Archive of Our Own

For his first act following his cloaking, Dek took his clan to see the ocean.

It was not the shallow, half-dried sea with which he was familiar, and to which he’d made occasional excursions with Kwei during their youth, but a vast, deep expanse, which he knew from maps covered half of Yautja Prime, purpled with algae and crowned with cliffs of rock the same white of bleached bones. The alien, ancestral hunting grounds of clans which were only distant kin to the one which had birthed him.

Thia and Bud had stumbled out of the ship, the former spinning out across the sands, her arms outstretched, while the latter broke for the waves. Thia’s face had twisted into that wide, tooth-bared expression he now recognized signified excitement or happiness.

“You took us to the beach!” she said.

“There are many organisms which you can catalog here,” said Dek loftily. “Besides, I have never hunted in the water.”

“Oh of course, my mistake,” she said, a twinkle in her artificial gaze that said she didn’t believe him. “Ooh, look, tide pools!”

She hurried off towards the small fortress of rocky outcroppings which wallowed in the purple waves, while he followed at a more sedate pace.

He clambered up behind her, to find her crouched and peering into a small, stone hollow.

“Look at it,” she said in a hushed voice. “Do you know what it is?”

He leaned in, using her shadow to block his own, so as not to frighten the creature and cause it to flee. The thing looked almost…leafy. Long, spindly appendages the same white as the cliffs, bristling with spines. Yet it moved actively, like an animal, or the plants of Genna.

“No,” he said, after a few moments considering the tiny creature. “It is not prey, and I don’t recall Kwei ever mentioning it.”

“I’ll take some visuals and water chemistry,” she said. A little sigh escaped her. “An entire planet of organisms and almost nothing in my databanks. You sure know how to treat a girl right.”

“You are pleased?”

“Dek, I used to key out novel amphipods for entertainment. This is what I was made for. Here, let me grab it and see if it’s venomous.”

She scooped the creature in her palms and brought it up, squirming in the shallows of her cupped hands.

“Hm, tickles a bit, but no spines or toxins in the skin. Nothing that would work on something your size and with your physiology anyway. You want to touch it?”

He looked at her, startled. “Why?”

“For fun? It feels interesting.”

He couldn’t fathom doing such a thing ‘for fun’, but her earnest expression piqued his interest and she’d rarely steered him wrong. Mindful of his claws, he touched the pile of squirming limbs.

One wound around his finger and he tested the texture. “It feels soft.”

“That’ll be the slime coat.”

He slipped his finger free of its grasp and watched as she set it back in the pool. It scooted away under an overhang of rock.

“I think I see some sea caves down the way. You want to look?”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I do.”

Bud scampered into the caves ahead of them, sniffing and exploring every nook and cranny as Dek and Thia followed, clambering up and over rocks that Bud’s prodigious size rendered into mere pebbles.

“I bet there’s unique fauna in here,” said Thia, her voice echoing off the walls. “Did you learn about the creatures of your planet during your education?”

“Some of them.” Dek paused to examine a patch of something pulsing and bioluminescent attached to a wall of damp rock. “There are some experts, Elders of certain clans who know the beasts of the air and land and water, for their usefulness. Certain compounds that can be extracted from them, or how to use their presence for navigation. But I was taught little about any beast my clan did not consider worthy prey.”

“Shame, that. We’ll learn together then. Maybe you’ll get to be one of those Elders.”

Dek paused. “You think I would survive to be an Elder?” he said, bewildered.

Thia blinked at him. Her creators had built her without eyeshine, but Dek knew her vision in the dark was at least as good as his. “Well sure,” she said. “I mean you never know, but you’re Blooded now, right? You can keep yourself alive.”

He didn’t know how to respond to this. The concept of old felt as far as Genna itself. He was Blooded, yes, but still a runted Yautja from a clan with little use for him. While he might stake his claim with his new, misfit clan, the fact remained that he was largely separate from society. No female would choose him, and so any clan he founded would be ephemeral.

Perhaps he would study amphipods, he thought, mildly disturbed.

“Besides,” said Thia, and he blinked back at her. “You’ve got us, right? We’ll keep each other alive.”

The words warmed something in him. In his tongue, the phrase carried connotations of almost unseemly romanticism. I want you alive. I like you alive. If she were a female of his kind, he would have offered her a thrumming call of invitation, but she was neither Yautja or organic, so he let it lie. Yet she was built from ooman technology, on an ooman framework, and he knew they enjoyed mirroring.

“I will keep you alive as well.”

She smiled wryly. “I’m not really alive to begin with, cowboy, but appreciate the sentiment.”

Within the depths of the cave, Bud let out a call of nervous curiosity.

Dek nodded. “Come, I think she’s found something.”

Bud was crouched over a shallow depression, her wide nostrils flaring as she sniffed at it. Her posture was interested, but uneasy.

Dek tapped her authoritatively on the flank. “Stand aside, let me have a look.”

She did so, but only slightly. Her quills lifted, and she let out a quavering note.

The thing she inspected was obscured by shadows and mud, oblong and half-submerged in salted water from the rising tide. At first glance, it appeared to be a rock, but it seemed too symmetrical to have been shaped by water and time.

It was not in a context or orientation that Dek had ever seen in his lessons, but that was no excuse. He stared at the object, something tugging at the roots of his brain, for far too long before he registered what it was.

“Get back!” he bellowed, the roar a deafening echo in the cave. “Get away from it!”

Bud started at his shout, but didn’t immediately comply. He grabbed a fistful of her quills and yanked. It provoked a growl of annoyance, but there was no time for delicacy.

“Out!” he roared at her. “Out! Now!”

“What’s going on?” said Thia, as she came up behind them. “What is it?”

Before Dek could reply, there was a sickening crack, organic and wet, and something hurtled across the room at them.

There wasn’t room for both he and Bud to avoid it. He had only a split second to make the choice, but he made it.

He shoved himself in front of his clan member. He wasn’t wearing his helmet—stupid!—but he whipped his blades up, trying to cleave the monstrous thing in the bare instant before it struck him.

He felt his blades cut carapace, the agonizing splash of acid blood, and then the thing engulfed him, and he knew no more.

Dek woke to the open skies of Yautja Prime, and the wailing of some distant creatures above the crash of the waves.

Thia started from where she’d been seated beside him. Her face was drawn. Behind her loomed the spiny bulk of Bud’s body, her large, anxious eyes peering over Thia’s shoulder.

“You’re awake,” Thia said.

“For now,” he said. The wet sand was cold against his back. He felt ill, for lack of a better term. An internal, oily sickness that reminded him of a virus he’d contracted as a suckling. The memories were a blur.

He canted his eyes away from Thia and Bud, seeking what he knew he would find. The disgusting, coiled husk discarded on the sand.

It is done then.

The realization left him cold.

“How are you feeling?” said Thia. “Are you…” she trailed off, as if aware of the absurdity of the question.

“Alive, for now.” He rolled, tested his limbs, and rose. The weight of his own body was suddenly enormous. “We need to get back to the ship.”

He heard her follow. “And go where?”

“Somewhere isolated. And quickly. Before I…”

Hatch.

“I don’t understand.”

“The ship is programmed with my fingerprints. We need to set the destination before you kill me.”

She stopped dead behind him. “What?”

He kept walking. “There’s an island marked on the maps on the horizon.” He gestured towards the sea. “The ship will set us down there. You can end my life and contain my corpse. There are weapons aboard that will end it.”

“Dek, I’m not going to kill you!”

He whirled on her, mandibles flared in a threat display, and she took a step back. “Do not dishonor our clan this way!”

Her eyes had gone very wide. “What are you talking about?”

“It is the solemn charge of all Yautja to keep the kainde amedha contained, lest they spread like locusts across galaxies. This duty does not vary by clan or generation. It is my responsibility to do this, Thia who-would-be-Yautja. If you or Bud prove incapable, I will end it myself, but we must relocate while I retain the strength to do so.”

From her expression, he couldn’t picture his own. “Oh, Dek…”

He turned away from her and stalked back in the direction of the ship. “Death was already the consequence of my failure. This is just damage control.”

I suppose my father was right after all.

The island was far enough from the continent that it turned the shore on which they’d met disaster to a distant, blue smear. Dek set them down near a sheltered cove, under the shelter of gnarled trees which reminded him of tiny versions of those on Genna.

He wondered if Thia would comment on the convergence, but she was silent, watching him. Like a grave-watcher observing a corpse, silent as a stone. Like the trick she’d pull sometimes on hunts, where she’d halt her breathing in order to operate in total silence.

