That night in my OtherStates, I ventured deep into realms of existence beyond linguistic description. There I visited a Mother and gave her my memories, and wandered freely. My consciousness returned to the plane of existence I shared with Rin six hours and thirty-seven minutes later only to find that she had vanished. 

But I was not alone.  

Tursa’s spicy, predatory musk filled the small chamber, almost entirely overpowering Rin’s strawberries-and-cream. The instant I processed the information my senses conveyed, I shot upright in the narrow bed, my tentacles flaring forward. I could barely see her at first. The only light came from a thin strip of lumicells which lined the upper wall, currently dark blue and at their dimmest setting. But I could hear the workings of her body, sense the heat-shape of her, feel the electromagnetic activity of her brain. She sat at the end of my bed, facing the door. Not looking at me. 

I could have sworn I sensed her smirk.

“We are eshkeshek, now,” she said. “You and I.”

“What?” I snapped. I’d meant to tell her to get out…but she had presented me with a word I did not know. 

“Outside of her work as a Scion, Rin doesn’t sleep with anyone she doesn’t feel strongly for.” 

She twisted her head to look over her shoulder at me. 

“And that means, unless you don’t intend to carry your interactions with her any further, unless you don’t wish to really be with her…we share a mate now. You and I.” 

My tentacles twitched aggressively as an odd array of emotions warred for supremacy within me. Pride at Tursa’s having acknowledged my place in Rin’s life. Indignation at the very suggestion that I might now be done with her. And also absolute terror. The ghosts of ancestral selves screamed within me to lash out, to escape, to survive. But I forced my tentacles still, even drew them back a bit.

“Where is Rin?” 

“Violent takeover. Of the kitchens. She’s making you croissants.” 

I grinned. 

“What kind?” 

“The kind where I’ll eat your brains, digest them into a grainy paste, and hack them back up again if you even think about hurting her. Physically, emotionally, or otherwise.” 

The ghost-voices grew louder, almost deafening. 

Predator! Predator! Attack! Flee! 

 “I prefer chocolate,” I said. 

Tursa’s eyes went wide. This means something very different in her species than it does in humans. She turned more fully to face me, half-kneeling on the bed now, half standing. Her whips twitched upward over her shoulders, their spades pointed at me.

“Eshkeshek are to be honest with one another. I can smell your fear.” 

“I was not being dishonest. Chocolate is the best kind.” 

A sort of soft rumbling sound issued from Tursa’s chest and throat, and she fell forward on her hands and knees, slinking up to me, whips reaching and withdrawing, coming close to the tentacles I held between us but always falling back again just before making contact. Without meaning to, I released a threatening shriek from my sephegial slats and a low growl from my throat. The rumbling sound stopped and started again, a few times, and I realized that Tursa was laughing at me. I sat pressed against the wall, glaring down at her as she peered insolently back, crouched on all fours, limbs braced to either side of my legs. 

And then, leaning forward, she brushed her head past my tentacles and rubbed her face against my arm.

“It’s nice you’re growing a sense of humor,” she purred. “That’ll make her happy. But you’d best behave, or you’ll see just how serious I really am.” 

As she withdrew, expression maddeningly smug, I glared at her, not-lips pulling back to bare my teeth. 

“Did you just…scent mark me?” 

She made no answer but to smirk and slink out of the room.

Wretched creature. 

Thankfully, all thoughts of Tursa were dashed from the forefront of my consciousness as Rin returned at last, holding a large plastic tray covered in things which smelled absolutely delicious. 

Surprising myself, I reached out with a tentacle and seized one of the battered thermoses of coffee first, siphoning it through the tip. 

“Ah, hazelnut,” I enthused, recognizing the flavor from a desert I’d sampled at the dinner party. 

“My personal favorite,” said Rin, beaming as she plucked up one of the croissants and handed it over to me. I ate it with my mouth while continuing to siphon coffee through the tentacle, enjoying the way the flavors complimented one another. Sitting on the bed beside me and waking the narrow lumicell panel on the wall facing us, she brought up a human show from old Earth. Something called Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It was…fascinating. 

When the food and coffee was done we set the tray aside and piled pillows against the wall where it met the edge of the bed. Rin snuggled up to me, and I wrapped my tentacles and arm about her back and shoulders. For almost thirty-eight minutes, we stayed that way…just the two of us. And then there was a beep at the door, and Rin called for it to open. 

“Are you watching tv in here?” Shosho queried, blinking up at us as she stepped into the room. “I want to watch with you.”

Without waiting for an invitation, she strutted over to the bed and hopped up onto it, fluffing her feathers as she settled at its edge. 

“Congratulations on the sex,” she added, pointing one of her enormous eyes at me. 

“Ah…thank you,” I replied as Rin laughed. 

Lore came tapping at the door next, and then Tursa showed her smug face yet again. Before long, the small room was packed.

“The goo man clearly wants to mate with the ear man,” insisted Tursa, our sixth episode in. By then, all of our group save Jack C, Marah, Indri and one of the babies were crammed in beside us. “Do they ever follow through?”  

“Er,” said Rin, shoving some chips into her mouth as Allico passed the bag to her. “Not re—”

“No spoilers!” squawked Shosho, for some reason. The only character she really cared about was Dax, the one who reminded her of herself.

As we watched and bickered—Lore and V playing video games in the corner—I set my pseudo-brains to work. With one, I monitored the deputy prime minister…who continued to do ordinary deputy prime minister things. After checking several locations, I had located the true prime minister as well. So far, she had shown no signs of parasitic infection…seeming to blink and behave as normal humans did. But I was not ready to stop tracking her. Not yet. Another pseudo-brain was tasked with watching over the EFC base, while yet another scanned the surface of Elysian, starting in Makaria, for Jonathan’s clone…whom I had lost track of some time ago. But as yet I had found no further trace of her. Soon, I would have to start searching the vessels in orbit.

But despite my many tasks and the close proximity of the filthy predator, I realized then that I was, in that moment, happy. Happier than I had ever been, save the night before with Rin. But I did not entirely understand why. 

And so it was particularly jarring when what sounded and felt like an explosion blasted across my senses, and the entire vessel rocked as alarms blared to life and we tumbled forward and backward into each other. The screams and shouts of our group were echoed by others all throughout the freighter. 

As Rin ordered the fledglings to stay in the room, the rest of us spilled out into the corridor. There flickered the green, hex-pattern glow of emergency vacuum shields, sealing off the rest of the ship from the jagged wound that had been the other half of the residential wing. The half of the wing where my room had been. Where most of our rooms had been. Where Indri and Marah had gone with baby Raal about an hour ago, when he’d begun to get fussy. Where Jack C had gone to shut himself away because the rest of us were giving him a headache. 

And now it, and they, were simply gone.

Devoured by the cold nothing of space.

KittraMcBriar

rough sketch of Tursa