Tag Mate: Part 1
Kaiel was not one
to make hasty moves, but just this once he felt that acting in haste was
exactly the right choice to make. He
swept into his dead brother’s cabin unannounced and simply, with quiet purpose
and authority placed himself between Ham K’Ilo and Ham’s diminutive target, the
human named Jaimz.
Ham was taller and
more muscular than he – his perfectly groomed mane was a dark ruddy brown, his
glossy pelt a pale tawny shade and his luxurious ruff, which framed his broad
face at his cheekbones was a shade between his pelt’s tawny and his mane’s
ruddy brown – yes Ham was a warrior in his prime; he exuded physical strength
and prowess, however Kaiel was not easily intimidated.
“What do you think
you are doing Kaiel? Get out of my way!”
Kaiel shook his
golden-maned head negatively, “I can’t do that. You have no claim to him.”
Ham snorted and
tried to push around him to get at the slight human. Kaiel grabbed his thickly muscled arm and held him, “I said you
have no claim to him Ham,” he warned softly.
Ham backed up a
pace and scowled at him, “With Lorz dead I have every right to him. He should have been mine in the first place,
I disabled his ship.”
Kaiel felt the
slight human brush against him and spared him the briefest glance, he noticed
the pained grimace on the human’s face which was likely a result from hearing
about his ship, all his crew except for him, died in the blast that had
disabled the ship. He felt neither
fondness nor any particular kindness toward the human, for he found him rather
disquieting, and yet, seeing his very real pain, he gave his arm a gentle
squeeze before turning back to Ham.
“Jaimz is not and
never was a prisoner of war, nor are we at war with his people. We don’t yet even know who his people are
and what you did…what my brother did, was just wrong.” He retorted calmly.
Ham’s ears flicked
back belligerently, “Nonetheless I still plan on claiming Jaimz as my property,
if you try to interfere I convene this to the council.”
Calmly Kaiel
removed a rolled document from his deep pocket and waved it in front of Ham,
making sure the other saw it, “The council will do you no good Ham. For it would seem that my idiot brother at
least had the smarts to outsmart you.
As this parchment proves he registered Jaimz as his mate and therefore
as a member of my House. As I was
saying, you have no legal grounds or otherwise in which to claim him. Jaimz is now a member of my House and as
such I am duty bound to extend him my protection.” He tilted his head and smiled mildly, “You don’t want to try
coming against my House do you Ham?”
With his ruff was
fully raised and his expressive ears laid fully back Ham glared at the
offending parchment. He wanted a
challenge, if only Kaiel would answer his challenge but Kaiel had no reason to
rise to Ham’s bait, and Ham knew it.
Ham deflated slightly though he still looked aggravated, “Fine, take
him, he’s only good for one thing any way!
But then you’re so straight-laced I doubt you’ll bother enjoying
him.” He retorted rudely, sending a
last meaningful look toward the human before turning away.
Kaiel watched
impassively as Ham stormed from the cabin then slowly turned back to face the
human. He was huddled in on himself,
Kaiel suspected Ham’s closing remarks had cut too close to home and had caused
this reaction, but he didn’t know how or if he should try to console him. He found the human befuddling, he found his
naked skin and small size very strange, and his close set ears and delicate almost
cub-like features distracting and his total lack of any natural defenses
completely baffling. Most of all, he
couldn’t figure out why first his brother, and now Ham, wanted him that
way. Oh, looking at that small delicate
body and recalling others looking at him too he supposed that Jaimz wasn’t ugly
but he seemed like such a cub to him that his main concern was to protect him,
not do dishonorable things to him.
Hesitantly he
reached out and grasped one thin shoulder, and squeezing lightly (and
carefully, knowing Jaimz frailty) he asked, “Are you alright?”
Jaimz remained
huddled for a moment longer then straightened and lifted his head. He squared his shoulders and nodded, “I’m
fine… thank you.”
Standing at his
tallest Jaimz’ head barely came to Kaiel’s shoulders; he was so small, like a twelve-year-old
cub. Again Kaiel was struck with the
wrongness of what his brother had done, using this small being so crassly, so
monstrously. He looked into that solemn
face, noting the paleness of his bare skin (not even a decent hide!) and the
tightness around his sea foam green-eyes; a rare color, and made all the rarer
to see such a remarkable color from an alien pair of eyes. That’s right, alien,
even though he knew technically what Jaimz was, who his people were, he had
never seen one or heard of them before Jaimz’ ship had hurtled unannounced into
the middle of their dispute with the Chai.
Jaimz glanced
passed him at the still open door of the cabin, he could see passersby in the
corridor beyond and noticed some glancing in casually as they passed, finally
he looked back at Kaiel, “Is it real?
What you told h-him?”
Kaiel nodded with
equal solemnity, “It is.”
Jaimz shook his
head and found he had to suddenly sit down; he’d been having dizzy spells for
the last day or so and had no explanation for them except that maybe he was
coming down with something. “Why? Why would he do something like that? Why would he bother trying to protect me
when he…” His voiced trailed off in embarrassment, to ashamed to follow that
trail of thought.
But Kaiel understood
anyway and he said, “I don’t know. I’m
glad of it though that he did such a thing, for it enabled me to protect you
from others, even if I couldn’t protect you from him.”
Jaimz stared up at
him in mild surprise then said, “Thank you, anyway.”
Kaiel looked at
him, sitting on the edge of the chair that was just to big for him and once
again, all he saw was a cub. He
recalled the numerous arguments he’d gotten into with his brother over this
small being and how Lorz would tell him to mind his own business and that he
didn’t know what he was saying…and other stuff like that. Lorz had been utterly fascinated with Jaimz
but Kaiel knew that his brother had also shared Jaimz with his friend Ham,
maybe he had shared out of obligation or guilt since Ham had disabled the ship
Jaimz had arrived in, but nonetheless it was Lorz who had found Jaimz in the
disabled ship and claimed him.
Jaimz had caused a
bit of a hubbub at first, his people were completely unknown, even the Chai had
never seen his like before (they had accused the Z’Rarla of finding new allies
to aid them, never mind that they had ruined Jaimz ship, killed his crew, and
captured and all but enslaved Jaimz too).
But Lorz had ignored any debate and any proprieties and done his utter
worst to his captive. Yes, Kaiel
speculated, the only decent thing Lorz had done for Jaimz was register him with
his House, thereby providing him with protection that had no limits.
“So,” Jaimz mused,
interrupting Kaiel’s wandering thoughts, “What happens now? Do I grace your bed now?”
Kaiel’s golden eyes
flared angrily and he snarled at the human, Jaimz, after all this time, had
stopped flinching when one of them got angry with him, “Of course not! I will never abuse you! What my brother did to you and let be done
to you was wrong! Your like a cub for
M’Rtroro’s sake!”
Jaimz flared back,
“I’m not a child!” He lunged to his
feet and planted himself right in front of Kaiel, “I’m an adult! What happens to me now? I can’t just live like a-a widow in your
house with nothing to do! I want-I need
to go home!”
It was Kaiel who
backed down from those flaring eyes, “I’m sorry, I know your not a cub… but…
I’m sorry. We still don’t know who your
people are, we don’t know where you are from.”
Jaimz suddenly started
pacing, and saying, “If I could only return to the site where my ship appeared,
I bet there’s a clue there, and if you would let me go over the wreckage of my
ship I know I’d find information. I was
studying an anomaly when Ham fired on my ship!
If only you’d let me get that data—!”
Kaiel forestalled
him before he could grow any more emphatic or excited, he really didn’t like
how pale Jaimz was, he furless skin was paler than normal. “You know that your ship is a derelict in
disputed space…until the conflict is resolved no-one will be going near that
ship.”
Jaimz balled his
fists and shuddered, “If only Lorz hadn’t been such an idiot as to leave my
ship out there!”
Kaiel had no reply
for that; as he thought it unlikely that the battle cruiser’s captain would
have welcomed the strange vessel even in an empty section of one of the cargo
holds. But he did explain, “A beacon
was placed at the site so that we can go back once the dispute has been
settled, you will be able to see your ship eventually.”
Jaimz just scowled
at him. Then he turned away, “So in the
meantime am I just supposed to languish and look pretty?”
Kaiel cocked an ear
back, “What? I don’t understand?”
Jaimz spared him a
humorless smile, “I mean, what am I to do now?”
Kaiel fanned his
hands, “You can do research at least, you remember everything don’t you?”
Jaimz gapped at
him, “You want me to recall years worth of data? Pages and pages of notes…?” He quieted and pensively began to
gnaw on the nail of his index finger; he had long (though still small) fingers,
finally he said excitedly. “I guess I
could redo it from scratch, I certainly have the time and maybe I can figure
out what went wrong… How my ship ended up in your space. If only I had that data… but oh well, I can
work around it for now and…”
And he was off
Kaiel noticed, a scientist, barely out of cubhood, but clearly a scientist and
already formulating in his head streams of data to help solve a mystery that
personally revolved around him. Not
wanting to disturb him now that he was distracted with analytical details he
simply said, “I’ll have dinner brought by in a couple of hours.” Jaimz barely acknowledged him as he was
already starting to jot notes down on a small scratch pad in a neat and precise
if alien hand. As Kaiel let himself out
of his brother’s cabin he made sure to lock and alarm the door, not to keep
Jaimz from exiting, but to protect him from anyone entering for he didn’t trust
Ham to leave him alone even if he was protected now. Protection only worked if people honored the meaning behind it.
It was a long day,
and an even longer night. Kaiel had to
arrange for transport off the battle cruiser Kattaf and back to his home
planet for both he and Jaimz, fortunately a supply ship, the Archer, had
rendezvoused with the cruiser this morning (morning according to his aide
Heron), so transportation had been secured, it would be cramped but they would
have a cabin at least and the flight back to Z’Rarla was only a little more
than 11 hours from the cruiser’s current position. If he could manage it he’d have the ship take them to the port
nearest his family’s Pride lands for the less of Jaimz that was exposed to the
general public the less questions there would be for the time being.
Of course what made
the day even longer, besides all the tasks Heron kept pestering him with (Heron
would be following on the next normally scheduled troop transfer transport) had
been the little episode of the ship coming under fire just as he was settling
down to eat a late supper. The cruiser
had been a jangle with alarms and sirens going off which had been utterly
distracting and completely unwelcome.
The small fleet of Chai marauders had been driven off with, as he
suspected no loss of life this time, unlike two days ago when his Pride-hot
brother had died in a skirmish!
It was strange how
little he felt about his brothers passing, it was true that they shared little
in common, and the age difference had made Lorz seem a stranger to him, but
nonetheless it should only be natural to mourn the loss of a family member, so
maybe he was still in shock, after all he had felt considerable shock upon
receiving the news that his headstrong older brother was dead (having never
once submitted to his familial duties), why he had come to this transport in
the first place, now nearly a month gone seemed pointless and petty. He had personally conveyed a message from
their father regarding a marriage that had been arranged between House K’Lan
and House L’Teran. Lorz hadn’t been
interested and had jokingly mentioned that he should marry the girl if he was
so eager to join houses. That was the
first he had seen of Jaimz, the first he had learned what his brother was doing
to his small captive, the first time he had ever had a hot and heated nearly knockdown
battle with his brother. Now everything
was moot, Lorz was dead, the betrothal would probably be declared null and
Jaimz was safe.
Restless sleep and
a heavy breakfast combined to make him feel uncomfortable as he headed for
Jaimz’ cabin. The transport was due to
depart in just over an hour, he and Jaimz had to be onboard and secured in
their cabin before the hour was out, or the transport threatened to leave
without them. Kaiel seriously doubted
the transports captain would risk offending his family but he didn’t wish to
cause him any delay either.
He paused briefly
outside the cabin, and checked the alarm status log. Other than last night’s supper delivery the alarm had not been
interrupted. He rapped his claws
sharply on the metal bulkhead door to announce his presence and then not
bothering to wait for a response he opened the door, like a whisper of air it
whooshed open, revealing a mess of papers everywhere, with bizarre writings and
symbols all over them, so much so in fact that he assumed Jaimz must have used
every piece of paper he could find in the cabin. Jaimz he noticed was curled up sound asleep on the oversized
chair, he had a light throw pulled across his shoulders and his head tilted
back.
Looking at all the
papers Kaiel decided to call Heron from his duties to help gather them up into
some order even if the exact order (not knowing the language) was beyond
him. Jaimz would undoubtedly be able to
put it together when he had a moment.
He tried not to disturb the notes as he moved across the cabin to stand
over Jaimz. He noted that he looked
even paler today then he had yesterday and now it looked as if he had bruises
forming beneath his eyes, though his long silky eyelashes provided some depth
of shadow to that bruised appearance.
He sighed, for undoubtedly Jaimz had stayed up all hours working on his
notes. He bent forward and gave Jaimz
shoulder a gentle shake. “Wake up, you
need some breakfast and then we have to go.”
Jaimz awoke
groggily, blinking tired green eyes that ached in the brightness of the cabin,
it would seem that the headache and dizziness he had been nursing all day
yesterday now resided directly behind his eyes, throbbing away miserably. He groaned and pulled the blanket up over
his head, “I can’t eat…I’ll throw up.”
Kaiel pulled the
edge of the throw back down and pushed the pad of his hand up under Jaimz
fawn-colored bangs to feel his forehead.
He was warm, but not dangerously.
“Don’t you feel good?”
Jaimz rubbed a hand
through his mop of light fawn-colored hair and groused, “I’ve had a headache
and an upset stomach chased by a dose of dizziness for a couple of days. I think I’m coming down with something.”
Something was the
optimum word. Jaimz had been thoroughly
checked out, for not even Lorz could keep him away from the disease police
(medics) when they were worried about the possible spread of new diseases with
no cures from an alien source such as Jaimz presented to be. But metabolic and genetic tests had proven
that Jaimz could not share any of his germs with them and they could not share
any of their germs with him (thereby causing a muted disease), so with that
concern allayed the medics had released Jaimz back to Lorz’ tender
mercies. So Kaiel quite doubted that
Jaimz was coming down with anything, instead he mused, “Its probably something
you ate, you’re on a special diet because some of our foods could kill you… so
my guess something slipped by the watch.”
Jaimz cocked his
head, “Oh, yeah, I didn’t think about that.”
“Well you’re still
alive, so it isn’t going to kill you.
I’ll get you something for your head and stomach though while you get
cleaned up and ready to go, we have to leave pretty soon for the transport.”
Jaimz sat up
straight, and looking behind Kaiel finally noticed Heron busily gathering up
all his notes. He opened his mouth to
say something, then shook his head thinking better of it and stood up, a
moments dizziness had him grateful for Kaiel’s steadying hand on his elbow,
then straightening he made for the on-suite bathing facilities. Kaiel watched him go noticing that Jaimz
didn’t bother closing the door. He
watched only for a moment as Jaimz shed his jumper (the only type of outfit
that had been provided for him so far, it had been made down to fit him and the
tail-slit had been stitched shut) he looked at the pale small tailless body and
once again wondered what his brother had been thinking in taking Jaimz the way
he had. Jaimz then moved out of sight
and Kaiel placed a quick call to medical then turned to help Heron finish
gathering the notes.
“I thought I would
provide a satchel for them, where he could keep and organize his notes.” Heron
supplied needlessly, as he carefully placed another sheet on top of the growing
pile. He scanned the next sheet he picked
up, this one was mostly covered in symbols and sighed, “I’d like to help him
with his research.”
“You’ll have to
learn his writing.” Kaiel offered, layering another pile of notes.
Heron was young and
idealistic; he had been part of the diplomatic core since he was old enough to
work and had been with Kaiel for the last two years. He was quick, efficient and well organized. “I could learn it.” He said with
assuredness. “And I could teach him our
writing so that he can read and research our material too.”
“You know what he’s
working on?” Kaiel asked out of mild curiosity.
Heron shrugged,
placing the notes carefully into the book satchel, “I listen, I know that he’s
a scientist who made a ship that suddenly just appeared in our space. I know that he will try to find his home and
I know that if he works with us our scientists will make some amazing
advances. He’s far-and-away-beyond our
skills and I thought we were pretty advanced.”
Kaiel snapped the
satchel seals down and lifted the narrow case between his hands, amazed that
some many papers could be so neatly tucked into something hardly bigger than a
thick notebook. “You do realize that it
was an accident that brought him here.
He doesn’t know anymore than the next person what happened.”
Heron smiled faintly
and shrugged again, “Yeah but once he figures out what went wrong he’ll figure
out how to get back to his home,” his amber eyes glowed with wonder, “I want to
be there when he makes that breakthrough.”
Kaiel smiled in
reply of his aide’s enthusiasm. “You
will be.”
Heron sobered then
and said, “Well anyway, I have you all packed and I sent your luggage on
ahead. I gave the captain of the Archer
a list of foods that Jaimz can’t eat.
Oh and I arranged for a Lander to meet you at the port. I’ll finish working on the Chai situation
and have it ready for draft review when I join you at the main house in two
weeks time. Also I made arrangements for your brother’s remains and affects to
be sent out on the same transport.”
Efficient, that
pretty much summed up Heron’s worth.
Kaiel was still smiling when Jaimz stepped out of the bath, dressed in a
clean jumper though his feet were still bare and his hair was still damp. He looked more alert than he had a few
moments ago, but he still looked bruised under his eyes. He combed his fingers through his damp hair,
slipped his feet into a pair of oversized slippers and announced. “I’m ready.”
Kaiel didn’t bother
to ask if Jaimz had anything to take with him, he owned nothing. He presented the satchel, “Your notes.” And
indicated a ready glass of water and two tablets waiting at the table. “Your meds.”
Jaimz hesitated for
a wide-eyed moment, and then smiling faintly he knocked back the drugs with a
quick swallow of water and finally took hold of the offered satchel, while
murmuring, “Thank you.”
“Shall we?” Kaiel
said, indicating the corridor beyond.
Jaimz sent an
uncertain glance out into the corridor then nodded resolutely, “Sure.”
Kaiel preceded
Jaimz into the bustle of the busy hall, and though Jaimz stayed steadily at his
side he kept his hand hovering at his back to keep from be separated by the
traffic of personal. Only once did he
even bother to glance back, and that once they had just passed an adjoining
hall, looking back he saw that Ham stood there, leaning into the slight curve
of the wall watching. Just watching,
but it was unsettling knowing that Ham’s hot eyes were following them at least
until the corridor shifted direction and Ham wouldn’t be able to see them
anymore.
Down several levels
they went, to the floor the transport was docked to. As he expected crewmembers were waiting for them, he saw them
trying hard not to notice Jaimz and he noticed Jaimz doing his best to ignore
them. One of the crew said that he
would take them to their cabin so they followed him into the transport. Conversationally the crewman explained,
“Your luggage has already been stowed in your cabin. Lunch will be called at 11:45, you can eat in the mess with the
crew unless you wish otherwise—?”
“With the crew will
be fine.” Kaiel agreed readily into crewman’s pause, for he assumed that there
would be no reason not to join the crew for lunch.
The crewman nodded,
“Well, there are no facilities in the cabin, but there is a facility just two
doors down to the left of your cabin, we have no other passengers so you have
the area to yourselves. The flight will
take approximately 11.5 hours and we will be landing at Chocho.”
That surprised
Kaiel slightly, though he didn’t show it, he had been expecting to talk to the
captain about that himself. He smiled,
Heron must have arranged it. He was
going to miss his efficiency for the next couple of weeks but someone had to
stay and deal with the Chai problem if this dispute was to be settled any time
soon. Logically it should have been he
who stayed, but he didn’t think he’d be able to get Jaimz safely situated if he
wasn’t there to sponsor him. Heron was
good, but he wasn’t K’Lan, one of the most stubborn and powerful Houses in all
the Pride Houses. No he had to be here,
the Chai situation would come together in its own good time and solution would
be rendered concerning the Chai and the dispute.
The crewman led
then along a twisty corridor and finally stopped before a bulkhead door. He keyed in a few numbers on the pad next to
the door, and it slid open to reveal a small, impersonal room, which had a
couple of chairs and a table and one bed.
Jaimz entered before him, looked at the bed, which was more than large
enough for him and moved to sit on one of the oversized chairs. The crewman stared at Jaimz who fortunately
wasn’t paying attention anyway and distractedly murmured. “For your safety when we depart please
listen to all instructions that come over the COM.”
Kaiel stepped into
the room and between the crewman and Jaimz, thereby breaking the crewman’s
gaze. “We will, thank you.”
The young crewman’s
ears drooped, but he squared his shoulders and continued as he backed into the
corridor, “Once we are in steady flight you can wander this deck and also go to
the forward deck where the crew lounge and cafeteria is located. The captain may let you up onto the bridge
to if you like. Anyway enjoy your visit
with us.”
Kaiel nodded,
murmuring his appreciation once again and turned away as the door was
closing. He found Jaimz slumping down
in the big chair and looking very tired.
