pulsed, flowing cum deep into my womb. His claws began to relax, but my body hung there, sandwiched between the cold dragon and the icy floor with a steel spear filling every inch of me. The cum, unable to escape, pooled inside me, and it was the only warmth I felt for several minutes. After some time, I felt the dragon's breath begin to slow, his ridges contract, and his cock slowly, ever so slowly slide out of me.

Mostly naked, still bound, and weak from the pounding, I hobbled my way out of the liar and towards the light. Dragon cum oozed out of my crotch, my bruised and broken body could take no more. Sneaking past the sleeping dragon had been fairly easy, though I had more experience than most. It was nearly afternoon, and I saw the town to my left. The tavern was shitty anyways. I turned to my right and walked a quarter-mile or so to where I had stashed my real pack, complete with a dagger, a change of clothes, and a notebook. I cut my bonds, cleaned up in the nearby river (still not quite able to feel the warmth of the stream), dressed myself, and popped open the notebook. I flipped to the last page, where a long list of colors and metals sat paired with dates and, occasionally, notes.

I grinned in satisfaction and skimmed to the last line, remembering a dozen past adventures not unlike this one. At the end of the list I appended: "Iron - Seventh of Spring, Year twenty-four in the Valley. Would recommend."

#nsft #fantasy #dragon

[c-rose2081]

Dragons of Auradon (and beyond)

Written by: Uma ‘the dragon expert’

‘Hey Ben, I’m writing this ‘Dragon Cheat Sheet’ for Evie since she asks so many questions and it’s driving me kinda insane. Please make sure it gets to her and that Mal doesn’t eat it. Thanks!’ - Shrimpy

—

Isle Dragon: Hailing from the mysterious Isle of the Lost, Isle Dragons are ferocious and temperamental beasts. They are large and bulky in stature; quadrupedal, and are very muscular with thick leathery hides that are resistant to fire. Isle Dragons normally have long curving horns on their head and down their ridges, and hand-like talons with an opposable thumb for grabbing and climbing. Isle Dragons have ear fins, which can be brought forwards and backwards but not pivoted. Isle Dragons are notoriously bad swimmers, and stray away from water whenever possible.

Size: Domesticated Isle Dragons will grow no larger then a German Shepard (like Mal), but wild Isle Dragons can grow to be quite large, about the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex if in the right conditions. Isle Dragons aren’t normally kept as pets as the eggs are hard to get ahold of (being in very perilous places), and their temperament is a bit difficult to tame.

Egg Type: Colored in neutral, dull palettes, eggs of the Isle Dragon are dense and ribbed, as to have less chance of falling off craggy rock faces. Mother dragons nest in perilous locations, as to have less chance of being attacked while incubating. If a baby Isle Dragon cannot break through the egg on their own upon hatching, mothers will crush it, or throw the egg to break the shell. If an Isle Dragon is a runt, or considered pathetic by the mother, it will be left to die, or fend for itself.

Status: Isle Dragons, though restricted to the shores of the Isle of the Lost, are not endangered, as they have little to offer for hunters and poachers and mate easily with many partners.

Special Attributes:

- Fire Breath

- Fire Resistance

- Impressive Wingspan

- Affinity towards magical objects (this is a rumor)

- Brute Strength

Known Isle Dragons:

- Mal (belongs to Evie)

- Maleficent (on the Isle of the Lost - Mal’s mother)

- Hadie (belongs to Hades - Mal’s brother)

—

Aurorian Dragon: Native to the Moorlands, and the open fields of Auroria, Aurorian Dragons are one of the most beautiful species to exist in Auradon. They are longer with less muscle overall, but are wicked fast and incredibly intelligent. These prissy beasts are known for their unusual royal temperament, as well as their fantastic array of colors ranging from pastel pinks to the darkest of blacks. Aurorian Dragons are quadrupedal, with three sharp talons on each foot, and a long thin tail which can be used to grab and hold things. They have smooth, arrow shaped scales mixed with patches of silky fur, and pale colored horns on their heads and faces. Aurorian Dragons are well known for their silky manes, which travel down from the crest of the head to mid tail. Aurorian Dragons have three sets of ear flaps in a wing-like pattern, which can be moved and pivoted similar to a rabbits.

Size: The largest Aurorian Dragon ever found in the wild was about the size of a common crocodile. They stop growing early on, as their environment is dense with brush and foliage, which they must be able to navigate. Domestic Aurorian Dragons are fairly small, never surpassing the size of a large green iguana.

Egg Type: Pure Aurorian Dragon eggs are known to be perfectly smooth and glass like. They often mimic the colors and patterns (if any) on the hatchling. Aurorian Dragon mothers are well known for being protective to a fault over their eggs, to the point of starvation if a mate or companion is not present to bring food. Unlike most dragons in the wild, Aurorian Dragons do not leave their young, even after becoming full adults. It’s the hatchlings decision to leave the family unit; if they choose to stay the mother will continue to accept them as hers till they die.

Status: Nearly extinct. In the wild, Aurorian Dragons have been hunted for their scales, fur, ivory and blood. Aurorian Dragons mate for life, and lay only a few eggs in a single season, making repopulation difficult with such a small number left. They’ve made some comeback through preservation efforts, but there are very few non-domesticated Aurorian Dragons left. The Rose Family Foundation (run by Leah Rose) is one of the main protectors of the breed, as is the Charming Family.

Special Attributes:

- Gold Blood and Tears

- Aurorian Dragon Song (these dragons will sing in the presence of true love)

- Flammable Pink Smoke which can be caught on fire.

- Intelligence (scarily so)

- Innate Sensitivity

Known Aurorian Dragons:

- Audrey (Belongs to Ben)

- Aurora (Belongs to Leah Rose - Audrey’s mother)

- Chadwick (Belongs to Ella & Kit Charming - Audrey’s Brother)

- Celia, Dizzy, & Carlos (part Aurorian Dragon)

—

Costal Dragons: Stocky and built like walking tanks, Costal Dragons are only found outside Auradon’s borders. They nest, live and breed on sandy, warm costal beaches or in costal grasslands. These dragons are huge, and hatchlings reach the size of adult leatherback turtles by the time they are six months old. Costal Dragons are shelled similarly to armadillos, with unbreakable plates running from the nape of their neck to the end of a stout tail. There are horns all over these guys, from the back ridge, to four on the tail tip, elbows, wing’s and face. A notable trait are two forward facing horns on the forehead used for charging enemies and fighting other dragons. Unlike most dragons, the Costal Dragon have a toothless beak, with the ability to snap a femur in a single bite.

Size: Massive. Just...bulky. Unit dragons.

Egg Type: Costal Dragon eggs are laid in large numbers, usually 8-10 per clutch in nests of sand or grass. They are unusually soft and leathery for such well built dragons, and are only about the size of tennis balls. The male dragon is the one who incubates, as the female goes out to find food for when the babies hatch. The male will not leave the nest, and doesn’t need to eat for many weeks during this period. Male Costal dragons are just as protective over their eggs as female dragons, and even more so over their mate.

Status: Numerous, but unusual to see in Auradon. Because of their tough armor, Costal Dragons have no natural predators other then humans. And even then it’s dangerous to approach an adult due to their size and massive horns. Costal Dragons mate easily, and can have many clutches of eggs in a single season. They will find a new mate if their old one dies, or sometimes just stay single, but they will only ever have one mate at a time. Since Auradon isn’t the natural environment to find a Costal Dragon, they are very uncommon.

Special Attributes:

- Size & Wingspan

- Bite Strength

- Armor

- Gentle Demeanor

- Foghorn Call (Costal Dragon’s sound like foghorns, which often confused sailors in older literature)

Known Costal Dragons:

- Gil (Belongs to Uma & Harry)

- Celia, Dizzy, & Carlos (part Costal Dragon)

—

Imperial Dragons: Imperial Dragons are native to China, but breeders can be found in the Imperial Lands in Auradon. The Fa and Li families are very reputable, and produce some of the best dragons in the world. These beasts resemble ancient portraiture, with long serpent bodies and coin-like emerald, gold, or red scales. They are quadrupedal, with rooster like toes and dangerous silver claws. Imperial Dragons have large boxy faces with a powerful jaw and huge white teeth. Their cheeks and foreheads are often covered in tufts of snow colored fur. They can breathe fire, but also pure smoke, and have cat like eyes which dilate in and out depending on temperament and light. Imperial Dragons are common to see in sporting events, as they are naturally athletic and beautiful to watch. They are a wingless breed, but still have the ability to fly by running on the wind. Their temperament can vary; some hunting exclusive dragons can be ferocious and unfriendly. But those that are well domesticated are playful, and love to fetch, and do tricks.

Size: Depends. It’s not easy to tell how large an Imperial Dragon will get. In the wild, they grow wicked fast. Some legends say these creatures could be the size of mountains or bigger, though that’s never been proven. When domesticated, these beasts grow much slower, but can range from the size of a Great Dane, to a polar bear. One needs a lot of open space to properly raise Imperial Dragons.