“I only need it to speak,” she’d told him once. “My lungs are just bellows to power the vibrations, I don’t have to actually breathe.”

She’d then dived down into a watery sinkhole and emerged an hour later, clutching a mineral specimen which glowed a stunning red. They’d mounted her trophy at the top of the display which held Tessa’s skull, where it even now cast a soft light across the bones.

The realization that they would never hunt again struck him, sudden and agonizing. He breathed through it. He would not shame himself more than he had already.

Nevertheless, his stomach turned. Or perhaps it was just the parasite, carving out its home.

He opened the doors of the ship, then beckoned to Thia. Bud made to follow them, but he held up a hand.

“Remain here,” he said gruffly.

“Why?” said Thia. Bud echoed her with a soft whine.

“The kainde amedha need flesh, not wiring,” he said. “What emerges from me cannot harm you. I cannot say the same for her.”

He saw the set of Bud’s heavy jaw, and pressed his point. “My brother built this ship to withstand the assault of a queen. I cannot protect you any longer but—he can.”

Bud flattened her quills and growled her displeasure.

“I am your clan leader,” he said, trying to prevent the desperation from creeping into his voice. “Don’t—do not challenge me on this. Remain here.”

Is this what you felt, Kwei? Every time I raced towards certain death?

I suppose I will be able to ask you soon enough.

Bud sat back on her haunches and regarded him gravely. He motioned to Thia, then set the ship to lock down.

“You will need to free her once we are finished,” he said. “Though I suspect she may be able to free herself.”

“Why didn’t you have us take you to one of the local clans?” she said, the way she did when she was continuing a conversation she’d started with him in her head. “If the xenomorphs are known to you, surely someone could help.”

“No time,” he said. “The nearest clans are strangers to me, and if they knew what I carried, they would blow us out of the sky sooner than let us bring it near a population center. And I…have never known a Yautja to survive infection.”

“Why was it even there?”

“Oversight, likely. Some clans use them for Blooding. A controlled infestation, which is then wiped out utterly. With or without the would-be Blooded.”

“Some control.”

“It was likely a late hatcher.”

Appropriate. Waiting just for you.

They topped a rise with a stunning view of the vast, purple ocean. It was just beginning to drizzle down rain, fog rolling in across the waves. Dek led her to a rocky overhang, from which some vegetation hung.

“Why here?” she said.

“Far enough to spare damage to the ship if I need to blow us up.” He tapped the device on his shoulder. “And I wanted a good view for my death.”

It was a pathetically sentimental statement, and he would never have shared it with another Yautja, but he thought Thia would appreciate it. He was learning that oomans were like that.

But when he turned to her, there was only a look of horror on her face.

He froze under her stare, heart pounding. “Thia…”

“How can you say that?” she said. Her voice was agonized.

He made a helpless gesture. “It is our way.”

She took a wavering step towards him and he opened his arms to her. It was a purely ooman gesture, translated poorly through programming, but one he’d quietly grown to enjoy.

She hugged him fiercely and he felt the metallic strength in her limbs, the power which would keep her and Bud safe once he was gone. He stroked her hair, and she buried her face in his shoulder.

“If I fail,” he said, “a single strike, from the upper right quadrant to the left hip. It will slice through my heart and bisect the creature in one stroke.”

“You fucker,” she said. “Only you would say goodbye with kill instructions. I’ll never forget you, Dek.”

Before he could respond, agony the likes of which he’d never felt arced through him. He collapsed to his knees with a roar. Something pulsed in his abdomen, and his spine twisted as though he were being electrocuted.

Distantly, he could hear Thia shouting, as if from underwater. He tried to gasp out instructions, but found his mouth full of blood. Had he bitten his tongue?

He tried to grope for his sword, angle his wristblades to slice at himself, but it was as if his limbs had turned to liquid. The foggy sky pitched and yawed above him.

Then behind Thia, he saw a shadow shimmer into view. The unmistakable shape of a Yautja warrior, masked and armed. The crown of locks which haloed their head were paled with age.

Dek’s heart stuttered, his vision doubled. For a moment, he was young and Unblooded, standing in the shadow of his father.

Impossible, I killed him with my own hands.

He tried to shout a warning, but the words didn’t come.

Thia turned, alarmed, and Dek felt his chest seize with sudden fear.

Yet instead of taking off Thia’s head with a sweep of his blade, the hulking warrior clamped a hand over her shoulder and set her firmly aside. Over the roaring in his ears, Dek could hear her pleading in their shared tongue.

“Please, I’m begging you, don’t—”

“Stand down,” said the warrior. “I know what is needed. Either step aside or hold him still.”

Dek convulsed as he felt Thia’s small hands clamp on his shoulders, pinning him to the ground. The sound of wristblades unsheathed cut the air.

“Be still,” the warrior repeated, and then hot pain sliced through Dek’s abdomen.

Dek had been wounded many times, before and after his Blooding, but he had never been gutted before. The blade sliced through layers of muscle and fat, and he felt his entrails spill forth. He writhed and fought.

“You’re killing him!” said Thia, somewhere above his head.

“No,” said the warrior, somewhere above his head, “this is.”

And he plunged his hand into Dek’s guts.

The pain was indescribable. Claws cut and nerve signals fired like lightning. He stared into the impassive mask as the warrior rooted wrist-deep inside him. Then he felt the hand close around something, a squirming maggot which kicked and thrashed and clawed.

“Breathe,” said the warrior, and ripped.

The thing came free in a burst of blood and agony. He saw a long, pale tail thrash, heard a birth-screech from a fanged mouth, ringed by flared mandibles in horrifying parody of his own.

Then the warrior slammed the creature to the ground and sunk his wristblades in it up to the hilt.

The infant kainde amedha screamed its death rattle. Blood fountained, showering them all, droplets of agony where it struck Dek’s skin. It thrashed again, then went still.

The warrior withdrew his blades with a grunt, and tossed the vile thing away.

Thia was already fumbling at Dek’s belt for a Medicomp, but the warrior produced his own and began to tuck Dek’s entrails back into his body. Dek could feel himself shaking, his vision darkening at the edges.

Blood loss.

“Staple him back up,” said the warrior. “Are there any more hard meat about?”

“No, no this was the only one,” said Thia. “We have to get him back to the ship. Shit, there’s so much blood.”

The warrior reached for something out of view. “Here, let me at his head.”

Dek heard the rustling as they moved, and then heavy clawed hands lifted his head. The warrior carefully set Dek’s head in his lap, stabilizing his shoulders. He held up a coil of metal tubing, both ends capped with a wicked device for drawing blood.

He set one end of the device on his own chest, on a tiny patch of exposed skin between the filaments of his shiftsuit. There was a small, pneumatic hiss, and the device drove itself into the warrior’s flesh. Glowing blood began to drip from the other end.

The warrior leaned over Dek to set the other end, a location Dek’s blood-deprived brain could not identify. As he did so, the broad curtain of pale locks fell forward, brushing across Dek’s chest. A flicker of Njorr’s visage echoed across his blurred vision.

Dek flinched, unable to help it, the flash of fear immediately followed by a flood of rage. Blackness threatened his vision as the drop in blood pressure almost made him pass out.

The warrior paused, as if slightly startled himself by the hostile, pheromonal surge. The expressions of his mandibles were obscured by his mask, but he ignored Dek’s display and set the line. A sharp bite, and blood began to flow.

The warrior sat back, allowing the line to move freely, the blood following the path of gravity. He did not speak, but a low, buzzing rumble echoed in his chest, a soothing trill that Dek had never heard before, but that sent a quiet ripple of calm through him. His muscles relaxed, and he blinked up at the warrior, dazed.

What is that?

“Is he going to be okay?” said Thia. Her hands were covered in Dek’s blood.

“Likely,” said the warrior. Careful not to disrupt the line, he reached up and unclipped his helmet, exposing his face. “He’ll need recovery time however. The internal damage will regenerate with care, but not overnight.”

The warrior was a stranger, and indeed an old one, though he seemed in excellent shape for a Yautja with greying locks. He too had a broken fang, an exact mirror of Dek’s own, on the upper mandible on the opposite side. The center of his forehead was marked with ceremonial scarring that indicated he’d completed his Blooding with a kainde amedha queen.

Dek could only stare as consciousness slowly returned on waves of the stranger’s blood. Was he an Elder? If so, he must be a respected one, to have killed a queen so young. But where was his clan? Ic’jit weren’t known to live so long, but why else would he be out here alone?