“If you want to lie down, please do.” He offered, going to his own
luggage and rummaging around until he found his com-pad. “I have work to do anyway…and I don’t expect
I’ll need to sleep on this trip.”
Jaimz had sat up
straight when Kaiel spoke to him, now he looked toward the bed with longing
combating with indecision. “Go ahead.”
Kaiel insisted again.
Jaimz looked at him
for a long moment and Kaiel chose to say nothing, he suspected that Jaimz
didn’t trust him entirely and he didn’t know how to allay his concerns, so he
decided it would be better to just say nothing and let Jaimz come to the
realization that he wasn’t a threat to him.
He opened his com-pad and set it up on the table and settled in the get to
work, pointedly not paying attention to Jaimz.
Finally Jaimz got
up and went to the bed. Kaiel glanced
toward him then, watching as Jaimz dropped off his slippers and lay down. It wasn’t very long before Kaiel recognized that
Jaimz had gone to sleep, just like that.
He worked quietly
at his com-pad for a time, sorting through the Chai dispute records, wondering
if the solution to the problem would reveal itself today. Of course he knew that the dispute centered
on territory. The Chai and the Zaran were
both trying to claim the same sector of space.
The situation looked untenable.
That sector of space was a gold mine of riches, it bordered on Zaran
space and the Zaran had already colonized one of the life-class moons near a
White giant, it had seemed so certain that the Zaran would have no trouble
claiming that sector even though the Chai had been making noises about some
moon in the same sector which was apparently sacred to them. Chai space just barely touched the edge of
this sector, so that it seemed their claim was thin, and then geologists on a
neighbouring moon had discovered Chai remains that seemed to confirm that Chai
claims that this sector could be their reputed birthplace. The squabble had intensified until the Zaran
colonists had been pulled off the moon for their own safety and now no one had
the sector but both of them were fighting over the rights to it. He sat away from the com-pad and arched his
back to ease the strain his position had put into it.
He originally
thought, and still did think that the only fair way to settle this dispute was
to bring in an outside arbitrator: one of the ally species that had no part in
the dispute and could act as a non-biased party. Of course he had already indicated what seemed like a plausible solution
to his father, K’Lan Terrill, Head of House K’Lan. But his father, stubborn fool that he was, declared that the
Zaran would settle their own disputes and didn’t need any outside help.
Recalling his
father’s stubborn and hidebound ways, he glanced toward Jaimz. He wondered how he would get his father to
accept Jaimz without challenge. Even if
Lorz’ Estate did declare Jaimz as his legal mate and gave him the protection of
the K’Lan name his father could still dispute the situation. Jaimz was an alien and he was a male, what
could his brother have been thinking to declare Jaimz as his mate? He sighed, he would worry about establishing
Jaimz first, and his father’s principles last.
Noticing that Jaimz
seemed to be shivering even though the room didn’t seem to cool, Kaiel dug into
his luggage once again and withdrew one of his great robes. It was a heavy ceremonial gray Zell fur
lined entirely with blue velvet and trimmed with silver-white Erte feathers. Quietly he moved over to the side of the bed
and laid the robe over the sleeping human, of course it covered him completely
from head to foot, and once the warmth of the fur began to permeate his small
frame the human’s shivering subsided.
Curious he softly pressed the bare pad of his hand against the human’s
cheek and forehead and found to his consternation that Jaimz’ temperature
seemed to have risen again. The meds
should have lowered his temperature, instead it would seem that his fever was
actually escalating. Well, he
speculated, it wasn’t a dangerous fever yet (though apparently the range from
healthy to lethal wasn’t that great in humans) and maybe the meds hadn’t fully
kicked in either after all, even though he had two arms and two legs and was
shaped generally similar to a Zaran, Jaimz’ system was different, which was why
some foods caused him to become ill in the first place.
He settled back
down to work while Jaimz continued to rest peacefully. Jaimz didn’t even stir when the departure
announcement sounded over the intercom, Kaiel felt the ship shudder and heave
as it separated from the docking clamps.
The whole room rocked and he understood why the instructions to remain
seated during immediate depart had been given.
On the big bed Jaimz wasn’t going anywhere, he was so completely cradled
by the mattress that he didn’t even shift when the transport listed slightly
from right to left. Kaiel felt his own
stomach heave briefly and sighed with relief once the flight stabilized. There wouldn’t be any real speed until the
smaller transport, the Archer, had cleared the big cruiser but at least with
the now steady rhythm his stomach was able to return to where it belonged. He went back to work and let the Chai
problem take over for a while.
Jaimz was still
sleeping when lunch was announced.
Glancing at Jaimz who was resting so comfortably Kaiel decided that he
wouldn’t try waking Jaimz and instead arranged to have lunch sent down after
the crew had finished their own meals (he was trying to be courteous). Again he got up, stretching out his back to
ease the growing tension in it, he supposed he had been working for the better
part of four hours without much of a break.
He wandered over to the cabin’s only port and glanced outside into the
darkness beyond. Only a few stars
sparkled out there, he knew where they were in relation to the trip, the
J’Sarti Nebula was a vaste dark area in space, it obscured many of the stars
though he could see the occasional rainbow streak of whimsical cloud as they
passed through the nebula. The nebula
was a safe route that had long been used to navigate Zaran space. Nonetheless Kaiel would prefer it once he
could see the stars again. From Z’Rarla
the J’Sarti Nebula was just a misty spot in the heavens surrounded by star
patterns and cosmic veils.
After checking on
Jaimz, and finding his fever seemed to be reduced, he once again returned to
work.
With the passage of
time, and work to do, it wasn’t long before lunch arrived, brought by the same
crewman who had shown them to the cabin.
He was more a youth then an adult and Kaiel suspected that he was
probably a family member of one of the crew.
He was from one of the Northern prides by his pronounced muzzle and
recessive nose bridge. His adult ruff
was coming in (as Kaiel had already noted) and though it was still a bit
spotty, it would likely be quite luxurious in a few years. The northern Zaran males tended to have very
full ruffs that blended well with their manes.
It wasn’t uncommon for northern Zaran males to have a chin beard as
well, which was rare in the south. With
the gawkiness of a teen the youth stepped over the door jam while balancing the
two trays (one was for Jaimz). He
stared with total fascination toward the bed where only Jaimz’ face was
exposed, framed by a wreath of soft glossy feathers. Before the youth could spill either tray Kaiel helpfully rescued
them and said with mildly tinged amusement, “Thank you.”
Again the youth’s
ears wobbled and flattened with what could only be youthful embarrassment. Still he was having trouble keeping his eyes
off Jaimz, and finally, boldly he said, “I’ve never seen anything like
him. Still his face is kind of like
ours… though more like you southerners.”
He looked thoughtfully toward Kaiel, “What is he K’Lan Ni?”
Responding to the
honorific Ni, Kaiel said, “He’s a human.”
The youth looked
puzzled, then he shook his head, “I’ve never heard of a human, what planet is
he from?”
Kaiel smiled, “He’s
from very far away, a distant galaxy and he’s the first of his kind that our
kind have ever seen. It might be a
while before we see anymore of his kind though we are already searching for his
people.”
The youth held his
hand to about his shoulder height and asked, “Are they all so small? He’s like a cub.”
Kaiel smiled, “I
don’t know…I suspect so.” Moving to one
of the trays he removed the lid, hoping the young crewmember would get the
hint.
The youth did see
him but was still drawn to Jaimz, watching the youth struggle for control Kaiel
began to wonder if maybe Jaimz was attractive to his people (that it hadn’t
just been Lorz and Ham). He looked at
Jaimz’ sleeping face and knew that he didn’t think he was ugly… but still, to
draw so much attention seemed so odd to him.
Finally the youth straightened and backed toward the corridor, “I’ll let
you eat your lunch… just call when you are done and I - er - someone will come
take the trays away.” With one last
glance at Jaimz the youth fled from sight and Kaiel was left bemused and
wondering if he would find this happening all the time with Jaimz.
Kaiel recognized
his tray easily, for he had far more hearty food portions on his tray. He inspected Jaimz’ lunch to make sure none
of the prohibited foods were there. The
food smelled good and he was hungry enough to eat both portions even though he
was controlled enough to restrain that urge.
He sat down to enjoy his meal and was chewing on an erte leg bone when a
sound drew his eyes to Jaimz.
Jaimz was awake; he
was sitting up with the robe crumbled on his lap. He rubbed his eyes and cracked a jaw-breaking yawn, as he lowered
his legs over the edge of the bed. He
kept a hold on the robe and dragged it with him as he wobbled toward the table
on those small bare feet of his. Kaiel frowned
and stood up to retrieve Jaimz’ slippers, while Jaimz knelt on the chair (it
was the only way he could comfortably reach the table top) and tucked the robe
around him, quite efficiently covering his bare feet. Kaiel sighed and dropped
the slippers on the floor next to Jaimz’ chair and once again pushed his palm
against Jaimz’ forehead. Jaimz was
staring up at him when he pulled away.
Kaiel moved to his
own seat and dug into his meal once again.
He noticed that Jaimz nibbled at a cracker here, a piece of meat there,
but realized that Jaimz didn’t really feel like eating yet. “Your fever is down. How do you feel?”
Jaimz lifted those
aqua eyes to him once again, peering up through his fawn-colored bangs and long
eyelashes. “I feel better.” He said,
carefully nibbling on another cracker. “My stomach is still a bit unsettled…but…”
he shrugged and finished off the cracker, and then picked up another slice of
pale erte meat.
Kaiel watched as
Jaimz explored his plate and even tried a slice of fruit. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the amount
of food Jaimz left behind, but he judged that Jaimz didn’t want to further
aggravate his still upset stomach. When
he finished eating he started working on the Chai situation again, (It occupied
much of his time) and left Jaimz to his own resources…
Jaimz recovered the
satchel with his notes in it and went back to the bed. He sat down on it, tucked the robe about him
and opened the satchel on his lap.
Kaiel continued to work on his own project while occasionally glancing
towards Jaimz. The young human was
sorting his papers, laying them out in piles, rearranging things, putting them
back together. Once he glanced up and
saw Kaiel watching…and the strangest thing happened, his cheeks reddened. Quickly Jaimz looked away, but the red stain
remained on his cheeks and his mouth suddenly tightened with a self-condemning
smile. He looked back at Kaiel and said
bitterly, “Do you know what I was just thinking?”
Kaiel cocked an
ear. “No.” though he suspected the
reddening of Jaimz’ cheeks was how humans registered shame or embarrassment,
much better to have ears that were controlled by muscles and could be
controlled in any situation if one learned diligently then to be able to show
such things on their very skin.
Jaimz growled, (he
did it pretty good for a human, he even had teeth very like a Zaran, though not
as sharp obviously), “I was wondering when Lorz was going to jump me.”
“Oh.” Kaiel
carefully controlled his own ears, and cautiously he wondered, “Do you—miss
him?”
Jaimz gaped, and
laughed bitterly. “God no! I’m glad he’s dead! I hated him; I hated what he did to me! I’m glad he’s dead! I’m glad he’ll never—never do that to me
again!” Then he sputtered and started
worriedly at Kaiel and said softly, “I’m sorry…I forgot for a moment that he
was your brother.”
Kaiel shrugged, “I
don’t feel anything yet. It bothers me
a bit, because he was my brother, but he was so much older than me that we were
more strangers than family. You don’t
have to apologize either. What he did
was just wrong.”
Jaimz stared at him
for a long moment then said, “You seem very different from him, when he wasn’t
piloting all he did was fight and fu…uh…he didn’t seem to care about
anything. How much older was he?”
Kaiel set his work
aside momentarily, “10 seasons, he should have long taken responsibility for
his familial duties but that fell to me, always to me. I had to grow up while Lorz stayed a cub
even though he was older than me.”
“How—if you don’t
mind my asking—how old are you?”
Kaiel didn’t mind,
“22 seasons. I’ve been managing House
K’Lan familial responsibilities since before I even reached my majority.”
Jaimz smiled
softly. “I’m the same age as you. My first Gate Project was built when I was
only fifteen.”
Kaiel smiled
back. “So we were both responsible
before we reached our full majority?” Then he frowned, “Unless humans mature
quicker than Zarans?”
Jaimz laughed
freely, “No, well girls supposedly do, but for the most part we don’t really
finish growing until we are in our twenties.”
“And, what about
your ruff? Will you get one or don’t
humans get ruffs or beards?” Kaiel
wondered, thoughtfully stroking his own light ruff.
Jaimz rubbed his
own silky smooth cheeks, “Human males get beards and mustaches, we don’t get
ruffs – well normally we don’t.” He
smiled with self-mocking, “Humans have however learned to suppress unwanted
hair growth so I had mine suppressed.” He looked down at the neat piles of
papers fanned out on the bed before him, “Maybe if I had chosen to shave
instead of suppress, Lorz might have left me alone?”
Kaiel couldn’t answer
that, for he too wondered if it was indeed Jaimz’ all over smoothness that had
so attracted Lorz’ unwanted attentions.
Jaimz didn’t have a pelt, he didn’t have a soft/rough hide to be petted,
and other than the mane of fawn-colored fur that fell in lazy waves around his
face and to his shoulders and those expressive though fine brows he had very
little visible fur on his body. Kaiel had once entered Lorz’ cabin just after
Lorz had ‘jumped’ his little human so he had seen all of Jaimz well enough to know
that Jaimz did have a crown of curly fur at the apex of his slender thighs but
other than that and a light dusting at his arm pits he was completely and
utterly furless. Of course the medics
said otherwise, they expressed that Jaimz was actually covered with a very fine
pelt of fur but that each strand was short and fine and separated for the other
to completely expose his smooth skin.
The medics were quite sure that Jaimz was a normal representative of his
people. At just over six feet tall and
at less than two hundred pounds Jaimz was probably a fine specimen for his
people, but that still made him more than a foot and a half shorter than Kaiel,
and Kaiel was only average height for a Zaran, his brother had been even
taller, and Ham was taller still.
Jaimz remained
silent for a moment then started arranging the note piles, he said softly, “You
and—?”
“Heron.” Kaiel
supplied helpfully, certain that his assistants name was what Jaimz was looking
for.
“Ah, you and Heron
did a good job arranging these.”
Kaiel smiled and
moved to stand beside the bed, “We tried to keep things you already had piled
together, together and sorted everything that was close by into the same piles,
assuming they were related.”
Jaimz glanced up at
him, “Thanks.” He looked at the notes and added, “It’s just the beginning, it
will take me ages to recall everything, and this is just the first step.”
Kaiel lifted one of
the pages, “I don’t recognize the writings or symbols, but this looks like
something I’ve seen before.” He showed the drawing to Jaimz.
Jaimz took the
paper and explained as he drew his fingers along the lines of the drawing,
“This is a drawing of my Jump Ship prototype.
I can’t quite remember how I designed the foils, but its pretty close I
think. Though when I get to see the
ship again I’ll be able to do a more accurate rendition of course.”
Kaiel picked up
another paper, “And this?”
Jaimz touched the
paper, but didn’t take it from Kaiel, “Oh, that’s an Earth Gate rendering. I remember them pretty well, I designed
enough of them.”
The gate looked
like a wheel with a platform at the inside top and bottom of the wheel
opening. Kaiel looked at the drawing,
knowing that it was only a rough sketch of what Kaiel remembered and asked,
“You said this is an E-Earth Gate? I
thought these Gate things were in space?”
Jaimz nodded, “They
are, but there are also gates on Earth, so that my people can travel from one
location to another on Earth.” He
looked thoughtfully at the drawing and explained, “the Earth Gates are much smaller
of course then the mammoth ones that were constructed in space, they don’t need
the mass to carry a cruiser the size of the Kattaf after all. They transport—trains I guess is the best
explanation, from one location to another.
Gates have made my world very small now, people can live on one
continent and go to work on another and still be home in time for supper. There is no more war and no more arguing
governments, instead there is a world council that governs the entire
planet.” He smiled deprecatingly, “Its
amazing, I developed the first gate when I was fifteen but I couldn’t find a
way to protect myself from a monst— er, a giant.”
Kaiel understood
Jaimz’ moodiness and decided the best way to help him forget what he had gone
through with Lorz was to keep him distracted, “Could you build gates on my
world?”
Those sea foam eyes
stared up at him, gradually they widened and a glimmer of excitement glowed in
them. “I think I could. I would need the same materials, or ones so
close that the differences would be undetectable, I don’t know your periodic
tables but I would recognize the right chemical structure if I saw it under a
microscope and I bet I could combine the right sort of materials too in a
lab…!” He stopped talking with a sudden gasp and then exclaimed emphatically,
“I’ll need a lab and equipment and helpers, and I’ll need to learn how to write
in your language and you’ll have to hire people willing to learn my writing…I
could use an assistant too…”
He suddenly quieted
and looked worried. Kaiel cocked his
head, “What is the matter?”
Kaiel started
gnawing on his fingernail again, this seemed to be a habit of his when he
needed to think something over. “I
developed these technologies, technically they belong to me…but what if my
government disapproves?”
Kaiel frowned
thoughtfully, and stated succinctly, “Won’t redeveloping those technologies
help you get back home?” He returned
the Gate sketch back to the pile and continued, “If my people are going to help
you, shouldn’t we benefit too?”
Jaimz shrugged, “I
guess it can’t hurt, and to have allies—your people will be allies right? —out
here could be a good thing.”
“We will be
allies.” Kaiel assured, being a member of the diplomatic corps would ensure
that he’d press to have the humans named as allies and partners as quickly as
possible, for if he was right and Jaimz managed to get back home, the
communication between their two peoples would open right up, there would be
trade and commerce, scientific exchanges, especially if Jaimz could bring Kaiel’s
own peoples technologies up to par quickly enough…which Kaiel suspected he
would be able to do. The young human
was a genius…and his brother had sorely misused that genius.
For a time more
they talked, about their worlds and their responsibilities and they found that
they had a lot in common for all their differences. Jaimz actually had a good sense of humor and he laughed easily
even if they didn’t always understand each other’s senses of humor. Kaiel regretted, not for the first time,
that Jaimz had been unfortunate to meet Lorz first, for he was willing to bet
that he and Jaimz would have struck up a very good friendship of like minds
thinking and working together, even if their aptitudes were different.
Then he noticed
that Jaimz was squeezing the bridge of his nose and rubbing his forehead so he
guessed correctly, “Your headache starting to come back?”
“Umm,” was Jaimz’
only reply while keeping his eyes down cast as if the brightness of the cabin
was starting to bother him again.
Kaiel had more medicine for Jaimz and he
quickly retrieved a couple more tablets for him. “Here, maybe you should rest for a while again.” He suggested as
he offered the tablets with a mug of water.
Jaimz took the
tablets and agreed, “Yeah, I’ll just make sure my papers are put away first.”
Kaiel stepped back
to the table and settled down to work again, after a moment he glanced toward
Jaimz and saw that he was lying down again, with the robe pulled right up over
his eyes. He frowned, he didn’t like this
strange ailment which was plaguing Jaimz, so he avowed that he’d have a medic
waiting at the main house once he arrived at his home pride lands.
For hours it seemed
the fever rose and abated, with it came and went the headaches and the
dizziness though the mild nausea remained for the most part constant, though it
did lessen when the fading headaches and strengthen with each return. By the time the transport had landed Jaimz
was lethargic and seemingly endlessly exhausted even though he had actually
slept for most of the eleven hours. The
luggage was being stowed in the waiting personal transport and they were
crossing the deck to that same transport when a dazzle-headache suddenly
crippled Jaimz.
Kaiel was walking
slightly in front of Jaimz, so when he heard his little outcry he spun around
quickly to see what was wrong. Jaimz
was swaying dizzily, hugging his head and nearly ready to fall to the
deck. Quickly he stepped over to Jaimz
and ignoring his protests he picked him up and cradled his small body against
his chest. “Be quiet.” He warned gently
to Jaimz’ continued mutterings, “You’re about to fall down.”
Jaimz grew silent
though he kept hugging his head and finally he cried breathlessly, “It feels
like my skull is going to burst apart…what is happening to me?”
Kaiel hurried to
the waiting car and signaled for the driver to open the sliding side panel for
him so that he could lower Jaimz to the back seat, where immediately the young
human huddled over and began to keen softly in agony. He sat next to Jaimz and pulled him onto his lap, he pushed his
palm again under his fringe of fawn fur and felt his forehead…and was surprised
to find it cool this time. With a
headache as fierce as Jaimz seemed to be suffering he should have been burning
with fever, instead he felt unusually cool beneath his palm. He yelled at the driver to get going and
issued orders to make sure there was a medic waiting at the main house as soon
as they arrived.