Egg Types: Imperial Dragon eggs are perfectly circular, and often veined in unique colors like gold, emerald and ruby. They are smooth to the touch, and put out a lot of heat. These eggs cannot be touched by bare human hands, and can only be held with gloves or oven mitts. Imperial Dragons usually nest in trees, but also have a fondness for warm caves. When domesticated, they love cozy nesting boxes. Dragon mothers will often leave the nest unattended during the day to hunt. If they chose a good nesting spot, the eggs will be fine. But there is a higher mortality rate of little ones in the wild due to predators or environmental factors.

Status: Safe. There are no wild Imperial Dragons in Auradon, as they come from China. But these beasts are good at hiding and taking care of poachers for themselves, so the population is overall healthy. Domestic Imperial Dragons are common, and there are many different types to choose from.

Special Attributes:

- Wingless Flight

- Fire & Smoke Breath

- Agility

- Hunting Prowess

- Playful Demeanor

Known Imperial Dragons:

- Lonnie (belongs to Jay)

—-

A/N: So yeah, a little cheat sheet for all the dragons we’ve met (and some we haven’t met yet) in the Love Like Dragons AU :)

#disney descendants #descendants #love like dragons au #disney #dragons #audrey rose #mal bertha #lonnie li #gil son of gaston #descendants fanfiction #alternate universe

[synthsizedproductions]

Descending Into Power Chapter Eight: Bloody Sundown

Hey hey, guys, gals, and in between pals! Glad I could finally get this chapter written in a way that I felt good showing to others. Combat isn’t my forte, so I’m never very confident in what I’m writing. This chapter is rather combat-heavy, but it’s necessary for the story. This chapter officially marks the end of the first act of our novel. Hope you’re ready for next week when we dive right into the second act. I expect the next one to be a bit slower and more character-driven than this one which is more event-based.

Hope you enjoy the show!

~ Chance/Synth

PS: Please note that I have changed “Kobold” into “Zalyk”. They are similar creatures, but not the same. I have also changed the Zalyk character from blue and black scales to red and black scales.

CW: Violence, excessive blood, strong language, burn wounds, fire, death, highly graphic description of an off-screen death, death threats, abandonment

I stalked up the hill toward the people who had stolen my kill, my broken body fueled by rage alone. My body was dangerously hot, my steps leaving burned earth in my wake. Everything was agony and anger. 

The red and black Zalyk hopped off the creature’s back, daggers drawn and teeth bared. “I’d stop there, pal. Come any closer and you’re in a world of hurt.”

A tall, slender Ursan in metal and leather armor with Sigil of Life on her chest stepped in front of the Zalyk, giving him a warning look. “Forgive my friend. He speaks rashly. I would like to discuss your grievances before anyone but this creature loses their heads.” The pads of her handset off a gentle white glow. Their friendly, confident smile faded when I continued forward with just as much rage in my glowing, bright green eyes. 

A short, stocky Gueldon with long pointed ears and copper-toned skin crossed their muscular arms over their bare chest. “Thought those new Social Powers were supposed to work, Wy. Seems like I’ll have to handle this with my fists. As usual.” They hopped on top of MY kill and shook out their shoulders, grinning down at me as their eyes burned crimson. “You shoulda listened when my friends said stop.” 

Fire engulfed their hands and the fact that their skin wasn’t burned somehow made me more furious. Why could they wield their Powers without damaging themself? Why was I cursed? What made them so special?

Nothing.

The squat Gueldon leaped at me, crimson slashes glowing on their flesh. I stopped my forward motion and tilted my head at my descending opponent, time seeming to slow down as they got closer. My eyes were drawn to two sigils burning above their head, one the Sigil of Fire, the other the Sigil of Destruction. 

Gueldon Barbarian. Dodge and strike fast.

I rolled out of the way and back onto my feet just before the Gueldon slammed into the ground, leaving a crater around them. When they turned to glare at me, teeth bared, I struck them in the mouth with my boot heel. 

Behind you.

I whipped around and landed an uppercut to a pink and purple scaled Drakyn wearing simple white and brown robes as they attempted to sneak up on me. My hit lifted them off their feet and sent them flying several feet.

Look up.

I raised my eyes to the sky and rolled away from a missile of silver light. Just like the one that had taken my killing blow. Though I had begun to feel worn, my anger was stoked again by this perceived insult.

“Fuck.” A rather slight Lupine with silver and brown fur and panicked magenta eyes attempted to hide beyond the crest of the hill, but it was too late for them.

I sprinted up the hill and tackled the cowardly wolfman, holding him by his throat and slowly increasing my pressure. He clawed at my burned skin, tearing it apart like paper and covering us both in my blood. I didn’t care though. I had resigned myself to dying by the end of this fight. There was no way I was going to win.

Not with that attitude.

I was thrown from my place when an arrow buried itself in my shoulder. I snapped the end from it so the part within my body would act as a stopper for even more blood loss. I was growing dizzy from expending so much Magic and losing such a large quantity of blood. I pulled myself up to a sitting position and only barely held myself upright. I watched the blurred image of a black and silver furred Heikin approach with her bow held by their side.

She shook her head and slung their bow over their shoulder, pulling a hunting knife from her belt. “It’s really a shame things have to end this way, kid. You seem like you have a lot of potential. May Palec be kind in your passage.”

The Lupine let out a choked warning and pointed skyward. “Timurow, look out!”

Timurow only had time to look up before being lifted off her feet and hurled at the Ursan who had tried to reason with me, Samriel landing near me with his wings, arms, and chest engulfed in flames. His veins were black from the Corruption running through the Demon. 

He looked down at me, his eyes burning embers in a sea of darkness.  “Stay awake for me, okay? I have some trash to take care of.” He stalked toward the three party members who stood on the hill with us, spreading his wings as molten amber rained down from them.

The Ursan was first to her feet and grabbed a mace from her belt, standing in front of her friends with white glowing paws. “This has all been a massive misunderstanding. We can talk about this like civilized beings, right?” The waver in her voice made her attempts useless.

Sam growled at the group with bared fangs. “Things have progressed far past being civilized, Cleric. You have damn near killed my ward and you expect me to be civilized? And I wouldn’t waste your Magic on those Social Powers. I’m delighted to tell you that you cannot use your low-level Power on me. How sad for you, though.”

The Ursan stared at the enraged Demon for half a second before scooping up the Lupine and the Heikin and dashing down the hill toward the other party members. “Time for running!” There was hesitation from the other two, but as soon as Samriel lifted from the ground, they realized the danger they were in and scrambled toward the forest. A wall of flames exploded from the ground in front of the fleeing party.

Samriel quickly descended upon the party and I could hear a vicious fight ensuing below me. I laid down in the burned grass and stared at the nearly dark sky, the only real light coming from Samriel’s flames. There was nothing I could do to help. I could barely keep my eyes open, much less hold my own in further fighting. I lost the fight with my eyelids and desperately tried to cling to consciousness.

My eyes shot open again when I heard a footstep in the singed grass. The black and red Zalyk stood over me with glowing crimson eyes. He glanced over his shoulder as he pulled one of his daggers. “Your friend might destroy us, but you don’t get to live either.” I let out a weak cry of pain, tears running down my burned, bloody face. The Zalyk frowned as he wiped off his dagger and placed it into its sheath. “Don’t do that. It makes me fe-” 

He was cut short by a disc of white light when it hit the Zalyk’s back, which knocked him off of me and left a burning gash where he’d been hit. He scrambled to get to his feet, but Samriel snagged his opponent by his shoulders, flew so high I could barely make out his burning wings, and dropped the screaming Zalyk. He hovered in the air until the red and black scaled man was dangerously close to the ground, and Samriel grabbed his foot just as his short snout touched the earth. 

Sam flipped the much smaller man to hold him by his neck and stare him in the eyes. “You have doomed your entire party. I might have let some of you live, but not now. You’ve condemned them all.”

“S-sam…” I looked up at him with my eyes barely open. “Please. Don’t. Kill them. I started it.”

He stared down at me, analyzing my condition. “It doesn’t matter who started it. Normally, I would be the one finishing this, but you are close enough to Death’s door and I don’t have time for trash mobs.”

The Zalyk clawed at Sam’s hand with little effect. “You’re screwed if you let us go. We’ll just get stronger and find you later. Because we’re the heroes and you’re the villains. We win. You lose. We live. You die. That’s how the world works.”

Sam shook his head with a disgusted look. “That is how they’ve taught you the world works in your little Guilds and Alliances. The whole world has fallen for the biggest lie ever told. Heroes. Villains. It’s about perspective. Swing first, ask questions later seems to be the way of you Adventurers.” His pupils flared white and he tsked. “You have so much potential in you. What a waste it will be to kill you and the others. But I won’t just kill you and them. I will break your necks to paralyze you. I will break your arms. And then your legs. I will tear open your torsos, show you your own entrails, and then wrap them around your throats until your eyes start bulging. I’ll end your suffering by crushing your skulls with my bare hands.”

The terrified scaled man tried to put on a confident grin. “If you’re done monologuing at me, I’d let me go before my friends come back.”

A wicked smile crept across Samriel’s features. “You mean the friends that left as soon as I began describing what your deaths would look like?” Sam turned so my would-be assassin could see the quickly retreating backs of the other party members.

The abandoned Zalyk let out an enraged scream, doubling his effort to escape Samriel’s clutches. “You cowards! A pox on your Fates! I’ll see you in the Pits, traitors!” He glared at Samriel in defiance. “Well. Get on with it. You have laid your Death deal out quite plainly, Dealer.”

