Rithwraith
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Bit of a nasty one this. Contained within are such themes as cannibalism, sex both consentual and non-consentual (mainly implied for the latter), voilence, gore and the like. Viewer discretion is advised
Cruelty
By Richard Paul
“Big mistake mate! Big fucking mistake! We’re gonna rip you open and feed you the shit from your own intestines.”
Katrina and I laughed at the sheer irony of this threat. I, with my usual clipped chittery tones and she with the jovial vibrations and low thrums that accompanied the discharge of her wing-mounted particle cannons.
Her shots went a little wide, narrowly missing the portside wing of the pirate’s Falchion fighter. They’re funny looking things, resembling outstretched meerkats with stumpy, glue-on wings.
“Almost!” I shouted encouragingly, patting Katrina on the radar for good luck, (it’s a habit we have). We fired again and this time we managed to snap off the wing and a good portion of the hull to boot. Our recidivist friend went spinning away into the distance. I doubted he’d be regaining control of his ship in a hurry.
His wingman started firing from above; one single arcane missile, fired from a five kilometre distance. This gave me more than enough time to register the ‘incoming’ alarm, deploy a decoy and hit the afterburners for all they were worth.
The missile detonated on the decoy, exploding in a flash of green energies that lasted less than half a second before dissipating.
I swung Katrina about and prepped a missile of my own, only to find another heading my way from the same enemy ship.
He must be desperate indeed to be hurling such precious weaponry at a single target.
Again, I deployed a decoy and sped away. The incoming warhead detonated harmlessly on said decoy and was no more. I’m not sure he was even troubling himself to get a proper targeting lock or whether he was just hurling them like javelins.
“You’re going to run out of missiles before I run out of decoys.” I said, my voice degenerating into trademark Tharakmathan growls at some points, “Just wanted to let you know.”
“You stay the fuck away from me!” They replied, and to my pleasant surprise I found that it was a she, not a he. Already I could feel the disapproving glare from Katrina at the ill timed thoughts which were running around my head.
“That doesn’t suit our plans. Sorry.” I said; flexing my wings for good measure; making sure she saw them. My people’s reputation tends to work wonders when battling green recidivists.
She didn’t respond, and to no one’s great surprise, she fired off a third missile.
This was getting past the joke. Again it was a matter of decoy, accelerate, boom. This time however I made sure to charge straight at her, firing as I went.
Our well aimed shots tore off both wings and did some nasty damage to the engines. The pilot ejected even before I stopped firing. Lucky for her that a stray shot didn’t smash her to mushy pieces. Or perhaps unlucky considering what I was about to do.
Are you sure about this one? I heard Katrina whisper in that mocking voice of hers. Didn’t look like there was much below the neck. That first guy we sent spinning though probably has enough meat on him to last you till winter.
I stared behind me, unsure as ever of where precisely to direct my indignant glares, but I suspect she got the message.
“What’s the fun of meat without the hunt?”
What’s the fun of meat without breasts you mean?
“Look, we’ve been over this…”
Oh relax Emil, I’m just winding you up.
I smiled and laughed, kind of. This had all been a subject of great debate long ago when I’d first brought Katrina to the lawless Mcveigh system. This part of the hunt was never a pretty business, but at the end of the day we both agreed that so long as I kept my blood hunger, as well as all other hungers, directed at the criminal elements of the system then I was in fact doing a good deed. Also, on top of everything else, I do need to eat don’t I?
Let me assure you too, my dear fleshy reader, that these two whom I had just shot down are of the worst elements of the system’s population; they were pirate subjects of the self proclaimed King Envirdi, whose tyrannical stranglehold on the good people of this neglected space it is my purest pleasure to disrupt.
I locked on to the ejection pod with the grappler and pulled it into the cargo hold. On my prompting, Katrina uttered the necessary incantations for a spell of unconsciousness. Her work voice is always less graceful than the one she whispers to me with; nevertheless, it did the job and I thanked her.
Good, now let’s get back to Fort Dillard before we have any more company shall we?
“A fine suggestion m’lady. Setting course.”
In any Imperial system, where all the magics of the nearby Crown worlds are markedly absent, such a journey would take upwards of two days. With arcane thrusts however; (everything’s arcane here, ‘arcane cannons’, ‘arcane thrust’, ‘arcane salads’), Katrina can traverse the vast distance from here to the fort in the time it takes to shave off all the pesky body hair from a corpse.
She deposited us outside the grey, cube shaped space station after a few hours of flight through the swirling tunnels in the ether. It wasn’t long before I saw the head and shoulders of one of the dock workers appear on my screen.
“Mr. Fulton, is that you?”
“It is, yes.” I replied hurriedly, moving back to the cockpit and carefully reinserting myself back into the command chair. I say carefully because I have a tendency to remain naked at all times when aboard ship and would rather not risk alienating the good people of Fort Dillard by flashing them inadvertently.
“May we assume that you’ve made another less than pleasant impression on the Envirdi Kingdom?”
“You may, I have one of them in the back in fact.”
The woman’s face took on a look of curiously mingled joy and horror. It’s an understandable human sensibility, as a rule our kind; sorry, their kind doesn’t eat people.
“I see.” She finally said, “You’re cleared for docking bay alpha 3-2-A.”
“Alpha 3-2-A, acknowledged. Thank you.”
“Yes, well…” She gave up, sighed and closed the channel.
I believe that the people of the fort were oft undergoing a terrible indecision as to whether or not they should like me. Certainly no one liked the so-called kingdom, and someone who metes out such grisly justice as I is, to an extent, a welcome sight. By the same token however, if I make a sufficient nuisance of myself then the Kingdom might make it a point to retaliate against me and any who they view as my allies.
Fort Dillard is accepted neutral ground. Anyone docked here is safe and they have enough firepower to make life unpleasant for any attacking force. That’s not to say that they or any other fort could withstand an assault from the Kingdom, but his majesty sees the value of such places, and tolerates their existence.
Katrina gracefully settled us into the docking port and, once safely tucked away, I shut down all nonessential ship systems. With this done, I made my way back to the pirate we’d captured, who was currently chained to the ceiling.
I’d removed her flight suit, helmet and boots, along with all civilian vestments underneath; leaving only her underwear for now. All this revealed a rather pretty, blonde 20 something girl. Good heavens, the sniggering I heard from Katrina at that revelation was considerable indeed. No doubt she’d be teasing me from dawn till dusk for a ten-day after this.