He tried to give
Jaimz more medicine, but Jaimz said he’d be sick if he took them, so he did the
only thing he could, held his tense body, stroked his soft scrap of fur and
just offered what warmth and comfort he could with his big body while Jaimz
suffered. By the time the car pulled in
front of the main house gates Jaimz had grown silent and less tense, his
breathing was more relaxed too which told Kaiel that the headache had probably
retreated to a manageable level or even faded.
But Jaimz didn’t move off his lap, in fact he just lay there accepting
his closeness without protest.
As they pulled up
to the ancestral home that had housed his family for generations he did not
think about its stark beauty or how it matched the surrounding lands so well as
to nearly blend in with the park like setting.
He did not wonder about his father’s reception or what anyone else
thought as he had the driver pull the vehicle up as close to the main entry as
he could get. He stroked Jaimz soft
hair and murmured, “We are here? Can
you walk?”
Jaimz did try to
sit up, and immediately stopped to lie back down on Kaiel’s lap again, “I’ll be
sick.”
Kaiel noticed
worriedly that Jaimz was warm again beneath his hand, he ordered the driver to
open his door and then while holding Jaimz he climbed out of the car. He didn’t even know where he was going to put
Jaimz, at the moment all he cared about was finding him whatever help he needed
and fast. As he entered the house he
was already yelling for the medic, well, cursing actually, because no one could
move fast enough for him. As he passed
into the family quarters he was suddenly struck with a very righteous idea,
Jaimz would have Lorz room. He yelled
and the door to Lorz room was opened, he yelled again and the bed was hurriedly
refreshed and made ready to receive Jaimz.
Gently he eased Jaimz down onto the huge bed, and it completely dwarfed
his small body. Jaimz curled over onto
his side and once again began to hug his head and start to keen, meaning the
headache was returning. Out of
curiosity Kaiel palmed his forehead and found it cool again, when only moments
before it had been hot.
Before he could say
anything though a heavyset Zaran male strode purposefully into the room. Though he didn’t recognize him right off, he
knew by his badge and his large satchel that this was the medic he had requested
for Jaimz. He stood up and greeted the
male, “Welcome to House K’Lan. I am
Kaiel.”
The medic, whom
looked somewhat between a northerner and a southerner in appearance was nearly
all gray with age, his mane was trimmed short and he had no beard but his ruff
was long and luxurious even though that ruff actually softened his cheekbones
instead of sharpened them as was the usual, he had a ponderous dignity to him
and comforting warmth in his eyes.
“Kaiel Ni, I’m Medic V’Ran, V’Ran Kang.” He nodded gravely and looked
passed him to his patient. “So this is
your human?”
If anyone else had
labeled Jaimz as HIS human Kaiel would have taken affront, but from the medic
he sensed that the male meant no harm, he explained, “This is K’Lan Jaimz, he needs help.”
Quietly and
efficiently the medic moved to the bedside and as Kaiel had done before he
palmed Jaimz’ forehead to quickly gauge his temperature. He frowned slightly, “Cool temperature,
strange.” He set his kit on the bed and
opened it up, murmuring as he did, “As soon as I heard I’d been summoned to
tend Z’Rarla’s newest alien visitor I checked up the Kattaf’s medics’
records so I know his normal functions and what is not right with him. I would say his body temperature is below
normal right now.”
Kaiel explained
worried, “He had a fever only a few minutes ago.”
Medic V’Ran nodded,
“Fluctuating body temperature? What
else?”
Kaiel ticked each
symptom he knew off, “Nausea, dizziness, head ache, lack of appetite…I don’t
know what else.”
The medic puffed
out his ruff thoughtfully and beetled his brows inward. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since yesterday
for sure, I thought it was food because of his…”
“Yes I know of his
intolerance to some of our food substances, but if it was food related it is
unlikely his temperature would fluctuate the way it is. Could he have been bit by an insect?”
Kaiel didn’t know,
Medic V’Ran looked toward his patient and asked, “Can he understand me?”
It was Jaimz who
answered, “I can understand you… no I don’t think anything bit me.”
The Medic gave him
a surprised look and then addressed his next question directly to him, “Do you
remember when you first started filling sick?”
Jaimz was quiet for
a while, and then he answered grimly, “The day before yesterday.”
The same day Lorz
died? Kaiel wondered, thinking that there had to be some kind of strange
connection. Uncertain he explained,
“That’s when Lorz died.”
Jaimz uncurled
enough to look at the Kaiel, “I’m just sick, it has nothing to do with Lorz’
death.”
Medic V’Ran looked
properly puzzled, “Who is Lorz?”
“No one.” “My
brother.” Kaiel and Jaimz said together.
“Ah,” the medic
exclaimed, though clearly he didn’t understand, “And who or what is Lorz to
Jaimz?”
Jaimz blushed and
hid his face under his arms again.
Kaiel answered for him. “Lorz
was his…lover.”
“Not
willingly!” Jaimz yelled fiercely,
“Never willingly.”
If the medic was
surprised he hid it well, “Ah… I see.
By lover, I take it that there was, intercourse?”
Again Jaimz ducked
his head and remained silent. Kaiel stared
at the medic in surprise and finally blustered, “Surely you’re not thinking
Lorz gave him a disease or something?
The medics on the Kattaf said that our kinds are too dissimilar
and that we couldn’t pass diseases back and forth.”
“Yes well, that might
be so but I wouldn’t rule out the chance just in case.”
Jaimz sat up again,
looking angry now, “Are you saying that bastard might have gave me an STD?
Goddammit!”
Both Zarans looked
at him in puzzlement, Jaimz blushed again and muttered, “A sexually transmitted
disease.”
“Oh… um no
actually, I’m not saying anything because I really don’t know. I will run some tests and give you some
medications for your headaches, and stomach and to regulate your temperature
and once I know than I’ll be able to advise a treatment solution for you.”
Medic V’Ran explained, smiling gently.
Jaimz hesitated a
moment, then smiled back. Kaiel
frowned, “Are you feeling better already Jaimz?”
Jaimz touched his
forehead and nodded, “Ummm, headaches gone again.”
Kaiel advised the
medic, “That means his temperature has gone up again.”
Sure enough, Kaiel
was right, the medic ran tests, took blood samples, asked questions, and tried
to pin down exactly when Jaimz first noticed he was feeling out of sorts. After a time he had some answers but even
more questions that at this time had no answers at all. He gave Jaimz some medicine, which would
help him sleep, and watched as the human youth slid into slumber just on the
grip of a new headache. Monitors
registered the drop in Jaimz body temperature and the medic muttered that it
just wasn’t normal. Kaiel faced him
worriedly and asked, “What do you think is going on? What’s happening to him?”
Deadpan, the medic
said, “He’s dieing. If I can’t figure
out what is going on and reverse it, he’s going to die.”
“But, he doesn’t
seem that sick.”
The medic agreed,
to a degree. “The headaches and the
nausea can be dealt with, but his temperature shouldn’t fluctuate that
way. It means that his system has
somehow lost its ability to regulate his body temperature. If I can’t bring that back to normal his
body will shut down, it is those fluctuations that cause the rest of his
symptoms… that’s what’s really making him sick, the rest is just incidental.” He turned away from the monitoring equipment
and asked, “Is there somewhere that I can set up my com-pad? An open terminal that I can use?”
Kaiel looked
worriedly at Jaimz, but nodded in reply to the medic’s question. “Uh, yes. I can get you set up in my office,
everything you need is there.”
“Good, show me the
way.”
Again Kaiel glanced
worriedly toward Jaimz, “Uh shouldn’t someone stay with him?”
The medic pointed
to the monitoring equipment, “That will alert me if anything changes, he’ll be
okay for the time being.”
Kaiel led the medic
out into the hall and to the office, “What, may I ask, are you going to do
now?”
Medic V’Ran looked
at the young male, and gave him an honest answer. “I’m going to input the data
I’ve collected from Jaimz, into our medical database and see what it comes up
with… his fluctuating body temperature is key, that doesn’t happen to often, so
I think I’ll be able to narrow things down considerably…”
Kaiel helped the
medic get himself set up and after he realized that he was more a hindrance
than an aid he left. He quickly checked
on Jaimz before tracking down the house manager to ask after his father.
Administrator Lan
Tarl (distant family though not of the high house) greeted him civilly and then
told him that his father was attending the Annual Summit and wasn’t expected
back for another five or six days, dependant on whether or not the Summit ran
over the expected timeframe. Kaiel
sighed at the lucky break, he had forgotten about the Summit, had he been home
he would have been expected to attend it either on his own or with his
father. Probably in their way the
council was debating the Chai situation too, but Summits always covered many
topics from the mundane to the very important.
Kaiel told Manager
Lan about Jaimz and instructed him to see that Cook was made aware of Jaimz’
particular dietary needs, the manager assured him that he’d see to it
personally. Left at loose ends Kaiel
wandered back to the family wing and found Medic V’Ran standing at the
threshold to Jaimz’ bedroom. “What did
you find Medic?”
Medic V’Ran stopped
at the door and without looking at him said softly, “I think he’s going to
die.”
Kaiel couldn’t
contain himself, “But how? What is the
matter with him?”
Medic V’Ran spared
the young male a hard look, “I think your brother did give him something. Something that only a throwback male like
him could have given him. The only sure
disease he could catch that wouldn’t even kill him so long as Lorz stayed hale
and hearty.”
“Wha-what are you
talking about?”
The medic softened,
seeing the younger males honest confusion.
“After running the data through the medical library it came back with a
couple of answers, any of them will kill him, all but one I can probably treat,
but if its that one…he’ll die. There’s
no cure for Tag Withdrawal Syndrome.”
Kaiel’s ears laid
back angrily, “Are you saying—no way Lorz wouldn’t Tag him! He couldn’t!”
The medic stared at
the angry young male, “Some of the older families still retain that ability,
even though the practice has been out of favor for generations and the ability
itself has been disappearing, once in while it does crop up again, especially
in the older families like yours. And
from your response I can see that you knew Lorz had that ability.” He sighed, “I was hoping I wouldn’t get this
kind of confirmation.”
Kaiel was still
enraged, it was impossible to believe that Lorz would do such a backward and
outdated thing, and yet with everything else he had done to Jaimz it hardly
seemed that Tagging him was beyond his capacity. “That Skarll dung! I’ll
kill him!” Forgetting momentarily that
his brother was already dead.
“If I am right,”
the medic explained grimly, “the only way to save Jaimz is to mask Lorz’ tag
with a new signature, but where would I find a male with the ability who would
be willing to volunteer?” Before he saw
Kaiel’s shocked expression, V’Ran turned away and re-entered Jaimz’ room.
Medic V’Ran went
immediately to check the monitoring equipment and mused, “his temperature has
gone up again. I have meds that will regulate
him temporarily and mask the symptoms if he does indeed have TWS, but it will
only slow down the inevitable. With out
his Tag Mate or a new Tag Mate, he’s going to die.”
After spending a
shocked moment on his own in the hall, Kaiel followed the good medic into the
chamber. He stared at the sleeping
human, looking so peaceful and untroubled right now and imagined that bed empty
forever and was surprised at how that actually filled him with regret. He barely knew Jaimz, and yet he found that
he was starting to like Jaimz and that surely he would miss him if he
died. Maybe, with any luck, Jaimz did
not have Tag Withdrawal Syndrome after all and Medic V’Ran would be able to
cure him. Maybe seemed like such a slim
chance, especially since he wouldn’t have put it passed his brother to have
Tagged Jaimz. Obviously Lorz had not
expected to die and just as obviously he had meant to keep Jaimz for
always.
Tagging was a
horrendous thing, there was no defense against it and no cure for it if the Tag
Mate died, either Tag Mate, though the Tagged Mate could be saved if another
was willing to mask the deceased Taggee’s signature. Tagging ensured practical enslavement, the tagged was quite
literally addicted to the Taggee. In
the old days of ancient Pride wars and territorial battles, Tagging had been a
common practice, even encouraged by powerful houses; males on the rampage would
capture enemy females and Tag them. The
couples would then be endlessly locked together, never able to be free of each
other, each suffering from withdrawal the longer one denied the other and
ultimately both dieing if even one was killed.
In time, as their civilization matured, Tagging fell out of practice,
eventually it had become frowned upon entirely and finally it had even fallen
out of common memory. Yet still in some
of the oldest families the ability did still crop up in the males. If the signs were recognized early enough
the ability could be surgically impaired, which would prevent successful
Tagging, but often the ability remained undetected (for Tag capability was hard
to detect after all). The thing was
Tagging could not be done accidentally, to Tag a mate was a deliberate choice,
a male with the ability could go through his entire life, knowing he had the
flaw, and never Tag a mate. Tagging
after all was not something to take lightly, what if one decided at some point
down the road that they did not wish to stay forever with their current mate? What if one wanted to dissolve the current
contract and form a new liaison with a new mate? Tagging absolutely prevented that, to knowingly Tag one’s mate
meant to forever be tied together unto death.
For Lorz to have
chosen such a path seemed incredible to Kaiel, though in Lorz case, entirely
plausible. Again Kaiel was filled with
intolerable rage aimed at his deceased brother, thinking how fortunate that
Lorz had died before he could kill him.
Distracted from his
thoughts by something the medic was doing he blurted (embarrassingly), “What
are you doing?”
Medic V’Ran glanced
at him briefly before returning to the task at hand. “I need him to wake up now.
The sooner I can ask him more questions the sooner I will have a sure
answer for his ailment.” Carefully, ever so gently, he extracted the needle
from the human’s delicate arm and dapped lightly at the trace of blood the
extraction left behind. He then
enclosed Jaimz limp hand in both of his and began to pat it lightly, while
murmuring, “Jaimz? Jaimz I need you to wake up for me now.”
Kaiel loomed over
the medic and growled, “What about his head aches? Shouldn’t he be left to sleep?”
Again Medic V’Ran
spared him a patient look, “Suspecting as I do what is going on with him I have
already taken care of his temperature fluctuations, his headaches should be so
minimal for now that he won’t even notice them. For the time being at least.”
Kaiel relaxed his
ears and murmured, “Oh,” he still felt his ruff quivering, but this time he
ignored his acknowledged embarrassment.
Watching Jaimz’
face, Kaiel noticed his lips pucker slightly and then saw his sea foam green
eyes flicker open. The human was
clearly sleepy still, but he was able to focus on the medic and then look
beyond his friendly face to Kaiel’s.
“Ummm?”
The medic pulled
Jaimz up and plumped up the pillows at his back, saying, “Here, sit up a
little.”
Gradually Jaimz was
coming more alert and he was able to sit without needing further
assistance.
“Good, good.” Medic
V’Ran approved with a soft smile.
“Jaimz I need to ask a very important question. The answer you give me will help me
determine how best to help you.”
Sitting up with the
pillows at his back and now nearly fully awake Jaimz curled slightly toward the
medic and said, “Ok, shoot.”
The medic,
unfamiliar with the term, sent a bewildered look at Kaiel, so Kaiel supplied
the answer, “He means go ahead and ask the question.”
“Oh, yes. Yes.” Medic V’Ran turned back to Jaimz and
drew himself up to his full impressive height.
“On the day that Lorz died, did you feel a sudden sharp pain? Something that might have even incapacitated
you or made you feel as if you were going to die on the spot? A completely inexplicable pain?”
Jaimz stared at the
medic for a long moment; gradually his cheeks began to redden again. “I…well yes, but I often felt pain
after…after he left. I was bleeding and
I thought he had d-damaged me.”
The medic sat on
the bed and reached out to stroke Jaimz’ silky hair, “There is no need to be
embarrassed. What he did to you must
have been awful.” This acceptance only
made Jaimz’ cheeks brighten so Medic V’Ran tried again, “I need you to think
very carefully, this pain, that you felt on the same day Lorz died, was it
different from the pain you had after he mated with you?”
Jaimz lowered his
eyes and murmured, “I was lying down, he made me so sore that it hurt to
walk…and I was scared because I was bleeding that time… sometimes I bled,
sometimes I didn’t, but when I bled it always scared me.” He fell silent momentarily, picking
aimlessly at the blanket over his lap before continuing once again. “I felt, suddenly I felt like I was being
ripped apart inside. It hurt so bad
that I cried out for him! I was so
scared that I even cried out for him! I
couldn’t think for a few minutes, it was like everything was spangled with
sharp edged light, I thought I was going blind and dieing… maybe—I can’t
remember—maybe I passed out. Later I
remember thinking I had hemorrhaged or something, but there was no blood other
than…” He bit his lip and ducked his head, “other than what was normal.” He glanced up, “After that I heard Lorz had
died and I was so happy, I was finally free of him. Ham tried to take me, but that was when you—when Kaiel came for
me.”
Kaiel felt his ears
flicker and had to resist the urge to duck his own head, listening to Jaimz’
account had not been pleasant, but toward the end, Jaimz had looked at him with
such gratitude in his green eyes had made him feel, unexpectedly good.
The medic did not
look very pleased, his expression was very quiet, Kaiel could tell by his
tipped back ears that he was not happy with Jaimz’ description at all. Kaiel tried to capture his eye, but the old
medic would not be drawn into acknowledging his unspoken question yet. The medic stared down at Jaimz for a long
silent moment then he turned away and checked the readings on the monitoring
station. Everything looked nice and
normal. Casually he asked, “How do you
feel Jaimz?”
Jaimz touched his
forehead and suddenly looked surprised, “I didn’t even notice my headache is
gone. What ever you gave me worked
doc.”
Medic V’Ran nodded,
“What I gave you is helping to regulate your body’s temperature. Providing you with the necessary stability
you need to feel better.”
Jaimz frowned, “So
then I won’t be sick or dizzy or have headaches anymore?”
Medic V’Ran looked
thoughtfully at the young human. “I
suspect that they will come back.”
Jaimz’ frown
deepened, “But you can treat me right?”
Medic V’Ran nodded,
“I can continue to prescribe medication to regulate your temperature, and I
will but I’m afraid that it will merely mask what is really going on.”
Jaimz stared up at
him and asked with a touch of belligerence, “What exactly is going on?”
“Though I will run
additional tests I am reliably certain that Lorz has indeed left you a most
unpleasant gift.” The medic said, watching as Jaimz’ face tensed with anger and
denial. “In a way, he did give you…how
did you say? An STD. It is my opinion that he gave you a disease
that would never have surfaced so long as he was alive and you were with
him. His dieing activated the disease
and has made you a very sick youngling.”
Fiercely Jaimz’
insisted, “Well can’t you cure me?
Aren’t you a doctor?”
Again the medic
didn’t understand the terminology, but this time he surmised, “If by doctor you
mean medic, then yes I am a doctor and I can do my very best for you…” he
looked saddened, “Unfortunately there is no known cure for the disease
Lorz gave you.”
Jaimz looked taken
aback and still very angry though now fear was vying with the anger, “So…then
am I going to die?”
So forthright,
asking the question that most individuals would have avoided as long as
possible. Medic V’Ran was quite
impressed with the stubborn youth and would not lie to him. “Tag Withdrawal Syndrome is unfortunately
fatal.”
For a long moment
Jaimz looked away, thinking about what he heard while his hands aimlessly
twisted at wads of blanket. Kaiel
licked his lips, thinking about the medic’s only hope for saving Jaimz, “Kang
Ni,” he interrupted the medic’s silent musings (and added the honorific to his
proper name), “What about the other option?”
He found both pair
of eyes on him. Jaimz frowned and
asked, “What other option?”
Medic V’Ran glared
at Kaiel before turning back to his human patient. “There is a slim…very slim…hope.”
Curious Jaimz
prompted, “What is it?”
“Lorz’ Tag can be
masked—by another’s.” the medic supplied, sending another fierce glare shooting
Kaiel’s way.
Jaimz ducked his
head for a thoughtful moment then asked, “I don’t understand what this
Tag…thing is? What exactly is it? Can anyone get it? Why isn’t there a cure for it?
What does it mean to mask it?”
The medic sat down
on the bed again to explain to the brilliant young human exactly what Tagging
was, what Lorz had done to him, and why exactly it was unlikely he would
survive. When he was done Jaimz sat in
utter stunned silence, just staring at absolutely nothing as he digested all
that information.
Kaiel began to
worry that Jaimz was going to be lost in denial when suddenly Jaimz started to
softly laugh, which only added to Kaiel’s concern for him.
But Jaimz floored
him (nearly literally) when he suddenly, laughingly, barked, “I’m addicted to
Lorz? Really and truly addicted to
Lorz? My God that’s just amazing! I’ve never heard of any one being actually
physically addicted to another person!
My God this is just too funny.”
And he was laughing almost hysterically, but he also no longer appeared
afraid, in fact he looked extremely happy and confident.
The good medic was
understandably worried, “I don’t think you understand the enormity of your
situation Jaimz.”
Jaimz snorted, “I
do understand perfectly, I’m addicted to Lorz.
Lorz is dead which makes what I have to do, going Cold Turkey very hard,
but I’ll get over him. You’ll see. I hate him anyway, so all the more incentive
to fight this addiction.”