Sam looked down at me. “Close your eyes. You don’t need to see this.” I heard him let out a deep sigh when my eyes were shut. “You will have to excuse the sounds.” The next several minutes were filled with the sounds of screaming and breaking bones, the air thick with the coppery scent of blood. I knew it was over when there was a final, gut-wrenching sound of Sam crushing the Zalyk’s head. Sam brought the body down to the crater left by the Barbarian, dug the hole deeper with his claws, and buried the remains. 

He returned to me and picked me up with as much care as possible, all the fire and rage gone. “I can’t help with injuries this bad. We need to get you to an actual Healer.” He took off and held me tight to his chest as he sped through the air. “Just stay with me, Kindred. You’re gonna make it. I promise.”

#Descendants #Kindred #Content Warnings

[monstersandmaw]

Here's another one to add to my fae realm series! It features a reader whose aunt once fell in love with a fae, but who was apparently jilted, and who is bitter about the fae in general. It takes the unexpected arrival of a different fae, and his interaction with her niece, to warm her to them again, and to be open to reconciling with the triton who broke her heart all those years ago!

Anyway, here's 9000+ or so words for you to enjoy! It’ll be up on Tumblr in a week or so, or you can sign up to my Pixies and Goblins tier and read it right now, as well as about 450 other posts!

Preview (1000+ words)

The moment you stepped down at the quaint little coaching station, with its white awnings and dangling baskets full of colourful geraniums, you had to smile. From year to year, it never changed. The horses’ hooves clattered on the flagstones as the stagecoach rattled off to the next little town on its route, and you moved briefly into the shade of the stone coach house for a moment to escape the searing heat of summer. Carriages were never exactly your favourite way to travel, but it was really the only feasible way to visit your mother’s older sister all the way out here.

The coast road lay like a dusty white ribbon at your feet as you wound your way through the buzzing meadows on either side. After perhaps three miles, you took a sharp fork right, through a copse of oaks and beech which offered some blessed relief from the baking sun. A flash of rich, sapphire blue up ahead and the tang of salt in the air, along with the wheeling, calling gulls, announced that you were almost there. Aunt Ellen lived alone, her humble cottage sitting within a stone’s throw of the sea, right atop gleaming limestone cliffs. It must be bleak in winter, with storms thrashing the coastline, but in summer it was a haven, with the clifftop breezes cooling the air just enough to make it pleasant.

After perhaps another ten minutes of walking, pausing only to rearrange your grip on the handle of your weighty bag to stop it bashing you on the back of the legs as you walked, you rounded an old standing stone and glimpsed the old cottage. Everything was unchanged from your last visit, with the herb and vegetable garden at the back, a beehive not far off, and heard the dull bleating of Annabel the nanny goat a moment later. Chickens scratched and bathed in the dust not far from the vegetable garden, and a few of them looked up as you approached the house.

Aunt Ellen stepped out of the front door and shook out crumbs from her apron onto the stone path, but when she looked up and saw you, she gave a cry and clapped her hands in delight. “Oh my sweet niece,” she giggled as you dropped your bag and scuttled up to her, laughing and hugging her. You had always thought that she was a beautiful woman, with steel grey hair swept back into a plait, and laughing green eyes, just the same as your mother’s.

It didn’t take you long to unpack and settle into the tiny spare room of the cottage, and once the two of you had caught up over tea and freshly made hearthcakes, she suggested that the you take a walk together along the beach since it would be low tide.

The cliff path was somewhat treacherous, but once you’d wound down the narrow, switchback path, the pale golden sands of the beach stretched along the coast for miles. Ellen had brought a basket and began gathering seaweed while you took yourself off down to the very shoreline, where the waves lapped peacefully at the ridged sand as they retreated. Little shells were left behind in their retreating wake, and you stooped to examine one or two of the more interesting ones. Your room at home had slowly filled up with shells and other treasures from your younger days, but now you had a little more restraint, tossing most things back to the sea where they belonged.

You soon fell into your regular pattern. You would help Ellen with the animals and her household chores during the day, and in the evenings, you would walk along the beach, seeing how far you got before you had to turn back.

It was an average kind of evening, the weather being just on the cusp of a change for the worse with a stiff breeze blowing in off the sea, when you headed down to the shore for your usual walk. The previous day had been blustery and cloudy, whipping the sea up into a foaming frenzy, but it had quietened down again for now. The sand was littered with debris - driftwood and seaweed, and the even the occasional lobster-pot from further up the coast - but in the shushing waves themselves, something was moving.

You froze as you watched whatever it was roll over onto its back, its skin shiny and glistening, its chest heaving. Your first thought was that it was a beached dolphin or something, and you kicked your feet into action, but you skidded to a horrified halt when the figure lurched suddenly upright and staggered sideways. It seemed at first as though the creature had three legs, but you realised almost immediately that it was bipedal with a tail. And then you clasped your hand over your mouth to stifle a scream.

The figure was utterly inhuman.

For one thing, he was completely bare of clothing, which revealed a muscular, tall, reptilian body, with a thick, crocodile-like tail which was now trailing in the surf behind him, and clawed feet that dug into the wet sand as he swayed and staggered out of the water. His hard-looking skin was a greyish green with darker green patches over his shoulders, and he had a paler, almost creamy coloured belly. Round, jade eyes blinked in surprise when he saw you standing there, mute with horror at the sight of something so incomprehensibly unusual.

“Hi,” he said in a calm, rasping, husky voice, revealing a row of sharp teeth, nostrils flaring. His pink, forked tongue darted out to taste the air, and then it was his turn to act surprised. “Oh shit,” he said in a rush. “You’re human.”

“What are you?” you blurted. You had honestly never seen anything like him before. You’d heard merchants’ tales of lizards and crocodiles in distant lands, but none of them said that they could walk on their hind legs and talk.

“Now, that’s a little forward of you,” he grinned playfully, “Don’t you think? I mean, considering we just met and all.”

“What are you?” you demanded more firmly.

He sighed as though heavily put upon, muscular shoulders slumping melodramatically. “I am a kind of fae,” he said. “Pretty rare, I’ll grant you, but honestly I'm rather disappointed that you didn’t work that out, but still. Never mind.”

A thrill of fear spasmed through you and you backed off, eyes wide, heart racing.

“Now, now,” he said, raising clawed hands. His fingers were knuckly and strong looking, with pale palms, the backs dark. “I give you my word that I won’t hurt you, unless you try to hurt me of course. Not that you could. Gods, I’ve never met a human before - you’re so… tiny and fragile looking!”

You snarled at him, and he responded in kind, baring his teeth and making the thick spines down his back and over the crest of his head rise up like the hackles on a dog.

You swallowed, closed your eyes and inhaled, and then said, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“You ask a lot of questions, little human,” he grinned, even having the audacity to add a dry little chuckle at the end. “But, since I am in your realm now, I will answer them. I think I swam through a tear in the veil between the realms,” he said, but he broke off with a hacking cough, and swayed rather dramatically. “But I fear I might have to find somewhere to sit down and warm up a little. I am cold blooded after all, and I’ve been in the water rather a long time.”

With another breath for courage, you asked, “Would you like to come up to my aunt’s house? You could rest there for the night I’m sure, and you could try and find your way back home in the morning.”

His round, pale green eyes narrowed, and you realised his pupils were slits, narrowed against the slanting light of the setting sun. “Alright,” he said cautiously. “But while my promise not to harm you and yours still stands, I will defend myself if you try anything. I know what you lot do with folk like me.”

“What? I thought your kind were mostly a legend. I didn’t know you could even get through the veil between the worlds…”

He snorted and began to walk towards you. He was tall, at perhaps six and a half feet, and with his impressive musculature which was not exactly bulky but which still spoke of raw power with his broad chest and strong, stocky legs, he looked more than a little intimidating. “You keep us as exotic pets,” he purred in your ear as he drew level with you.

He carried on walking towards the cliff path, leaving you stunned and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, with a distinct tingle between your legs at the way his voice had dipped and his breath had fanned across your ear. Had he cast some kind of spell on you already? Could all fae do that?

Over his shoulder, he called, “I must insist on offering you a payment though.” He waited for you to catch up, and then waved you ahead of him like a gentleman ushering a lady inside at the door of a ballroom; a rather cocky gesture for someone who had just hauled himself out of the sea, you thought.

“Well, it’s my aunt’s house, so she can set the price,” you said, to which he nodded.

#fae #preview #reptile #lizardfolk #dragonborn #exophilia #male fae #monster x reader #ghosti's patreon #early release #long preview #sneak peek

[writingandsleeping]

Everyone always assumed aliens would be far superior to humans, either scientifically or militaristically.  Christine never understood that.  Why couldn’t aliens be equal?  Maybe even lesser?  Did everyone want to feel inferior and uneducated?  They were aliens after all, not gods.  Honestly, she didn’t mind if aliens were superior – didn’t care.  All she asked was for some diversity of thought.