The spell was beginning to wear off; the prey parted with sleepy murmurings and slight moans of discomfort, either because of her less than comfortable position or else the rancid smell of dried blood that lingered throughout the ship. I never bother to clean up, one of my many vices. Such smells are delightful to those who’ve been granted Tharakmathan noses, but to humans, elves and a number of other races it is quite unpleasant. I too probably never much cared for it back in the old days.
When our captive finally woke up, she reacted to the sensations of being chained to the ceiling and having a naked man staring at her with all the fear and anger that you’d expect. To her credit though, she didn’t scream. Instead she pulled at the chains, when that failed to do any good she tried to kick at me, only to find her ankles had also been chained to two metal rings jutting out from the deck.
Then she noticed my wings once again, as well as my pointy meat-eater’s teeth. I swear her already pale features went even whiter at the discovery that she’d been taken alive by one from the Tharakmathan legion. She knew the stories about us; there was no doubt about it.
“Finally,” I said, the two hungers burning within turning my voice into a growl, “I thought you were going to be out all afternoon.”
“What…” She began, swallowing twice and trying to stop herself from shaking, “What do you want?”
A fair, if perhaps obvious question. Still, this game was best played for all it was worth and if I were to derive any worthwhile satisfaction from her company than I must resist the hungers and draw out the kill.
“Question the first;” I asked, making a valiant effort not to break eye contact in favour of her chest. “Who are you to the Envirdi kingdom? How long have you worked for them, and how many people have you killed?”
That was three questions, dammit. This was off to a poor start.
“What’s it to you?” She replied, regaining a measure of composure with admirable speed. I drew a few theories about this one’s origins; my money was on an overly cute barkeep’s daughter from the lawless Mcveigh ice world colony; having to fight off drunken patrons looking to rape her as soon as puberty hit. A few years of that and she’s looking to turn her anger and contempt for others into a passable career.
Sadly, I ruined a chance for a good one liner about not talking back to her captor by sitting perfectly still, staring at the floor and considering this theory for a good three minutes. It was a subtle ‘Ahem’ from Katrina that snapped me out of it.
“What? eh? Oh, sorry, I’m all over the place today.”
My prisoner stayed silent.
“Permit me to introduce myself; I am Emil Fulton, a hungry Tharakmathan who has a comely young woman at his mercy. Who might you be?”
There was of course a pause, stammering and a few sorrowful sniffs.
“My name is Samantha Prince.” She finally said.
“Excellent. Now I shall ask you to give me one reason why I shouldn’t devour you. If you fail to answer satisfactorily, I shall put my teeth to good use on your pale flesh. Then I shall ask you again in fifteen minutes, and then fifteen minutes after that and so on until there’s nothing left of you to save. Understood?”
She did start crying then; perhaps there was a trace of innocence left in this pirate. Enough to justify sparing her perhaps?
“Take your time.” I said, holding back the growing hunger by nibbling on a chilled finger from the refrigeration unit.
“Why are you doing this?” She sobbed.
“Because I need to. Better I do it to you than to anyone else. I fully expect that some of the people you’ve killed in your time would ask you the same question.”
“That’s different.”
I burst out laughing. Loud, ludicrous and echoing Tharakmathan guffaws that shook the whole ship. It took me about five minutes to calm down.
“How, pray tell, is it different?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Course you have a choice; you could seek sanctuary at one of the forts, or you could flee the system.”
“I’d never make it to either. The Kingdom would kill me.”
“So instead you buy each sunrise with someone else’s life?”
“That’s how this system works; kill or be killed.”
“True, very true; but now you’re whinging because I’m playing by that rule. I am a carnivore; I need enough protein each day to keep my body from eating itself. Now I have you.”
“*****shit, there’s plenty of food in this system.”
“True again, and if you can convince me not to eat you, I’ll go elsewhere.”
“I - I don’t think you want to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone, half of me doesn’t anyway. Given the choice I’d go back to being the inoffensive half-breed I probably used to be rather than the man-eating half-breed I’ve become. I want to leave this place and get my life back”
“So let me go!”
“And where would you go? Back to your den of thieves? One of the few joys in my life comes from ruining the schemes of your ridiculous ‘kingdom’. I am a killer, I kill; and who better to kill then the common enemies of lifekind?”
“You’re contradicting yourself.”
“I’m a contradictory man. Two opposing halves sharing one winged frame. I follow my instincts when I must, fight them when I can and eat when I’m hungry.”
“The thought of… of eating me makes you uncomfortable. I can see it. So why go through with it when you don’t have to?”
“If you can’t convince me that you deserve to live, I’ll not feel bad about eating you.”
“But you do feel bad, I can see it. Just let me go, I’ll go my way, you go yours and that will be that.”
“I won’t do that. I want you right there, for the moment at least.”
“Why? Why do you…”
The last word was clipped and quiet. She had answered her own question in mid sentence.
“Ok,” she said before I could get a word in, “ok, if you – if you want to, to fuck me then do it. I, I won’t fight you. Just promise you won’t kill me.”
Hmm.
I didn’t know nearly enough about this woman to justify eating her or sparing her. I had justification enough for fifteen minutes however.
“Perhaps I’ll just see where my conscience directs me.” I said, sniggering as I stood.
She flinched as I walked over to her, but she made a conscious effort not to resist, just in case I went along with her suggestion.
I reached for the strap of her bra, unsheathed the claw on my index finger and sliced through the strap. It fell forwards, releasing the breasts within. They were young and not too large. I moved my head down between them, each breath now a bestial growl.
She smelt of fear, obviously. It was what any decent meal smelt like at this time. Without realising it, my claws outstretched themselves and started tracing their way down the length of her smooth, soft back. I wasn’t pressing down hard enough to draw blood, which was a good sign.
Wait, no it wasn’t. I was hungry for the Allmother’s sake; here was my prey, which I had risked my life to catch, and now I should reap the proper rewards of this conquest. That was what the legion taught us.
But, wait, no; I’d left the legion. I was free now, wretched though that was. It was up to me who I ate and who I didn’t; and I couldn’t start devaluing life any more than I already had.
Fool, I said to myself, this is a pirate wench. If the roles were reversed she’d knife you and steal Katrina.
That thought made me angry; my jaws parted and my head snapped to her shoulder. I closed my teeth around it, but stopped before biting. She screamed then, one short, fearful noise that made my jaw quiver.
Calm down Emil. Katrina whispered so that only I could hear. You’ve got all the time in the world. Just stay in control.
Rather incongruously, I rested my forehead on Samantha’s and started counting my breaths. I can only imagine the perplexed look she must have given me.