“Cold Turkey?”
V’Ran Kang muttered in obvious confusion, “What is Cold Turkey?”
Jaimz grinned, “You
see my people believe that no addiction can’t be beat. Normally when we get seriously or fatally
addicted, like to a drug or something, we receive treatment that helps wean us
off the addiction. With Lorz dead I
can’t use him to wean myself from him—fucker—but nonetheless I will beat it.”
Medic V’Ran shook
his head, “The Tag is not like a drug addiction, it systematic, its even
genetic. When Lorz Tagged you he
changed you. He made you need him, of
course he also made himself need you… but that doesn’t change the facts. The Tagging was discontinued because it has
always been fatal. Always.”
“Unless another is
willing to mask the Tag.” Kaiel needlessly supplied, to once again have the
medic glare at him.
Jaimz shuddered,
“No thank you. I would much rather
fight this my way then have to go through that again.”
That being the sexual side of Tagging (and other things),
the mating (made mandatory by the Tag) that Jaimz utterly hated and didn’t ever
want to suffer again.
Jaimz suddenly
stood up, and gripped the medic by his arm, though he was a good deal smaller
than the medic, his energy and enthusiasm made him powerful, “I’m a scientist
too doc, so you can help me figure out how to beat this addiction.”
“Uh…” Medic V’Ran
managed, quite captured by the young human’s zeal, “it would be interesting, of
course—.” He shook himself, “But really youngling, you need to face facts, the
Tag has never been beaten before.”
“Well, I’m human
and humans believe anything can be done if you try hard enough.” Jaimz
announced boldly, striding toward the monitoring equipment as saying, “Tell me
how this equipment works?”
Kaiel stood back
and watched as Jaimz took control of the situation. The veritable young scientist at work. He wondered again how his brother could have misused such
determination and intelligence and marveled as Jaimz drew the medic into his
strategy. The medic he could see was
sometimes befuddled, sometimes amazed, and sometimes just so damn impressed
with Jaimz that Kaiel knew that he would work hard to help him even though he
also knew that Medic V’Ran still had his doubts.
Finally feeling
like a third wheel and a useless one at that Kaiel left to deal with his
personal matters and needs. He had been
away from home for the better part of a month, he didn’t know what was
happening in the bigger picture of things, he needed to catch-up with news and
deal with any problems that may have cropped up which his father most likely
would have left up to him to take care of anyway. Thinking about that, and thinking about his older brother who had
never had any real responsibility thrust upon his massive shoulders Kaiel once
again felt a burning of resentment. He
knew it was wrong to resent his brother, especially since Lorz was quite beyond
his censor now, but thinking about duty and responsibility and how Lorz had
been able to shirk it so successfully for so long, just made him want to lash
out at something.
Hours later he had
posted his brother’s death notice, called to inform the Head of the L’Teran
family, and called up an Adjucator regarding the nullifying of the betrothal
contract. He had settled a hunting
dispute, had his apartments cleaned up and registered Jaimz as a Family member
(though the actual proceedings would take time and Jaimz might still die in the
meantime—he tried not to think about that).
He went over the accounts, met with the house manager and sat down to a
lengthy discussion with the head cook Lan Zavalla, (also a distant relative –
most people on the K’Lan Pride lands were related in one way or another) who
had legitimate concerns about the prohibited foodstuffs that Jaimz could not
tolerate. He addressed the matter of
Jaimz’ proper address, telling all staff that Jaimz should be addressed with
the honorific Ni at the end of his proper name.
There were so many
questions, so much to see to that it was late when he actually had a moment to
catch his breath, in that free moment his only thought was that he was so damn
tired that he needed to go to bed. Of
course even as that thought came to mind there was yet another small problem to
deal with, a matter of a small stampede of one of the Pride lands herd animals,
frightened undoubtedly by some predator.
The problem wasn’t the stampede in itself, herd animals were known to
stampede, it was in their nature, the problem was that the stupid creatures had
decided to stampede right through a fence which guarded one of the kitchen
gardens…and once they were done being scared they decided they liked the
kitchen gardens just fine. Sighing he
wondered if his father had half so much work to deal with and he surmised that
his brother had been far smarter than he’d given him credit for. And hour later, and it was very late by this
time, the kitchen garden fence was restored and the herd was back where it
belonged. Standing in the silence of
the yard, listening to the insects’ chirr and other animals low and cough in
the night he gazed up at the heavens and marveled at the beauty. As a cub his father had often regaled him
with stories about the heroes that resided in the star-scapes, he recognized
many of the star patterns from his cubhood and though the stories behind them
had lost their value as he had grown, their silent beauty had never faded.
After a bit, he
turned back toward the house, its rambling structure evident even in the dark,
in the cities and villages it was common to build great high structures, but
out on the Pride lands it was more common to have long low houses like hillocks
all tied together. That his house had
many rooms and that many of them blended in nearly perfectly with the
surrounding background seemed perfectly natural to him, he would never have
thought to live in any other type of structure. He certainly wouldn’t think that a house that stood out boldly
against the natural settings was beautiful, quite in fact the opposite, as any
such structure would be an affront to the beauty of nature.
Breathing in deeply
the richly scented smells of the restful night Kaiel finally entered his home,
the stone floors were cool beneath the pads of his feet and the nearly organic
curving walls of the hall were smooth beneath his fingers. His claws were safely sheathed so he would
not scratch the wall surface nor disturb any artwork or murals to be found
gracing them. He made his way to the
family wing of the house where hand knotted runners adorned the floor now. He paused briefly outside his brother’s
bedroom door, and chided himself for he had assigned that room to Jaimz now, it
was Jaimz’ room now. He decided not to
enter and check on Jaimz assuming that he would be asleep and rightly so. He had arranged for guest quarters for the good
medic, he would be staying through Jaimz’ fight with the Tag addiction, but as
he approached his own room he noticed pale golden light streaming into the hall
from the ajar door.
Stepping inside his
room he saw that the medic was working at his Com-Pad station, entering in data
and reading the results. When he came
in the medic noticed him and gave him a brief nod in the way of greeting. He would have passed on to his inner chamber
and left the medic to work in privacy but he was curious so he approached the
desk.
He didn’t have to
wait very long. “A very interesting and
energetic young male.” Medic V’Ran murmured, “I can see almost why Lorz was
attracted to him. His energy is quite
intriguing. Of course he is an
attractive species as well, which made the attraction even more
understandable.”
Kaiel felt his
hackles rise, “What Lorz did was wrong.”
“Yes, indeed. In one sense what Lorz did was take a cub to
his bed and rape it, numerous times. It
was a vile act that would never have been tolerated if indeed Jaimz were in
reality a cub, however it is hard to deny his adulthood. He is not a cub, he is very much an adult
with the misfortune of having a cub’s proportions within our society, which
again brings one right back to the vileness of what Lorz did to him.” He sighed, “He does indeed have TWS, and he
is quite stubbornly certain that he will beat this addiction. He is very remarkable. Truly I had trouble keeping up with him, for
once he started recognizing symbols it took nothing at all for him to make
logical leaps and assumptions that completely astounded me. I think if he had time enough he probably
could find the solution to the Tag.”
“Time, being the
operative word.” Kang muttered, “He doesn’t have it.”
“You don’t think
he’ll beat this do you?” Kaiel asked.
The medic pushed
away from the desk and tucking his hands behind his back began to pace lightly
(for his size) across the floor.
“Logically he should have died when Lorz did, or at least soon after. Sometimes the time after did differ, or else
no Tagged mate could have ever been saved, but nonetheless he’s been steadily
dieing ever since Lorz died, with the only difference being—.”
“He didn’t know he
was dieing.” Kaiel supplied.
Kang emphatically
nodded his head, “Exactly, not having the benefit of a Zaran upbringing our
youngling doesn’t realize how extremely fatal Tag Withdrawal Syndrome is, not
realizing has kept him alive this long and now, stubbornly believing that being
human will give him the strength he needs, he’s fully determined to fight.” He
smiled, “And I have been roped into this foolishness.”
“Do you think that
he might beat it?” Kaiel wondered, “If there is even a chance…?”
Kang shrugged, “He
is certainly stubborn enough and extremely bright, and he believes with his
entire being that he can beat this. It
is his upbringing that might help him beat this… so in all honesty…I cannot say
absolutely that he will fail. He could
indeed succeed.” He smiled again, “Of course he has the very real loathing of
Lorz to aid him. He truly hates your
brother.”
“Sometimes I think
that I should hate him too…” Kaiel grimly acknowledged. Then he moved on, “But you said you don’t
think he has time? Time to do what?”
“To fight the
symptoms, for once the body starts to go into withdrawal it usually only takes
72 hours or 3 days for a complete shut down to occur. With medication the time can be extended an additional 72 hours,
which allows time for the Tagged to be rescued if someone was willing, a young
female in the prime for cub-bearing likely would have been rescued… But how
likely would it have been to save a Tagged male? So unusual that in itself, though I imagine that it probably did
occur.”
“So, you still
believe that the only way Jaimz can be saved is if Lorz’ tag can be masked?”
Kaiel asked faintly.
The medic had to
cock his ear just to hear him, but he did and finally he murmured, “Yes, and
how likely is that, even if I did find a volunteer would he be willing to tie
himself to a male and an alien at that?
No I think things won’t work out well for that youngling, not well at
all.”
Kaiel stood still,
feeling the medic’s words touch him to his core, then he shook himself and
said, “Well, its going to be a long day tomorrow so I think I’ll turn in, will
you be okay finding your way to your quarters?”
The medic returned
to the desk and his com-pad, “Yes, no problem, I think I’ll work on this a
little longer… Sleep Well.”
“Ummm, thanks.”
He went off into
his inner chamber, closing the door to block out the light, with only the
starlight shining in through two large uncovered windows he removed today’s
garments, just dropping them on the floor.
The coolness of the air in the room touched his pale pelt everywhere,
shivering through tendrils of fur, breezing around his drooping tail, he scrubbed
his clawed fingers through his mane lifting it and shaking it out, idly he
grabbed a shoulder length strand of gold and wondered if he should let his mane
grow out again, it had been at mid back just a couple of months ago. His father had said he looked unkempt and
dishonorable, so he had bowed to pressure and cut his mane, but thinking about
Jaimz of all things, he wondered if the human would like him with a longer
mane. He froze at recognizing that
thought and wondered why what Jaimz thought mattered at all. Yes, of course he liked Jaimz, and he was
worried about what he was going through, but there was no reason for him to
preen before Jaimz like a young cub on his first hunt. What was he thinking?
Confused he climbed
into his bed and dragged the coverlet up to his shoulders. He couldn’t remember ever wondering if he
was liked because of his appearance, he supposed he was handsome enough though
not overly large which could be a drawback in some crowds but his appearance
had never concerned him before, and here he was wondering if his mane was nice
enough. He curled over on his side and
wondered exactly what was going on with him.
Sleep, though he was tired, was a long time coming, for thinking about
Jaimz, and his situation and his own confused thoughts about Jaimz plagued him
for hours.
Morning saw a
blurry eyed and irritable Kaiel snarl his way down into the kitchen. He had slept late, of all things, and missed
breakfast, so here he was grudgingly scratching together whatever seemed edible
from the kitchen before the rest of the household descended upon him once
again.
He had barely put
together a flatbread wrap with meat and fresh greens when one of the staff
arrived with an announcement that there was a call for him. Grumbling, and taking a challenging bite out
of the breakfast wrap he went and found the nearest COM to pick up the
call.
“K’Lan Kaiel
speaking. What can I do for you?” he
asked the unknown entity.
“Kaiel Ni, this is
Adjucator J’Lari Vree, there is a problem with the betrothal contract. L’Teran refuses to break it.”
Puzzled Kaiel took
another bite and chewed thoughtfully while he was wondering why House L’Teran
would want to hold to the contract when one of the participants was dead. “Do
they not believe that Lorz is dead, Adjucator?
His remains will be transported to the Pride lands in two weeks time.”
The Adjucator
replied, “It doesn’t seem to be a matter of your older brother’s death, rather
it is a matter of the wording of the contract.”
“Huh? I don’t understand, the betrothal was that
K’Lan Lorz was to marry L’Teran Vreda.” Kaiel muttered, taking another bite of
his breakfast wrap. “With Lorz dead there can be no betrothal. What is hard to understand about that?”
“Actually according
to the document I have, signed by both Heads of the Houses the document merely
states that the elder son of House K’Lan is to marry the elder daughter of
House L’Teran.” Adjucator J’Lari stated fairly glumly.
Kaiel’s mane
started to lift, “But my elder brother is dead.”
“Exactly what they
said. You are now the elder son.”
Kaiel felt his jaw
drop; he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find it on the floor
somewhere. “There has to be
some…mistake.”
“L’Teran is quite
emphatic that the betrothal is still legal and binding.”
“Gods…” Kaiel
breathed, he remembered Vreda well, she was pretty and of a good family, but
she had a sharp tongue and it was common knowledge that she enjoyed belittling
anyone that didn’t live up to her standards.
He didn’t care for her which was why he had been quite pleased to
deliver the proposal to his brother.
She was also 3 years older then he and she was spoiled, mean, and
vindictive, so prettiness aside she would be impossible to live with. “There has to be some mistake… she’s older
than I.” He added lamely.
“Age differences
not withstanding there will have to be a good reason to break the
contract. Unless the L’Teran’s break it
I can’t see anyway out of it for House K’Lan.” The Adjucator advised, still
sounding glum.
Kaiel tried to think
and finally all he could say was, “My father is Head of House K’Lan, he will
talk to L’Teran and have them agree to dissolve the contract.”
“Perhaps, perhaps.”
Was all the glum Adjucator would say, adding, “I understand that he is involved
in the Annual Summit at this time?”
“Yes,” Kaiel
murmured desolately, “He probably won’t be back until the end of the week.”
“Then I will be in
contact again.” The Adjucator promised dolefully and disconnected the
call. Kaiel stared at the COM, his
breakfast quite forgotten, in fact what he had eaten was sitting rather heavy
in his stomach. The idea of being tied
to Vreda L’Teran was enough to make him want to spew. He assumed that one day he would take a mate and ensure the
continuation of the K’Lan line, but he was still young and he certainly had
different ideas about what he wanted in a mate. Vreda didn’t qualify.
What he wanted was someone smart and funny, someone witty and yes for
certain someone who was actually nice, someone who didn’t mind working and getting
dirty and who wouldn’t get her muzzle bent out of shape if things didn’t go
exactly her way… he wanted someone who could laugh in the face of danger and
just keep right on going. He stopped
and stared at his forgotten breakfast wrap wondering why that last part made
him think about Jaimz.
Sighing glumly, he
decided there was nothing he could do about the matter of the contract, and he
could only hope his father would deal with it as soon as possible. He had work to do; he always had work that
needed to get done.
He would have
started the work as soon as he rid himself of his no longer wanted breakfast
wrap, but he was interrupted by the bustle of activity streaming to and from
the family wing of the house. Curious
he followed a pair of house staff that was valiantly balancing a large
blackboard. Bemused he followed
wondering where the blackboard was headed, and he wasn’t to surprised to find
it intended for Jaimz room, he could hear Jaimz’ voice directing other staff
all ready in the reorganizing of his room.
He walked into total chaos and just stared in amazement, the bed had
been pushed back closer to the windows and now a screen of blackboards and
pegboards fairly blocked the view into the rest of the room. Several tables had been arranged, some
standing just away from the boards while others had been pressed together and
covered with a larger board to form one solid tabletop. Chairs from outside had found there way into
the room as well, and wonder of wonders someone had set up a Com-Pad unit at
one of the desks. Seeing the good medic
impressed into duty, Kaiel surmised that the Com-Pad was his and that he had
changed his office to Jaimz’ bedroom.
He glanced about
smiling slightly; it definitely bore little memory of Lorz now.
“No not there, that
goes over there, with the Grav Gate stuff.” Directed a voice Kaiel was becoming
very familiar with.
He turned to find
Jaimz behind him, pointing at a table where the errant staff was heading
too. “What is going on here?” He asked
needlessly, as if he couldn’t see exactly what was going on.
Jaimz flashed him a
smile and grabbed another pile of papers before they could scatter from a too
eager young staffers grasp. “Setting up
my lab.”
“In your bedroom?”
Jaimz lifted those
remarkable aqua eyes up too him, “I like being close to my work.” He explained,
straightening the hastily reclaimed notes and handing them back to the staffer,
“They go where the Jump Ship material is. Thanks.” He smiled faintly as he
watched and said absently “He’s bigger than me but I think he’s younger than I
am… and are his ears blushing?”
Kaiel flicked his
own ears back and growled, “Zaran don’t blush.”
Jaimz just smirked,
“I’m learning to read all you Zarans’ little quirks. Besides the ears are the
thinnest area and have the least hide covering, so yeah…they do blush…”
Kaiel growled,
caught between chagrin and amusement, “So how do you feel.” He asked instead.
Jaimz was already
moving on to another project and answered absently, “I feel fine.”
Kaiel watched him
for a moment, he did seem very energetic and enthusiastic for someone
supposedly on deaths door. He found
Medic V’Ran. “So how is he really
doing?”
The medic had also
been designated as a sorter, he was dealing with a table of new notes, which
Kaiel had not seen before, and some of the symbols on those notes were
Zaran. “Remarkable.” The medic said
absently, before looking at him, “He’s still very ill, but he’s simply
remarkable.” He held up a sheet filled
almost entirely with Zaran symbols, “Do you know what this is?”
Well he could read
what the symbols were, but the order made no sense to him, the medic chuckled,
“Ah well, you would probably have to be a scientist to understand them. Do you know this morning he learned what those
symbols meant? Just this morning! He was frustrated because he couldn’t
understand the symbols from my analysis so he made me teach him the basic
chemical signatures. He’s really quite
remarkable, after I gave him the basics he started putting the symbols together
in there proper chemical order… just remarkable, if I had ten students like him
I’d have a cure for every disease in the world.”
Kaiel didn’t doubt
that Jaimz was special, “So what is this project?”
“His first attempt
at understanding what the Tag is and what it is doing to him.”
Kaiel stared, not
sure he understood. Medic V’Ran wasn’t
slow to help him understand. “He wanted
a full analysis of his blood, to check for anomalies. That chemical structure of his blood is what helped me help him
learn the chemical symbols. Do you know
that his blood is iron-based like ours?
Well anyway, after the analysis was complete we starting breaking down
the chemical structures one by one and he’d ask me the symbol for the chemical
as I knew it and then he would provide the symbol as he knew it…and wallah as
he would say, the beginning of a chemical dictionary.” He smiled at the young human who had paused
near by to direct one of the staffers to place a blow up of one of his orbital
gates on a pegboard. “He’s really
remarkable, I would surely enjoy working with him in the future. Given a chance he’ll have our written
language down in no time… did you notice how very good he is with the spoken
language and according to him he’s only been with Zarans for just a few
months. Remarkable.” His ears drooped then, “Of course he is
still very sick.”
“But he has so much
energy,” Kaiel insisted, watching Jaimz as he laughed with one of the staffers,
actually the staffer, a female looked a little dazzled and intrigued with
Jaimz, confirming Kaiel’s own growing suspicions that Jaimz was attractive to
his people.
“Yes, right now the
medications are working to make it seem that he is well, but his temperature is
still fluctuating.” The medic rose and
indicated that he wanted Kaiel to follow him deeper into the room, that meant
navigating the screen of boards, but it was do-able, gaps had been left just
for that reason. Kaiel saw that he was
being lead to the monitoring equipment that was still next to the bed, it had
been moved with everything else. The
graphs were still steadily shifting, Kaiel didn’t know exactly what he was
looking at, but he knew those graphs indicated Jaimz’ state of health.
“I insisted that if
he was going to be up and about that he had to be monitored constantly.” The
medic explained, then he pointed at one of the shifting lines. “This graph shows his temperature. Notice this blue line?”
“Yes.”
“That blue line
indicates where his temperature should normally be, if his temperature were
stable we wouldn’t see the blue line at all.
See the wavy green sometimes red line, red depending on how far away
from the blue line it gets?”
“Yes.” He murmured,
starting to dread what he was seeing.
“That’s his actual
temperature graph. As you will notice
it is fluctuating under and above his normal temperature. The few times the line has peaked in red are
when he’s actually had a temperature spike…in either direction. The meds I gave him is keeping his temperature
within what would be considered a safe zone for the most part, but those spikes
are getting closer…once the spikes start running together the headaches will
come back.”
“But you can manage
that with meds can’t you?” Kaiel
wondered worried.
Medic V’Ran stated,
“Yes, I can up the dosage and re-stabilize him, though he probably wouldn’t be
able to function very well and would likely need to sleep more. But all the medication does is mask the
symptoms, underneath his temperature is still unstable, his body is still
breaking down.” He sighed morosely,
“Chances are, because of his very stubbornness and will to break this thing
that I might be able to keep him alive long enough for him to break it if it is
possible…but it’s definitely a very slim chance. He is still…dieing.”
