by Amanda Milo
Gruffly, I offer, “I don’t engage with your kind when I can avoid it. But greetings, human.”
“Hi,” she greets me politely, neither nervous nor shy. It’s strangely… refreshing. Then she sends me a disturbing smile. It’s… happy. Maybe even playful. Her eyes make a sweep of my features before dipping down, down, down my torso.
My back snaps straight, all my dorsal spines falling in shock.
She licks her lips, her eyes jumping back up to mine. “I’m super honored you’re engaging with me, boss man.”
I study her. At first glance, she looks as plain as all the rest of the humans. But upon a more thorough inspection, her nose is pleasantly wide for a human, wider than all the other humans. Wider than a Gryfala’s by far (they are very fine-featured, always). This female though, she looks as if the Creator got tired of making dainty featured-clones all that day, and sculpted this one boldly.
It’s a small difference, but it makes her interesting to look at. A little more comely. Her skin is still unhealthy in its smoothness; if she were a Rakhii, her dam would have asked her sire to do the hard thing and smother her as a pup because she was born without scales (therefore saving her from a life of unnaturally thin-skinned pain)—but for a human, her skin is entirely normal. Unfortunate-looking, but for them, no cause for alarm.
My scrutiny of her draws out for so long, her expression falters for a click before she rallies her smile again. This action reminds me somewhat of Gracie, of that crazed human’s bravery. Certainly, that haranguing female who was spawned in the darkest recesses of the deepest abyss meets my fierceness head-on. I suppose I admire her for it, when I’m not clenching my hands into fists to stop myself from strangling her. I immediately appreciate that this one is quieter. “What is your name?” I ask.
Oddly-colored eyes meet mine. They are… grey. It’s such a subdued color—except that this female is not subdued at all. And so the odd color glows, somehow. As her lips tug higher on her face, as she watches me examining these windows she sees the world out of, her eyes begin to dance, her inner-self shines to such a degree that the muddied seaside-banks shade of her eyes becomes pleasant enough to look upon. If one must look upon a human, that is. “Isla,” she replies.
Iiiiiiiiila, my head repeats, the alien’s name purring through my system. Just the sound of it heats my insides strangely.
Isla seems to suffer no such effect. Passing me blithely, she drops her load of rock into the cart.
But when she does, I catch an enchanting whiff of her scent. Sharp, distinctively clean. Almost creamy, alien but wholly lickable.
WHAT THE HELLS—likeable! I meant LIKEABLE.
Immediately, my tongue’s surface begins to itch and tickle.
A Rakhii tongue develops pleasure bumps that aid in female satisfaction. The process of the pleasure node eruption begins when the male takes a mate.
I stick out my tongue and violently scrape the top of it with my claws.
Isla turns back to me, thankfully missing my action because she’s brushing her hand on the leg of her trousers. She’s looking at her hand, struggling in her effort to make it clean.
I bring my tongue back inside my mouth.
Isla finishes her inspection and swings her wiped hand in my direction saying, “Nice to meet you.”
My long ears raise up, the tips pointing high. Quickly, I snatch her hand before she can take it away.
I should be bellowing Don’t TOUCH me you bond-forcing pest! But my first fool thought is: This is mine now. But that’s ridiculous. It’s only that Rakhii tend to hoard things they find interesting or special and clearly I need to take up a hobby if my system is trying to collect human body parts all of a sudden. If I’m developing an impulse to dismember humans I’ll be put down for sure. Still, I don’t let this one’s body part go. I trap her by the wrist, noting her pulse immediately. It’s racing.
I note too, with no little amount of dread, that this is the first human I have willingly made physical contact with. I can’t help but think this development doesn’t portend harmless things.
“YOU’RE LATE,” Gracie hollers, voice carrying, echoing around the canyon.
My ears fold back with a slap.
I don’t release Isla’s fingers when I twist my head to see who the human’s leader is so loudly addressing.
To my horror, Gracie seems to be shouting at a fresh passel of humans. She’s ushering them into the quarry.