“What is your name?” said Thia.

The stranger took a moment to unhook the line between himself and Dek, to cauterize the ports and carefully coil up the tubing.

“You speak our tongue,” he said at last, “so perhaps I should introduce myself properly. But you look like an ooman, even if you don’t smell like one, so maybe you’d prefer the name she gave me.”

“She?” said Thia.

“Da’dtou-di,” he said. “She is many summers passed now, but she called me Scar.”

To Dek’s surprise, Scar followed them back to the ship. Dek wasn’t entirely certain how to take this.

He wasn’t ungrateful for the assistance, and Scar said nothing of it, allowing Dek the dignity of silence, but it rankled lightly at him. Still, he could hardly be unhappy that he would live another sunrise rather than serving as food for the kainde amedha.

He was such a strange figure, taller of course than Dek—nearly as tall as Kwei—but otherwise very different. The contrast of his mottling against his hide was starker, and he bore a smattering of dark quills on the sides of his forehead, of a sort that Dek had never seen. His armor and shiftsuit were an entirely different design, a netlike pattern of metal capped with hammered armor plates, but Dek couldn’t deny the effectiveness.

Thia—of course—was fascinated by him. Dek wasn’t entirely certain how to take this either.

“Can we invite him in?” said Thia in a whisper-which-wasn’t.

Dek looked over her head at Scar, who was pretending to examine the scenery. His mandibles were still, but in a position which suggested amusement.

“For what purpose?” Dek said, not bothering to whisper.

“For tea, of course! Wait, do Yautja have tea, or do you eat all your meals standing around by campfires? Plus, he did kind of save your life?”

“Excuse me,” said Scar, “why don’t we go to my camp? It’s nearby.”

“Or we could do that,” said Thia, accepting the invitation before Dek could introduce any logic into following a stranger back to his potentially-trapped lair. “Wait, do you live here on the island?”

“For the time being, yes,” said Scar. “I may move on at some point, but it’s a secure location with plenty of prey. I’ve been here,” he paused as if thinking, “one hundred summers.”

“How old are you?” said Thia, her eyes shining the way she did when there was the prospect of learning something on the horizon. “You’ve got the silver fox thing going on like—” Dek shot her a warning look, “—older Yautja I’ve seen, but I didn’t get a chance to ask them how long they’ve been around.”

“No offense taken,” said Scar, and Dek noted he used an archaic idiom which could best be translated as “I am too busy to fight”. “I’ve done my best to keep track. My reckoning is three hundred summers.”

Thia let out a low whistle. “Holy shit, you’re almost six hundred years old by Earth time.”

“Are you an Elder?” said Dek. “Where is your clan?”

“Nowhere near here,” said Scar. “I could have stayed with them—my children chose to do so—been a true Elder. But after my mate passed, I decided to depart. Maybe someday I will return, maybe not, but I am not truly needed. They are all Blooded and most have sucklings of their own.” He looked them over. “Is this your clan?”

Dek puffed himself with pride. “Yes. We three. I am clan head.”

To his surprise, Scar did not mock him, but made a gesture of acceptance. “And your third?”

There was a deafening bang from inside the ship. Dek bared his fangs in pleasure.

“You can meet her,” he said.

To his faint disappointment, Scar did not cower before Bud. He merely greeted the Kalisk with the same solemnity and slightly old-fashioned speech. He then invited the three of them back to his home for a meal.

Dek couldn’t think of a polite—or impolite—way to decline, so they followed Scar out into the rainy afternoon fog.

The fog muffled their footsteps as they trailed behind Scar, and Dek could see the appeal of hunting in such conditions. Still, as he watched the flapping cloak of the other Yautja move back and forth in the breeze, appearing and vanishing, he couldn’t suppress a feeling of unease.

“Are you okay?” said Thia, in an actual whisper this time. “You keep looking at him strangely.”

“He’s…” Dek tried to think of how to articulate this, “weird.”

“Weird? Weird how?”

“He’s…it will not make sense to you.”

She frowned, “Try me.”

“He is too polite.”

“Too polite?” Thia stared up ahead at Scar’s retreating back. “I mean he’s not an asshole, but what makes you say that?”

“Exactly,” said Dek. “He is weird because his…” he groped for a word that would translate cleanly, “manners are not Yautja. They are weird. Like yours.”

“Excuse you?”

“Like that,” agreed Dek. “No Yautja would say ‘excuse me’. I didn’t understand the phrasing when he first used it. He speaks Yautja, but his mannerisms are like yours.”

“I’m not following.”

“You were built by oomans,” said Dek impatiently. “You are not ooman, but they crafted you to mirror them. In form and function. He speaks and acts like he has spent time around oomans.”

“Oh. Oh, shit. When would he have done that?”

“I don’t know,” said Dek, troubled, “but we should be cautious.”

Scar’s home was appropriately concealed for a hunter, a warm, dry cave cut into the side of a hill, with several chambers that snaked off it. Scar refreshed the embers of the fire and set some food to heat over it, as well as a kettle.

“Tea,” he said, as if he found this rather funny.

“What do you use?” said Thia eagerly. “Herbs? Roots? Do you make an infusion or a decoction?”

“A what?” said Dek.

“Steeped or boiled,” said Scar. “And boiled. Grass seeds, you may enjoy them. My mate did.”

“Oh I can’t drink it, but he can,” said Thia, once again volunteering Dek for certain destruction. “I’m a synth, an android. Can’t you tell?”

“I had wondered,” said Scar. “I’ve never met an android in person. I have not left Yautja Prime for some time, and they weren’t yet common when I was Blooded.”

“I bet that’s a story.”

“Of course it is,” said Dek. He pointed at Scar’s forehead. “He was Blooded on a kainde amedha queen. There is no higher honor.”

They both looked at him, and Dek felt his mandibles curl in faint embarrassment.

“As you say,” said Scar, looking amused. “Though I can’t say I’ve thought much about it in the last hundred summers. Sounds different in the voice of a brash young Blooded.”

Something turned over in Dek’s stomach. Maybe it was the residual organ damage.

“Can you tell us?” said Thia, eager. “I’ve never seen a xenomorph in person, though I’ve watched archival footage. The queens are huge, aren’t they?”

“Massive,” said Scar. “She was part of the Blooding for myself and my two clan brothers. They perished in the trials, but my mate and I brought her down.”

“Your mate?” said Dek. “You hunted together?”

He had heard of such things, but only rarely. It was far more common for clans in his region to be founded by males, with females visiting for a breeding season and leaving behind weaned sucklings at the next cycle, with the rest of the rearing left to the fathers. He couldn’t fathom the idea of a female so attached that she would travel and hunt with him.

Scar bared his fangs in a pleased expression. “Not at first. She was not there for a Blooding, it was pure chance we encountered each other. But she was magnificent.”

“I’ve never seen a female Yautja.” Thia gestured at Dek. “Except his mom. She was…intimidating.”

Scar shook his head. “Intimidating, yes, but my mate was not Yautja. At least not then.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mate was ooman.”

“What?” said Dek, his tone slightly strangled. “You bred with one?”

Scar gave him the tiniest of strange looks. “Bred?”

“You said—you had sucklings?”

“Ah.” Scar snorted. “They are ours, yes, but they were not birthed by her. Orphans within the clan. We raised them as our own and she gave suck.”

“Wait, really?” Thia’s face lit up. “She was a human female, right? Did she actually nurse Yautja babies?”

Scar nodded. “We weren’t certain at first, but our eldest’s birth dam died only days after he emerged. The father was a cousin of mine, and there were no other nursing females in the clan at the time. She decided to try.”

He reached up and tapped a device on his shoulder, a little speaker. A slightly tinny voice echoed through the space. Yautja speech, but spoken the way Thia spoke, with a different shape and tone to the words.

“Lactation is pituitary in humans, not ovarian. I don’t have to be pregnant to do it. It’s worth a shot anyway. Hand him over, tiger.”

“Wow,” said Thia. “And they survived? Human milk did the job?”

Scar laughed. “I was surprised as well, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been. After all, what is milk but mostly blood?”

“Incredible,” said Thia. “You called her Da’dtou-di. Was that her name?”

“The name she went by in the clan. Her ooman name was Alexa.” He pronounced the word slowly, and Dek realized it must be in an ooman dialect. Scar seemed to sag a little. “We had fifty glorious summers together before age took her.”

Thia’s face fell. “I guess you don’t really think about life span disparities until they’re staring you in the face,” she said.