I could feel her shaking, and hear the pounding of her terrified heart. One almost-human arm snaked under her shoulders and held her in an almost reassuring hug. I pulled it back quickly.
For the love of the Allmother, why hadn’t I picked the fat male? There’d be none of this recrimination, no doubt or conflicting impulses. I’d kill, I’d eat and I’d do so safe in the knowledge that I’d made this loathsome system a better place.
This woman; Samantha, she was beautiful. She was also fragile, delicate; she inspired all manner of unwise fantasies in me. Perhaps she was an innocent of sorts, a newly recruited pirate on her first trip into space. Maybe she hadn’t killed anyone. Perhaps if she had, she had only done so to survive. Maybe she could be persuaded to turn against the kingdom, to join me and end this unbearable loneliness once and…
I stopped thinking. Two tears escaped from my eyes, but they meant nothing. This was not the first woman I’d had in my blood soaked den and she would not be the last. Out of the others, three were dead, two were on the fort. I’d cried in front of each of them.
“Was that fifteen minutes?” She asked in a hollow voice, nearly-almost-kind of but not really managing to smile a little.
“Eh? Oh, I am sorry. My mind is a mess, I get distracted a lot.”
“It’s ok.” She said politely, trying not to antagonise me. That was sweet of her. No it wasn’t; it was dangerous. I couldn’t get carelss; I couldn’t unhook those chains, no matter what course of action I chose. Not until she was unconscious and re-clothed; or dead.
“Let’s say it was.” I said, wanting a distraction. “How did you come to the pirate’s life?”
“Oh, that was…” She stopped and hiccoughed on her words; a little too eager to speak she was. “I came here with my father seven years ago.”
“Just about the time the Empire abandoned the system.”
“Yes, exactly. He was an archaeologist; so was I, kind of. He’d been commissioned to lead a team to an ancient first-empire colony on Mcveigh II. I always tagged along; I was the team’s PA. I made coffee, catalogued artefacts, that sort of thing.”
I winced. Such a cheery mental picture quite literally burned me.
“We never thought that the system would fall into chaos as quickly as it did.” Her voice was getting weaker, these were not pleasant memories that I was forcing her to relive. “The dig site was attacked by a group of pirates looking to steal artefacts to sell. They killed my father and the nine other archaeologists; but they decided they could make use of me. Next thing I knew I was their slave. That’s what they called me. I cooked for them, cleaned up after them, and then when one of them decided they hadn’t gotten laid in a while…” She flashed me a stare that lasted only the briefest of moments; “I was fourteen.”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“One day, two years later, they ran afoul of Envirdi and his lot. The Elf Pirate King was properly coming into his own by then, and they gave me to him to square their debt or whatever it was. Envirdi had one of his men teach me to fly and that was that. I was a subject of his majesty, ready to do his bidding.”
“Are you loyal to him?”
“It’s the best I can hope for. That girl from Imperial territory who used to play at digging up ruins with her dad died with him. I’ve had to suffer so much, and cause so much suffering just to stay alive.”
You know, whatever the context, it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Katrina is a wonderful woman but we know each other too well. I always kind of know what it is she’s going to say. Meeting someone new is always a pleasure.
I wasn’t going to eat her. Truth be told I think I knew that from the minute I first heard her beg for mercy. I am weak; or maybe I’m just a silly romantic, or a subjective bastard. Who knows?
“What if I handed you over to the Mcveigh evac-society. Let them smuggle you across the border. Would you come back to serve your King?”
“Only one ship in ten makes it past the Enverdi blockades. I don’t want to die.”
“Why not?!” I snapped, surprised by my own sudden anger “What kind of a life are you clinging on to? Killing and scraping at whatever scraps your evil masters throw you?”
“You wouldn’t understand, mutant!”
She yelped after that, and looked afraid again. Afraid that I was going to punish her for insulting me. She was right though; the true Tharakmathan, those who receive the gifts of ascension successfully, they are the pure ones; I am the half mad mutant waiting to die out here in the cold. That’s not what she meant but she was correct all the same.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” She said.
“No you’re not, don’t lie. I captured you because I wanted to rape and eat a woman. It… I haven’t gotten laid in a while.”
She nodded, in perfect understanding. Her face was free of judgements, but I expect her mind wasn’t.
“How did you come to this?” She asked, “What’s one of the Empire’s gene-soldiers doing in this backwater patch of space?”
“I don’t know.” I replied honestly, “I don’t want to know. I remember that something went wrong with the transformation procedure. I was an incompatible specimen, but no one realised until it was too late. I don’t remember much from my old life; I don’t even know what’s on the other side of any of the jump-off portals. I was just here one day; hunting.”
“Sounds lonely.”
Oh how those words filled my soul. Oh don’t give me that look. What I mean is, well, her words carried an objective understanding. No empathy, be it false or genuine, just rational comprehension. We both understood each other’s plight and pain, but we had no room in our hearts to care. Maybe no one did, save for Katrina of course, but she was different.
“Are, are you going to kill me?” She asked.
“No, I’m not going to kill you.”
She sighed heavily, though I doubt she was fully convinced.
“Are you still going to…”
“No.” I said, prompting angry urgings from my loins. I walked towards Samantha, who stepped back as best she could. As gently as I could make myself, I wrapped my arms around her, and then my wings. I rested my head between her raised right arm and her long, yellow hair.
“I just want,” I started feebly, “just let me – hold you for a while. Then I’ll let you go.”
“Ok.” She whispered, pushing herself against me a little.
We stood there for Allmother only knows how long. I felt the softness of her body and either sensed or imagined the tenderness of her spirit beneath the hardened exterior she’d been forced to adopt.
“I’m so sorry.” I finally said, regretting the words instantly.
“No you’re not, don’t lie” she retorted, her voice sad. Her steely resolve had died with mine, though I’ve little idea why.
You know, I think I actually was sorry; if the guilt that a hypocritical wretch can feel after committing such a violation can be called genuine sorrow that is.
“Emil.” She said after a little while longer.
“Yeah?”
“Untie me; let me hold you as well.”
I knew rationally that this was probably a ruse. She’d get free and wait for an opportunity to kill me. She’d do it without hesitation. I’d kill me too if I were her.
Nevertheless, I untied her. If Katrina had any thoughts about this, she kept them to herself.
Samantha’s arms fell limply to her sides. I took them and tried to rub away some of the discomfort on her wrists. She soon grew impatient though, prompting me to remove the shackles from her ankles. I did so, and then she flung her arms over my shoulders before I’d properly stood up. She cried then; so did I.
“You are the first decent man I’ve met in seven years.” She said into my shoulder.