“There’s MORE?” I force through gritted teeth. My eyes snap back to Isla because she’s attempting to tug her fingers from me. For the briefest click, I debate whether I am obligated to release her or not. It’s such a strange notion that I drop our connection immediately.
Isla’s lips tug upward almost as if she can read my inner surprise and confusion. “Look at you, all this talk about you being aloof and monster-like, but you’re practically my great big welcome wagon.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I tell her, trying to ignore her by turning around to glare at all the new, petrified faces. I address them, raising my voice not only to be heard but to cow them: “There is one rule you must heed here. I am the quarry master, and you will obey me or you will be punished.”
Isla steps up beside me, her smile gone, her face drawn serious. “Listen to the man,” she calls to them, waving her short arm. “Don’t make him mad. Trust me—you do NOT want him to rip off your arm.”
Everybody gasps.
Everybody turns to stare at me in horror. The new humans because they don’t know this isn’t true; everybody else because they know I’m about to bite off this human’s saucily waving limb.
Turning swiftly on the brazen alien, I give her an incredulous scowl. “Have you no sense of fear?”
Her smile is soft, but her shrug is insouciant. “What are you going to do, take my other arm?”
The latest wave of humans all quail.
But I just stare down at her, stupefied. To think I’d worried about this alien. About her feelings, of all things. I reach out and tug a chunk of her mane.
Noise explodes around us—humans are reacting in fear, hobs are outraged, Rakhii are disapproving and uncomfortable—probably anxious that I’m single-handedly (and I mean that with no jest intended) going to edge this planet into obliterating Rakhii. I’ve done nothing to lend the whole of our kind anything beyond a negative reputation. (We Rakhii have a tendency to go mad, then require killing in order to prevent us from rampaging through entire cities, murdering hobs who get in our path. Only hobs, never females though, so there’s that. However, this latest act of mine probably seems proof enough that I’ve met my sanity’s limit.)
Unlike every other being present though, Isla doesn’t react with shock or horror or even fear. She only turns enough to confirm that her mane truly is being pinched between my fingers. Proving she might not be healthy in her head’s basket, she sends a smile up to me and whispers quietly enough that I have to lean down to hear her utter, “Careful, Bubashuu.”
My tail coils and knots behind me. I can’t see it happen, but I certainly feel it. It’s coiling and knotting because she’s murmured my name.
Her whispering voice is dangerously sweet. Dangerous to me.
Isla’s eyes sparkle up at me. Bewitchingly. “You’re going to give everyone the impression that you like me.”
I snort, derisive. “By tugging your mane? That’s ridiculous...” For Gryfala. In my experience, a princess would not appreciate having her mane tugged as a signal that a male was attracted to her. If Isla were a Rakhii though? That would be another matter. Tugging a quill does happen to be a play yard flirtation. A common early affection display. Hells, I’ve seen my sire still tugging at my dam’s quills, still teasing her even though they’ve been mated long enough to raise a litter well into adulthood.
I glower down at the alien.
Her smile does not dim. She waves her short arm to everyone who is converging protectively in her direction. “It’s fine. Bash digs my mane
.”
‘Digs?’
Easily, a dozen hobs cock their heads. An eerie sight, it’s so near to being choreographed.
I catch Isla by her half-arm, ignoring the disapproving commotion that results. Apparently, no person present (not to mention openly gawking) feels that I should be touching Isla by her smaller limb.
“Does this hurt?” I question.
Isla shrugs with ease. “No. It’s pretty common for people to wonder if it causes any pain, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t hurt at all, because—”
She chitters a lengthy explanation… and doesn’t stop. I find a small pool of patience I normally never possess, and I wait for her to run out of words…
Except she doesn’t. She maintains a steady commentary over a surprising number of subjects, linking them endlessly, growing further and further away from the original topic.
She resumes working, so I allow her to continue speaking.
Oddly, her endless twittering doesn’t sound nervous, despite the fact that in my experience, a babbling speaker is a nervous one. Surprisingly, my ears don’t mind the sound of her ceaseless nattering either.