Maybe, if there had some open-mindedness regarding aliens, they wouldn’t have fallen into this mess.  Maybe she wouldn’t be laying on a table with a tube pumping a baby blue liquid into one arm and another pumping a translucent white liquid out her other.  Maybe she wouldn’t be desperately trying to examine the room so she could forget that the same thing was happening to everyone else on the International Space Station, too.  Just the thought of her fellow astronauts in the same position she was upset her enough; she didn’t need to see the campers, the young kids entrusted to her, in the same horrible position, too – food for aliens.

They had hijacked the ISS two days before the campers’ mission was scheduled to end.  Their ship was incompatible with the Station’s landing dock, so they locked onto it with some kind of giant claw.  Michael, a Canadian that the campers called Moose because of his height and accent, had been explaining how vibration-frequency shields protected the Station from asteroids and comets.  Dimitri, meanwhile, had glided to the controls to make sure those shields were working.  All four professional astronauts knew the force rocking the ISS was far too harsh to be a standard asteroid.  In the interest of keeping the teenagers calm though, they followed basic routine without so much as a worried glance at each other.  No matter how much training they received, scared kids were still scared kids.

Christine was the first to notice the shadow on the side of the Station that should have been illuminated by the sun.  She nudged Kei and directed his attention to the enormous object pulling up next to the window.  His mouth dropped open, and he rubbed his eyes.  Without tearing his gaze away, he fumbled his hand along the table, groping for some kind of instrument.  Christine couldn’t even begin to guess which instruments to use.

“Is that…”  She didn’t know how to continue.

“I think we’re being boarded,” Dimitri said softly behind her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kei hissed back.  “It’s just an–”

A rhythmic banging on the wall next to the door stopped him.  Dimitri hesitantly pulled himself toward the noise as Michael ushered the campers into their sleeping cabin.  It wasn’t any more protected than the rest of the Station, but at least the campers would be out of the way there.  As Michael activated the air-tight door lock to further protect the campers, a tap on the door echoed throughout the main chamber of the Station.  Then the hiss of escaping air pierced the silence, and Dimitri backed away as fast he could flail.  Alarms blared, and Christine threw helmets to Dimitri and Kei.  Michael got to his before she could toss him one, too.  As she was securing her oxygen, Christine looked into the sleeping cabin to make sure the campers had fastened their emergency gear as well.  Not surprisingly, they had finished faster than the professionals.  One or two kids were panicking, but the others were helping to calm them down, and Christine felt a flush of pride for her crop.  She couldn’t bask in the feeling for long, though, before the door burst open, and she had to prepare herself to examine the damage to the Station.

Except, there was no damage.  There were aliens.  Tall, orange aliens.

Humanoid in stature, they had three huge, black eyes, all owl-like in shape, but one was centered just above the other two.  In the very center of the faces, beneath the eyes, were slits that Christine assumed were snake-like noses.  Though the top of their heads were bald, the lower half of their faces were covered by long, silvery hair, streaked with black.  A squat, thick neck leveled off to tall, bony shoulders that began only one of their two sets of arms.  The first pair of arms were long and thin with elbows that were almost as bony as their shoulders.  All three of the aliens were holding these arms behind their backs, so Christine couldn’t see what the hands were like.  The other pair grew out of their midsections so that the stocky, obviously muscular arms wrapped directly around their waists.  The aliens’ legs were also stocky and long, with two knee-joints each, resembling the knuckles of human fingers.  A long lion-like tail was draped over the shoulder of the alien in the front of the group, though Christine couldn’t see a tail on either of the two behind it.

“Amazing,” Michael whispered.  “They exist.  I…  Where?”

“I agree,” Kei said, as serious as a funeral.

“Um,” Christine paused to track down all of her thoughts, “if they ripped our door off, why haven’t we been sucked into the vacuum of space?”  She couldn’t actually see if the door was ripped off.  The aliens were too tall, possibly eight feet, and broad-shouldered to see past.  However badly the ISS was damaged, Christine couldn’t see it at all.

“You always think critically before beautifully, Chris?” Michael asked.

“Not dying is a beautiful thing, Moose,” she responded.

“I agree with Christine,” Dimitri said from the front of the Station.  “Given their method of entry, we should be dead.”

“We took great precautions to ensure your safety.  It is not our intention to harm you.”  The voice was clearly robotic, sharing qualities with a seriously gruff Siri who had a bad sinus congestion.

“Who said that?” Dimitri demanded.

“None of them moved,” Kei stated.

“Maybe we just can’t see their mouths behind the beards?” Michael suggested.

“Both Earthlings are correct,” the robot said.  “My translator is communicating for me.”

Dimitri flinched and floated a few feet backward as the forwardmost alien unwrapped one large arm from its midsection to brandish a metal wrist strap with holograms flashing and whirling above its face.  Christine noticed with fascination that the alien’s hand had six fingers, two of which she thought resembled thumbs.

“Your technology can translate a new language as we speak?” Michael asked in clear awe.  He shared none of Dimitri’s nervousness, looking as if he wanted to shift even closer to the aliens.

“No,” it responded as it wrapped its arm back around its waist.  The tone of the technological voice was strictly dry.  “We have been in your orbit for quite some time.  We waited to make contact until our translators had fully decoded your languages.”

“Why does one tiny planet need so many languages?” a different robotic voice asked.  It was deeper than the first voice and had less of a technological tinny, shriek.  Christine thought it almost sounded more masculine.

The original voice hissed, and the forwardmost alien thrust the bushy tip of its tail through the beard of the alien to its left, though the rest of its body remained rigid.

“I apologize for the comments,” the first robotic voice said.  “We do not mean to criticize.  It is simply surprising to some of our younger stock.”

“Does your entire planet speak the same language?” Michael asked.

“It,” the alien hesitated, “does.”  The alien to the right shifted, and Christine thought its eyes dilated.  She hadn’t noticed initially that there was a faded purple pupil within the black, which apparently was just an enormous iris rather than the whole eye like she initially thought.

Dimitri, Kei, and Christine exchanged glances.  Dimitri clearly shared Christine’s unease at the hesitation.  Kei mostly looked excited, like a ten-year-old who was offered a trip to the North Pole in Santa’s sleigh, eager but prepared for disappointment.  Michael, however, wouldn’t take his eyes off the aliens.  Maybe it was because she grew up in a big city where “stranger danger” was practically a religion, but Christine was concerned about his excessive excitement.  As a scientist, she was elated that they were in the presence of alien life, too, but the manner in which the aliens boarded the Station like pirates gave her the worst feeling of foreboding.

“So, why are we still standing in perfect gravity?” Christine asked.

“Before we cut into your starbase we constructed an attachable ante-chamber that would preserve your preferred conditions,” the seeming leader answered.

“Our conditions,” Dimitri noted.  “Do you not need oxygen and steady gravity as well?”

“We are not oxygen-dependent as you are.  We require a carbon-nitrogen mixture,” it explained.  “Gravity does not always concern us.  We utilize anti-gravity work boots at all times.  They instinctively adjust to relative gravity so that we always feel steady and secure, as we do in our preferred gravity state.”

Dimitri shared an astonished look with Kei.  The head engineer and physicist, they were marvelling in such technology.  If Dimitri could get past his trepidation, Christine was sure he would be at the alien’s feet, taking in as many features and specifications of the boots as he could.

“Then how are you breathing in here if you matched our conditions rather than your own?” Michael asked.  He sounded absolutely breathless, and Christine’s peripheral glance at him confirmed that his eyes were blown wide with exhilaration and his mouth was hanging open.  His excessive enthusiasm made sense since he specialized in astro-biology and -botany, but she couldn’t help wondering how dignified they looked as a group and whether it was well-reflective of Earth as a planet.  Michael’s childlike wonder, Kei’s guarded excitement, and her and Dimitri’s skepticism made an odd combination at the very least.

“Like you, we are wearing safety helmets,” the aliens’ leader said.  The one to its left muttered into the tail still covering its mouth.

The lead alien raised one of her long, skinny arms and prodded the air in front of her eyes.  Christine didn’t know if she was more entranced by the air shimmering in response, evidence of a force-field helmet, or the alien’s delicate hand that only had three smooth fingers which looked like suction cups, two inches long and barely a quarter-inch in diameter.

“That is the absolute coolest thing I have ever seen!” a voice behind all of them shouted.

“Hella!” another answered.

“Aliens are standing in front of you, but you think their invisible helmets are the coolest part?” Daisy scoffed.

“Patrick’s right though!” Jake said.  “We all know there had to be aliens somewhere, but that technology is bomb.”

“Yeah, somewhere,” Tim argued, “not on the damn ISS!  This is incredible!”

“Besides, technology can always be invented and improved upon,” Lizzie agreed.  “You don’t meet aliens every day.”

“What are you doing here?  Get back in the cabin!” Dimitri ordered.  If the kids were afraid of his red-faced Russian rage, they didn’t show it.  Only two of the ten campers so much as flinched, and none of them made the slightest move to safety.

“You can’t hog aliens,” Patrick stated, crossing his arms over his thin chest.  “We get to be a part of this – this discovery as much as you.”  Christine wanted to cry to him that it’s not a discovery when you’re the one commandeered.

“We deserve it after training for almost five years straight,” Daisy added.