“Well…I won’t…I
don’t want him to die!” Kaiel nearly yelled, his ears flicking in obvious
distress.
“You feel strongly
about this.”
Kaiel huffed, “I am
responsible, my brother did that to him!”
Medic V’Ran shook
his head, “Our laws long ago made us no longer responsible for the crimes of a
family member.”
Kaiel glared and
groused, “It doesn’t matter, Jaimz is my responsibility. I can’t just let him die.”
“Well that is what
we are working on, that remarkable youngling did find an anomaly in his blood
that shouldn’t be there. He came up
with the most intriguing idea.
Something about flushing the anomaly out of his blood. He believes that if he can just wait it out
long enough that the Tag will actually be flushed out of his circulatory
system.”
“And? Is he right?” Kaiel wondered.
Medic V’Ran
shrugged, “Well that’s the thing isn’t it?
With the Tag all but forgotten no one has researched it. I have a little bit of information, but it
more related to how to survive with the Tag for mated pairs, not for how to
break the Tag.”
“So, what your
saying, is you don’t know.”
“Correct.” Medic
V’Ran replied quite jovially, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”
Kaiel snarled,
“What could happen is that Jaimz will die! I can’t allow that!”
“You can’t allow
what?” asked Jaimz’ own intrigued voice.
Kaiel spun still
growling. The smaller being stood just
in front of the screen, looking at them, he had heard something, but not enough
to know what had been said. How
fortunate that his hearing probably wasn’t as good as a Zaran’s. He snarled and turned away, grunting, “Nothing. He wants to open a practice in the pride
lands that’s all.”
“Isn’t that a good
thing?” Jaimz wondered, unsuspecting of the lie, but puzzled by Kaiel’s obvious
agitation.
He strolled forward
and Kaiel found himself watching him, noticing how long his legs were and how
his hips moved just so and he found himself snarling again at Jaimz this
time. “Don’t walk like that!”
immediately he would have taken it back, especially seeing the play of shock
and bewilderment in Jaimz’ face. He
spun back, to face the medic with his own bemused expression and feeling his
ears flicking furiously he finally stormed, “I have work to do, do what you
want!”
He brushed past
Jaimz, nearly over balancing the human, absently he steadying him before moving
on, fully aware that Jaimz was still staring after him in puzzlement.
“Did I do something
wrong?” Jaimz wondered aloud.
V’Ran Kang noticed
that the human youngling was still looking in the direction Kaiel had
gone. He was intrigued by Kaiel’s anger,
oh sure, Kaiel was a young male and young males often struggled with
conflicting emotions but he was willing to bet that even Kaiel was bewildered
by his moodiness. He glanced at the
young human, looking at him as a younger possible suitor might see him. His face was utterly bare, in fact he knew
that his entire body was bare other than the scantest traces of fur… no, Jaimz
called it hair. His skin was very silky
to touch; it was like touching a delicate flower petal. His hair was the same pale brown of many
newborn fawns and cubs and it was wavy to his shoulders and every bit as smooth
as his skin in its own way. He was not
tall like a Zaran, and his build was far slimmer, in fact he was even slimmer
than a female Zaran, but there were some similarities between him and a Zaran
female, especially a lovely young female just ripe for cub-bearing. He managed to have long legs even for his
lack of height and though he didn’t have a tail his hips moved as if he should
be sashaying a stupendous tail, and all without even thinking about it. Kang realized that in Jaimz was the
embodiment of female beauty and male youth that was an intoxicating mix.
Kaiel was
exhibiting all the signs of mate seeking, only Kang was dead certain that Kaiel
had no idea what he was doing or why he was so bothered. It was really too bad that Kaiel didn’t have
the Tag, because likely that would be a perfect solution to Jaimz’ problem, but
as rarely as the tag showed up in ancient family lines, it was even rarer to
show up twice in the same family line.
“No, you’ve done
nothing wrong.” Kang replied, glad that he was almost too old now to be
bothered by all the stuff and nonsense that accompanied the mating urge.
Jaimz stared at him
doubtfully for another moment then returned to his lab, leaving the good doctor
to his own speculations. An idle glance
at the monitor showed that during this little crisis Jaimz’ temperature had
spiked again before recovering. He
rubbed his rough pelted chin and sighed, wondering how much longer it would be
before he’d have to up Jaimz’ medication.
Jaimz was fine
through the day, though he still found he had very little appetite, he was
neither plagued by headaches or dizziness.
The mild nausea he ignored, besides by nibbling on small salty biscuits
he found he was able to keep his stomach almost happy. He didn’t see Kaiel again that day, though
he heard him out in the hall once, reassigning some of the staffers that had
stayed longer than necessary to other tasks.
He wondered idly at Kaiel’s brief spat of belligerence and tried to
figure out what he might have done to upset his friend, yes he was starting to
think of Kaiel as his friend, but he couldn’t really think of anything. Unless, glancing about the very altered room
with some consternation, he wondered if Kaiel was upset by the change to the
room.
Evening though
wasn’t fine, he awoke to the alarms going off, though they needn’t have warned
him, for the dazzle headache that had him curled in on himself was all the
warning he would have needed. He felt
strong arms grab him and even though he couldn’t bear to open his eyes he knew
that it was Kaiel. “My head—my head.”
He sobbed into Kaiel’s warm pelted chest.
He felt a slight
prick on his arm and then heard the medic say, “There that will help.”
Quickly it did help
as he felt the headache begin to fade, he remained where he was for another
moment, and then whispered achingly, “I won’t give up.”
He was crying he
knew, but he didn’t care, it scared him that the headache had come back with
such force. He didn’t want to admit the
possibility that he could die. Humans
didn’t easily admit defeat and he wasn’t willing to give in to this stupid
addiction Lorz had given him. He lay
back against the pillows after a moment, with sobs still heaving at his chest
and repeated, “I won’t give up.”
Kaiel’s hand
brushed his fawn bangs back from his glistening eyes. “I won’t let you.” He smiled encouragingly.
“This is just the
beginning of the real fight.” Jaimz muttered smartly, nodding his head.
“Yeah, that’s
right.”
Medic V’Ran looked
from Kaiel to Jaimz and shook his head, seeing something the two younglings
didn’t. Still he made no other comment
except, “You should go back to sleep Jaimz.
You need rest.” Fortunately the
injection he had prepared for just this type of attack did include something to
help Jaimz fall back to sleep whether Jaimz wanted to sleep or not.
“Umm,” Jaimz
murmured, his eyes already starting grow heavy, lolled back toward sleep by the
combination of Kaiel hand stroking his hair and the powerful drug working
through his shocky system.
Once the young
human had slipped into natural sleep again Medic V’Ran murmured, “Kaiel, you
should go to sleep too, it will be a busy day tomorrow.”
Kaiel hesitated,
reluctant to leave Jaimz’ side, but finally with a fleetingly light caress to
Jaimz’ sleep shadowed face he straightened, “Yes…I’ll go, but—.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll
spend the night with him, he’ll be fine.” Kang assured, though he was no means
certain, for his patient was growing more ill by the hour. “I already had a cot set up just in case… Go
on… off to bed with you. Sleep Well.” He didn’t want to use cub language with
Kaiel, but he found it also worked as he intended and Kaiel did as he was told. He knew if the alarm sounded again that he’d
be back. He had made it to this room
faster than he had, and the alarm had been set to sound only in Kang’s room and
this one. Odd that Kaiel had even heard
it.
Once Kaiel was gone
Kang reset the monitoring equipment to warn him before Jaimz’ temperature
fluctuations became critical, this meant that he’d be able to stay ahead of the
headaches and better regulate Jaimz’ systems to at least keep the youngling
comfortable and functioning for as long as he could. He hadn’t given up hope for maybe somewhere out there a new Tag
Mate was waiting. He was growing rather
fond of the human youngling, he was so smart, so energetic, so self-assured,
that if all humans were like Jaimz then the Zaran were going to get along with
them just fine.
The next day found Jaimz
in the receiving room, a sitting room of sorts that was central to the 4 wings
of the house. Along the back wall of
the large high-ceilinged room was an entire bank of windows, and like
everything else in the house each window had a slightly curved frame so that
each was a long oblong, on top of small wicker tables set in the spaces between
the windows were displays of seasonal greens, flowers or twigs in vases that
drew the eye out toward the vast vista of the Pride land Plains, far off in the
distance the sharply etched and ancient mountain range the Sheehan could be
seen against the azure of the sky.
Unfolding before that range played out the natural everyday scenes of
the savanna, with its herds of animals grazing and congregating across the lush
fields and meadows, rivers, streams and springs dotted the savanna and lush
deep pockets of forests, treed vales and hills cropped up regularly.
The beauty of the
room and the view worked well with V’Ran Kang, for his patient seemed to be
functioning fine. Jaimz, along with
Kang, continued to work on his Tag problem; analyzing the blood anomaly he’d
discovered trying to break down its secrets and learn how it affected his
system. A new blood test showed more,
not less of those anomalies in his blood, which told him that they were related
to how his body was handling the Tag Addiction and though part of it, not
necessary directly related to the Tag.
This led him in another direction, wondering if the addiction was
something to do with the fluid exchange.
Thinking about it embarrassed him, and speaking about it left him
feeling entirely tongue tied and uncomfortable.
Medic V’Ran was
infinitely patient and understanding though and helpful, “You think that the
Tag addiction responds to something in the male ejaculate…that which is
deposited inside you?”
Blushing fiercely
Jaimz nodded, “Yes, exactly.”
Kang leaned back in
his chair and mused, “You very likely are correct… but what then does the
Taggee get? He provides the stimulus
that subdues the Tag addiction, but what in exchange does he get?
Jaimz stared at him
in amazement and blurted, “Why does that matter, Lorz is dead, he isn’t getting
anything! And I don’t plan on devoutly
following him either, that fucker!”
“Yes, yes, you do
have a point. Nonetheless one wonders
what the Tag Mate gets from the exchange.
It seems logical that the mate must get something, because if not he
wouldn’t be threatened by the Tag addiction and naturally wouldn’t die if his
tagged mate died. That is the one
constant, the Tagged mate could be saved if the Taggee died, but the Taggee
mate never.”
Jaimz shook his
head, thinking he didn’t care about where this conversation was going, but he
was to much of a scientist not to have his curiosity peaked, “Why would they
take such a risk? I can’t understand if
the Tag Mate can’t be saved no matter what why would they ever risk Tagging a
mate? That just doesn’t make sense!” He leaned forward, with his arms crossed on
his lap, and muttered, “Maybe they didn’t know?”
Kang shook his head,
“Oh they knew, the Tag can not be delivered involuntarily.”
Jaimz’ face tensed
and paled with anger, “Then Lorz knew exactly what he was doing.”
“I’m afraid he knew
exactly what he was doing.”
“That FUCKER! That GODDAMNEDFUCKER!” Jaimz cussed viscously,
while smacking his fist into his thigh.
Kang tried not to
smile with amusement, “Your colorful metaphors are so…emphatic. Would you have forgiven him if Tagging could
be involuntary.”
“No!” Jaimz yelled
fiercely, “But I thought I wouldn’t have to hate him so much if he didn’t mean
to do it on purpose! God damn him! I hate him.”
Kang, noticing that
Jaimz’ monitoring med-cuff was starting to flare red, worriedly advised, “You
need to calm yourself Jaimz, you’re having another spike.”
Jaimz froze and stared
at the pulsing med-cuff, watching as the red flare gradually faded away. “Oh…sorry about that.” He muttered once the
pulse was green again.
Kang sighed, “I bet
I need to dose you again…these treatments are getting closer and closer
together Jaimz. I’m afraid—.”
“Don’t!” Jaimz
forestalled, jumping to his feet, “I don’t want to hear it! I won’t hear it! Do you hear me?”
Kang rose as well,
lumbering after the youth as he hurriedly started walking away from him, “What
I want you to do is sit down and be quiet until I determine whether you need
another dose or not! Stop running away
from me Jaimz!”
Jaimz spun toward
him, those amazing green eyes of his flaring with anger, “I’m not running
away! I have work to do too and I can
do it in my room just as well in the—the—what is this place called again?” He stopped suddenly and gestured about the
sunny room.
Placing his hand on
the youngling’s arm Kang answered, “This is the receiving room.”
“Yeah, well
whatever, I have work to do and I can better do it in my room.”
“Kaiel has a crew
in there properly arranging your room.” Kang advised, not for the first time.
Jaimz snapped, “My
room was just fine the way I set it up!”
“Of course it was,”
Kang soothed, “But it no longer matched the style of the rest of the house… its
all about striking a proper balance with nature and what not… Your room was out
of balance. The Sheki that came in this
morning noticed that your space was out of balance.” The Sheki were very
similar to priests but instead of dealing with the spiritual side of people,
the Sheki dealt with the Balance and Well Being of space. They believed that if space was unbalanced
that ill will would follow and do harm unto whoever or whatever had caused the
unbalance until the unbalance was set right again.
“Nonsense. My room was perfect.” Jaimz argued, just for
the sake of being belligerent.
Kang was worried,
he thought that Jaimz’ belligerence was being triggered by temperature spikes,
he had been growing more belligerent throughout the day, to even snapping at
staffers who brought food and drink. Of
course he had also noticed that Jaimz wasn’t eating at all now and that he was
barely drinking. After one such
uncontrolled spike Jaimz had spewed up, which was the first time his nausea had
vented in such a fashion.
“Please, sit
quietly Jaimz, let me check the equipment.”
Jaimz allowed
himself to be seated once more, but he didn’t look happy and he said so, “This
is ridiculous.”
Pout all you want,
Kang thought smilingly, just so long as you stay put and quiet. He turned away, assured that Jaimz would
listen…and that was when the alarm went off again. He could distantly hear it jangling throughout the house, but
Jaimz’ own cry of pain was all the proof he needed that Jaimz had indeed spiked
severely. Worse and worse, when he spun
back to assist the youngling, Jaimz had slid right off the chair and was lying
in a boneless heap on the floor.
It didn’t take him
a second to realize that Jaimz was unconscious, he knelt by the youngling and
caught up his cuffed wrist, the warning pulse wasn’t even flashing now, it was
a steady red flare. He quickly searched
his person for an emergency injection but he had used the last one and failed
to replace it. He was cussing his
stupidity when Kaiel and a group of staffers came running into the receiving
room. He didn’t even have to order
Kaiel to pick the unconscious youngling up, for Kaiel had him in his arms and
was running before Kang could catch his breath. Kang followed the young male as best he could; he barely noticed
that the room had been divided into an inner and outer room as he was running
through into the inner room.
Kaiel had sat on
the bed and arranged Jaimz across his lap, he was stroking Jaimz hair back from
him slack face and staring anxiously at the medic as he entered. “Hurry Kang
Ni!”
“Yes, yes…always
rush and hurry… well,” he muttered as he pulled the required dose into a ready
syringe, “I suppose this once hurry up is ok.” He grasped the human’s limp arm
and found a spot that hadn’t been recently pricked, cleaned it and pressed in
the necessary injection. A moment later
he backed away, watching as Jaimz’ face relaxed from the pain he had been
sensing even while unconscious and moved more toward actual sleep. “There, a little quiet should help him feel
better, for now.” He would make no promises, not anymore. Jaimz was dieing, the growing symptoms were
proof that his body was shutting down despite his valiant efforts. This was a battle Jaimz was not going to win
on his own. “Well, I’m not just going
to let him die.” He muttered and stomped away fully intent on going over those
ancient lists again looking for a likely candidate to save his treasure, his
treasure being Jaimz.
Kaiel was left
sitting there, with Jaimz asleep on his lap.
He had heard what the medic had said, even though it clearly hadn’t been
intended for him, he knew that the medic was searching through family records
to see if he could pinpoint a potential Tag Mate to save Jaimz. He looked down at Jaimz and realized that he
didn’t want Jaimz to have another Tag Mate; he couldn’t stand the idea of Jaimz
going away, not in death and not to belong to another. He knew there was nothing normal about what
he wanted, that he had grown to care too much about this queer little creature,
this human being he felt responsible for.
He couldn’t easily say it was because of his brother that he wanted to
take on this responsibility either; it felt like a lie to him, maybe he would
have grown exceptionally fond of Jaimz even without his brother’s cursed legacy
between them.
He lightly touched
Jaimz’ face, tracing the contours of his smooth cheeks, the tilt of his nose,
the soft lushness of his lips. He
noticed Jaimz’ long gold tipped eyelashes flutter so he traced his hand back to
casually stroking his fawn mane. He
waited patiently for those eyes to flicker open and for that green gaze to find
him. He smiled, “Welcome.”
Jaimz lay on his
lap and looked up at him, he was not uncomfortable where he was and he still
had a mild, lingering after headache, which he knew would fade, until the next
time. Fear clouded his mind for an
instant as he thought about what was happening to him, but he shook it off,
refusing to give up. “Kaiel.” He
glanced about, seeing he was back in his room he wondered, “How did I get
here?”
Kaiel stroked his
hair and murmured, “I brought you here. You collapsed in the receiving room.”
Jaimz flung a hand
up over his eyes and groused softly, “I shouldn’t have argued with the doctor.”
Kaiel raised a mobile
brow, “I thought you liked Medic V’Ran.”
Jaimz lowered his
hand, “I do like him.”
“Do you feel
better?”
Jaimz turned on his
side, still on his lap but with his back to him. He tucked an arm under his head and closed his eyes again. “Um.” was his only reply as Kaiel felt him
relax back into sleep again.
Kaiel remained
where he was, content to watch Jaimz’ sleeping profile and stroke his fawn mane
and wonder what he was becoming. He
worried that he was starting to think about Jaimz the same way his brother had,
and that sickened him. Silently he
vowed he would never abuse Jaimz that way, that he and Jaimz would always be
just good friends, even though his heart ached as his avowal. Looking at that perfect profile, not Zaran,
not beautiful in the way of a Zaran and yet beautiful nonetheless he told
himself that he was better than Lorz.
The softness of those alien lips beckoned him and again he ran his thumb
over there lushness, and he throbbed inside.
Sickened he pulled back into himself, he didn’t move though, nor did he
disturb Jaimz who was so innocently asleep on his lap, but he silently cussed
himself for even touching Jaimz in that way.
That way, which led to thoughts of wrongness, Jaimz was not female, he
was not Zaran, there would be no cubs, and Jaimz could only ever be a
friend. Kaiel could only ever be Jaimz’
friend, even if he saved him, he still could only be his friend.
Watching his
special friend sleep Kaiel came to a decision, it would change everything, but
it was the right decision to make. When
Jaimz awoke he would be ready to tell him about his decision.
Jaimz awoke to find fur under his cheek, he instantly thought of Lorz and panicked for an instant, then he calmed, recalling that Lorz had done him a favor and died already. Well a double-edged favor considering he was so damn sick from Lorz’ little gift, but still not to have to fight Lorz made this newest fight worth it. The warmth and scent of the fur beneath his cheek belonged to another. He lifted his head to find himself stretched pretty much across Kaiel’s somnolent body. His friend had stayed with him, providing his body as a cushion. Jaimz was actually touched. He liked Kaiel a lot and thought that they would make great pals.
When Jaimz moved,
Kaiel, ever sensitive to motion also started to stir toward wakefulness. He sat away from the big cat, for indeed
Kaiel was like a huge, intelligent and slightly domesticated lion to him, a
very big and beautiful lion king. It
was true that he had a more humanoid face, with barely any muzzle at all, and a
mouth that was rather humanoid too though darker fleshed like the pad of his
broad and flat nose, which had none of the bifurcation that Terran cats had,
but his broad face, wide cheekbones, deep golden eyes and handsome nose only
attributed to his leonine features, that coupled with his mane which framed
nearly his entire face leaving only his chin and jaw bare though hide covered
and his mobile ears which were partially hidden in his mane at the side of his
head only completed the picture. Lorz
had looked similar to his younger brother, though his face was longer and
narrower and his ruff had really made his cheekbones seem sharp, whereas
Kaiel’s light ruff merely accentuated his.
He was waiting for
Kaiel to fully wake up when he noticed that his med-cuff was flashing a faint
red glow. Frowning he pushed that wrist
behind him though he wondered if it was his own body that had woke him, telling
him that he was in need of another dose.
He sighed, he wanted to beat this thing that Lorz had cursed him with,
but he was growing more concerned that time was growing short. He knew that Medic V’Ran would receive the
warning soon, if he hadn’t already and would be coming to medicate him again,
so he wasn’t worried that he’d have another of those headaches that would knock
him right out. That was still
incredible, he didn’t remember collapsing, but what else could have happened
for him to end up back in bed with no memory of how he’d ended up there. Again he sighed, and he wondered just how
long he had to fight this thing.