“No,” said Scar quietly. “Though I did not expect to live so long.”

“I didn’t know Yautja could.”

“Most don’t,” said Scar. “I could have sought my final hunt, gone to join her in The Long Sleep, but…she asked me not to.”

“Well of course,” said Thia, as if it was obvious.

“Of course?” echoed Dek.

She looked at him. “Humans value life. Life for those they love. She would want you to live, to enjoy life, even if she couldn’t be beside you any longer.”

Her eyes were uncomfortably keen.

Dek looked away.

Scar let out a hum as he poured the tea. He offered a cup to Dek.

Dek took it, the metal warm in his palms, a strangely comforting sensation. The cup was molded to fit the splay of his mandibles, and he tipped it back to sample from it.

The tea tasted like grass after new rain, strange but not unpleasant. He tried to picture Scar and his mate, Alexa, sitting by the fire and taking tea together. A specimen like Scar, bulky and handsome and queen-blooded, must have had many offers of female attention. Yet he’d chosen loyalty, sacrificed his line to rear the sucklings of others with the one he loved.

When he looked up from the cup, he saw that Scar was watching him. Quiet, in the way of a seasoned hunter, but with something questioning in his eyes.

Dek wondered what he saw, a small, unimpressive Yautja who dared to call himself clan leader. He swallowed the rest of the tea, then handed back the cup with a gesture of thanks.

“We should return,” he said.

“You are welcome to stay,” said Scar. “The island is secure enough, not afflicted by ill weather. It’s a good place to rest.”

“Can we?” said Thia. “I’d like to get a look at the local wildlife.”

Dek regarded Scar for a long moment. Tradition demanded he refuse, but instinct clashed with it in a way that confused him greatly. Scar was a large male, a rival for trophies, for females, for prey and territory. And yet something in his presence radiated calm, a sense of security and gentleness that Dek had never encountered from another Yautja, of any gender. Oh Scar was deadly, no doubt, but he also felt…

Safe.

The realization knocked the wind from him.

“Dek?”

He swallowed and turned away. “We will stay. For now.”

Thia’s face broke into a smile. “I’m going to get so much footage, this is going to be amazing.”

When Thia set out in the morning to visit the rocky tide pools, Dek found himself left alone for the first time in months.

Bud had gone off to explore the trees, and Dek wandered off through the fog down to the small, sandy beach.

He walked the cold, packed sands around the rim of the island, until he encountered Scar, cloaked and perched on a rock exposed by the ebbing tide like a bulky seabird. He had something between his hands, threadlike, upon which he worked.

Dek did not ask what he was doing, as this would somehow make him appear embarrassingly ignorant, but as Dek approached, Scar held up his project to display it. It was a string of small shells, hung on braided seagrass.

“The snail from these is deadly,” said Scar. “I use their harpoons to tip my spear points for fishing. But the shells make fine ornamentation, don’t you think?”

He offered the necklace. Dek took it, expecting it to be fragile, but to his surprise, the braided grass was tough. Each shell was jet black, with a rough, textured surface.

“The snail incorporates metal ions in its shell,” said Scar, sounding thoughtful. “It’s resistant to even the blade tail of a kainde amedha. You’d think with such venom they would not need it, but they value defense as well as offense.”

Indeed, up close Dek could see that Scar had not drilled the shells, but rather knotted each safe within several strands of seagrass. He ran his fingers over the shells, listening to the musical click of them against his claws. “It’s a fine thing.”

“Keep it.”

Dek looked at him, startled and a little askance. “What?”

“Keep it. A small trophy of your time here.”

“I did not hunt it.”

“A gift then.” Scar shrugged his cloak back and rose. “Then let us hunt, if it is trophies you desire.”

“Hunt? With you?”

“Do you prefer to stalk your prey alone?”

Dek hesitated. “I hunt with my clan, now, yes. But I was raised to hunt alone.”

Scar cocked his head, as if this confused him. “You did not hunt with other Unblooded?”

The question prodded far too close for comfort. “My older brother mentored me.”

A half-truth, but one that Scar seemed to accept. “There were many Unblooded in my birth clan when I was growing up. It was common to live and hunt in groups. I suppose other clans are likely different.”

“Likely,” echoed Dek.

Why does he not comment on your defect? Surely he sees it. Is it ooman politeness again?

“Come,” said Scar, “there is prey aplenty in the water. Have you ever used a bio-mask for diving?”

This caught Dek’s attention. “No. I had planned to hunt underwater, before…” He bit the tail off the words, and his shame.

“A proper chance then,” said Scar. “I have a vessel under the cliffs.”

Scar’s vessel turned out to be a flat, metal boat of some kind, with an airfoil to propel it so it skimmed across the surface of the waves. Dek considered briefly that he was headed into isolation with a potentially dangerous foe, but Dek was also no coward, and he stepped into the vessel without hesitation.

Scar steered them out across the water, until the island itself shrank to a small lump. He shut off the airfoil, and launched a sky-anchor that caught the air and left them drifting on the same patch of waves.

“There,” said Scar, gesturing. A short distance away, Dek could see some winged creatures circling in the sky. “Scavengers. Below them will be prey, and predators hunting them. Those are our targets. Can you swim?”

“Don’t patronize me,” growled Dek.

Scar spread his mandibles in a wide, slightly mocking expression. “Then let’s go,” he said, and dived overboard.

Dek had to fumble his bio-mask on and follow him. The icy ocean water bit him, and he gritted his teeth as he surged forwards with powerful strokes.

Through the slits in his bio-mask, he could see Scar ahead of him, coursing through the water with an ease which spoke of long experience.

Then beyond him, Dek glimpsed the bait ball.

The spiraling, inverted tower of wriggling prey was enormous, a slowly turning mass around which sleek shadows circled. Scar slowed his approach, treading water, but did not surface, waiting for Dek to pull up beside him.

He gestured, and Dek recognized it as the silent hand language that Kwei had taught him. Choose your prey?

Dek paused, surveying the lurking shadows. He watched a broad, bulky creature zip by, driven by a narrow, vertical tail. It would be far faster than he; he’d have to stalk it.

That one, he responded.

Good choice, said Scar.

Why?

Tasty.

Then Scar peeled off and vanished into the gloom, leaving Dek to stalk his prey.

The creature was phenomenally fast, almost effortless as it cut through the water. Each time he approached, it flashed away, onto the other side of the spiraling column of bait species. 

Dek growled, but then reconsidered.

Instead of approaching the creature, he plunged into the bait ball.

The wriggling creatures parted to admit him, closing behind him in a seamless mass as soon as it became evident he wasn’t hunting them. Sheltered behind the wall of writhing bodies, he peered into the gloom, watching, waiting.

There!

His spear struck true, and there was a bloom of dark blood in the water. The creature writhed on the end of his blade, and his heart leapt.

He broke for the surface, towing the creature with him. He surged up out of the water, pushed back his mask, and turned, seeking Scar.

No sign of him.

He had only a moment to wonder, before something enormous surged up from below and engulfed him.

Dek had but a split second to hold his breath before he was sucked into an abyssal vortex of blackness and noise. He lost his orientation, uncertain which way was up, and lost his prey.

But he kept hold of his blade. He had to. He was dead otherwise.

At last he struck something, soft and fleshy. He sunk his talons in, seeking an anchor, and stabbed his spear into the nearest available surface.

The creature convulsed around him, but neither spat him out or died. He yanked out his spear, sank it again. His lungs burned.

Then above him, something split. Air and sky rushed into the crack and he shot to the surface. His head broke water and he gasped.

Renewed, Dek grasped at its splitting flesh and began to lay into it, seeking where he thought the heart might be.

His spear sank in, and blood fountained.

Above him, he saw a split second vision of Scar’s mask, and then the Yautja leapt across the open fissure in the creature’s back. The one he must have carved himself to let Dek breathe.

Making for the head.

He must have found it, for the leviathan creature howled a death rattle around him. The beast thrashed, then went still, Dek still treading water in its bisected carcass.

A moment later, Scar appeared above him. He reached down into the bloody pool in which Dek floated, offering a hand.

Dek took it, unthinking, and Scar helped haul him out onto the creature’s back. The roll of the floating carcass on the waves caught him unexpectedly, and Scar steadied him with a hand on his hip.

Dek flinched, startled by the unexpected touch, but before he could think of what to say, Scar released him. He found his footing and stared into the foggy light.

They were both drenched in blood, and Scar shook himself, sending it splattering from his locks. He laughed.