Those two had established themselves as the leaders of their year long ago, and their arrogance drove every counselor and professional astronaut crazy.  It was true the kids trained for four and a half rigorous years before the top ten percent was taken on a real trip to space, but that did not give them the right to undermine authority like this.  Christine knew she should have barred Patrick from the trip when she caught him strapping into the pilot chair instead of the main cabin seats with the rest of classmates.  The lift-off countdown had already begun though; forcing him to disembark would have sent the camp and NASA both into hysterics and disarray.  Instead she made him watch as she lowered his official ranking and reported a black mark on his record.  Until now, that had been enough to keep him in line.

“Let them stay,” Michael agreed without turning around.  He hadn’t taken his eyes off the aliens for even a second.  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  As long as they stay quiet in the very back of the Station, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be part of this.”

Kei made sounds of disbelief but didn’t actually protest, and Dimitri simply growled.  Christine grumbled to herself about stereotypical Canadian niceness but didn’t say anything argumentative either.  Now was certainly not the time for in-fighting.  She fixed one more glare on Patrick before returning her attention to the aliens.  All three new had wide eyes with huge purple pupils.  The alien to the left had dropped into a crouch, both knees bent and leaning forward.  The alien to the right was now standing with both of its stocky arms wide, looking ready to bear-hug or restrain someone.  The lead alien’s tail was thrashing behind its head, and it’s forcefield was shimmering like water affected by vibration.  It seemed to be holding the other two in place behind it.  Suddenly, Christine’s foreboding was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

After that, it was a terrifying blur.

Despite their leader seeming to – or attempting to – hold them back, the two flanking it from behind dove forward and grabbed Michael and Kei.  Dimitri raised a wrench or something, but the leader’s tail flicked it from his hands as easily as if it was a slicked bar of soap.  Christine backed up to guard the children, but before she could even imagine how to defend herself or the campers, the two aggressive aliens knocked her to the ground.  She could only watch through heavy eyes as they pulled the campers away from her, each taking two in their stocky arms and one in their sleek arms.  She tried to make a desperate attempt to get up and save them, but her elbow and knee throbbed, and she couldn’t move.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was strapped to a table with a gag shoved unpleasantly deep into her throat.  Breathing through her nose tickled the back of her incredibly dry throat, and swallowing irritated the gag, making her feel like she was drowning.  Christine was also restrained too tightly to shift around on the table much.  She could only see directly in front of her and what rolling her eyes could fill in for her periphery.  She couldn’t remember being strapped down or even moving from the floor of the ISS.  She was here though, in a chair that felt stiff but plushy like a leather-cushioned doctor’s examination chair.  What her hands felt of the material along the sides, it was fuzzy like suede and too solid to squeeze.  The scientist in her was desperately curious about what it was made from.  Was it some kind of manufactured animal hide like leather on Earth or a material humans had never heard of before?

Distracting herself from the chair, she examined the wall in front of her.  It was the only thing she could see perfectly clearly since she didn’t have to strain her eyes to look at it.  There was a porthole that she judged to be eight feet off the ground, which seemed the right height for the aliens.  Christine’s neck had begun to hurt from looking up at them on the ISS.  The rest of the wall was smooth and shiny, a large charcoal expanse with no seeming disfigurations or blemishes.  No nail holes or screwheads or seams, no evidence of construction.  Clearly, these aliens knew how to metal-work if their spaceship – Christine assumed – was any evidence or the way the aliens had to quickly and effortlessly sliced and spliced the ISS.  What Christine could see of the ceiling was just as well-made.  There wasn’t even a seam between the wall and the ceiling.  It was as if the entire section of the room was one perfectly smooth piece of material.

The strain of rolling her eyes to their limits was starting to blur her vision, so she snapped her lids shut before the fuzziness gave her a migraine.  With her eyes resting, Christine strained her other senses instead.  There was a thrumming in the air that also translated into a small vibration in the chair.  Christine guessed it was the ship’s engine and was more intrigued by the mechanical whining that pierced the air every seven – she counted several times – seconds exactly.  Another rhythm of the engine?  Were the aliens working on something?  Was it another example of their metal-working?  Christine could only hope she would live to find out.

To be fair, Christine would settle with just living, especially since her nose was suddenly registering an increasingly acrid stench.  Something near her was burning, something very, uncomfortably close.  Her eyes snapped back open, and she fought to twist her head and find the source.  One of the aliens had soundlessly entered the room through the wall in front of her.  The porthole was a window on the door that was slowly sliding shut behind the alien.

But there were no seams!  Not even a hinge!

The miraculous wall rivaled the alien for Christine’s attention, but she focused on the alien when she realized it was smoking.  The burning stench was coming from the fish tank contraption around its head.  This time, the helmet was perfectly visible and full of fog so thick Christine could barely see the alien’s face.  There was a scuba-style mouthpiece that breathed in a liquid and filtered out the fog.  With a jolt, Christine realized the liquid was the same color and consistency as what was coming out of her arm.

Dragging her eyes away from the alien’s mouthpiece, Christine began squirming relentlessly in her bonds as the alien approached her.  It unfolded its thin arms with the three-fingered hands and held them open, extended straight downward.  Christine stopped wriggling but remained rigid, wondering if this was some form of proving itself unarmed, like how humans held their hands up.  If it was, she would have preferred to see that its enormous arms were accounted for, not the thin, delicate ones.

“I do not mean to harm you,” it said.  A tail lazily draped itself over the alien’s shoulder, and Christine assumed it was the leader that invaded the ISS.  With the gag still firmly lodged, she could only glare and growl.

Slowly, the alien reached forward and delicately removed the gag with one suction-cup hand.  Christine angled her face as much as she could and spit in the alien’s direction.  To her satisfaction, her disgusting glob landed at its feet.  “That’s what you said last time,” she finally retorted.

The alien’s eyes dilated to the widest state Christine had seen them.  Unlike the pupils she first noticed on the other alien, this alien had much brighter purple in its eyes.  They were a bright, violet color rather than the greyish periwinkle Christine had first examined.  Why hadn’t she noticed on the ISS when all three were dilated?  She was probably too terrified, which she supposed was a decent excuse.  Now Christine couldn’t help wondering if the third alien had violet or periwinkle eyes.  Or were his eyes a third color?  Could it be individualized like humans’ eyes?

“I apologize for the actions of my workers.”  The translator was as drawl and emotionless as before, interrupting Christine’s stream of unspoken questions.  “I told them we would be strictly peaceful, but when we realized how many life-giving sources were on your ship, they could not contain themselves.”

After a moment, Christine repeated, “Life-giving sources?”  There was a lot to explain about the alien’s explanation, but she decided to start there.

The alien, however, did not reply.  Instead, it placed the gag on a table beside the chair and began to unhook the tubes in Christine’s arms.  The pinpricks gushed a few drops of blood as the needles were extracted, and the alien placed fuzzy adhesives on them.  With the utmost care, it capped each tube, turned off the machine Christine didn’t even notice behind her, and fetched containers from beneath Christine’s cushions.  A cross between a mason jar and a petri dish, it took two of the squat containers to save all of the white liquid Christine had unwillingly surrendered.

“As I explained on your starbase, we require a combination of carbon and nitrogen to survive,” the alien said when it was done.  It held a container in each stocky hand as it surveyed Christine again.  “We have yet to find another world that can support us.  Until then, we will require your donations.”

“Donations?” Christine exclaimed.  “This isn’t a donating.  This is stealing!”  The alien stared back through the haze of her helmet silently with wide purple pupils.  Christine took a deep breath and repeated her initial question.  “What life-giving sources am I providing you?”

“There is a chemical in your body that is largely composed of carbon and nitrogen.  It is not an exact match to our atmosphere, but it is as close as we will find anywhere.  Our tests have shown that it is not a necessary component to your health.  Since you do not need it, but we do, we thought the donations only fair.”

“Why do you need to take it at all?” Christine argued.  “Why don’t you just go home or manufacture more?  Clearly you have advanced technology and intelligence.”

The alien’s tail twitched on its shoulder, and it’s pupils retracted to almost nothing.  It walked to an area of the room Christine couldn’t see, and her muscles tensed voluntarily.  There was a faint scraping sound, like a hatch opening, and then the alien was in her sights again but without the jars of Christine’s so-called life-giving donations.  After a moment’s hesitation, the alien approached Christine again and began to loosen her bindings, beginning with Christine’s head and moving down to her elbows, hands, knees, and ankles.  Christine remained still despite her freedom, unsure why she was being set free.

“We do not have such,” it said.  Then it began to walk away.

“Wait!” Christine called after it.  “What do you mean?”

The alien paused halfway between her and the wall with the porthole.  It turned around again, tail thrashing, and studied Christine more intensely than before.  “We do not have the technology to manufacture it.  We no longer have a home.  Some of us do not have intelligence,” it hissed.  “Why have you not yet moved?  I set you free to…”  It trailed off.

Christine narrowed her her eyes and studied the alien just as intensely.  “Did you want me to attack you?  There’s no point in that, is there?”

“I suppose not,” the alien admitted.  It’s tail returned to its shoulder but continued to twitch.

Christine finally sat up, moving as slowly as possible so not to startle the alien or hurt herself.  She still wasn’t sure what they had extracted from her body, but she didn’t feel pained or woozy.  Even sitting in the straighter position with no support for her back, she wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded.  Her vision wasn’t blurred.  Her mouth wasn’t dry.  Her ears weren’t ringing.  Maybe the aliens really weren’t trying to harm them.  The appendix was an example of extra components that the human body contained but didn’t necessarily need.  Perhaps the aliens really had found another superfluous component.  Her specialty was mechanical parts, not human parts.  Moose would have known if the alien was telling the truth, but she never would.