“No!” I snapped back, pushing her away with an angry snarl my alien reflexes gained dominance for a moment, “I’m not a decent man. I’m an insane, murdering cannibal. On another day you’d be on your way to becoming faeces by now. You should go, get back to your pod, get to that fort outside and stay there before...”
She kissed me, and I shut up. The action felt so familiar, so human and/or Elven. (Forgive the pedantic semantics but I am a half-breed and both are relevant.) I’d done this before, back in the old days, whatever they were. There was still some of me left.
Our mouths parted, and for a second I couldn’t feel my wings, nor my claws nor fangs.
Major. I was Major Emil Fulton of the Imperial Navy. A pilot, stationed onboard… somewhere.
“I don’t want to go.” She said, shedding her underwear. I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t going to kill me. This was all too easy all of a sudden. We’d spend the night together, I’d fall asleep afterwards and then she’d slit my throat.
Or maybe she’d leave afterwards and that would be that.
“Why?” I said, mildly surprise to learn that I was kissing her breasts. (I get that wrapped up in my thoughts).
“Shhh.” She said, burying her hands in my hair. “Just let go.”
“I can’t do this.” Part of me said aloud.
Samantha brought her head up and pushed her forehead against mine.
“I’ve only ever been with bastards.” She said, “People who’d knife you just for looking at them the wrong way. I never thought I’d ever meet someone who still had a conscience; not here in Mcveigh. I want to be with someone like that, just this once, and see if I can find out something of what my life should have been like.”
“I tried to…”
“Just let go Emil, it’s ok.”
“No, it’s not ok. I was this close to killing you. I wanted to rape you and listen to you scream as I did it. I’ve done it before. I’m exactly the same as those pirates who killed your family.”
“You think I can’t tell the difference between you and them? You said yourself, you only target criminals; people like the King’s flyers; and you’re right to think that they deserve to suffer and die. Maybe I do, I don’t know; but I don’t want to go back; I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
“I…”
“You’ve suffered too. You didn’t deserve it either, and in spite of everything you still try to do what’s right in this hellhole. Let’s just try and ease each other’s pain, ok? We’ve both earned it.”
Do it! Katrina said, reluctantly emerging from the shadows to tell me to stop being a prick.
I let the blood flow into my penis, (Tharakmathans can direct the course of their circulation at will), and felt the onset of erection. It wasn’t the dark and grisly motion it had been the three times before, this time there was no objecting voice in my head screaming at me to stop. None of me wanted to stop. We kissed again, and again and then she arched her back, prompting me to make my way down the length of her body.
By the Allmother, she was so beautiful. My wings wrapped themselves around her back, their tips caressing her buttocks as my hands made their way upwards to her hair. We moved to a handy fold out couch at the rear of the cabin and she pushed me gently onto it, my wings pulling her down on top of me.
She giggled; either the look of bemused fear that was probably on my face was comical, or the furry spines in my wings had tickled her somewhere. Either way, that sound of joy, minute and short lived though it was, chased away the last of my hesitation and doubts. Here was a woman I… Yes, Allmother help me, here was a woman I loved. If I died tomorrow it would be ok because she had given me my soul back.
Was, was giving me my soul back. I regained focus to find myself rolling her onto her back and dragging my tongue along the length of her torso, down to her thighs where I then pushed it into her vagina.
For the briefest faction of a second, I thought she was someone else. Some barely remembered mate of old who… doesn’t matter. Gone.
It’s not my fault you fell into the blackweed patch. Someone I used to know was telling me, long ago. I was carrying a Frisbee.
Yes it is, you pushed me.
Unguarded thoughts seeping through my wall of madness. Thankfully my ministrations continued on autopilot whilst my mind screamed nonsense.
Samantha was moaning, her body heaving slightly. She knew somehow though that I wasn’t planning on bringing her to orgasm yet, and she took my head in her hands again and pulled my tongue out of her.
I pushed myself back up to her face with my wings and she bent forward, nibbling at my neck with blunt human teeth. I couldn’t help but snigger a little at the irony. It felt good though.
“Stay here, with me?” I breathed into her ear.
“Mmhnnhh.” She replied. I didn’t know if she was accepting, refusing or if she’d even heard me.
It went on from there, until finally I entered her and brought us both to orgasm.
Warmth, peace and silence. Next thing I knew we were lying in each other’s arms on the bed; she was smiling and running a lazy hand across my shoulder. I’d wrapped my right wing around her, torn between wanting to pull her against me, and to lay still and watch her.
I could feel Katrina’s smiling gaze upon us as well. She was happy for me, and I was happy as well. For the first time in seven years, I was truly happy.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked gently, barely recognising my own voice.
“Yes.” She replied sleepily, nuzzling against my chest, “You?”
“Yes.” I said, my next words were stammered, but for once it wasn’t due to my dual natures vying for dominance; it was straightforward, uncomfortable fear.
“Do,” I started, “would you like…? Do you want to… stay with me, here?”
There was a moment of silence; I couldn’t see her face, it was still pressed against my chest. I could only guess what was going through her head.
“Of course I do.” She said finally, my fear collapsed into exaltation, not to mention relief.
“You have no idea how good it felt to hear you say that.”
“Could you have expected anything else?”
“Well…”
“Shh, go to sleep. Then tomorrow we can start this new life properly.”
I bent down to kiss her head, then closed my eyes. I slept more peacefully than I’d managed in seven years.
A long time later, I woke up. Something felt different, definitely not in a good way.
Samantha was still in my arms, breathing lightly as she lay upon the red mattress. I looked around, at her, at the ship which reeked of blood; and I found that I remembered everything. Five years of war against the winged Valkilan race; the armistice that followed and the genesis of the Tharakmathan project from there, spawned from a Dr. Tharakmat who wished to evolve humanity and elves as a sign of good faith for future relations.
I remembered Kevin Remington, my friend from middle school, pushing me into the blackweed patch.
I remembered my wife; Katrina, a half-elvan like me. Dark skin, black hair, tall and beautiful, just like all those ghosts in my dreams. We’d joined the Tharakmathan legion together. She took to the transformation like a duck to water. I didn’t.
We had a son; Jakan, named for his grandfather. Conceived accidentally during a tour of duty, but that wasn’t forbidden. We raised him onboard the HMS Daventry. I’d taken him to Y’mir to see the crystal towers of Odinlis on his sixth birthday, back when this system had been a lawful place.
By the Allmother, I had a son. Where was he? How old would he be now? How could I have let myself forget him?