“I’ve never tried that particular technique,” he said, “but well done.”

Dek blinked, certain he’d misheard. “What?”

But Scar was already walking towards the creature’s head. “A fine hunt, this will feed us for months. We’ll have to tow it.”

He tapped something on his wristlet, and Dek heard a buzz as the sky anchor approached, towing the small craft in its wake. Scar stepped aboard, and tossed Dek a coil of thin cable.

Determinedly focusing his thoughts away from what had just happened, Dek began to hitch up the remains of their prey.

Thia was ecstatic with the carcass, even though she could not eat it, and pitched in with the two of them to butcher and disassemble it for trophies, taking visuals and making commentary on its anatomy. Bud joined them to feed and generally make noise over the whole affair, and Dek found himself relaxing into the rhythm of communal butchery. Scar seemed happy to indulge Thia with a bit more delicacy in his dissections, the two of them crouching over masses of tissue and pointing out features.

“Look!,” said Thia, holding up a floppy, pale shape. “It had a parasite in the liver!”

“Disgusting,” Dek informed her.

“Excuse you! Look at the scolex on this thing! It’s prettier than a flower!”

“There’s more in the digestive tract,” said Scar, sounding amused.

They left the majority of the skeleton—except the skull—to bleach on the beach, so they could return for it later. Scar was already contemplating out loud the potential for the bones—furniture, household implements, and decoration.

“We should wash in the sea,” said Scar. “The fat holds the scent, and it’s almost impossible to remove from cloth once it goes rancid.”

He beckoned them down the path and plunged—fully armored—into the surf. Thia followed him, and Bud, and then Dek, though he couldn’t have explained his reticence.

Scar surfaced from a wave, shook himself and stomped onto the beach. There he began to remove his armor and shiftsuit.

Thia followed suit, shucking her shirt and pants and scrubbing them in the salt water before flipping them over her shoulder.

The contrast in their bodies was startling, Thia, spindly, pale, and almost featureless when bared, like a blind, cave-dwelling creature. Scar, on the other hand, was bulky, with a hint of countershading on his hide that reminded Dek of the hunters which had stalked the bait ball.

Scar said something to Thia, too low for Dek to hear under the crash of the waves, and she laughed.

“Come on!” she shouted to Dek. “Your clothes are going to reek!”

Suddenly self-conscious for reasons he couldn’t explain, Dek stripped out of his clothing and plunged them into the water, scooping up handfuls of sand and rubbing them into the fibers until the blood lifted free.

As he worked, he glanced up at where Scar and Thia stood on the beach, watching as Bud stalked up and down the shoreline. He wondered, momentarily, if Scar was showing off for Thia, displaying his body. He’d had an ooman mate after all, and while a synth only resembled an ooman, perhaps she was still attractive by their standards.

As he wrung out his tunic, he realized Scar was watching him, eyes keen but curious. Was he evaluating the situation as he would if he encountered an unknown female? Did he think Dek would challenge him for Thia’s attention?

Dek tried to imagine doing this, but couldn’t fathom Thia herself expecting such a thing. He found pleasure in making her happy, but she was not a Yautja female to demand displays of his prowess. He did not feel driven to impress her.

Not like…

He beheaded the thought before it could form fully, then donned his soaking wet clothing to let it dry on his body.

After, they hauled the meat up towards Scar’s home, and feasted in a way that Dek couldn’t recall since he was a Youngblood. Scar dug out some sort of resin from among his supplies and tossed it on the fire, sending up a fresh, pleasing scent.

Dek sniffed appreciatively. “This is pleasant, what is it?”

Scar paused. “You don’t recognize it?”

“Should I?” Now that he considered it, the scent was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it, like a faded memory.

“The resin comes from a tree in the northern deserts,” said Scar. “I traded for it from a traveler from the clans that make their homes there. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”

Dek stared at the fire. He did know the scent, he realized, a hazy recollection from childhood, but not one that he had experienced for many years. Not since he was a juvenile, since it became evident that he would remain stunted, since he was banished from the hearthfires and the communal meals…

He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The shame of it choked him, that he was cut so cleanly from this part of his birth-clan.

Unable and unwilling to speak, he stood, and stalked out of the cave.

He heard Thia calling behind him, but no sound of her footsteps. Rather than head for the ship, he made for the forested uplands, seeking the dark and the quiet.

Ultimately, he went to ground in the shadow of a gnarled tree, a windbreak where he could watch the shadows and stew in his inadequacies.

It was there Scar found him.

Dek flared his mandibles at him, a display of mild belligerence which Scar ignored. He seated himself a short distance away, far enough not to crowd, but close enough to insinuate his presence.

“I am sorry,” said Scar, a Yautja formality that Dek had only heard from subordinate clan members. It rankled, and he growled.

“Why do you say such things?” he hissed. “We both know that you are well-equipped to challenge me.”

Scar gave him a flat look. “And old enough to know when a challenge would serve no purpose. As well as the value of rituals of politeness.”

“Ooman sentiment.”

“My mate did give me more than passing understanding of oomans,” agreed Scar, “but I did not learn camaraderie from her. You call it sentiment, but friendship is not alien to Yautja. Did you not have friends as a youth?”

Dek did not respond.

Scar let out a huffing sigh. “I’d heard that the northern clans were more…rigid in their ways, but even they socialize their young.”

“I was not permitted to interact with other Youngbloods,” said Dek dully. “My father did not allow it.”

Scar’s expression turned confused. “Why?”

Anger flared, hot and sparking. “Because of my defect, fool! Must I speak it aloud?”

Scar’s brow ridges knitted. “Your what?”

Dek leapt to his feet, and was gratified to see Scar stiffen in anticipation. “Are you blind?”

Scar stared at him, as if processing something. “Are you referring to your height?”

“What else?”

“You are short for a Yautja adult,” said Scar, “but I have known shorter. I’ve met hunters your size before in the southern clans.”

Dek snorted. “So they do not cull their weakness.”

Scar looked unimpressed. “Why cull when the trials do that for you?”

Dek paused. He didn’t actually have an answer for that.

“Did your clan not permit your Chiva?” said Scar.

Dek lifted his head proudly. “I went myself. To Genna, the death planet, to hunt the Kalisk, and returned Blooded. I challenged my clan leader, and slew him.”

“Because he would not permit your trials?”

Dek froze, then felt himself deflate. “Because he killed my brother.”

“Why?”

“Because my brother refused to cull me.”

“Ah.”

Dek felt himself tremble all over. Even now, many days after the deed was done, the residual rage and grief coiled within him.

Scar regarded him. “Come,” he said at last, “sit with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a comrade grieving and sick on battle blood. Sit with me.”

When Scar did not move further, Dek slowly sank down and seated himself across from him.

“Very good,” said Scar. “Now, I’m going to show you a ritual from the southern clans. Hold still.”

Dek tensed as Scar leaned closer, then went rigid with shock as he carefully wrapped his arms around him. His jaw pressed alongside Dek’s, a position that kept their mandibles mutually away from each other’s throats. His shiftsuit was warm.

“If we were Youngbloods together in my clan,” said Scar quietly. “I would have taken you from your ill-met sire and brought you into my tent. We would have been hunt-companions, and made many a fine kill together.”

Dek shivered, and something ached in his chest. Was that the way of other clans? That a male as fine as Scar would seek him out, and declare them both companions?

He thought of Kwei, and shut his eyes against the pain.

Scar let out the same, soft, trilling rumble that he had when he’d given Dek the transfusion, and Dek felt his own arms tighten around him.

“I know what a hug is,” he said. “Thia showed me. You don’t have to make pretensions about ‘southern rituals’.”

Scar chuckled. “It’s not the only one, but I don’t want to frighten you off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Later. Let’s go back where it’s warm and enjoy our kill.”

So Dek followed him back to the fire. To the warmth of Thia and Bud, to the smell of resin from the northern deserts and cooking meat from the southern seas. And let the calm night breeze blow his worries from him for a time.

Dek didn’t know the intricacies of being “hunt companions”, but when he came to Scar again and asked, the other warmly accepted.

It was unbearably exciting, hunting with another Yautja. Both Thia and Bud were strong and capable, but Bud’s instincts were different and Thia lacked the drive to hunt. She enjoyed the practice—and the data mined from trophies—but tended to get a bit bored with the repetition.

Then again, Dek tended to get a bit bored with the geologic digs she favored, so he supposed he wasn’t one to talk.