I decide to keep her with me a little longer. Any other human, and I would have walked away by now to prevent myself from popping her under the jaw to silence the source of the noise. Instead, with this human, I find myself drawing her along with me to a quiet spot along the canyon wall, one that hasn’t been worked hard for stone yet. On the way, I pick up a chisel and swing a mallet to rest over my shoulder. At no point during any of this is there a normal opportunity for a second speaker to break in, so I press my tail to the female’s lips—
Her eyes get wide and she goes completely silent.
My ears flick at the abrupt change. I now know what it must feel like to be struck suddenly and temporarily deaf. I gaze down into the moonlit sand color of her eyes. “Does it offend you if I touch your short wing?”
Isla wiggles her limb in my loose grasp. “Did you just call this a ‘short wing?’” Without warning, she grins. “I don’t know why, but I just got the mental picture of you scarfing down chicken wings.” Silver pools of color flash up at me fast. Mischievous-looking, too. “Just how do you see my little ‘wing?’ Do you feel hungry?”
I nudge her, guiding Isla in front of me rather than towing her behind me. The scales along my nose ripple as I voice my confusion. “What are you even saying?” My grip keeps her limb in the air but she’s not fighting my hold on her.
She waves her hand. “Never mind; if that’s not where you’re at, no need to give you ideas. Hotahn is that Rakhii over there,” she points to the Rakhii (the one Gracie calls Akita) who adopted two human children to be his pups after he rescued them from Earth. I admire him for taking pups on, especially ones not of our species. I wonder if he looks at them like I am Isla, feeling a little sorry for her tail-lessness and lack of horns, and her puny ears. Isla’s ear size, though, does not affect her ability to make conversation whatsoever. She’s still chittering about Hotahn. “...and he thinks we’re all really nice because we bring him food. He loves to come to the human compound to be fed, and Doc, his woman? She thinks it’s funny because back home we have this saying about why you shouldn’t feed strays.” Her gaze slants to me. “You probably have something similar here. ‘Don’t feed strays or they’ll keep coming back.’” She shrugs and glances ahead and opens her mouth again, and it’s only then that I realize she allowed the smallest pause for me to answer if we do or don’t have such a saying. My window of opportunity to speak was so small I missed it. “There’s no danger of him leaving her for us or anything but he sure doesn’t miss an opportunity to visit when we’re baking treats. Anyway, we feed him so much because we’ve all been warned not to let him get too munchy around people. Apparently, he’s voiced some curiosity when it comes to the way humans taste.” She shrugs again, which makes her shoulder bump my elbow. “I wasn’t sure if this was a species-wide thing, or just a Hotahn thing.”
I consider her question. “You couldn’t pay me to eat a human. But I suppose I am frequently hungry.” I shake my head at the notion of a Rakhii requiring frequent alien feedings, as if we’re some sort of beast-pets that need human care. “But we are Rakhii. Renown for our honor, our strength, our protective instincts. We couldn’t possibly manage all we’re meant to do if we were constantly eating, no matter how hungry we get. We’re bred sturdy so we can guard, fight, build. Beat things.”
“You guys sound great,” Isla mutters—but she does it while still smiling. She hasn’t stopped smiling. It’s becoming unnerving.
I release her arm. “We are,” I confirm, taking pride in my people. My stomach growls, and in light of our discussion I feel as if I now must ignore it. “We can get half a day’s work in without so much as a nip at a meal, and we won’t perish.”
“Ahhh, hang on,” Isla says, so I dutifully take ahold of her arm again. She pauses at this, then grins up at me. “If withholding from food is what you’ve been doing, maybe you’ve been getting hangry.”
I squint down at her. “Your translator needs calibrating.” I flick her at the back of the ear, where translators are implanted.
Behind us, again the collected humans and hobs and even a few Rakhii make a ruckus. I feel as if I’m in a pottery and fine china shop full of steely-eyed proprietors who just witnessed me hurling a teacup across the floor.
It’s offensive. This female is clearly made of something more like porcelain. Still fine; delicate, even—but unmistakably more durable than china.