He’s with his mother, Katrina told me, or I told myself. Probably the latter isn’t it?
I remembered the onset of madness, the raging voices of my new Tharakmathan mind calling me to battle in all the wrong places. I remember throwing a man into a wall because he spilt his drink on me by accident. I then gutted the security officer who tried to take me to the infirmary for my own good. He was trying to help and I killed him. They wanted to send me to an asylum in the Churchill system; my wife wanted me to go. She thought it would make me better.
I panicked; I stole this ship, ran for the Mcveigh system and never looked back. I remembered forgetting everything and becoming this wretched thing that I was.
“Hey there.” Samantha said brightly, startling me out of my ghastly recollection; she was looking up at me with a heartfelt, loving smile.
My jaw quivered, and my wings twitched nervously. I could do nothing else.
“Emil,” she asked, her smile vanishing. She took my shaking left hand in her own, “What’s wrong?”
The End.
Cruelty
By Richard Paul
“Big mistake mate! Big fucking mistake! We’re gonna rip you open and feed you the shit from your own intestines.”
Katrina and I laughed at the sheer irony of this threat. I, with my usual clipped chittery tones and she with the jovial vibrations and low thrums that accompanied the discharge of her wing-mounted particle cannons.
Her shots went a little wide, narrowly missing the portside wing of the pirate’s Falchion fighter. They’re funny looking things, resembling outstretched meerkats with stumpy, glue-on wings.
“Almost!” I shouted encouragingly, patting Katrina on the radar for good luck, (it’s a habit we have). We fired again and this time we managed to snap off the wing and a good portion of the hull to boot. Our recidivist friend went spinning away into the distance. I doubted he’d be regaining control of his ship in a hurry.
His wingman started firing from above; one single arcane missile, fired from a five kilometre distance. This gave me more than enough time to register the ‘incoming’ alarm, deploy a decoy and hit the afterburners for all they were worth.
The missile detonated on the decoy, exploding in a flash of green energies that lasted less than half a second before dissipating.
I swung Katrina about and prepped a missile of my own, only to find another heading my way from the same enemy ship.
He must be desperate indeed to be hurling such precious weaponry at a single target.
Again, I deployed a decoy and sped away. The incoming warhead detonated harmlessly on said decoy and was no more. I’m not sure he was even troubling himself to get a proper targeting lock or whether he was just hurling them like javelins.
“You’re going to run out of missiles before I run out of decoys.” I said, my voice degenerating into trademark Tharakmathan growls at some points, “Just wanted to let you know.”
“You stay the fuck away from me!” They replied, and to my pleasant surprise I found that it was a she, not a he. Already I could feel the disapproving glare from Katrina at the ill timed thoughts which were running around my head.
“That doesn’t suit our plans. Sorry.” I said; flexing my wings for good measure; making sure she saw them. My people’s reputation tends to work wonders when battling green recidivists.
She didn’t respond, and to no one’s great surprise, she fired off a third missile.
This was getting past the joke. Again it was a matter of decoy, accelerate, boom. This time however I made sure to charge straight at her, firing as I went.
Our well aimed shots tore off both wings and did some nasty damage to the engines. The pilot ejected even before I stopped firing. Lucky for her that a stray shot didn’t smash her to mushy pieces. Or perhaps unlucky considering what I was about to do.
Are you sure about this one? I heard Katrina whisper in that mocking voice of hers. Didn’t look like there was much below the neck. That first guy we sent spinning though probably has enough meat on him to last you till winter.
I stared behind me, unsure as ever of where precisely to direct my indignant glares, but I suspect she got the message.
“What’s the fun of meat without the hunt?”
What’s the fun of meat without breasts you mean?
“Look, we’ve been over this…”
Oh relax Emil, I’m just winding you up.
I smiled and laughed, kind of. This had all been a subject of great debate long ago when I’d first brought Katrina to the lawless Mcveigh system. This part of the hunt was never a pretty business, but at the end of the day we both agreed that so long as I kept my blood hunger, as well as all other hungers, directed at the criminal elements of the system then I was in fact doing a good deed. Also, on top of everything else, I do need to eat don’t I?
Let me assure you too, my dear fleshy reader, that these two whom I had just shot down are of the worst elements of the system’s population; they were pirate subjects of the self proclaimed King Envirdi, whose tyrannical stranglehold on the good people of this neglected space it is my purest pleasure to disrupt.
I locked on to the ejection pod with the grappler and pulled it into the cargo hold. On my prompting, Katrina uttered the necessary incantations for a spell of unconsciousness. Her work voice is always less graceful than the one she whispers to me with; nevertheless, it did the job and I thanked her.
Good, now let’s get back to Fort Dillard before we have any more company shall we?
“A fine suggestion m’lady. Setting course.”
In any Imperial system, where all the magics of the nearby Crown worlds are markedly absent, such a journey would take upwards of two days. With arcane thrusts however; (everything’s arcane here, ‘arcane cannons’, ‘arcane thrust’, ‘arcane salads’), Katrina can traverse the vast distance from here to the fort in the time it takes to shave off all the pesky body hair from a corpse.
She deposited us outside the grey, cube shaped space station after a few hours of flight through the swirling tunnels in the ether. It wasn’t long before I saw the head and shoulders of one of the dock workers appear on my screen.
“Mr. Fulton, is that you?”
“It is, yes.” I replied hurriedly, moving back to the cockpit and carefully reinserting myself back into the command chair. I say carefully because I have a tendency to remain naked at all times when aboard ship and would rather not risk alienating the good people of Fort Dillard by flashing them inadvertently.
“May we assume that you’ve made another less than pleasant impression on the Envirdi Kingdom?”
“You may, I have one of them in the back in fact.”
The woman’s face took on a look of curiously mingled joy and horror. It’s an understandable human sensibility, as a rule our kind; sorry, their kind doesn’t eat people.
“I see.” She finally said, “You’re cleared for docking bay alpha 3-2-A.”
“Alpha 3-2-A, acknowledged. Thank you.”
“Yes, well…” She gave up, sighed and closed the channel.
I believe that the people of the fort were oft undergoing a terrible indecision as to whether or not they should like me. Certainly no one liked the so-called kingdom, and someone who metes out such grisly justice as I is, to an extent, a welcome sight. By the same token however, if I make a sufficient nuisance of myself then the Kingdom might make it a point to retaliate against me and any who they view as my allies.
Fort Dillard is accepted neutral ground. Anyone docked here is safe and they have enough firepower to make life unpleasant for any attacking force. That’s not to say that they or any other fort could withstand an assault from the Kingdom, but his majesty sees the value of such places, and tolerates their existence.