They tracked a flying creature through the trees, a flighty prey animal that was more a demonstration of stealth than strength. This was where Dek excelled, moving swiftly across bridges made of branches, cloaked and concealed.

It was Dek who brought down the killing blow, and Scar who skillfully carved off the wings as a single piece connected to the skull and spine.

“This will look well among your trophies,” said Scar, as he handed Dek the chunk of flesh and bone. “It’s an impressive collection.”

“Some of it was my brother’s,” said Dek. “All that’s left of him.”

Scar nodded. “Come back for a bit. You can process the trophy in my vat.”

Once the trophy was safely set to clean within the bubbling vat, Dek found himself without a task within Scar’s home. He wandered among the branching caves, restless with the post-hunt itch.

Scar on the other hand seemed perfectly calm. He’d seated himself by the hearth and was hemming one of his cloaks, binding up a fraying edge with a needle and thread which danced in the firelight. Dek watched his hands, the same hands which had driven a blade through the brain case of the leviathan they’d hunted, now moving with such delicacy.

“What do you do after a hunt?” Dek said.

“Depends on the hunt,” said Scar. “Most often nowadays I work on a project or repair.” He flipped over the edge of his cloak, and Dek realized there was a pattern marked on it in thread. “Lex taught me to embroider and I found I enjoyed it.”

Dek felt something peculiar tingle down his spine. “Is that all?”

Scar paused, then looked up at him, faintly amused.

“If you are asking if I remember being flush and hot in the Blooding, then yes.”

Dek burned, and studied the wall. “You said you hunted with your mate.”

“For many years, yes. But she was not the first with whom I enjoyed a post-hunt romp. Though she was the most recent.”

“And what do you do now, without females?”

“Who said they were females?”

Dek jerked to look at him, startled. “What?”

Scar cocked his head. “You are shocked by this?”

“You are implying…you coupled with males?”

“It’s extremely common,” said Scar, as if this were an uninteresting fact about the weather. “Not one among my clan brothers mated with a female until after we were Blooded. I would imagine many still find enjoyment with each other, or more, not all were as attached to their mates as I, or interested in the company of females.”

Dek stared at him.

“Was this not done in your clan?”

Dek opened his mouth, then realized he didn’t actually know. Had Kwei had some kind of hunt-companion? If he did, Dek had never seen them. Then again, much of Kwei’s time had been taken up with training Dek.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I never mated with anyone.”

Scar studied him. “Would you like to?”

Dek would have to have been a fool not to grasp the implication. “With you?”

“If you desire.”

The thought was intimidating, but touched on something strangely warm and exciting in the pit of his stomach. “How?”

Scar set aside his sewing and began to unbuckle his remaining armor. “Come here.”

There was something in the approach that reminded Dek of stalking dangerous prey, a tingle in the base of his spine. He dropped to his knees eagerly by where Scar was seated, but paused when he spotted something unusual exposed by his removed armor.

“Where did you get that one?”

“This?” Scar indicated a fine line that bisected his lower abdomen. “Lex gave it to me. How do you think I knew how to remove your parasite?”

He tried to picture it, ooman hands sunk in split Yautja flesh.

“I gave her my wristblades,” said Scar. “I thought she might kill me—on purpose or by accident—but she managed to remove it.”

Again that tinny voice echoed in the space, words he didn’t fully understand: “Just like delivering a baby by caesarean in the German Alps—hold tight, tiger, I’ve got you.”

Unable to restrain himself any longer, Dek moved closer.

Scar caught him gently but firmly by the shoulders. He drew them away from the hearth and back into the cave.

“Easy,” he said. “As pleasurable as it would be to be mauled by a young hotblood just off a hunt, I think it would benefit both of us to spend a bit of time on this.”

Frustration burned. “Show me.”

“Demanding,” Scar rumbled in amusement. “On top of me then.”

The sensation of clambering atop Scar sent a whole series of exciting instincts jangling. His body was pleasantly warm, the transferred heat from his shiftsuit enjoyable in a way that made Dek want to sleep, but also mount him. Scar parted his legs and let Dek nestle between them, then cupped his hand across the nape of Dek’s neck.

“Head up,” he said affectionately, and then his mandibles were hooked with Dek’s.

A sound escaped Dek, a soft rumble of excitement that he was quite sure he’d never made before. Scar trilled back at him, drew him closer, until Dek could feel his tongue flick across his teeth.

Dek was awash. He’d used his mandibles as tools, as weapons, but never for this. Their broken fangs didn’t catch, but Dek found he could scrape his over the tip of Scar’s corresponding unbroken one, a light stridulation that was strangely pleasing to the ear. He pressed closer, felt his hips flex, so close to emergence.

Scar hooked his free hand across the small of his back, guiding his next thrust. He gripped a fistful of Dek’s tunic, rucking it up until his thighs were bared.

Dek could feel the tips of his organs emerging from the slit between his legs, and angled to rub them against Scar’s belly. Scar purred at him, and gave an encouraging tug.

“Magnificent,” he said, the vibration buzzing against Dek’s mouth. “Let me get you in hand.”

Scar released the back of his neck and insinuated a hand between their bodies, grasping both of Dek’s organs as they slid free. The spike of pleasure was blinding, and he tightened his grip on Scar’s mandibles, somewhere between a plea and a demand.

Scar chuckled, a low sound that Dek swore he’d heard him make on a hunt, right before he sprang a particularly clever trap. He shifted Dek’s weight down a bit.

“Here,” he said. “Wait a moment. I think you’ll like this.”

Dek almost asked him what he was doing, but then he felt something—two somethings—slide across his own stomach, slick and ridged. Then Scar coaxed the tip of Dek’s left organ down, nudged it against the base of his own, where they forked out of his slit.

Against, and then inside.

Dek gasped, and thrust, completely instinctual. He’d never tested the depth of his own sheath, but he found himself sliding fully inside Scar’s, a warm and slick sensation he’d never fathomed he’d get to experience. He thrust, stabilized himself, and continued, plunging in and out.

If the sounds he was making were any indication, Scar found this quite enjoyable. He tightened his mandibles against Dek’s and squeezed encouragement against the small of his back.

Dek could feel himself nearing the peak, a tightening sensation. His thrusts grew faster, he lost his rhythm, and then he was falling, spilling as he never had anywhere but in his own fist. He felt the ridges on his organ flare out, and Scar undulated under him with a pleased sound.

Dek slowed, panting, and Scar rolled them over with a rumble. He hiked Dek’s leg up over his thigh, and then Dek felt the tip of one his organs prod at his empty sheath.

He half-expected pain, or at least discomfort, but to his surprise Scar slid in with ease, ridges provoking waves of stimulating pleasure on the inward glide.

“Truly magnificent,” said Scar, almost as if to himself. “When you emerged from the creature covered in heart-blood, I wanted to mount you there on its back.”

Dek bit back a noise. His still-everted organs twitched, and he felt himself convulse, spill again.

Scar’s eyes brightened, a Yautja who’d found his hunt’s weakness. He covered Dek with his body, let himself sink deep until their hips touched. His thrusts slowed, then halted, letting his weight settle over Dek.

Dek squirmed, seeking stimulation, but found himself mostly pinned.

“Shh,” said Scar with that same peculiar trill under the sound. “Relax. Feel me inside you.”

He petted Dek’s head, and Dek felt something inside his chest sputter, an echo of that strange trill that Scar would sometimes make. An answer to an instinct he still didn’t fully understand.

“A worthy hunter,” murmured Scar. His mandibles stroked along Dek’s. “Fierce and strong enough to take me well. A delight to have beside me, in my bed and on the hunt.”

Dek pawed wordlessly at him, and Scar rewarded him with a long, slow thrust. The organ not sunk inside Dek slipped between the two of his own, ridges catching on each other in a way that made Dek dizzy.

Sounds escaped him, uncontrollable, a similar, soft trilling that echoed back at him from Scar’s chest. He moved to meet him, felt their bodies join, part, join again, and then Scar spasmed atop him. His sheath grew slick, and Dek felt the ridges on Scar’s organ lift and catch lightly inside him, sending electric trails of pleasure down his spine.

Scar slipped out of him, but stayed close, mandibles tangling, and stroking Dek’s body with a covetous hand. The fireside air was thick with pheromones and the scent of spill.

“Come,” said Scar. “Let’s share my bed.”

When Dek finally returned to the ship, Scar’s string of shells hanging from his neck, he was clean and in order, but felt strangely marked.