Distracted he
didn’t notice Kaiel wake up, nor did he sense anything until he felt his hair
being stroked again. He looked past
Kaiel’s hand and wondered why Kaiel like to pet his hair so much, he didn’t mind
really, Kaiel felt safe. But he did
remember that Lorz had liked to pet him, and so had Ham when Lorz had let the
big fighter have him. He grimaced
remembering that, Ham made Lorz seem gentle in comparison, even though, in
comparison though Ham was bigger then Lorz in one way he actually wasn’t, which
in itself had been a relief. He closed
his eyes against recalling Ham and how vigorous he was even if he didn’t match
Lorz for size and finally muttered, “God…” when he couldn’t quite make the
memory go away.
“What? What is wrong?”
Jaimz jerked back
in response, forgetting momentarily about Kaiel and his hand stroking his
hair. Kaiel’s hand fell away, but
nothing showed on his face. Jaimz lay
down again beside him but not touching him this time, “I was just…remembering
something.” He murmured.
Kaiel looked at him
in the darkness of the room and even though Jaimz could make out the silvery
outlines of Kaiel’s face and mane and those night silvered eyes he wondered how
much better Kaiel could see him in the dark.
Kaiel didn’t ask anything more, for which Jaimz was grateful, for
remembering stuff like that was terribly embarrassing.
Kaiel continued to
watch him, and then he rolled over onto his side, toward Jaimz, and propped his
head up on his hand. He looked down at
Jaimz who was watching him, waiting for him to speak most likely, so he decided
not to make him wait.
“Jaimz I have
something I want to tell you.” He murmured softly, as if he was afraid others
were listening.
Jaimz moved onto
his side to, and copied his position. “Um?”
Kaiel was suddenly
nervous, and let his head drop back to the bedding. He still kept watching Jaimz though, waiting as he said, “Lorz
isn’t the only one in my family who can Tag.”
In the dark he
noticed Jaimz’ eyes widen, even without the nightglow that the Zaran had; those
green eyes still seemed to glow faintly.
Not waiting for Jaimz to reply Kaiel pressed on, “You don’t have to die
Jaimz, you can be saved. Lorz signature
can be masked. It wouldn’t have to be
like…it was with Lorz, the urge to mate only happens between the Tag Mates
after 72 hours, that’s when the addiction flares, but it doesn’t have to be
like it was with Lorz. It can be all
very professional and proper, just to relieve the urge and then just friendship
for the rest of the time. It can even
be just friendly that time too, oh I know that there has to be a joining to
relieve the addiction, but that shouldn’t matter should it?”
Jaimz was staring
at him, and he had moved a bit farther away.
“What are you saying Kaiel?”
“I’m your friend
aren’t I Jaimz? You like me don’t you
Jaimz?” Kaiel asked anxiously.
Jaimz wasn’t
comfortable lying down anymore, he sat up, curling his long legs under
him. “Of course. I like you Kaiel.”
Kaiel sat up as
well, “See, I like you too Jaimz, it could be perfect, we are friends so it
would work and you would be safe and well.”
Jaimz was frowning
at him now, “What are you talking about?”
Kaiel froze,
hearing something cautionary in Jaimz’ tone, but he noticed the med-cuff was
flashing a brighter and brighter tone so he had to press on with his case. “I could be your Tag Mate Jaimz.”
Jaimz gasped, and
suddenly was right off the bed.
“You?” And he was backing away,
looking panicked and afraid. “I thought
you were my friend!” He suddenly
yelled.
Kaiel sensed Jaimz’
fright, but he had to make him understand, “Please Jaimz, I am your
friend! But I also care about you and I
don’t want you to die because of what my brother did to you!”
“You want to take
his place? My God! Oh God!
I thought you were my friend!
But you just want to fuck me—fuck me too!” Jaimz screamed, backing away
as Kaiel came off the bed toward him.
“That’s not
true! Gods Jaimz I’m trying to save
you!” Kaiel cried, hurt by Jaimz’ accusations.
“Liar!” Jaimz screamed, thrusting his whole body
into the denial. “You just want to stick your fuckin rod inside me like he did!
You want to make me bleed and hurt again!
Goddamn you I’m a man! I’m a man
you stupid fucker! I don’t want your
fuckin rod inside me!”
“Its not—I don’t
want—Jaimz please, your med-cuff, check your med-cuff.” Kaiel cried, going from
hurt bewilderment to anxious fear as the cuff started to shine steady red
again.
“Get out! Get out!”
Jaimz howled, backing away until his back hit the new wall, “Leave me
alone!”
Kaiel tried to grab
at that wrist cuff to show Jaimz, but Jaimz screamed and pushed away, crying,
“Don’t touch me! Get away from me! Oh God Oh God your just like him! You just want to fuck me.” He was actually
crying, tears poured unheeded down his icy cheeks even as he screamed such foul
untruths. Kaiel didn’t know what to do,
but he knew that if he approached Jaimz that it just frightened him more,
however to leave him in this state was criminal.
“Please Jaimz, I
would never hurt…”
“Liar! Liar you want to fuck me! Oh God, help me! Help me God. I want to go home, Oh God…I want to go home!” Jaimz
cried, even as he started to slide down against the wall toward the floor.
Suddenly someone
else was there, pushing Kaiel aside and moving to grab Jaimz even as he was
collapsing. Tears in his own eyes Kaiel
saw that it was Kang to the rescue.
Bitterly he muttered, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to frighten him.”
Kang hovered over
the huddled human, listening to his ramblings and crying while administering
the dose. He didn’t understand what had
passed, but he thought that it was more likely Jaimz’ illness that had caused
this then anything Kaiel had done, he could see how horrified Kaiel was by all
of this. He straightened once Jaimz had
grown quiet and glanced at Kaiel, asking, “Just what did you say to him that
set him off.”
Kaiel looked at him
blankly, his eyes were utterly dead, “Nothing.
Nothing that matters anyway.
He’s going to die…and I can’t make him take me.”
He choice of words
were strange to the medic, but Kang was more concerned for his patient at the
moment, Kaiel’s emotional wounds would have to be looked after later. For once, he noticed that Kaiel didn’t come
running to help carry Jaimz back to his bed, even though he was this close he
made no move to help, so Kang gathered the slight figure up in his big arms, it
was as easy as picking up a cub, and carried him still deliriously muttering
back to his bed. Once he had Jaimz
settled he turned back to Kaiel and found to his surprise that the young male
had left. Puzzled he turned back to
Jaimz; the youngling’s eyes were still overflowing with tears.
He stroked his
head, which had always calmed him before and whispered, “Go to sleep.”
But this time Jaimz
flinched and cried forlornly, “He wants to fuck me.”
Having been with
Jaimz long enough to learn what that word meant, Kang wasn’t really surprised
that it had come to this, with Jaimz so ill and Kaiel very likely deeply fond
of him, Kaiel may have instigated something that was perfectly innocent which
Jaimz flip-flopped into something not so innocent. Those poor cubs, he felt deeply sorry for both of them. “You need to sleep Jaimz.” He gently
insisted.
Sleepily, his
tearing eyes growing heaving even though he was resisting, Jaimz cried
blurrily, “I thought he was my friend, why did he say he wants to fuck me? Why?”
“I’m sure he
didn’t.” Kang soothed tenderly.
Quieting ever so
gradually, Jaimz sobbed, “Why do Zarans’ want to fuck me? I’m a boy…I’m a boy.”
“Yes, yes… shhhh,
you need to sleep.” Kang coaxed, thinking how very young his youngling
was. It took a while, and even once
Jaimz grew quite, tears still formed on his lashes and trickled down his white
cheeks.
Now that Jaimz was
asleep he had time to be worried about Kaiel, but he couldn’t leave Jaimz
alone, not anymore, for the illness had advanced too far. He called for assistance, knowing that
somebody had to be awake, no one could have slept through Jaimz’ terror, at
least not easily. When a pair of young
house staffers arrived, he breathed easier.
He made up another dose and instructed them on how to deliver the dose
properly and what to watch for and then he went looking for Kaiel.
That Kaiel was not
in his room he discovered first, he went back to Jaimz’ room to ask the
staffers if they had an idea where Kaiel might have gone. After a moment one of them said, “He might
have gone to the east garden. Sometimes
when he can’t sleep he goes there.”
Thanks, he said,
moving toward east, even if he wasn’t sure exactly where the east garden
was. He hadn’t really been touring the
Pride lands since his arrival, but he had a feeling he knew where the east
garden was if a vague memory of trees, flowers, paths and benches served as the
right memory. Out into the starlit
darkness he went, he headed away from the house a short distance, around a low
flowered hill and down into a little vale, the vale was a garden alive with
scents and sounds, he followed his nose to one particular scent, different from
all the rest.
Being a city cat,
he wasn’t very quiet and Kaiel had already lifted his head from his hands well
before he reached him. With out turning
to face him, the young male asked, “Is he ok?”
Kang, not looking
at Kaiel who didn’t seem to want to be visually acknowledged, came around and
sat on an edge of the bench Kaiel was sitting on. He had to shift his broad cheeks over until he was comfortable,
and he grumbled that maybe he should lose a little weight, though he had always
been comfortable in his body before.
“He’s asleep.”
Kaiel ducked his
head again. Though he was carefully not looking Kang noticed how Kaiel’s
shoulders heaved with deep emotion.
“The illness is
progressing at a dangerous rate now.” Kang murmured needlessly, “I doubt he’ll
make it to another sunset. He’s too
sick to fight now, it will be all I can do to manage his pain while his system
shuts down.”
Kaiel glanced at
him, then hastily away, but Kang saw the suspicious dark steaks in his hide,
which ran along side his nose.
“What…will it be like for him?”
Kang sighed, “One
time he’ll go to sleep…and he simply won’t wake up.”
Kaiel shuddered
again, off to his side, hoarsely he whispered, “I want him to live, I can make
him live. I could, but then I would be
just like my brother. Even if I did it
to save him, I would be like Lorz come back—to him I would be.”
Kang heard him, but
didn’t totally understand him. “What
are you saying?”
Kaiel cocked his
head at him and smiled grimly, “I’m flawed, just like my brother. I can save Jaimz, but he’s terrified of me…
He said—he said terrible things. Maybe
true things… he makes me want to do things… But he’s my friend! I’m his friend,
I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do those things except when the Tag needs it, only then
and only just for the Tag! But he wouldn’t hear me… maybe he heard too
much? Gods what am I to do? I can’t let him die.”
Kang knew, he just
knew, looking at Kaiel, that he had found his means to save Jaimz. Kaiel had the Tag.
Kang shook his head
and laughed softly in relief, “So then, all this time that I’ve been looking
through records, you were always there?
What were you waiting for?”
Kaiel glared at
him, “I was waiting to see if he was going to get better. You said his stubbornness—.”
“Yes, yes, but you
could have told me, then I wouldn’t have needed to worry so much.” Kang
grouched, “You see I’ve come to care for that youngling quite a bit and I
didn’t want to let him die, and now… with you I don’t have too.”
Kaiel lunged
himself to his feet, “You can’t force him!
You can’t force him to accept me!
It can only be his choice!” He
growled fiercely, “It must only be his choice.
The alternative is too…unpleasant to contemplate.”
Kang looked up at
the first young male and nodded, “Of course it will be his choice. But do you really think he’ll choose death
over the other?”
Kaiel shrugged his
massive shoulders and paced slightly forward, “I don’t know what he’d
choose. He made it clear he wouldn’t
willingly choose me! Gods I didn’t mean
to frighten him like that!” he howled desperately.
Kang stood up and
placed his arm across the young male’s tense shoulders, “You must understand
that Jaimz is very ill. What he said to
you, it was probably involuntary, he’s scared and lashing out right now, not willing
to admit defeat but not really able to fight any more. He’s very young and he’s facing a future
that looks very grim.”
Kaiel snorted
humorlessly, “Yeah, with me.”
Kang shook his
head, “No, death is the future he’s seeing right now, and he doesn’t want to
die.” He turned the young male toward
him. “You have to believe that Kaiel
Ni, Jaimz does not want to die, his drive to live is very strong, his Human
stubbornness is proof of that. The
problem is he hasn’t quite resolved that he won’t be able to fight this thing
in a manner that he expects.”
“He can’t control
it.”
Kang nodded, “He
hasn’t had much control of his fate since he arrived in Zaran space, and now he
is facing the very real possibility that he’s going to lose total control of
everything. Life to that youngling is
an experience to be lived to the fullest.
Oh yes, he will choose life.”
Kaiel’s shoulders
slumped, “But how can I talk to him again?
I frightened him so much… He was screaming Kang Ni, screaming.”
“Then, you don’t
talk to him until he asks for you, and he will ask for you. In the meantime I will talk to him, coax him
toward choosing properly.”
Kaiel looked at
him, “In the end though…you won’t let him go, will you?”
Kang wouldn’t, even
if he had to drug those two cubs to get them to perform, though he suspected
that by the time Jaimz was ready to choose that he’d be so sick that it
wouldn’t matter whether he was willing or not anymore. “Let’s hope that we don’t have to go that
far.” Was all he said, for wasn’t it better to leave that last bit
unspoken.
“Go on back inside,
wash your face and go to bed. Tomorrow
is going to be a very…very long day.”
Never had truer
words been spoken. It was a day in the
furnace of torment by all accounts, even though Kaiel never stepped through the
door into Jaimz’ room, the rumors of fever and chills, blinding headaches,
steady intravenous med drip and around the clock monitoring nonetheless kept
him fully informed of what was happening in that bedroom. For Kaiel outside the room things weren’t
much better, for in the night a predator had gotten into the calving grounds
and killed nine newborn calves and two pregnant cows. The calving grounds were close to a village, which had many cubs
and the village Pridemother and the families with cubs (of which nearly all
were) were extremely worried.
Kaiel had gone out
to the calving grounds to inspect the damage and had just been stunned by
slaughter. Hunters hunted, they took
what they needed and moved on, this hunter had killed surely for the pleasure
of it. Though the bodies were mangled
and torn up there was hardly a sign that any large predator had attempted to
eat them. And to kill so many was
madness. He studied the ground, looking
for signs of the animal’s path. He knew
it had to be a big predator, and when he saw that the pugmark it left behind
matched one of the big cats, he sighed morosely, for he hated hunting the
cats. They were kin, though extremely
distant kin, and extremely smart though often selective hunters. For the Plains Cat to kill so
indiscriminately, and so recklessly bespoke of illness or some other problem
that had driven the cat to madness. A
mad cat was indeed a danger not to be taken lightly, especially if there were
young cubs in an area close to its last kill zone. The cats tended to come back.
“Nerell Ni did you
say that the young males tracked the beast to its lair?” he asked, trying to
recall what Lan Nerell, head of the village head said earlier.
Lan Nerell a gray
maned female with northern stock by her appearance glanced off toward the distant
shimmering hills and nodded grimly.
“K’Lan Ni, they did say that they tracked it to its lair, but
unfortunately it did double back on them.”
He winced, “Was
anyone hurt?”
“Zeyer has a nasty
gash.” Nerell muttered impassively.
“Can any of the
young males guide me and my hunters to that lair?” He wondered.
“They did say that
it ran away from the lair.” She grunted.
He sighed and
persevered; “Nonetheless I would like to check the lair, besides the beast may
have returned if it thought it safe.”
“K’Lan Ni I can
take you to the lair.” Piped up a suspiciously young voice. Nerell sputtered and hissed upon seeing the
youth, indeed barely more than a cub, come into view.
“Back to the
village Lan Drey!”
Drey drew himself
up proudly, “But I know the way Pridemother!
I can take them right its lair!”
He was a cub with a shocking tawny red mane and pale green eyes, a very
rare eye color indeed for a Zaran.
“K’Lan Ni let me show you the way?
Please!”
A cub, Kaiel taken aback thought, a cub, wanting to be
an adult. Those cub’s eyes reminded
him of another pair of green eyes, and he winced again, wondering how Jaimz was
faring. He did not like being so far
out of reach, what if Jaimz needed him now?
He didn’t need to take on the responsibility of caring for a cub, but if
this cub could get him to the creature’s den then it would be destroyed all the
sooner. With the barest of nods he
indicated that the cub could come… much to Nerell’s disapproval.
When Nerell tried
to overrule his decision concerning the cub he overrode her protests simply by
ignoring her and saying, “I want the village protected,” he turned to one of
his Chief Hunter’s sub lieutenants and said, “see to the safety of the village,
pull whatever males necessary into the security.” He didn’t bother to say that
protecting the village also meant protecting males and not putting any male at
needless risk, especially one that was to old, to young, or infirm or
otherwise. He pointed out over the
bloodstained birthing grounds, “Have these cows and their calves driven closer
to the main house, you can even pen them in the north field, that will be close
enough to house for us to protect of the cat comes at them again, and fire this
entire area, the stench of char should drive the beast away if it does come
back.”
The sub lieutenant
nodded and called his team around him, Kaiel watched for a moment then seeing
that he had everything in good order he moved on to another subject, bringing
Nerell back into the conversation he said, “If that cub is badly injured we
have a medic up at the Main house.”
Nerell, still
clearly unhappy with him over Drey groused, “Why can’t you order him to come
down to the Village?”
Kaiel thought about
how to explain and finally decided the truth was best, “I have a sick family
member back at the house, so Medic V’Ran can’t go too far away from him at any
time right now. Nonetheless Zeyer can
go to the Main house and receive treatment for his wound.”
If Nerell knew
about Lorz being dead (likely since news traveled fast) and his father being
away, she said nothing, merely snorted and turned away. Kaiel let her decide what to do next, for he
had a dangerous marauding cat to deal with and he couldn’t worry about her
affronted sensibilities. He moved out
toward the cars.
The cub marched
proudly at his side, thrusting his chest out and throwing his shoulders
back. Kaiel glanced at the cub as his
team headed for the range cars (a hardy and high sprung vehicle meant to travel
on rough terrain), “You understand you do exactly as I instruct you, I don’t
want you getting into any sort of trouble.”
Eagerly Drey
nodded, “Yes sir!” and he danced excitedly ahead.
He smiled faintly,
wondering if he had been this eager at the same age, probably, he answered
himself, though he’d had a rather different up bringing. The closest he’d ever gotten to a dangerous
animal was in the hunt, and during the hunt there were always plenty of senior
hunters and their lieutenants to see to his protection. It was, he supposed, the sign of a
privileged upbringing. Even now he
thought as his team strode to the waiting cars, destroying that marauding cat
was important, but he was fully cognizant to the fact that his chief hunter and
the remaining team would also be watching carefully to make sure he didn’t get
injured. He vowed he’d work diligently
toward not being a burden in this hunt.
As he climbed into
the front vehicle and instructed young Drey to take a seat beside him he
wondered how Jaimz was doing and if he should contact to main house to let
Medic V’Ran know where he was and how he could be reached. The Sat-Coms would be able to reach him
wherever he went; there was no such place as out of range anymore unless he
deliberately left the means to reach him behind. He would not take that risk no matter what, and it wasn’t only
for Jaimz’ sake that he couldn’t risk being out of contact, the truth of the
matter was he had to be equally concerned for his men. He decided not to call; besides Administer
Lan knew what he was about and would know how to reach him if necessary.
As it was Drey led
the way deeper into the pride lands almost to the foot of the Sheehan
Mountains, a lush rift ran through this part of the pride lands, teaming with
an abundance of trees and water, it was a good hunting ground for climbing prey
though there were only a few easy ways to get down into the rift. There was only one way that the vehicles
could take, a narrow route that cut back again and again as it descended into
the rift, it was only one vehicle wide and very treacherous, but considering
how long it would take to navigate the steep wall with out the vehicles Kaiel
said nothing as the chief Hunter started down the narrow path.
“Once we reach the
bottom we have to make for east, head near the waterfall, cause its den is close
to the waterfall.” Drey instructed, craning to see down into the vertical drop.
Kaiel estimated
that on foot the trek would have taken about two hours, and he guessed that the
cubs probably knew of a faster (likely more dangerous) way in and out of the rift
as well. So he asked, “How did you find
the beast den?”
The cub grinned
toothily, “Oh that was easy, Zeyer and Trev thought they knew were the cat had
come from cause they thought they might have seen it before, so when the cat
attacked the breeding grounds Zeyer and Trev thought that they would go and
wait for it and kill it.”
Kaiel suspected
something more and murmured, “It sounds as if only Zeyer and Trev went on this
dangerous journey.”
Though he didn’t
exactly glance at the cub he did see one ear flick back with
embarrassment. Still the cub said
boldly, “I followed them, Zeyer and Trev would have never let me come
otherwise. They think I’m still a
cubling.”
Kaiel tried not to
smile at the cub’s affronted tone, for he too thought that Drey was just a
cubling, but he would never let on and destroy the young ones spirit. “That was very brave of you.” Was all he
said, though he was already thinking that he’d arrange for Drey to finish
growing up with less of Zeyer and Trev’s impulsive actions to influence him.