Moose!  How could she have forgotten about the rest of the crew?  Her campers?  How had she not asked about them yet.  They were probably in the same position she had been, scared out of their young minds.  Christine needed to ask about them, but she was more concerned with something the alien had just said.

“What did you mean you no longer have a home?” she asked.

The alien’s tail stopped twitching and dropped a little lower over the alien’s chest.  Its pupils retracted yet again, and it carefully clasped its hand behind its back.  Christine enjoyed comparing its actions to humans as they tried to compose themselves or gather their thoughts.

Finally, the alien began to say, “This is a –”

“This is a war ship,” a robotic voice boomed in the background.

A new alien was standing in front of the porthole now.  Although shorter than the alien Christine was painstakingly becoming acquainted with, it was larger in almost every other way.  Its shoulders and waist were broader, its high shoulders pointier, its lower arms stockier.  Its eyes were the dull, greyish periwinkle shade.  Instinctively, Christine leaned back in the chair again, moving as far from the new alien as she could.  Something about it was far more intimidating than the one she was already talking to, even the two who had accompanied this one onto the ISS.

“Why have you stopped draining it?” the new alien demanded.

“Because we have drained her as much as I dare.  We are not to harm these people, NAME,” the original alien hissed.  Its voice was far more forceful that Christine had heard so far.  “As I decreed –”

“The people no longer care what you decreed,” the new alien interrupted.  “They have been made to see reason.  We will continue to drain the Earthlings for as much as possible.”

“Who do you think you are to give orders to me?”

“I am your replacement,” it stated.  Then it turned to fully face Christine for the first time.  “This is a war ship,” it repeated.  “If you and your stock do not comply with our orders, we will destroy your planet.  Our ship is equipped with blasters that have three times the force needed to obliterate your ridiculous, puny world.”

The original alien, who was apparently just deposed, tried to speak again – its eyes almost pure purple – but before a syllable could escape its mouth, the new alien sent a swift, fisted stocky lower arm into its stomach.  The hit sent the alien flying into the far wall where it had earlier deposited the jars of white life-giving donation.  Christine heard herself shriek, but her eyes glazed over, and she suddenly felt like she was no longer in the room.  Rather, she was standing behind a glass, viewing but not engaging.  She allowed the aggressive alien to shove her backward onto the chair again and didn’t fight when he lifted her legs back onto the stiff cushion.  Had she tried to rush to the other alien?  She didn’t even realize she had moved, aside from flinching.  With rough, utterly uncaring force, the new alien jarred her face forward again so she was stuck staring at the porthole once again, strapped too tightly in place.  The gag was shoved further past her tonsils than the first time, and the tubes were re-inserted.

Once again, Christine found herself straining her eyes to take in the side of the room, but this time, she was concerned about the well-being of an alien, rather than fearing the arrival of one.  Vaguely, she knew there was something else she should be worrying about, but as the white, goopy liquid began streaming from her arm again, she found it harder and harder to focus on anything except that new alien walking through the ruins of her hometown and the desperate, despairing loneliness of being millions of miles away in an impossible position to help.

She finally closed her eyes, feeling the steady tears roll down her cheeks.

#mine #writing #amwriting #am writing #writeblr #sci-fi #science fiction #sci fi #aliens #first draft #my work #wip

[writingandsleeping]

Everyone always assumed aliens would be far superior to humans, either scientifically or militaristically.  Christine never understood that. Why couldn’t aliens be equal? Maybe even lesser? Did everyone want to feel inferior and uneducated?  They were aliens after all, not gods. Honestly, she didn’t mind if aliens were superior – didn’t care. All she asked was for some diversity of thought.

Maybe, if there had been some open-mindedness, they wouldn’t have fallen into this mess.  Maybe she wouldn’t be laying on a table with a tube pumping a baby blue liquid into one arm and another pumping a translucent white liquid out the other.  Maybe she wouldn’t be desperately trying to examine the room so she could forget that the same thing was happening to everyone else on the International Space Station, too.  Just the thought of her fellow astronauts in the same position she was upset her enough; she didn’t need to see the campers, the young kids entrusted to her, in the same horrible position, too – food for aliens.

(~5000 words, part of my WIP)

They had hijacked the ISS two days before the campers’ mission was scheduled to end.  Their ship was incompatible with the Station’s landing dock, so they locked onto it with some kind of giant claw.  Michael, a Canadian astronaut the campers called Moose because of his height and accent, had been explaining how Whipple shields protected the Station from floating debris.  Dimitri, meanwhile, had glided to the controls to make sure those shields were working. All four professional astronauts knew the force rocking the ISS was far too harsh to be a standard asteroid.  In the interest of keeping the teenagers calm though, they followed basic routine without so much as a worried glance at each other. No matter how much training they received, scared kids were still scared kids.

Christine was the first to notice the shadow on the side of the Station that should have been illuminated by the sun.  She nudged Kei and directed his attention to the enormous object pulling up next to the window. His mouth dropped open, and he rubbed his eyes.  Without tearing his gaze away, he fumbled his hand along the table, groping for some kind of instrument. Christine couldn’t even begin to guess which instruments to use.

“Is that…”  She didn’t know how to continue.

“I think we’re being boarded,” Dimitri said softly behind her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kei hissed back.  “It’s just an–”

A rhythmic banging on the wall next to the door stopped him.  Dimitri hesitantly pulled himself toward the noise as Michael ushered the campers into their sleeping cabin.  It wasn’t any more protected than the rest of the Station, but at least they would be out of the way there. As Michael activated the air-tight door-lock to protect the campers at least a little, a tap on the door echoed throughout the main chamber of the Station.  Then the hiss of escaping air pierced the silence, and Dimitri backed away as fast he could flail. Alarms blared, and Christine threw helmets to Dimitri and Kei. Michael got to his before she could toss him one, too. As she was securing her oxygen, Christine looked into the sleeping cabin to make sure the campers had fastened their emergency gear as well.  Not surprisingly, they had finished faster than the professionals. One or two kids were panicking, but the others were helping them calm down, and Christine felt a flush of pride for her crop. She couldn’t bask in the feeling for long, though, before the door burst open, and she had to prepare herself to examine the damage to the Station.

Except, there was no damage.  There were aliens. Tall, orange aliens.

Humanoid in stature, they wore what Christine could only describe as white spandex overalls, like work-out clothes found in local department stores.  The legs disappeared into thick hiking boots, and the multitude of excess material at the collars folded over between their shoulders, which rose like small mountains after leveling off from their squat, thick necks.  Their faces were mostly dominated by three huge owl-like, black eyes, with one centered just above the other two, and long, silvery beards streaked with black, though the tops of their heads were bald. In the very center of the faces, beneath the eyes, were slits that Christine assumed were snake-like noses.  The tall, bony shoulders only began one of their two sets of arms. The first pair were long and thin with elbows that were almost as bony as their shoulders. All three of the aliens were holding these arms behind their backs. The other pair grew out of their midsections so that the obviously muscular arms wrapped directly around their waists.  The aliens’ legs were also stocky and long, with two knee-joints each, resembling the knuckles of human fingers. A long lion-like tail was draped over the shoulder of the alien in the front of the group, though Christine couldn’t see a tail on either of the two behind it.

“Amazing,” Michael whispered.  Christine wouldn’t have heard him over the Station’s alarms without the microphone in her helmet.  “They exist. I… Where?”

“I agree,” Kei said, as serious as a funeral.

“Um,” Christine paused to track down all of her thoughts, “if they ripped our door off, why haven’t we been sucked into the vacuum of space?”  She couldn’t actually see if the door was really ripped off. The aliens were too tall and broad-shouldered to see past. However badly the ISS was damaged, Christine couldn’t see it.  Regardless of how damaged the door was, the important thing was that it was damaged at all, and they should be dead because of it.

“You always think critically before beautifully, Chris?” Michael asked.

“Not dying is a beautiful thing, Moose,” she responded.

“I agree with Christine,” Dimitri said from the middle of the Station.  “Given their method of entry, we should be floating corpses.” He turned off the alarms with the control panel nearest him, and Christine blinked a few times in relief.

“We took great precautions to ensure your safety.  It is not our intention to harm you.” The voice that shattered the welcome silence was clearly robotic.  It shared qualities with a seriously gruff Siri who had a bad sinus congestion.

“Who said that?” Dimitri demanded, his attention jolting away from the controls before he could adjust the emergency lighting.

“None of them moved,” Kei stated.

“Maybe we just can’t see their mouths behind the beards?” Michael suggested.

“Both Earthlings are correct,” the voice said.  “My translator is communicating for me.”

Dimitri flinched and floated a few feet backward as the forwardmost alien unwrapped one large arm from its midsection to brandish a metal wrist strap with holograms flashing and whirling above its face.  Christine noticed that spandex suit extended uninterrupted over the hand like a glove. Then her jaw dropped slighting when she realized the alien’s hand had six fingers, two of which resembled thumbs.