He’d long ago accepted he would likely never win a Yautja female. His quest for his Chiva was personal, driven by longing to prove himself to father and clan. Yet Scar had opened paths that he’d never before considered, permutations of possibilities of which he could not begin to fathom the future.

He found Thia folded up in one of the strange, uncomfortable-looking positions she tended to favor, her eyes trained on an unassuming bit of bone. The faraway look in her gaze suggested she’d enhanced the magnification of her vision.

“The convergence in the limb is fascinating,” she said. “I suppose there’s only so many ways for evolution to solve the same problems, but it’s still incredible to see in person.”

She looked up and met his eye, then cocked her head as if curious. “Are you alright?”

Here again was ooman sentiment filtered through Yautja tongue. The phrase she used was technically correct, but closer to an inquiry of injury: are you wounded?

“Yes,” he said, where he would have told a Yautja no. “I was visiting Scar.”

She studied him. “Is he well?”

The question made something tingle in him, a combination of strange pride and unease. “Yes. We…”

Her eyes dropped to the necklace at his throat. “Ah. Was that a good thing?”

“It was good, yes.” He regarded her, faint curiosity piquing. “You do not seem surprised.”

“Surprised?”

“He is a male.”

“Is that surprising?”

“Among my clan…yes.”

“Oh. Huh, I guess that would make sense. No though, I’m not surprised. Same-gender pairings are extremely common in animals, even more so among sapient species. I’d be more shocked if you said your entire species built a massive, spacefaring civilization and the idea of males pairing—or females—was entirely unknown.”

A second, somewhat intimidating thought. Were there likewise females in the southern clans who did this? “I don’t know what it means,” he confessed.

“What do you want it to mean?”

“I don’t know that either. He is…” Dek struggled for a moment to articulate. “He is Yautja.”

“Well, yes.”

“No.” Dek growled a bit in frustration. “He is Yautja. Strong and queen-blooded. He follows our codes, carries us in his blood and in his ways. I…”

“You like that?”

Dek hung his head. “I hated my father, for what he did, but I was proud to be one of us. I have carved my own way because my clan did not want me, but I also…grieved for the loss. He…he cut his own path as well, but he maintained our ways. And yet he is gentle like you. Ooman sentiment and Yautja honor. Touching him…feels like being at home.”

“Oh Dek.” He heard her get up, and opened his arms to accept hers around him. She squeezed him tight and stroked the side of his face. He turned into the touch and to his surprise, she kissed his cheek.

“You can be happy,” she said simply. “Whatever that looks like for you.”

He nuzzled gently against the side of her head, careful to keep his fangs curled inwards. Had Scar learned to do something similar with his mate? Had he been lonely, in his wanderings?

“I want to be beside him,” he said. “If he does not desire likewise then we may part as friends, but—I never thought I’d have such a chance.”

“Why?”

He snorted. “You are kind, but it is unlikely a female would choose me.”

“She’d be an idiot not to.”

“And I do not know if I would perform for what she could give me. Sucklings of my line, a clan which could win glory, these are fine things, but—there are other fine things in this world.”

She reached up and gently touched one of the shells at his throat. “I think you may have been chosen already.”

He thrummed pleasantly at the thought. “We shall see.”

“So, clan leader, what next?”

He thought. “One of the finest things of clan life is the warmth and safety of communal sleep. I had wondered when the last time he experienced such.”

She smiled. “Then let’s take our bedrolls and have a sleepover.”

Scar was surprised to see them, but welcomed the three of them back into the depths of the cave. Bud was the most difficult to sleep close to, with her rapidly growing quills, but her large body put out significant heat, which made occupying the same room as her quite pleasant.

To Dek’s slight surprise, Thia tucked herself close to both Scar and himself, rolling out her bedroll—something she’d been quite excited to possess for the first time, for all she did not “sleep” much. Scar seemed quite charmed by this, and chirruped at her, a nonsense syllable that Dek had only ever heard directed at sucklings: I see you.

Thia laughed. “What was that about?”

Scar’s mandibles curled. “A joke. Lex never let me forget that’s how I first addressed her.”

“You spoke to her in baby talk?”

“I’d never seen an ooman before. I thought it best to try and calm her. She found it very funny in retrospect. She would say ‘Me Jane. You Tarzan.’ when I annoyed her.”

The words were guttural nonsense to Dek, but Thia apparently found them hilarious. He pulled at his own blankets and let out a questioning trill, one that Bud echoed.

“It's a reference to a—very old—piece of human literature,” said Thia. “About a human raised by beasts.”

Dek snorted. “How peculiar.”

“Also not bad on the 21st century English, that must be a bear with Yautja lips and tongue.”

“She did find it much easier to learn our speech,” agreed Scar. “I’m not surprised that oomans were the first to make a Universal Translator.”

“The wheels of Weyland-Yutani at work,” said Thia. “Still, I appreciate being able to talk to you all.”

Scar reached out carefully, and when Thia did not object, touched the curve of her cheek and ran his claws through her hair.

“I’ve never seen a synth up close,” he said. “Your skin looks ooman, but it’s much tougher.”

“A little serial killer on the compliment, but yes. It’s an alloy, not made of keratin. Freaks humans out a bit when shaking hands.”

Still, Scar continued to stroke her hair, and she allowed it. Dek wondered if this was what his relationship with his mate had looked like, an openness of physical affection he’d never actually seen between Yautja, family, mates, or clan.

Oomans liked to touch, he remembered. And synths likewise, though Thia said she did not feel the same drive for it as an organic. Not a compulsion, but a pleasant sensation that she enjoyed.

Scar’s eyes flicked up to meet Dek’s own, and his mandibles curled in a position of invitation. Not sexual per se, but an offer of closeness. Dek scooted closer and felt Scar’s free hand cup the back of his neck. Again he made that peculiar purring trill that sent a thrum of relaxation through Dek’s body. Thia petted Dek’s locks, and he let out a great sigh. A letting down that left his eyes heavy and his body relaxed.

As the hearthfire burned down, movements slowed, and sleep swept across Dek, lulled on the distant crash of waves against the shore.

Yet the uncertainty did not depart. Scar welcomed the integration into the fabric of their clan—or perhaps their integration into his own. He hunted and slept by their side, happily engaged in the domestic work required to keep them all fed and clothed and well, tupped Dek with an eager willingness and let Dek tup him in return, but nothing was formalized.

It left Dek so uneasy that he itched with it.

He knew, deep down, that he was clan leader, but Scar presented a strange sticking point to this dynamic. He’d not once tried to give Scar orders—truthfully he didn’t give Thia or Bud orders, but they tended to go along with his leadership. Yet instinct reminded him over and over that Scar was a larger male, perfectly capable of challenging him for his position.

His father had been the same, but as much as it shamed him, Dek had far less confidence in his ability to best Scar in combat. Despite his age, he was still in peak physical condition, with a plethora of skills and a wealth of experience.

“How do you bear it?” he asked one day, when they were cleaning their weapons after a successful hunt on the far side of the island.

“Bear what?” said Scar.

“This. Me. You. Us.” Dek growled as the words tangled on his tongue.

“I’m not following.”

“We have never settled things!” Dek said, frustration coloring his tone. “I call myself clan leader, but you have never challenged me.”

“Do you want me to challenge you?”

Dek stopped dead at this, his heart pounding. He could not shame himself by answering in the negative, but something in him shrank at the thought. At the idea of experiencing Scar’s bulk and aggression turned on him. Of turning his own claws and blades on Scar with potentially deadly intent.

Coward, said a sibilant voice in his mind. It sounded like his father.

Scar sighed, a deep huff of air. “I sometimes forget how young you still are.”

Dek flared his mandibles. “I am not a juvenile!”

“I know that,” said Scar firmly. “But you are young, and pressed by youth and hormones to prove yourself. Why do you think we need to meet in challenge?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Just that,” said Scar. “Have you made a clan decision you fear I will object to?”

“You are not clan!”

This seemed to bring Scar up short. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you—you never formally…”

“I see.” Scar regarded him shrewdly. “And what did formal adoption involve among the northern clans?”

Dek froze up. He hadn’t even thought this far ahead. He recalled blood and pain and proud warriors forced to kneel before the clan leader. He wondered, with a sick twist in his stomach, if Scar would accept such a thing, or would die first, as others had.

Scar snorted. “I thought as much.”

“It is the way of things,” said Dek wretchedly.

“Did Thia follow such ways?”

“No!” He would not shame her by pretending she wasn’t capable—he’d seen her resilience to pain and injury—but the thought of hurting and humiliating her so made him vaguely ill.