The cub went on to
explain, “Yeah, I followed so quietly that they never even knew I was there…and
they are older than me. I saw them head
toward the waterfall and they started throwing rocks in this dark place in the
rocks near the waterfall. I guess when
nothing came out Zeyer got brave ‘cause he decided to go check it out.” The cub fell silent for a moment, “Course
the cat was home and it was pissed off too so when Zeyer got too close it
dashed out and slashed at him. Course
when it came out like that it scared Zeyer so he was already running away, else
I s’pect that Zeyer probably would have been real bad hurt. All he got was a nasty scratch, and Trev had
his fathers old gun so he shot at it and scared it away and then I came out and
helped get Zeyer back home. All he did
was whine and moan about that little scratch all the way home too.”
Kaiel glanced over
the cub’s head and shared a smile with the chief hunter before directing
another question at the cub. “Did you
happen to get a good look at the cat?” he was concerned that it could be the
wrong cat.
The cub lifted pale
green eyes. “Uh huh. It looked kind of funny too… and it smelled
bad, like it was sick. It kind of
looked like its face had collapsed on this side,” the cub indicated, rubbing
the left side of his velvety jaw. “And the eye on that side was all white
too. It looked really weird.”
Kaiel felt himself
relax, until that moment he hadn’t been sure what he was facing. The idea of a healthy cat doing that kind of
senseless damage to the birthing grounds had just seemed inconceivable to him,
but now, knowing that the cat was sick and maybe even dieing he could better
understand the madness behind those killings.
The cat maybe couldn’t eat or at least not well if the damage to its
left side was as Drey described, so it might have been killing out of
uncontrollable hunger and immeasurable pain.
Yes, killing the cat would be an act of mercy.
He settled back
down and tried to think of nothing except dealing with the immediate problem,
even though he was worried about another, which he could as yet do nothing
about.
Medic V’Ran howled
in frustration. All the staffers that
Jaimz had roped into re-arranging his workroom again stopped and stared at him
in fascination. He ignored them and
thereby preserved his dignity as he grabbed the stubborn human youngling by his
chill arm and pulled him through into the other room. “I told you to stay in your bed!” he growled trying to keep his
words for the foolish cub alone.
Jaimz couldn’t
resist, even though he wanted to, for he lacked the strength to fight most
Zaran’s even when he wasn’t nearly on deaths door. Nonetheless there was nothing wrong with his mind even if the
occasional bout of dizziness took it on a spin. “I need to work on the Tag Solution.”
Medic V’Ran
scoffed, “You need to be in bed resting is where you need to be.”
“I’m fine!” Jaimz
protested half-heartedly, even as the medic bodily picked him up and sat him on
the side of his bed, he looked like a cub sitting on that tall bed, what with
his feet dangling well above the floor but Jaimz didn’t think about that as he
stubbornly started to push himself back off the bed again.
“That’s enough.”
Kang growled, pinning the youngling despite his vigorous protests.
“But I need to
work!” Jaimz defied, pushing at the big old lions hands as they gently but
unrelentingly held him down.
“No, you need to
rest. Look at your wrist band Jaimz…it
has been blinking red for the last hour…that means even when I get the meds
into you, you are still fighting headaches, chills and fever…”
“Which is why I
have to keep working, maybe the solution will come to me if I keep working on
it.” Jaimz grumbled.
“What you need is
to be still and quiet and to stop taking your lines off. You’re interfering with your med-drip when
you disconnect it that way.” Kang scolded, sterilizing and reattaching the
lines to the cannule inserted in Jaimz’ wrist.
He’d had to use Cub sized equipment just to find one that would work for
Jaimz without rupturing his vein as it was, and now the stupid youngling was
disconnecting his own med-drip so that he could work when he should be
resting. “The solution you need is that
idiot Kaiel.” He meant idiot because
Kaiel had disappeared from the main house when he was needed most. Oh he knew roughly where Kaiel was and he
knew that he could contact him if things looked like they were heading for
crunch-time…hopefully Kaiel would be back well before that time, for he really
didn’t want Jaimz to start fully shutting down before Kaiel arrived to rescue
him, since he wasn’t sure that Jaimz would actually recover if that was the
case…
Jaimz said nothing,
and simply rolled away when the medic released him, not toward the edge of the
bed, but more toward the middle. Kang
sat down on the bed and idly stroked the human’s back and said softly, “You
know that Kaiel’s solution is the only solution for you Jaimz.”
Jaimz though lying
on his side, tilted his head enough around to look at the medic. “I don’t have to like it though.”
“No… but you do
like Kaiel. Will it be so bad with
him? I doubt that he’d pressure
you. In fact I believe that he would
wait for you instead to decide when to answer the Tag demand, even if that
meant to push it as far to the limit as you could… which I suspect you would
do.”
Jaimz’ cheeks
reddened, “You don’t know what you are saying… It will hurt.”
“Would you rather
die?” the question was loaded and Kang knew it.
Again silence,
Jaimz turned away again, looking thoughtfully out onto the vista that his windows
provided, he saw nearly the same view of the Pride lands as was seen from the
receiving room, only his view had a clear view of some of the picturesque
gardens and meadows that framed the house.
“I don’t want to die Doc… It’s just so hard to think about having to put
up with that again… and this time willingly.
I’m a male, and it’s hard for me to think of what I’ll have to put up
with.”
Kang nodded, “Of
course, but think of it from Kaiel’s point of view. He isn’t the one at risk of dieing, and yet to save you he’s
willing to tie himself to you in such away that if you die…he will die
too. There is no way to save the Taggee
remember? And furthermore, he’s a young
male too, and yet he’s willing to do what needs to be done for your sake. I’m sure he’d much rather take a nubile
female to mate and have cubs one day.”
“He can still do
that!” Jaimz flared, then he subsided, “It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t get
turned into the girl… he’s not on the receiving end. He just has to stick it in and pump away while I’m the one that
has to go through all that pain and – and the shame!”
“Shame? Is it shameful for two males to come
together so?” Kang wondered, thinking it was odd if Jaimz’ culture frowned on
the idea of males taking comfort from each other. He shrugged, “And as for the pain, yes you are small but it is
not impossible for our kinds to couple as you and Lorz have already
unfortunately proven … but you seem to forget that Kaiel is not Lorz. He is gentle, considerate, thoughtful and
your friend. Do you not think that
Kaiel would take every precaution to spare you as much pain as is possible?”
Again a long
silence, until finally, “I—I don’t know what to think,” he sighed and turned
toward Kang, rolling into his arms and clinging to him. “He hasn’t come to see me, maybe he hates me
now because of the things I said?”
Kang stroked the
youngling’s fawn-colored hair and his trembling back and soothed, “He does not
hate you. He is very concerned about
you.”
Those aqua eyes
swimming with aquamarine tears lifted to look up at him, “Then why isn’t he
here?”
“Because a matter
concerning the Pride lands came up that he, as head of the house while his
father is away, must attend to.” He
explained, petting and soothing Jaimz as the youngling settled against his chest.
Jaimz quieted,
though he murmured sleepily (at last), “He needs to be here, I need to talk
with him.”
For a long time
Jaimz was still and quiet, so that Kang wondered if his patient had quite
literally fallen asleep on him, then Jaimz whispered, “I can remember
everything I said… how could I have been so hor-horrible?”
“Do not blame
yourself, that was the illness speaking.” Kang assured.
However Jaimz would
not be deterred, “No that was me, every bit of it was me…. But even so… even so, now that I can even—think
about it… I wonder if that ugly part of me will be all that comes out when I
need to talk to him about it? I wonder
what I’ll do then. I wonder…”
“What you need now
is just to rest. Kaiel will come back
and you can talk to him then (He better get back soon too!).” Kang promised
soothingly, deciding that if Kaiel was indeed not back soon that he would be
calling him back, regardless of his Pride duties.
“Um,” Jaimz
murmured pressing comfortably into his warmth, “Just, don’t let me sleep to
long… I still have…work to do…”
And that, was that,
as Kang felt Jaimz’ body relax in real, though, light sleep. He was carefully monitoring Jaimz’ sleep
patterns to prevent Jaimz from slipping into a deeper and potentially fatal
sleep. His human youngling was far
along in his illness, the damage though not yet irrevocable, but with every
hour slipped him closer and closer to the brink of no return. Kang simply didn’t want to let this little
human slip that far over, for he had come, surprisingly, to care too much for
him even in the short time he’d gotten to know him.
Once he was sure
that Jaimz was going to stay asleep he very carefully laid him back onto the
big bed and went to find a COM.
Kaiel glanced
toward the rising of the first moon, Azoree, with a bit of trepidation. Though the sun still sat fairly high in the
evening sky, Azoree signaled that the settling of darkness was actually not so
far off. He and the hunters had found
the den but as he had feared it was empty when they arrived which meant the cat
had found a new place to hole up or was out on the prowl again. He had the Hunters with there trackers
looking for the most recent sign of the cat even now but he was worried that if
he lingered any longer that he would be too late for Jaimz.
The cub who had
barely strayed from his side was growing ever more restless and bold as the
time passed with out the cat making an appearance. Kaiel watched as the cub moved toward the waterfall, hopping
along tumbled stones and boulders as he made his progress. As he watched Kaiel was in the perfect
position to see what no one else could.
Softly he called out to Drey, (not wanting to startle the cub), “Stop
Drey…come back right now.”
Even though his
voice was soft, something in his tone warned the cub to obey him, but his
stance alone alerted the Hunters and brought them slowly, casually even, to his
side. He placed his hand on Drey’s
shoulder and held the cub securely while he murmured, “No wonder the trackers
are having trouble locating the beast.
It took to the water.”
Indeed peering at
them beneath a thinner stream of the waterfall was one baleful eye; the rest of
the creature was pretty much in shadow and mostly hidden by the streams of
water cascading down all around it. Its
spotted gray hide blended well with the rocks and the water, so well in fact
that Kaiel probably wouldn’t have seen it except that it had shifted and
exposed its long flank when Drey had began to cavort on the rocks of the
opposite shore, where the water flowed away from the body of the
waterfall. Even with its flank exposed
it had only been the brief flash of movement which had alerted Kaiel to its
presence for otherwise it blended all together well with the background.
Now that he knew
what he was looking at he could make out the rest of the cat through the gaps
in the water streams, it was a massive animal, at least 15 feet long from
muzzle to tail, its pewter gray hide was covered in black rosette-like spots
which were bigger but less dense at the shoulders and chest, and smaller but
more dense at the hind until the tail which like its lower legs was actually
ringed instead of spotted. It had a
black crest-like mane running from its forehead to where it thinned out at the
middle of its back, as well as a thinner ridge of black hair running from its
throat to its navel. It had massive
shoulder humps, made to support great pouncing muscles and powerful hind and
fore limbs… but this creature was emaciated and far thinner than it should be.
They had found their
marauder, the slayer of newborn calves and pregnant cows however so long as it
stayed behind the waterfall getting to it would not be at all easy and Kaiel
could not authorize just shooting it there, for its rotting carcass would
pollute the waterway for a long distance downstream.
“See, I told you it
was sick.” Drey crowed when briefly the mountain cat (his estimation that it
was prairie cat was off by quite a bit) exposed its head and coughed a low
warning at them. It very well knew that
they knew it was there. When it emerged
from the water for that brief moment the damaged side of its face and that
milky eye was exposed, revealing the rot that was driving it mad. That brief exposure to the water had hurt it
and it snarled as it withdraw back into the protection behind the waterfall,
undoubtedly there was a cave or a natural cut away back there which the cat had
found to its liking, though getting there meant that it had to get wet, which
it wouldn’t have liked, the mountain cat lived in cooler climes and was less
likely to enjoy a cool drip on a hot summer evening to stave off the heat as
the prairie cat would often do.
“Well what do we
do? I’m not going over there to try to
flush it out, it looks quite happy to me.” Chief Hunter Wren wondered aloud,
frowning toward the cat’s nearly unassailable position.
“I bet its
hungry…starving, it can’t eat anything but the tenderest or most thoroughly
rotten meat I’m willing to bet.” That
was all the Kaiel said, but Wren picked his unspoken suggestion up immediately.
“Yeah, we could
bait the cat to come out. It’s so
hungry that if it saw something that looked easy it would come. One of my hunters noticed a woos pod
downstream, I’ll alert him to catch a few and bring them back to this
position. Leaving them high and dry and
stinking like they do the Cat will be intrigued and being hungry it will come
to get them.”
Kaiel nodded, he’d
fished for woos often as a boy before he’d decided that the stinky oily fish
just wasn’t worth the effort even though its size (a full grown woos could be
anywhere from 10 to 15 feet long) made it exciting to catch and the jeweled
hide could be used for leather (one of the main products woos were farmed
for…next to there oil which was used in perfume). But the meat of the woos was very tender and the smell wouldn’t
be a deterrent to the cat, wild cats were used to eating things that could
really get stinky and ripe.
The plan was to
take two or three of the fish, the hunters would just gaff them and not waste
actual time trying to fish them out of the stream, and pile them on the
opposite shore and then leave the area.
A few of the hunters would then return and take up positions and take
out the cat from a safe distance and once it was dead they would then dispose
of it well away from the waterway. It
seemed like a doable plan to Kaiel and the chief hunter certainly believed that
it would work, but it came down to it that Kaiel wouldn’t be able to stay and
see how it was all concluded because the call he’d been half expecting came in
with a simple, terse… “Come back. He
needs you.” Nothing else, but he didn’t need anything else to spur him to
action. Though they’d had to leave the
cars when the trail gave out they weren’t that far away, it would only take a
quick jog to reach where they had been parked.
He made sure that he wouldn’t leave the hunters without adequate
transportation and then taking the cub with him he headed back to the
cars.
He took the last
car (parked farthest away) and started back, the trip which had taken half an
hour from the crest of the rift to the rift floor took him a reckless 20
minutes, Drey crowed and hooted the entire time thinking that his crazy driving
was great fun, but Kaiel was shaking when he finally crested the path and
returned to the savanna where he pressed for immediate acceleration. Drey was happy to ride with him until he
realized that they had passed the turn off for the village, the cub wasn’t
suspicious but he started asking questions and distracting Kaiel, so while
Kaiel kept his eyes straight on the gravel track ahead he answered the cubs
questions as concisely as he could.
“You will stay at
the main house tonight.” To which Drey expressed a great deal of enthusiasm and
delight, likely because he’d be able to tell all his friends that K’Lan Ni had
invited him to spend the night in the Pride house.
“Actually, I was
thinking of seeing if someone would like to take you on as an assistant.” Kaiel
explained, “Which means that you might end up living at the main house for a
good long while (which wouldn’t preclude the visiting back and forth of friends
and family). Of course I don’t want to
get your hopes up to high, it has to be his choice and he’s…well he’s pretty
sick right now. But tomorrow if he’s up
to it I’ll let him see you and he’ll decide if he’d like to have you help him
with his work.”
“Who? I’ve never helped anybody before! What kind of work? Will I get my own bedroom?”
Kaiel chuckled,
“Who is Jaimz…my…family, He’s a scientist…so you will help with science related
stuff. And yes, you will have your own
bedroom. Just remember that he has to
choose you so please…”
With utter
confidence Drey grinned, “Oh he’ll like me… I’m likeable and I’ll show him that
I can help him…”
Kaiel smiled
briefly at the youngster and thought that he was probably right in all
accounts, and one thing was for sure, Drey wouldn’t be threatening to Jaimz in
fact he was a little bit shorter than Jaimz still and if he finished his
growing up around Jaimz then he was pretty sure that Jaimz would always be easy
around him.
The drive back
along rough roads was accomplished in record time, and Kaiel had to admit that
he drove with reckless speed and only hoped that this one trip wouldn’t provide
a permanent bad driving example for the young cat, who though still years away
from driving on his own…was not to young to start harboring silly ideas which
often revolved around less than worthy heroes and the examples they provided.
He pulled up to the
main house and jumped out of the driver side as soon as the car rolled to a
stop. Drey tumbled out the other side
with cub-like glee, whooping, “That was cool!”
With a hand on the cub’s shoulder he gathered him up and guided him into
the house, immediately he called to Administer Lan Tarl to provide suitable
guest quarters for his young guest and when the administer drew up beside them
he introduced Drey to Tarl and ensured the excited cub that if he had any needs
(such as sleep wear) that Tarl would provide for him. He wasn’t quite ready to abandon the cub to the strangeness of
his sprawling home so he pulled Drey along as he took off into the family wing
of the house.
“This is Jaimz’
room,” he explained as he opened the door and let the cub in ahead of him. He stopped and stared when he saw that the
outer room had been transformed again, but the cub didn’t know about any recent
change so he was just staring about the workroom with wonder and trying to take
in everything at once. “Jaimz is sick
right now, so he won’t be able to see you tonight, but I’m sure tomorrow he’ll
feel up to meeting you.”
He stepped past the
cub, letting the youngling wander toward one of the boards, where it looked as
if Jaimz’ gate project took pride of place.
He moved to the inside door and opening it, peered into the inner room. Immediately he spotted the medic, sitting
beside the bed and reading a book or something, he couldn’t quite make it
out. The medic glanced up and looked
toward him, then rose and came over saying, “Its good to see that you are
back.”
Kaiel looked toward
the bed, even if the bed was cast in gathering shadows of the evening he could
easily make out the sleeper curled up in to near center of the bed. “How is he?”
“He’s sick.” Kang
acknowledged, also turning back to look toward the bed, “But he’s only resting
lightly right now, I don’t think he’s actually asleep.” Indeed Kaiel noticed at
the medic’s own words that Jaimz shifted his position and turned his head to
peer toward them. “He can’t wait much longer though.” Kang continued, and then
glancing into the outer room he exclaimed softly, “Ah…you brought a guest?”
Kaiel turned back
to look at Drey, who was displaying quite a bit of interest as he looked at
Jaimz’ drawings and work even though much of the writings was yet to be
translated into Zaran. Nodding he pulled
the medic into the outer room and introduced them. “Medic V’Ran this is Drey.”
Old grandfatherly
Kang nodded thoughtfully at the cub and slowly smiled as he realized what Kaiel
was up to, at least right at this moment, where Drey fit into the greater
scheme of things he imagined that he would find out, but for now the cub needed
someone to look after him and who better than another guest in the house. Before Kaiel had to ask he had slid his big
arm around the young cubling’s shoulders and exclaimed, “How about we track
down something to eat, I bet that Kaiel hasn’t fed you all day?”
Kaiel watched,
breathing a sigh of relief as the friendly medic took Drey under his wing and
led the equally gregarious cub back out into the hall, now that he knew Drey
was in good hands for the time being and that he would be fed and taken care of
before being shown to his bed Kaiel could set aside concerns about bringing a
young cub in an unfamiliar new place.
He turned back into
the room, closing the door behind him and moved slowly toward the bed. Jaimz was waiting for him, watching him as
he came closer. Kaiel felt a mess; he
hadn’t even shaken the road dust of his tunic or pants, and his fur and mane he
guessed must be more gray than gold at this moment, even possibly streaked here
and there with grime. And yet with
Jaimz watching him he felt strong and vital and ready to face any demon that
was about to beset him.
“Hi,” Jaimz
murmured once Kaiel had reached the bedside.
Kaiel nodded back,
and asked as he set on the edge of the bed, “How do you feel?”
Jaimz chuckled,
though he grimaced as he airily drew his fingers through his tangled hair, “Oh
I’ve definitely felt better.” He explained.
Kaiel looked at
Jaimz, seeing how his face was paler than normal and that it glistened faintly
with sweat. “Jaimz—.” He began.
However Jaimz
interrupted, crying, “This is so hard for me! It isn’t fair! Damn that Lorz for doing this to me!”
Kaiel lightly
stroked Jaimz’ damp face and asked softly, “Would you rather die?”
Jaimz was silent
for a moment, staring at him with those amazing green eyes of his, and finally,
reluctantly he said, “No… I don’t want to die.” That came bitterly, because he
had acknowledged some time ago to himself that he didn’t have the time he
needed to beat the Tag Withdrawal Syndrome on his own.
“Do you…like me
Jaimz?” Kaiel asked, recalling some of what Jaimz had said yesterday.
Jaimz nodded,
“Yes…but…”
“Do you trust me?”
A longer thoughtful
silence ensued, with Jaimz just looking at him as if he could read his
mind. Finally a hesitant nod, “I trust
you.”
Kaiel pressed
ahead, “I only offer this to save you Jaimz, I don’t offer it for myself, only
for you…because…because I like you too and it would be wrong to let you die
because of something my brother gave you.”
Jaimz scowled, “But
I don’t want you to feel responsible for what Lorz did either.”