“Your technology can translate a new language as we speak?” Michael asked in clear awe.  He shared none of Dimitri’s nervousness, looking as if he wanted to shift even closer to the aliens.

“No,” it responded as it wrapped its arm back around its waist.  The tone of the technological voice was strictly dry. “We have been in your orbit for quite some time.  We waited to make contact until our translators had fully decoded your languages.”

“Why does one tiny planet need so many languages?” a different robotic voice asked.  It was deeper than the first but had more of a technological, tinny shriek.

Before the question was completed, another alien hissed, and the forwardmost alien thrust the bushy tip of its tail through the beard of the alien to its left, though the rest of its body remained rigid.  The interaction fascinated Christine, and she decided it was safe to assume that the alien in front was the leader. She also thought the second alien sounded younger, which she quickly admonished herself for since it was ridiculous to compare the ages of robotic voice.

“I apologize for the unwarranted comments,” the first robotic voice said.  “We do not mean to criticize. It is simply surprising to some of our younger stock.”  Christine thought the eyes of the alien to the right dilated. She hadn’t noticed initially that there was a faded purple pupil within the black, which apparently was just an enormous iris rather than the whole eye like she initially thought.

“Does your entire planet speak the same language?” Michael asked.

“It,” the alien hesitated, “does.”  The alien to the right shifted, and the air in front of its face shimmered slightly, but Christine figured that the light was playing tricks on her eyes, especially with the low, red emergency lights still flashing.

Dimitri, Kei, and Christine exchanged glances.  Dimitri clearly shared Christine’s unease at the hesitation.  Kei mostly looked excited, like a ten-year-old who was offered a trip to the North Pole in Santa’s sleigh – eager but prepared for disappointment.  Michael, however, wouldn’t take his eyes off the aliens. Maybe it was because she grew up in a big city where “stranger danger” was practically a religion, but Christine was concerned about his excessive excitement.  As a scientist, she was elated that they were in the presence of alien life, too, but the way the aliens boarded the Station like pirates gave her the worst feeling of foreboding. Additionally, aside from the leader’s small movements of its arm and tail, none of the aliens moved at all.  Their rigid stance and robotic voices gave the situation an extra eeriness that Christine really didn’t think it needed.

“So, why are we still standing in perfect gravity?” Christine finally asked, breaking the momentary silence.  She couldn’t hold back a gasp when Michael glanced back to roll his eyes at her.

“Before we cut into your starbase we constructed an attachable ante-chamber that would preserve your preferred conditions,” the seeming leader answered.

“Our conditions,” Dimitri noted.  “Do you not need oxygen and steady gravity as well?”

“We are not oxygen-dependent as you are.  We require a carbon-nitrogen mixture,” it explained.  “Gravity does not always concern us. We utilize anti-gravity work boots at all times.  They instinctively adjust to relative gravity so that we always feel steady and secure, as we do in our preferred gravity state.”

Dimitri shared an astonished look with Kei.  The head engineer and physicist, they were marveling in such technology.  If Dimitri could get past his trepidation, Christine was sure he would be at the alien’s feet, taking in as many features and specifications of the boots as he could.

“Then how are you breathing in here if you matched our conditions rather than your own?” Michael asked.  He sounded absolutely breathless, and Christine’s peripheral glance at him confirmed that his eyes were blown wide with exhilaration and his mouth was hanging open.  His excessive enthusiasm made sense since he specialized in astro-biology and -botany, but she couldn’t help wondering how dignified they looked as a group and whether it was well-reflective of Earth as a planet.  Michael’s childlike wonder, Kei’s guarded excitement, and her and Dimitri’s skepticism made an odd combination at the very least.

“Like you, we are wearing safety helmets,” the aliens’ leader said.  The one to its left must have muttered into the tail still covering its mouth because the hair around its face and the bushy tail fluttered.

The lead alien raised one of its long, skinny arms and prodded the air in front of its eyes.  Christine didn’t know if she was more entranced by the air shimmering in response, evidence of a force-field helmet, or the alien’s delicate hand that only had three smooth fingers which looked like suction cups, two inches long and barely a quarter-inch in diameter.

“That is the absolute coolest thing I have ever seen!” a voice behind all of them shouted.

“Hella!” another answered.

“Aliens are standing in front of you, but you think their invisible helmets are the coolest part?” Daisy scoffed.  “Grow up.”

“Patrick’s right though!” Jake said.  “We all know there had to be aliens somewhere, but that technology is bomb.”

“Yeah, somewhere,” Tim argued, “not on the damn ISS!  This is incredible!”

“Besides, technology can always be invented and improved upon,” Lizzie agreed.  “You don’t meet aliens every day.”

“What are you doing here?  Get back in the cabin!” Dimitri ordered.  If the kids were afraid of his red-faced Russian rage, they didn’t show it.  Only two of the ten campers so much as flinched, and none of them made the slightest move to safety.

“You can’t hog aliens,” Patrick stated, crossing his arms over his thin chest.  “We get to be a part of this – this discovery as much as you.” Christine wanted to cry to him that it’s not a discovery when you’re the one commandeered.

“We deserve it after training for almost five years straight,” Daisy added.

Those two had established themselves as the leaders of their year long ago, and their arrogance drove every counselor and professional astronaut crazy.  It was true the kids trained for four and a half rigorous years before the top ten percent was taken on a real trip to space, but that did not give them the right to undermine authority like this.  Christine knew she should have barred Patrick from the trip when she caught him strapping into the pilot chair instead of the main cabin seats with the rest of his classmates. The lift-off countdown had already begun though; forcing him to disembark would have sent the camp and NASA both into hysterics and disarray.  Instead she made him watch as she lowered his official ranking and reported a black mark on his record. Until now, that had been enough to keep him in line.

“Let them stay,” Michael agreed without turning around.  He hadn’t taken his eyes off the aliens for even a second.  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As long as they stay quiet in the very back of the Station, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be part of this.”

Kei made sounds of disbelief but didn’t actually protest, and Dimitri simply growled.  Christine grumbled to herself about stereotypical Canadian niceness but didn’t say anything argumentative either.  Now was certainly not the time for in-fighting. She fixed one more glare on Patrick before returning her attention to the aliens.

All three now had wide eyes with huge purple pupils.  The alien to the left had dropped into a crouch, both knees bent and leaning forward.  The alien to the right was now standing with both of its stocky arms wide, looking ready to bear-hug or restrain someone.  The lead alien’s tail was thrashing behind its head, and it’s forcefield was shimmering like water affected by vibration. It seemed to be holding the other two in place behind it.  Suddenly, Christine’s foreboding was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

After that, it was a terrifying blur.

Despite their leader attempting to – or seeming to – hold them back, the two flanking it from behind dove forward and grabbed Michael and Kei.  Dimitri raised a wrench or something, but the leader’s tail flicked it from his hands as easily as if it was a slicked bar of soap. Christine backed up to guard the children, but before she could even imagine how to defend herself or the campers, the two aggressive aliens knocked her to the ground.  Dimitri and Kei were nowhere to be seen anymore, and she could only watch through heavy eyes as they pulled the campers away from her, each taking two in their stocky arms and one in their sleek arms. She tried to make a desperate attempt to get up and save them, but her elbow and knee throbbed, and she couldn’t move.

The next time she opened her eyes, she found herself strapped to a table with a gag shoved unpleasantly deep into her throat.  Breathing through her nose tickled the back of her incredibly dry throat, and swallowing irritated the gag, making her feel like she was drowning.  Christine was restrained too tightly to even shift around on the table much, and any movements she attempted irritated her skin. She was no longer wearing her spacesuit, so the straps were directly against her skin, causing a sensation like rubber-burn.  She could only see directly in front of her and what rolling her eyes could fill in for her periphery. Christine couldn’t remember being strapped down or even moving from the floor of the ISS. She was here though, in a chair that felt stiff but plushy like a leather-cushioned doctor’s examination chair.  What her hands felt of the material along the sides was fuzzy like suede and too solid to squeeze. The scientist in her was desperately curious about what it was made from. Was it some kind of manufactured animal hide like leather on Earth or a material humans had never heard of before?

Distracting herself from the chair, she examined the wall in front of her.  It was the only thing she could see clearly since she didn’t have to strain her eyes to look at it.  There was a porthole that she judged to be eight feet off the ground, which seemed the right height for the aliens.  Christine’s neck had begun to hurt from looking up at them on the ISS. The rest of the wall was smooth and shiny, a large charcoal expanse with no seeming disfigurations or blemishes.  No nail holes or screwheads or seams, no evidence of construction. Clearly, these aliens knew how to metal-work if their spaceship – Christine assumed – was any evidence or the way the aliens had so quickly and effortlessly sliced and spliced the ISS.  What Christine could see of the ceiling was just as well-made. There wasn’t even a seam between the wall and the ceiling. It was as if the entire section of the room was one perfectly smooth piece of material.

The strain of rolling her eyes to their limits was starting to blur her vision, so she snapped her lids shut before the fuzziness gave her a migraine.  With her eyes resting, Christine strained her other senses instead. There was a thrumming in the air that also translated into a small vibration in the chair.  Christine guessed it was the ship’s engine and was more intrigued by the mechanical whining that pierced the air every seven – she counted several times – seconds exactly.  Another rhythm of the engine? Were the aliens working on something? Was it another example of their metal-working? Christine could only hope she would live to find out.