Katrina gracefully settled us into the docking port and, once safely tucked away, I shut down all nonessential ship systems. With this done, I made my way back to the pirate we’d captured, who was currently chained to the ceiling.
I’d removed her flight suit, helmet and boots, along with all civilian vestments underneath; leaving only her underwear for now. All this revealed a rather pretty, blonde 20 something girl. Good heavens, the sniggering I heard from Katrina at that revelation was considerable indeed. No doubt she’d be teasing me from dawn till dusk for a ten-day after this.
The spell was beginning to wear off; the prey parted with sleepy murmurings and slight moans of discomfort, either because of her less than comfortable position or else the rancid smell of dried blood that lingered throughout the ship. I never bother to clean up, one of my many vices. Such smells are delightful to those who’ve been granted Tharakmathan noses, but to humans, elves and a number of other races it is quite unpleasant. I too probably never much cared for it back in the old days.
When our captive finally woke up, she reacted to the sensations of being chained to the ceiling and having a naked man staring at her with all the fear and anger that you’d expect. To her credit though, she didn’t scream. Instead she pulled at the chains, when that failed to do any good she tried to kick at me, only to find her ankles had also been chained to two metal rings jutting out from the deck.
Then she noticed my wings once again, as well as my pointy meat-eater’s teeth. I swear her already pale features went even whiter at the discovery that she’d been taken alive by one from the Tharakmathan legion. She knew the stories about us; there was no doubt about it.
“Finally,” I said, the two hungers burning within turning my voice into a growl, “I thought you were going to be out all afternoon.”
“What…” She began, swallowing twice and trying to stop herself from shaking, “What do you want?”
A fair, if perhaps obvious question. Still, this game was best played for all it was worth and if I were to derive any worthwhile satisfaction from her company than I must resist the hungers and draw out the kill.
“Question the first;” I asked, making a valiant effort not to break eye contact in favour of her chest. “Who are you to the Envirdi kingdom? How long have you worked for them, and how many people have you killed?”
That was three questions, dammit. This was off to a poor start.
“What’s it to you?” She replied, regaining a measure of composure with admirable speed. I drew a few theories about this one’s origins; my money was on an overly cute barkeep’s daughter from the lawless Mcveigh ice world colony; having to fight off drunken patrons looking to rape her as soon as puberty hit. A few years of that and she’s looking to turn her anger and contempt for others into a passable career.
Sadly, I ruined a chance for a good one liner about not talking back to her captor by sitting perfectly still, staring at the floor and considering this theory for a good three minutes. It was a subtle ‘Ahem’ from Katrina that snapped me out of it.
“What? eh? Oh, sorry, I’m all over the place today.”
My prisoner stayed silent.
“Permit me to introduce myself; I am Emil Fulton, a hungry Tharakmathan who has a comely young woman at his mercy. Who might you be?”
There was of course a pause, stammering and a few sorrowful sniffs.
“My name is Samantha Prince.” She finally said.
“Excellent. Now I shall ask you to give me one reason why I shouldn’t devour you. If you fail to answer satisfactorily, I shall put my teeth to good use on your pale flesh. Then I shall ask you again in fifteen minutes, and then fifteen minutes after that and so on until there’s nothing left of you to save. Understood?”
She did start crying then; perhaps there was a trace of innocence left in this pirate. Enough to justify sparing her perhaps?
“Take your time.” I said, holding back the growing hunger by nibbling on a chilled finger from the refrigeration unit.
“Why are you doing this?” She sobbed.
“Because I need to. Better I do it to you than to anyone else. I fully expect that some of the people you’ve killed in your time would ask you the same question.”
“That’s different.”
I burst out laughing. Loud, ludicrous and echoing Tharakmathan guffaws that shook the whole ship. It took me about five minutes to calm down.
“How, pray tell, is it different?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Course you have a choice; you could seek sanctuary at one of the forts, or you could flee the system.”
“I’d never make it to either. The Kingdom would kill me.”
“So instead you buy each sunrise with someone else’s life?”
“That’s how this system works; kill or be killed.”
“True, very true; but now you’re whinging because I’m playing by that rule. I am a carnivore; I need enough protein each day to keep my body from eating itself. Now I have you.”
“*****shit, there’s plenty of food in this system.”
“True again, and if you can convince me not to eat you, I’ll go elsewhere.”
“I - I don’t think you want to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone, half of me doesn’t anyway. Given the choice I’d go back to being the inoffensive half-breed I probably used to be rather than the man-eating half-breed I’ve become. I want to leave this place and get my life back”
“So let me go!”
“And where would you go? Back to your den of thieves? One of the few joys in my life comes from ruining the schemes of your ridiculous ‘kingdom’. I am a killer, I kill; and who better to kill then the common enemies of lifekind?”
“You’re contradicting yourself.”
“I’m a contradictory man. Two opposing halves sharing one winged frame. I follow my instincts when I must, fight them when I can and eat when I’m hungry.”
“The thought of… of eating me makes you uncomfortable. I can see it. So why go through with it when you don’t have to?”
“If you can’t convince me that you deserve to live, I’ll not feel bad about eating you.”
“But you do feel bad, I can see it. Just let me go, I’ll go my way, you go yours and that will be that.”
“I won’t do that. I want you right there, for the moment at least.”
“Why? Why do you…”
The last word was clipped and quiet. She had answered her own question in mid sentence.
“Ok,” she said before I could get a word in, “ok, if you – if you want to, to fuck me then do it. I, I won’t fight you. Just promise you won’t kill me.”
Hmm.
I didn’t know nearly enough about this woman to justify eating her or sparing her. I had justification enough for fifteen minutes however.
“Perhaps I’ll just see where my conscience directs me.” I said, sniggering as I stood.
She flinched as I walked over to her, but she made a conscious effort not to resist, just in case I went along with her suggestion.
I reached for the strap of her bra, unsheathed the claw on my index finger and sliced through the strap. It fell forwards, releasing the breasts within. They were young and not too large. I moved my head down between them, each breath now a bestial growl.
She smelt of fear, obviously. It was what any decent meal smelt like at this time. Without realising it, my claws outstretched themselves and started tracing their way down the length of her smooth, soft back. I wasn’t pressing down hard enough to draw blood, which was a good sign.
Wait, no it wasn’t. I was hungry for the Allmother’s sake; here was my prey, which I had risked my life to catch, and now I should reap the proper rewards of this conquest. That was what the legion taught us.