I twist enough to drop a warning from my mouth, and not one made of words. Fire erupts from my jaws, the flames making superficial scorch marks on the stone top under everyone’s feet. My way of cautioning the lot of them to stop creeping closer, to stop them from treating me as if I need to be monitored with one of the aliens I oversee in this quarry—my quarry.
When I turn back to Isla, she’s cradling the spot behind her ear, her expression one of blatant disbelief. At least that odd smile has disappeared. “Did you just flick me?” she asks, her shock evident because she closes her mouth after she asks the question.
“Your translator—” I start.
She points a finger at my snout. “You owe me one.”
That silence didn’t last long. I take up my mallet again, hooking it over my shoulder as I pass her, approaching the canyon wall and anchoring my chisel point to a sedimentary line. “‘Owe you one of what?’” I say, before I swing my mallet.
Rock splits with a thundering crack.
I swing again, and the cracks turn to fissures. Another swing and rock shards explode from the wall, crashing to the quarry ground and pinging around with dusty cracks and clatters.
I turn back to Isla.
Her eyes hop from the broken rocks everywhere around us to my mallet then to me.
I nod. “If I owe you anything, it’ll be a slap with the broad side of my tail for being idle. Get your tail-less rump to work.”
CHAPTER 4
ISLA
The day is pretty darn interesting. And it mostly goes like this:
Big scary alien grumbles to me while he performs great feats of strength breaking chunks off of the earth, which he then lifts and carries to carts waiting to haul it wherever our collected rocks go, while meanwhile I’m hanging out with him and filling the same carts with what looks like cute little pet rocks, compared to what he can bring to the table.
The entire time we do this, I keep a steady commentary wherein I pepper him with questions, and he answers me in monosyllabic growls. Although it doesn’t seem like he’s very wordy to me, from longer-employed quarry worker’s wide-eyed reactions, I gather this is a big deal.
It makes me feel kinda special.
I find out that if I ask Bash work-related questions, he gets a little more verbose. He’s still terse and aggressive but the grumpiness is so extreme he’s actually hilarious.
Of course, he’s being completely serious, but I can’t help it that the
more crabby he gets, the harder I’m silently laughing. I have to keep my back to him and hope he doesn’t see me shaking as I try to suppress any wayward happy sounds. I must do a good job, because I don’t feel claws, fangs, or fire hit my back.
“...thus we’re essentially down a Narwari. The Garthmaw isn’t training more right now.” Grunt. [Bends to pick up a boulder; lifts boulder.] Grunt. “Your fellow humans have seeped even into his planet; he’s mated one of your insidious people and he’s completely taken with her.”
“That’s good,” I interject helpfully, heaving until I manage to muscle a rock over the side of the wagon, feeling accomplished when it clatters against other rocks before it lands on the bed of the cart with a satisfying thunk.
Bash stops walking. I glance over to see he’s staring at me. A wagon starts to hurry by us but before it can escape, Bash hurls his boulder like a half-court basketball shot—except with more aggression than seems healthy (or deserved, really)—which sends it crashing onto the bed of it, cracking against the rest of its load like the loudest game of billiards, ever. “‘Good?’ Good? That’s a travesty,” he claims, his passion about this topic evident in the way his ears slap down and the way his tail has collapsed straight out behind him, like it’s died of disbelief. “The Garthmaw’s skills with beast taming are wasted.” He turns away to grab another boulder. I grab another rock too. Bash’s tail flicks in my direction, indicating that he’s not done with this conversation. “He’s too busy pleasing his female—”
He pauses his rant to growl and toss another rock into the wagon. Then he dusts off his hands. If we were acting out a play’s script and not real life, the script would read:
Bash continues rant. [A WIDER SHOT shows us his employees, all staring unabashedly at their boss who is clearly acting out of character. Humans mill about with aliens, alien horses make strange not-horse noises, the quarry dust is thick in the air, the sun beats down heat, and Isla smiles at her new boss-friend.]
“—so here we are, training Ukko ourselves! It’d help if he’d snap out of his heartsickness that’s made him such a miserable machaii. But, I’m a patient man.”