To be fair, Christine would settle with just living, especially since her nose was suddenly registering an increasingly acrid stench.  Something near her was burning, something uncomfortably close. Her eyes snapped back open, and she fought to twist her head and find the source.  One of the aliens had soundlessly entered the room through the wall in front of her. The porthole was a window on the door that was slowly sliding shut.

But there were no seams!  Not even a hinge!

The miraculous wall rivaled the alien for Christine’s attention, but she focused on the alien when she realized it was smoking.  The burning stench was coming from the fish tank contraption around its head. This time, the helmet was perfectly visible and full of fog so thick Christine could barely see the alien’s face.  There was a scuba-style mouthpiece that breathed in a liquid and filtered out the fog. With a jolt, Christine realized the liquid was the same color and consistency as what was coming out of her arm.

Dragging her eyes away from the alien’s mouthpiece, Christine began squirming relentlessly in her bonds as the alien approached her.  It unfolded its thin arms with the three-fingered hands and held them open, extended straight downward. Christine stopped wriggling but remained rigid, wondering if this was some form of proving itself unarmed, like how humans held their hands up.  If it was, she would have preferred to see that its enormous arms were accounted for, not the thin, delicate ones. After her sudden movements, Christine was feeling sharp pain in her knee, and she realized that it was wrapped tightly in slimy but warm bandages.  Had the aliens attended her injuries from being thrown across the ISS? Christine had no idea what to think anymore -- as if she ever did.

“I do not mean to harm you,” it said.  A tail lazily draped itself over the alien’s shoulder, and Christine assumed it was the leader from the ISS invasion party.  With the gag still firmly lodged, she could only glare and growl.

Slowly, the alien reached forward and delicately removed the gag with one suction-cup hand.  Christine angled her face as much as she could and spit in the alien’s direction. To her satisfaction, her disgusting glob landed at its feet.  “That’s what you said last time,” she finally retorted.

The alien’s eyes dilated to the widest state Christine had seen them.  Unlike the pupils she first noticed on the other alien, this alien had much brighter purple in its eyes.  They were a bright, violet color rather than the greyish periwinkle Christine had first examined. Why hadn’t she noticed on the ISS when all three were dilated?  She was probably too terrified, which she supposed was a decent excuse. Now Christine couldn’t help wondering if the third alien had violet or periwinkle eyes. Or were its eyes a third color?  Could it be individualized like humans’ eyes?

“I apologize for the actions of my workers.”  The translator was as drawl and emotionless as before, interrupting Christine’s stream of unspoken questions.  “I told them we would be strictly peaceful, but when we realized how many life-giving sources were on your ship, they could not contain themselves.”

After a moment, Christine repeated, “Life-giving sources?”  There was a lot to explain about the alien’s explanation, but she decided to start there.

The alien, however, did not reply.  Instead, it placed the gag on a table beside the chair and began to unhook the tubes in Christine’s arms.  The pinpricks gushed a few drops of blood as the needles were extracted, and the alien placed fuzzy adhesives on them.  With the utmost care, it capped each tube, turned off the machine Christine didn’t even notice behind her, and fetched containers from beneath Christine’s cushions.  A cross between a mason jar and a petri dish, it took two of the squat containers to save all of the white liquid Christine had unwillingly surrendered.

“As I explained on your starbase, we require a combination of carbon and nitrogen to survive,” the alien said when it was done.  It held a container in each stocky hand as it surveyed Christine again. “We have yet to find another world that can support us. Until then, we will require your donations.”

“Donations?” Christine exclaimed.  “This isn’t donating. This is stealing!”  The alien stared back through the haze of its helmet silently with wide purple pupils.  Christine took a deep breath and repeated her initial question. “What life-giving sources am I providing you?”

“There is a chemical in your body that is largely composed of carbon and nitrogen.  It is not an exact match to our atmosphere, but it is as close as we will find anywhere.  Our tests have shown that it is not a necessary component to your sustenance. Since you do not need it, but we do, we thought the donations only fair.”

“Why do you need to take it at all?” Christine argued.  “Why don’t you just go home or manufacture more? Clearly you have advanced technology and intelligence.”

The alien’s tail twitched on its shoulder, and its pupils retracted to almost nothing.  It walked to an area of the room Christine couldn’t see, and her muscles tensed voluntarily.  There was a faint scraping sound, like a hatch opening, and then the alien was in her sights again but without the jars of Christine’s so-called life-giving donations.  After a moment’s hesitation, the alien approached Christine again and began to loosen her bindings, beginning with Christine’s head and moving down to her elbows, hands, thighs, and ankles.  Christine remained still despite her freedom, unsure why she was being set free.

“We do not have such,” it said.  Then it began to walk away.

“Wait!” Christine called after it.  “What do you mean?”

The alien paused halfway between her and the wall with the porthole.  It turned around again, tail thrashing, and studied Christine more intensely than before.  “We do not have the technology to manufacture it. We no longer have a home. Some of us do not have intelligence.” The words flew from the translator so fast, the anger was clear to Christine without the usual emotional inflections.  “Why have you not yet moved? I set you free to…” It trailed off.

Christine narrowed her eyes and studied the alien just as intensely.  “Did you want me to attack you? There’s no point in that, is there?”

“I suppose not,” the alien admitted.  It’s tail returned to its shoulder but continued to twitch.

Christine finally sat up, moving as slowly as possible so not to startle the alien or hurt herself.  She still wasn’t sure what they had extracted from her body, but she didn’t feel pained or woozy. Even sitting in the straighter position with no support for her back, she wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded.  Her vision wasn’t blurred. Her mouth wasn’t dry. Her ears weren’t ringing. Maybe the aliens really weren’t trying to harm her. The appendix was an example of extra components in the human body, and life was possible with just one kidney.  Christine didn’t know of any liquid components humans didn’t need, but perhaps the aliens really had found one. Her specialty was mechanical parts, not human parts. Moose would have known if the alien was telling the truth, but she never would.

Moose!  How could she have forgotten about the rest of the crew?  Her campers? How had she not asked about them yet? They were probably in the same position she had been, scared out of their young minds.  Christine needed to ask about them, but she was more concerned with something the alien had said.

“What did you mean you no longer have a home?” she asked.

The alien’s tail stopped twitching and dropped low over the alien’s chest.  Its pupils retracted yet again, and it carefully clasped its hand behind its back.  Christine enjoyed comparing its actions to humans as they tried to compose themselves or gather their thoughts.

Finally, the alien began to say, “This is a –”

“This is a war ship,” a new voice boomed in the background.

An alien Christine hadn’t seen before was standing in front of the porthole now.  Although shorter than the alien she was painstakingly becoming acquainted with, it was larger in almost every other way.  Its shoulders and waist were broader, its high shoulders pointier, its lower arms stockier. Its eyes were the dull, greyish periwinkle shade.  Its voice was deeper and more commanding than Christine had ever heard before from any human or other creature. Instinctively, Christine leaned back in the chair again, moving as far from the new alien as she could.  Its stature and expression made it far more intimidating than the one she was already talking to, even than the two who had boarded the ISS.

“Why have you stopped draining it?” the new alien demanded.

The original aliens hissed.  “Because we have drained it as much as I dare.  We are not to harm these creatures, Shorlok.” Its voice was far more forceful that Christine had heard so far.  “As I decreed –”

“The people no longer care what you decreed, Merza” the new alien interrupted.  “They have been made to see reason. We will continue to drain the Earthlings for as much as possible.”

“Who do you think you are to give orders to me?”

“I am your replacement,” it stated.  Then it turned to fully face Christine for the first time.  “This is a war ship,” it repeated. “If you and your stock do not comply with our orders, we will destroy your planet.  Our ship is equipped with blasters that have three times the force needed to obliterate your ridiculous, puny world.”

The original alien, who was apparently just deposed, tried to speak again – its eyes almost pure purple, barely a sliver of black ringing the outside – but before a syllable could escape its mouth, the new alien sent a swift, fisted stocky lower arm into its stomach.  The hit sent the alien flying into the far wall where it had earlier deposited the jars of white, life-giving donations. Christine heard herself shriek, but her eyes glazed over, and she suddenly felt like she was no longer in the room. Rather, she was standing behind a glass, viewing but not engaging.  She allowed the aggressive alien to shove her backward onto the chair again and didn’t fight when he lifted her legs back onto the stiff cushion. Had she tried to rush to the other alien? She didn’t even realize she had moved, aside from flinching. With rough, utterly uncaring force, the new alien jarred her face forward so she was stuck staring at the porthole once again, strapped too tightly in place.  The gag was shoved further past her tonsils than the first time, and the tubes were re-inserted.

Once again, Christine found herself straining her eyes to take in the side of the room, but this time, she was concerned about the well-being of an alien, rather than fearing the arrival of one.  Vaguely, she knew there was something else she should be worrying about, but as the white, goopy liquid began streaming from her arm again, she found it harder and harder to focus on anything except that new alien walking through the ruins of her hometown and the desperate, despairing loneliness of being millions of miles away in an impossible position to help.

She finally closed her eyes, feeling the steady tears roll down her cheeks.

#writing #amwriting #am writing #writeblr #sci fi #mine #my work #aliens #wip