But, wait, no; I’d left the legion. I was free now, wretched though that was. It was up to me who I ate and who I didn’t; and I couldn’t start devaluing life any more than I already had.
Fool, I said to myself, this is a pirate wench. If the roles were reversed she’d knife you and steal Katrina.
That thought made me angry; my jaws parted and my head snapped to her shoulder. I closed my teeth around it, but stopped before biting. She screamed then, one short, fearful noise that made my jaw quiver.
Calm down Emil. Katrina whispered so that only I could hear. You’ve got all the time in the world. Just stay in control.
Rather incongruously, I rested my forehead on Samantha’s and started counting my breaths. I can only imagine the perplexed look she must have given me.
I could feel her shaking, and hear the pounding of her terrified heart. One almost-human arm snaked under her shoulders and held her in an almost reassuring hug. I pulled it back quickly.
For the love of the Allmother, why hadn’t I picked the fat male? There’d be none of this recrimination, no doubt or conflicting impulses. I’d kill, I’d eat and I’d do so safe in the knowledge that I’d made this loathsome system a better place.
This woman; Samantha, she was beautiful. She was also fragile, delicate; she inspired all manner of unwise fantasies in me. Perhaps she was an innocent of sorts, a newly recruited pirate on her first trip into space. Maybe she hadn’t killed anyone. Perhaps if she had, she had only done so to survive. Maybe she could be persuaded to turn against the kingdom, to join me and end this unbearable loneliness once and…
I stopped thinking. Two tears escaped from my eyes, but they meant nothing. This was not the first woman I’d had in my blood soaked den and she would not be the last. Out of the others, three were dead, two were on the fort. I’d cried in front of each of them.
“Was that fifteen minutes?” She asked in a hollow voice, nearly-almost-kind of but not really managing to smile a little.
“Eh? Oh, I am sorry. My mind is a mess, I get distracted a lot.”
“It’s ok.” She said politely, trying not to antagonise me. That was sweet of her. No it wasn’t; it was dangerous. I couldn’t get carelss; I couldn’t unhook those chains, no matter what course of action I chose. Not until she was unconscious and re-clothed; or dead.
“Let’s say it was.” I said, wanting a distraction. “How did you come to the pirate’s life?”
“Oh, that was…” She stopped and hiccoughed on her words; a little too eager to speak she was. “I came here with my father seven years ago.”
“Just about the time the Empire abandoned the system.”
“Yes, exactly. He was an archaeologist; so was I, kind of. He’d been commissioned to lead a team to an ancient first-empire colony on Mcveigh II. I always tagged along; I was the team’s PA. I made coffee, catalogued artefacts, that sort of thing.”
I winced. Such a cheery mental picture quite literally burned me.
“We never thought that the system would fall into chaos as quickly as it did.” Her voice was getting weaker, these were not pleasant memories that I was forcing her to relive. “The dig site was attacked by a group of pirates looking to steal artefacts to sell. They killed my father and the nine other archaeologists; but they decided they could make use of me. Next thing I knew I was their slave. That’s what they called me. I cooked for them, cleaned up after them, and then when one of them decided they hadn’t gotten laid in a while…” She flashed me a stare that lasted only the briefest of moments; “I was fourteen.”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“One day, two years later, they ran afoul of Envirdi and his lot. The Elf Pirate King was properly coming into his own by then, and they gave me to him to square their debt or whatever it was. Envirdi had one of his men teach me to fly and that was that. I was a subject of his majesty, ready to do his bidding.”
“Are you loyal to him?”
“It’s the best I can hope for. That girl from Imperial territory who used to play at digging up ruins with her dad died with him. I’ve had to suffer so much, and cause so much suffering just to stay alive.”
You know, whatever the context, it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Katrina is a wonderful woman but we know each other too well. I always kind of know what it is she’s going to say. Meeting someone new is always a pleasure.
I wasn’t going to eat her. Truth be told I think I knew that from the minute I first heard her beg for mercy. I am weak; or maybe I’m just a silly romantic, or a subjective bastard. Who knows?
“What if I handed you over to the Mcveigh evac-society. Let them smuggle you across the border. Would you come back to serve your King?”
“Only one ship in ten makes it past the Enverdi blockades. I don’t want to die.”
“Why not?!” I snapped, surprised by my own sudden anger “What kind of a life are you clinging on to? Killing and scraping at whatever scraps your evil masters throw you?”
“You wouldn’t understand, mutant!”
She yelped after that, and looked afraid again. Afraid that I was going to punish her for insulting me. She was right though; the true Tharakmathan, those who receive the gifts of ascension successfully, they are the pure ones; I am the half mad mutant waiting to die out here in the cold. That’s not what she meant but she was correct all the same.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” She said.
“No you’re not, don’t lie. I captured you because I wanted to rape and eat a woman. It… I haven’t gotten laid in a while.”
She nodded, in perfect understanding. Her face was free of judgements, but I expect her mind wasn’t.
“How did you come to this?” She asked, “What’s one of the Empire’s gene-soldiers doing in this backwater patch of space?”
“I don’t know.” I replied honestly, “I don’t want to know. I remember that something went wrong with the transformation procedure. I was an incompatible specimen, but no one realised until it was too late. I don’t remember much from my old life; I don’t even know what’s on the other side of any of the jump-off portals. I was just here one day; hunting.”
“Sounds lonely.”
Oh how those words filled my soul. Oh don’t give me that look. What I mean is, well, her words carried an objective understanding. No empathy, be it false or genuine, just rational comprehension. We both understood each other’s plight and pain, but we had no room in our hearts to care. Maybe no one did, save for Katrina of course, but she was different.
“Are, are you going to kill me?” She asked.
“No, I’m not going to kill you.”
She sighed heavily, though I doubt she was fully convinced.
“Are you still going to…”
“No.” I said, prompting angry urgings from my loins. I walked towards Samantha, who stepped back as best she could. As gently as I could make myself, I wrapped my arms around her, and then my wings. I rested my head between her raised right arm and her long, yellow hair.
“I just want,” I started feebly, “just let me – hold you for a while. Then I’ll let you go.”
“Ok.” She whispered, pushing herself against me a little.
We stood there for Allmother only knows how long. I felt the softness of her body and either sensed or imagined the tenderness of her spirit beneath the hardened exterior she’d been forced to adopt.
“I’m so sorry.” I finally said, regretting the words instantly.
“No you’re not, don’t lie” she retorted, her voice sad. Her steely resolve had died with mine, though I’ve little idea why.
You know, I think I actually was sorry; if the guilt that a hypocritical wretch can feel after committing such a violation can be called genuine sorrow that is.