Kaiel shrugged, “I
have always cleaned up after Lorz…but you are different Jaimz, I have come to
care for you as a good friend and it feels right for me to offer you this
choice.” He looked into Jaimz’ eyes, “And it has to be your choice. I won’t force you.”
And that, knowing
full well that Kaiel could force the issue, made the choice almost easy for
Jaimz, and yet he wasn’t ready to surrender just yet. “But, what about you.
What freedoms will you give up to save me?”
“You don’t need to
think about that.” Kaiel said, shaking his head.
Jaimz scoffed, “Why
not? I’m already a slave to this thing,
but that doesn’t mean you have to become its slave too!”
Kaiel sighed, “But
what choice is there Jaimz, really think about it, what choice is there. Yes, I could choose to not become your new
Tag Mate. Yes I could choose to let you
die. But such a choice would be
impossible for me to live with… Do you understand Jaimz? I could never live with myself if I just let
this—this thing take you. So really and
truly I don’t have a choice other than choosing you.”
Jaimz stared at
him, maybe he was amazed or surprised to hear Kaiel speak that way, but then,
having come to know Kaiel even in this short time, maybe he wasn’t really that
surprised, finally he murmured, “Still, you will be tying yourself to me for
the rest of your life. You will be
tying yourself to my 72-hour schedule.
You will be rearranging your life so that you won’t ever be able to go
to far away from me.” He sighed and lowered his head; “You will be putting
yourself at risk if anything happens to me.”
Kaiel nodded
gravely, “Yes…but all those things are true of you as well, if I am tied to
your cycle you are tied to mine. You
may never be able to return to your home Jaimz.”
Jaimz nodded, still
not lifting his head and sadly acknowledged, “I already thought of that.”
Kaiel hesitantly
reached out and stroked his hand over Jaimz’ tousled hair. “I wish that none of this was happening to
you Jaimz. I wish…I wish that I had met
you first and that you had never crossed paths with Lorz, for he has trapped
you as surely as if he hunted and caged you.
But what I wish…can not be, all that I can offer is to free you of what
Lorz did to you… and in freeing you, re-enslave you once again to the same kind
of monster… though hopefully a less…unpleasant one.” He added with a faintly
hopeful smile.
Jaimz responded to
the smile in Kaiel’s tone by lifting his head and saying… “Ok…free me.”
It was Kaiel’s turn
to stare, for he hadn’t expected Jaimz to give in so soon. But Jaimz smiled faintly at him, “I’ve had
all day to think about it…no even longer than that, and Doc told me things
to….” He sighed and lay back tiredly, “Kaiel I’m dieing, and if I continue to
stubbornly refuse I will die all the sooner.
I have too much I want to do, too many things still to accomplish.” Then
he grinned, it was a spectacular sight to behold, “Besides if I’m alive maybe I
can still find a way to beat the Tag. I
sure wouldn’t be able to do that dead.”
Kaiel grinned
helplessly in response, “You’re incredible Jaimz.”
“Yes, he is.”
Announced Medic V’Ran’s voice from the outer room. Both peered at him in surprise for neither had seen or heard his
return.
“Uh…Kang Ni?”
The stalwart medic
strolled confidently into the room, “Your young guest has eaten a nice meal and
found his very nice new quarters. A
very charming cub that one. Very charming
indeed.”
Jaimz just frowned
at the medic, because he didn’t know whom he was talking about and side stepped
the matter entirely by saying “I have decided to accept Kaiel.”
Kang paused before
the monitor and looked down at the human, “Yes, I pretty much heard that on my
way in.”
“I well then you
know that we mean to…uh, do it.” Jaimz
informed, his cheeks reddening as he spoke.
“Yes yes, I would
hope so, and the sooner you two do it, that better by my reasoning.”
Kang replied obliquely.
Kaiel stifled a
discomfited cough and said, “Then…don’t you think maybe you should leave?”
At that Kang gave
him an affronted looked, “Leave? I
think not. I will be monitoring my
patient minutely to ensure everything goes as it should.”
Now Jaimz was fully
blushing and sputtering in embarrassment, “But…I can’t have an audience wa—watching
as we…we do it!”
Now Kang turned to
him saying blithely, “An audience? What
watching? You can draw the curtain
around the bed… trust me I won’t be snooping in the least. Nonetheless neither do I intend to leave
during what could be your roughest hour.”
Jaimz looked at
Kaiel, Kaiel shrugged helplessly and said, “He is a medic.”
“Absolutely,” Kang
airily exclaimed, “Forget that I’m even here.”
Kaiel, still
covered in road dust started drawing the almost never used bed curtains shut on
two sides, leaving only the side open to the vast savanna view. Jaimz watched him nervously and whispered
worriedly, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
Kaiel stood in the
gathering moonlight on the far side of the bed and shed his dusty tunic and
pants; he dragged his fingers through his mane and gave a quick shake to loosen
whatever dust and grime he could. With
the moonlight silvering his golden pelt he climbed onto the bed, and said
gently, “You don’t have to do anything Jaimz.
I will take care of everything.”
Jaimz watched him, seeing him nude for the first time, the moonlight hid as much as it revealed and Jaimz could only see how well made Kaiel was, how very handsome his big body was, how powerful his limbs were and how very big he was in comparison to his own smaller frame… half panicking Jaimz briefly mused on the amazing fact that here on Z’Rarla he was tiny, though on Earth he was quite tall and considered more than average height at 6’1”. But Kaiel, at 7’9” topped him by more than a foot and a half. The only thing the darkness could neither hide nor reveal was the weight of Kaiel’s likely substantial genitals. Because the Zaran male’s penis (called a rod) was nearly all internal, it would come forth from its sheath at the right moment, but the Zaran male had a good deal more control over it than a human male did. First, because it was internal it would emerge already rigid and it was never really flaccid (like a human males) but it rather retracted back into the body. The Zaran male’s scrotum was not really hidden, but there was a denser fall of fur at that region which sheltered it and made it less apparent unless one was really looking for it.
He shivered, but
made no protest as Kaiel lifted his night-tunic and eased his underpants down
off his hips. He even wordlessly
cooperated as Kaiel slipped the insubstantial piece of fabric completely free
of him and tossed it out the curtained side.
Then he blushed fiercely, though he was glad of the dark to hide his
blush when the medic helpfully tossed something in through the curtain, saying
casually, “You need this Kaiel.”
Kaiel reached
across Jaimz and picked up the tube…he nodded when he saw it, and
Jaimz…watching him, realized what the tube was, and had hide his face to hide
his blushes, though that did nothing to muffle his moan of shame at realizing
the tube was an oil, meant for Kaiel to use to ease his way.
“This is awful,”
Jaimz half cried, “I feel like a new bride on her wedding night!” he joked
lamely.
There was a moment
of silence then a sound that caused Jaimz to peak through his fingers so that
he could see; the sound in the silence was Kaiel, expertly easing his rod free
of its shielding sheath. Jaimz stared,
watching as that rod emerged in all its slick glossy reddish length. He bit his lip to keep from crying out or
protesting what he knew was going to come as he continued to watch while Kaiel
stroked the glistening oil over his length even moving his finger pads over the
restive flare that was not yet distended …that flare was a tapered cone, at
this moment it was still laying flat against the rod, a few inches below the
peak, but as he watched the flare expanded like a peaked mushroom cap. Kaiel lifted his eyes up then, to look at
him. Jaimz helplessly met his gaze for
to do else would be to give in to his growing panic.
Gently Kaiel lifted
him, careful of the lines in his wrist and sat him on his lap. He whimpered, feeling his own body slide
between Kaiel…and the arch of Kaiel’s rod.
He felt that hot slick length slide between his cheeks and push at the
back of his tunic. He looked up at
Kaiel knowing that soon it would happen, the pain and the shame and everything
else that accompanied this. Kaiel lightly
touched his cheek and murmured, “I will be as gentle as I can be… I promise Jaimz.”
Jaimz said nothing
at all; he merely pressed his face into Kaiel’s warmly pelted chest, and
gripped handfuls of fur on his back to hold on to and waited for the
inevitable. It came, as he expected
when Kaiel lifted him up and back. He
whimpered trying not to cry out as Kaiel lowered him onto the peak of his rod
while at the same time those big supporting hands also eased his cheeks open so
that the rod’s tip could touch his waiting anus without hindrance. He shifted, pressing up against Kaiel, nearly
climbing his body, even as his own body lowered over Kaiel’s tapered rod. The first bit, because it was a tapered peak
and it was naturally slick, was always easy, but the flare, even though it
widened gradually the farther he slid upon it, would stretch him to the point
of aching…and the flare wasn’t even the end of the ride, merely the
beginning. He groaned as his anal ring
stretched and stretched to accommodate that flare, and finally bit his lip to
stop a shallow scream as the flare passed the ring and his anus snapped shut
around the thick though not-as-thick shaft of the rod. He hung onto Kaiel, shuddering and crying,
gripping the big cat with arms and legs even as Kaiel held him steady and
didn’t let him go down any farther on the rod.
“Ow…ow…” He whimpered, and lifted his face to look tearfully up at
Kaiel.
“Are you okay?”
Kaiel asked worriedly, waiting with extreme patience while surely he must be
going crazy with the sensation of all that throbbing silky flesh surrounding
him.
Jaimz nodded his
head and laid back again Kaiel’s chest whispering breathily, “Y-yes… I’m fine.”
Kaiel paused for
another moment, allowing Jaimz to grow used to the sensation of having that
fullness inside him again. And then,
still holding Jaimz’ hips to steady and support him, he began to lower him
again over the length of his rod. With
the flare already nestled securely inside, the slick and oily rod slid easily
within that hot throbbing tightness, even as his anal ring tugged and resisted,
the natural slickness assisted by the oil made it impossible to prevent
entry. Instead that resistance seemed
as a throbbing massage guiding him deeper and deeper inside. And Jaimz accommodated, that length
continued to fill him up, easing his innards into accepting it fully. Before he knew it Jaimz realized that he was
straddling Kaiel’s thighs and fully seated upon his rod. After a time he forgot the pain, for it
wasn’t so bad, not like he remembered anyway and he became aware of other
sensations, like that flare, stroking him deep inside his own body. It made him hot and it made his groin throb
and tense in a way that he had never felt with Lorz. This filled him with bitter shame, for he didn’t want to enjoy
this, not at all.
With his shaft
fully seated inside Jaimz’ hot body, Kaiel knew that the next move was to plant
his Tag Spur and the best way to do that was for Jaimz to be on his back and
for him to be above him. He shifted
forward holding Jaimz securely and positioned him on his back. He held his legs up now to either side of
his hips and thrust forward to reseat his rod again. Jaimz groaned, hiding his
face behind his trembling hands once again.
Keeping his hands
securely on Jaimz’ legs to fully support him, Kaiel then withdrew to the
flare’s edge, as he withdrew the spur caught in Jaimz’ hot silky flesh. It caught fast if Jaimz’ gasp was any
indication. There was a rush of heat
between them…a flash of pain they both shared as the tag masked Lorz signature
with Kaiel’ own. Then in that rush of
pain he thrust forward and as he knew it would, the securely hooked spur tore
free of his flesh. Jaimz cried out at
this renewed pain, but it was all Kaiel could do not to fall on him as the loss
of the spur ripped through his big body.
The heat was incredible; it overwhelmed and washed away his senses and
he could do nothing except hang above Jaimz and shudder in agony until the pain
subsided. That same spur, now pushed
deeply into Jaimz’ own soft hot flesh actually began to melt the moment blood
touched it, either Jaimz’ or Kaiel’s.
As it melted it spread its terrible heat through Jaimz’ entire body,
starting right there at his hips and spreading out in waves. Even as the spur melted into him, the
scientific part of him was trying to recall when he’d gone through this before,
the only problem was, that with Lorz it had always been rough and so like rape
if not rape outright so he might not have noticed one horrendous pain over
another.
Gradually the pain
subsided though it left them both dizzy and panting. Dazed and faintly bemused Jaimz stirred toward awareness first
and asked muzzily, “Is that it…is it finished?”
Of course, the
flare was still fully flexed, and though he had been newly Tagged and his body was
already starting to feel better, that new Tag was already demanding they answer
its immediate needs. Kaiel recovered
and straightened above him, never once had he lost complete control of himself
nor let his heavy body rest fully on Jaimz’ lighter one. As his own pain receded and the Tag’s need
rose Kaiel eased his big hands about Jaimz’ hips once more and thrust
forward. Jaimz gasped, shuddering as
the slick length plunged his depths again.
He moaned and heaved; twisting his body in denial even as his loins
throbbed responsively with each thrust of Kaiel’s rod. He was in a kind of agony that felt
incredibly good as that thick rod and that devilish flare stroked his hot
yielding flesh, he cried out again and again as his prostrate was massaged and
it was all he could do to grip Kaiel with his thighs…to do what, slow him
down? Stop him? He didn’t know…he only knew that he was
going insane. “Please…Please…” he cried
breathily…but he didn’t know why he did that either. He just didn’t know what he wanted anymore.
And then it
happened, Kaiel rocked forward and the dam broke, spilling a flood of liquid
heat. Again, with this first release
Kaiel nearly collapsed, panting and shuddering while he hung over Jaimz. Jaimz grew quiet with awareness and he just
started to feel better, even the headache that had been plaguing him all day
began to melt away into nothing. He lay
quiet, with Kaiel panting above him, the two of them still very much connected
and he didn’t wish for Kaiel to finish and leave him. He knew that indeed Kaiel was not actually done yet, the Flare
wouldn’t recede until he had released the last jet of sperm, and he knew from
experience that it could take another ten to fifteen minutes before that was
done. With Lorz he had hated this part,
hated the endless thrusts that accompanied the small hot bursts…or worse hated
it even more when Lorz was feeling particularly cruel and to punish him
he’d pull out before the flare properly
receded. He knew that Kaiel would never
pull out while the flare was fully engorged, so he wasn’t afraid of being
needlessly hurt. This part was
unimportant to him, because he was neither female nor impregnable, but this was
how the Zaran were geared, the flare snuggly plugged the passage preventing
loss of the precious semen, helping to ensure impregnation, as was its
design. In a way the flare worked the
same with him, preventing the successive liquid deposits from escaping his
throbbing innards, instead he could only surmise that they traveled deeper
inside him until his body absorbed them, for he seldom had to clean up messy
remains.
Kaiel moved,
rocking forward as another burst of warmth washed over Jaimz’ throbbing
innards. Jaimz opened his eyes and
looked at him, leaning above him, his eyes he saw were open to, and he was
watching him. He gasped softly as Kaiel
thrust forward with another hot flood.
He moaned again with the next, he found his body starting to rock with
Kaiel’s rhythm as thrust after thrust left him breathless and gasping. It felt so good, and feeling good felt so
wrong at the same time that he was crying even as he was moaning and enjoying
being ridden, as he had never enjoyed it before. Jaimz knew that if it had been like this with Lorz that he would
never have been able to hate the male so much…just as he knew that he would
never face the 72-hour with Kaiel with the dread he expected and needed to
feel. It wasn’t fair, he didn’t want to
like this, while Jaimz cried silently as his body betrayed him completely and
enjoyed every thrust of Kaiel’s powerful loins.
Finally the last
burst came, and Kaiel just shuddered and hung above him panting and
heaving. The flare remained in place,
allowing time for that last burst to do what it was intended (though in Jaimz’
case naturally it would fail) and finally, feelingly, the flare receded. With the flare no longer preventing
extraction the slippery length just…slid free, all fourteen inches of it from
thick base to tapered peak. Jaimz
trembled and groaned as the rod slid out of his heaving body, he felt that
complete withdrawal with every pulsing wave of his stretched anus. Even when the rod was free of him, and Jaimz
was no longer attached to Kaiel, the human lay panting and quivering while
feeling his anus throb achingly as it began to recover back to its normal
tightness. Kaiel was bleeding
sluggishly from his wound (where the spur had been) but he ignored it as he
flopped over on his side to rest next to Jaimz. Feeling very sleepy (and not knowing why) Kaiel gazed at Jaimz,
thinking that his face looked very beautiful as he began to recover from the
pleasure he had felt.
He ignored his own
body, ignored the bleeding (knowing that it would stop), ignored his rod as it
retreated within his body again and just looked at Jaimz, thinking that Jaimz
looked wonderful the way he was. Jaimz
was uncovered from the waist down, there was wetness on his legs and belly
which Kaiel knew was not from him…but Jaimz’ own unexpected response…he
wondered if Jaimz was even aware that he had cum in his moment of
pleasure? The tunic he still wore was
bunched up and damp with sweat, and his face was wet with it. He looked so good that Kaiel wanted to lick
his sweaty face, wanted to taste the wetness that glistened on his legs and
belly, but he was afraid that he would freak Jaimz out, knowing that Jaimz was
having trouble dealing with the pleasure he had experienced. Finally, noticing that Jaimz was calming
down he asked gently, “How do you feel?”
Jaimz grew still,
and slowly turned his face toward him and wonderingly murmured, “I feel good.”
Kaiel laid his head
on the bed and smiled tiredly as he breathed, “I’m glad.”
Jaimz noticed that
Kaiel looked like he was going to fall asleep, and murmured, “I am tired
though.”
To which Kaiel
opened his eyes and started to sit up, thinking that Jaimz’ words was the
signal for him to leave. But this time,
maybe only this time, Jaimz was feeling vulnerable and didn’t want to be alone
so he caught at his arm and murmured, “Stay…”
Kaiel stayed.
Medic V’Ran Kang
had heard it all, though he hadn’t seen anything and he had distracted himself
by monitoring the equipment he was still stirred by the sounds that had come
from that curtained bed. Still he was
so happy to see Jaimz’ signs stabilize, he wasn’t completely recovered, but it
was incredible how quickly the masking and answering of the Tag was reversing
the damage to his system. Having heard
Jaimz tell Kaiel to stay, and knowing that both would be needing to sleep after
the demands of the newly delivered Tag was relieved he waited for sleep to
overtake them both. It was easy to see
Jaimz’ own signs slip that way so once he was sure Jaimz was asleep he chanced
parting the curtain to look in on the sleeping pair. Jaimz was cuddled right into Kaiel’s big body, and his bare bottom
was pressed snuggly into Kaiel’s groin.
He very carefully worked, inspecting Jaimz, who was so delicate, for any
serious damage, he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find anything but a rather
damp and swollen anus. Satisfied that
Jaimz would be okay he moved to inspect the damage to Kaiel’s rod, expertly
extracting the rod from its sheath. The
bleeding, as he suspected had already subsided, though the scar would ever
remain a sign of Kaiel’s connection to the wilder days in his ancient
lineage. Because Kaiel wasn’t totally
asleep yet, he stretched slightly at his clinical touch and blinked one
night-brightened eye at him. But he
said nothing and instantly settled back into sleep once Kang withdrew back
behind the curtain.
He smiled fondly
toward the curtain, toward the younglings that had come to mean so much so
quickly. He was glad that Jaimz had
cooperated for he had dreaded the idea that he might have had to force them,
for he would have done it, but it would have been hard to face their rage afterwards. He decided that for now he would keep Jaimz
on the meds, though he greatly reduced the feed and he judged that he would
likely reevaluate him come morning. He
started to leave…and then thought to take one last look at the couple he felt
was perfectly paired even though they were aliens to each other and male as
well.
He eased the
curtain aside and looked down on the pair, both silvered in the moonlight that
streamed through the oblong windows on the facing wall. As before Kaiel was curled around Jaimz and
Jaimz was tucked into Kaiel. Now
Kaiel’s big arm was wrapped possessively over Jaimz’ slight body, and both of
Jaimz’ arms were wrapped about that arm.
It all looked so peaceful and sweet.
Then something remarkable and beautiful happened, something incredible
that he just had to watch in amazement as it unfolded.
Even sound asleep;
Kaiel’s rod peeked out of its sheath, and Jaimz, just as oblivious, seemed
aware enough to shift his hips into that rod’s tip and ease himself back so
that emerging rod could find him. Kang
stared, quite awed as that slick red rod fed deeper and deeper into those
responsively grinding hips. In sleep
those two bodies were joining together again, and Jaimz already stretched and
prepared once tonight accommodated with sublime ease. Jaimz did moan sleepily once or twice as he ground his hips
eagerly over Kaiel’s slick rod, but he never awoke and finally when he had
completely taken the rod inside and even pressed back to take even more, his
body completely relaxed once again.
Kang shook his head for he was simply in awe at what he had witnessed,
though he was willing to bet that Jaimz would not be happy to find himself so
joined once he awoke. But that would be
later and for now he needed to heal and whether the touching was external, as
in the possessive touch of a resting arm…or internal as in a restful rod it was
still a healing.
Smiling, thinking
that they were the both of them incredible and wonderful, Kang let the curtain
fall closed and backed out of the room.
More incredible things were yet to come, but bringing those two together
was what mattered to him the most…and that had been accomplished far better
than even he had expected.
End…part 1