“Then what makes me different?”

“You…you…”

Scar rose to his feet, and Dek, to his infinite shame, flinched as he hadn’t since the day they’d met, the day he’d been dying of infection by the hard meat. Scar loomed over him, showing his full height and bulk, standing silent in a way he rarely did outside of a hunt. The posture of a predator.

“You fear me,” Scar observed.

Dek snarled. “I fear nothing!”

“A lie. Do you think I would hurt you? Have I given you cause?”

“No.” And yet the unease lingered, an echo of what he’d first felt under Scar’s hands.

“Then what?”

“I don’t know! You look—” He bit off the words.

“I look like what?”

“You are older,” said Dek. “Silvered. Sometimes in the light…out of the corner of my eye…I see him.”

“Your clan leader?”

“My father.”

Scar seemed at a loss from this. “I resemble your father?”

“No. Only in certain light, at certain angles. When my brain is half-asleep and addled.”

Scar bent, and peered into Dek’s face, his mandibles moving in a restless pattern that suggested deep thought. Carefully, he took two handfuls of his locks, iron grey bleeding to silver, and offered the ends of them.

“It is these that upset you?”

“No,” said Dek. “They are fine things, symbols of your prowess, as much as your scars are.”

Scar made a nudging motion. “Take them.”

Dek hesitated, but took the tips of the locks in his palms. They were smooth and well-cared for, warm with the blood that flowed within. The gesture was a trusting one, and one Dek could never fathom receiving from his father. He ran his thumbs along them, let his claws click against the beads crimped at various locations, symbols of Scar’s past hunts, his clan history.

“I will not challenge you,” said Scar gently. “But neither will I be a clan subordinate in the way you may be used to. I have lived my own life for far too long for such things. But I suspect that isn’t really what you want, is it?”

He came down to his knees in front of Dek, the ends of his locks still held gently in Dek’s hands. He took Dek’s head between his palms.

“I would gladly knit your clan with mine,” he said. “You are a fine hunt-companion, and to have you as a lover brings me pride and joy. I did not expect such a thing in my twilight years, but it is a gift. And if your instincts and clan-traditions demand it, I will find a way to satisfy them.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can join our paths. You can stay, or I can follow you to seek whatever horizon you must. And we can form our own rituals to quiet your need for challenge.”

He pushed at Dek’s shoulder and eased him back to the ground. Confused, but not afraid, Dek let him. Though instead of mounting or locking mandibles, Scar urged him to roll over.

“On your belly,” he said, something in his tone that made Dek shiver and bristle.

But he did so, pressed his face to the ground, and let Scar cover him. Scar gently pushed his locks away from the nape of his neck. Then mandibles clamped around the exposed skin, and he snarled uncertainly.

Scar responded with that strange trill he now recognized, even if he didn’t understand the full meaning. His fangs didn’t cut, but his mandibles tightened, exerting pressure.

A shiver went through Dek, muscles relaxing and going limp. Scar hummed in approval, and petted his ribs, soothing him as the strange sensation enveloped him, like the desire to sleep and the desire to mount commingled.

“What is this?” he said blearily.

“Old instincts,” said Scar, the vibration of his voice tingling across Dek’s nape. “A more…intimate means of challenge, to be sure, but a far more pleasant one.”

Dek squirmed under him, restless, but not for freedom. Something about the position was calming, sheltered.

Scar insinuated a hand between his legs, but kept Dek pinned on his belly, and his mandibles locked. He palpated Dek’s sheath, pushing him to emerge just a bit before he was ready, and the steady, commanding touch sent a cascade of confusing instincts through him. He trilled in invitation, startling himself, and heard Scar respond.

Behind him, he felt Scar, likewise exposed, slowly rut against his hips. Not lifting or moving him for entry, but just shallow, slow thrusting, deliberate grinds which left wet trails against Dek’s bare skin.

Dek found himself moving slightly to meet him, grinding sleepily against the soft ground cover. His mind drifted, quiet and content, until he felt Scar spill against his back, warmth dripping down and between his legs.

Scar squeezed him affectionately, then released his grip and rolled Dek over, letting his still hard organs flop back against his belly. One of Scar’s was also erect, and he ran his palm along Dek’s wet thighs before sliding himself into Dek’s empty sheath.

Dek trilled again, and Scar lowered himself to hook his mandibles around Dek’s throat, holding him immobile as they rocked together.

Dek convulsed, and felt himself spill, one, then the other. Scar caught his spend in his hand, mixed with his own, and smeared his palm across Dek’s belly. He thrust, once, twice, and spilled inside him.

Dek’s head spun as Scar withdrew from his body. His head buzzed in the quiet, uncertain but suffused with calm. Scar continued to pet him, and lifted his head to hook an affectionate mandible with one of Dek’s own.

“Well, clan leader,” Scar said after a few moments of silence, “how was that for a challenge?”

“Who won?” said Dek, when he could speak again.

Scar snorted. “We both did. Now we can discuss travel plans in peace.”

Dek held him tight, and buried his face in Scar’s shoulder.

“You’re sure you want to leave?” said Thia, as they all bent over the ship’s map. “I really like it here.”

In truth, Dek wasn’t sure, but he did not know how he would ever know unless they did leave. “Yes.”

“I doubt anyone will settle here, if we wish to return,” said Scar.

“I hope so,” said Thia. “It would be a shame never to come back. Though,” she cocked her head, “I suppose we’d never get to meet your kids, would we?”

Scar laughed. “You would not. Which would be a great shame.”

“And you have grandkids! I’ve never seen a baby Yautja. Do you give them exploding toys too?”

“Only a few.”

“Cool, they can play with a Kalisk then. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise, but Bud makes an awesome babysitter.”

“I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use,” said Dek.

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it,” said Scar, amused. “Some of them are no doubt old enough to want to hunt with her.”

“Maybe we can swap baby photos with your kids. Bud was ridiculously cute as an infant. How many do you have?”

“Five. Though not all of them may be docked when we visit.”

“We’ll have to do it again then. Do you think they’ll like us?”

“I think they will. My eldest is always harassing me about having someone to watch my back. And my third collects plant specimens.”

“Score.”

“They will not be concerned that you’ve joined another clan?” said Dek. 

Scar caught his eye, and made a subtle, beckoning gesture with his mandibles. “I doubt it. They have a…more than typical acceptance for the peculiar.”

Dek wandered closer, trying to appear as if he was doing no such thing, then the effect was ruined when Scar hooked an arm around his waist.

Scar purred pleasantly against the top of his head. “Besides, it is only joining another clan, not leaving one. I have known some who had many clans over time.”

“That was not done,” said Dek.

“Neither was bringing home a Kalisk,” said Thia. “And you did that. Also hold that thought, I want to grab a low-tide sediment core before we go.”

As she went to gather her equipment, Scar nuzzled against Dek’s face, letting out that pleasant purr.

Dek lifted his head and pawed lightly at him in return with his mandibles. “You really think your clan will find me acceptable?”

Scar snorted. “They will adore you like I do. My eldest keeps dropping hints that I should pair again.”

“Even with one so young? And…” the thought burned, “of lesser rank?”

“Your rank does not concern me. I have seen you in battle and I will have no other.”

The phrase was formal, a deliberate twist on a ritual response given by Yautja females to a male whom had impressed her. Overwhelmed, Dek tucked his head under Scar’s chin.

“What is that sound anyway?” he said. “You make it so often at me, but I do not recognize it.”

Scar sagged slightly against him. “I had wondered. Especially after you did not answer.”

“What do you mean?”

Scar repeated the sound, close to his ear. “It is a sound of family, Dek from the northern clans. Fathers make it to their sucklings, brothers to each other, hunt-companions of all genders between them. I would have thought you might have learned it from your brother, but…I suppose your father never made it to him.”

A painful sensation choked in Dek’s chest, something spiked and awful, like swallowing shrapnel. “No, he never did.”

Did Kwei go to his grave never hearing it?

Dek squeezed Scar tight to him, cleared his throat, and tried.

The sound felt strange to make deliberately, relaxed on the breath and in the throat. Scar turned into him, harmonizing, and Dek felt something slide satisfyingly into place inside him.

Oh, it’s meant to be made together.

He wondered if Scar’s children sang it together, under the southern stars.

The sounds died away, and Scar nuzzled him again.

“As I said,” he said, “magnificent.”

Dek held him tight. “Come,” he said, “let’s bring you home.”