“Emil.” She said after a little while longer.
“Yeah?”
“Untie me; let me hold you as well.”
I knew rationally that this was probably a ruse. She’d get free and wait for an opportunity to kill me. She’d do it without hesitation. I’d kill me too if I were her.
Nevertheless, I untied her. If Katrina had any thoughts about this, she kept them to herself.
Samantha’s arms fell limply to her sides. I took them and tried to rub away some of the discomfort on her wrists. She soon grew impatient though, prompting me to remove the shackles from her ankles. I did so, and then she flung her arms over my shoulders before I’d properly stood up. She cried then; so did I.
“You are the first decent man I’ve met in seven years.” She said into my shoulder.
“No!” I snapped back, pushing her away with an angry snarl my alien reflexes gained dominance for a moment, “I’m not a decent man. I’m an insane, murdering cannibal. On another day you’d be on your way to becoming faeces by now. You should go, get back to your pod, get to that fort outside and stay there before...”
She kissed me, and I shut up. The action felt so familiar, so human and/or Elven. (Forgive the pedantic semantics but I am a half-breed and both are relevant.) I’d done this before, back in the old days, whatever they were. There was still some of me left.
Our mouths parted, and for a second I couldn’t feel my wings, nor my claws nor fangs.
Major. I was Major Emil Fulton of the Imperial Navy. A pilot, stationed onboard… somewhere.
“I don’t want to go.” She said, shedding her underwear. I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t going to kill me. This was all too easy all of a sudden. We’d spend the night together, I’d fall asleep afterwards and then she’d slit my throat.
Or maybe she’d leave afterwards and that would be that.
“Why?” I said, mildly surprise to learn that I was kissing her breasts. (I get that wrapped up in my thoughts).
“Shhh.” She said, burying her hands in my hair. “Just let go.”
“I can’t do this.” Part of me said aloud.
Samantha brought her head up and pushed her forehead against mine.
“I’ve only ever been with bastards.” She said, “People who’d knife you just for looking at them the wrong way. I never thought I’d ever meet someone who still had a conscience; not here in Mcveigh. I want to be with someone like that, just this once, and see if I can find out something of what my life should have been like.”
“I tried to…”
“Just let go Emil, it’s ok.”
“No, it’s not ok. I was this close to killing you. I wanted to rape you and listen to you scream as I did it. I’ve done it before. I’m exactly the same as those pirates who killed your family.”
“You think I can’t tell the difference between you and them? You said yourself, you only target criminals; people like the King’s flyers; and you’re right to think that they deserve to suffer and die. Maybe I do, I don’t know; but I don’t want to go back; I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
“I…”
“You’ve suffered too. You didn’t deserve it either, and in spite of everything you still try to do what’s right in this hellhole. Let’s just try and ease each other’s pain, ok? We’ve both earned it.”
Do it! Katrina said, reluctantly emerging from the shadows to tell me to stop being a prick.
I let the blood flow into my penis, (Tharakmathans can direct the course of their circulation at will), and felt the onset of erection. It wasn’t the dark and grisly motion it had been the three times before, this time there was no objecting voice in my head screaming at me to stop. None of me wanted to stop. We kissed again, and again and then she arched her back, prompting me to make my way down the length of her body.
By the Allmother, she was so beautiful. My wings wrapped themselves around her back, their tips caressing her buttocks as my hands made their way upwards to her hair. We moved to a handy fold out couch at the rear of the cabin and she pushed me gently onto it, my wings pulling her down on top of me.
She giggled; either the look of bemused fear that was probably on my face was comical, or the furry spines in my wings had tickled her somewhere. Either way, that sound of joy, minute and short lived though it was, chased away the last of my hesitation and doubts. Here was a woman I… Yes, Allmother help me, here was a woman I loved. If I died tomorrow it would be ok because she had given me my soul back.
Was, was giving me my soul back. I regained focus to find myself rolling her onto her back and dragging my tongue along the length of her torso, down to her thighs where I then pushed it into her vagina.
For the briefest faction of a second, I thought she was someone else. Some barely remembered mate of old who… doesn’t matter. Gone.
It’s not my fault you fell into the blackweed patch. Someone I used to know was telling me, long ago. I was carrying a Frisbee.
Yes it is, you pushed me.
Unguarded thoughts seeping through my wall of madness. Thankfully my ministrations continued on autopilot whilst my mind screamed nonsense.
Samantha was moaning, her body heaving slightly. She knew somehow though that I wasn’t planning on bringing her to orgasm yet, and she took my head in her hands again and pulled my tongue out of her.
I pushed myself back up to her face with my wings and she bent forward, nibbling at my neck with blunt human teeth. I couldn’t help but snigger a little at the irony. It felt good though.
“Stay here, with me?” I breathed into her ear.
“Mmhnnhh.” She replied. I didn’t know if she was accepting, refusing or if she’d even heard me.
It went on from there, until finally I entered her and brought us both to orgasm.
Warmth, peace and silence. Next thing I knew we were lying in each other’s arms on the bed; she was smiling and running a lazy hand across my shoulder. I’d wrapped my right wing around her, torn between wanting to pull her against me, and to lay still and watch her.
I could feel Katrina’s smiling gaze upon us as well. She was happy for me, and I was happy as well. For the first time in seven years, I was truly happy.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked gently, barely recognising my own voice.
“Yes.” She replied sleepily, nuzzling against my chest, “You?”
“Yes.” I said, my next words were stammered, but for once it wasn’t due to my dual natures vying for dominance; it was straightforward, uncomfortable fear.
“Do,” I started, “would you like…? Do you want to… stay with me, here?”
There was a moment of silence; I couldn’t see her face, it was still pressed against my chest. I could only guess what was going through her head.
“Of course I do.” She said finally, my fear collapsed into exaltation, not to mention relief.
“You have no idea how good it felt to hear you say that.”
“Could you have expected anything else?”
“Well…”
“Shh, go to sleep. Then tomorrow we can start this new life properly.”
I bent down to kiss her head, then closed my eyes. I slept more peacefully than I’d managed in seven years.
A long time later, I woke up. Something felt different, definitely not in a good way.
Samantha was still in my arms, breathing lightly as she lay upon the red mattress. I looked around, at her, at the ship which reeked of blood; and I found that I remembered everything. Five years of war against the winged Valkilan race; the armistice that followed and the genesis of the Tharakmathan project from there, spawned from a Dr. Tharakmat who wished to evolve humanity and elves as a sign of good faith for future relations.
I remembered Kevin Remington, my friend from middle school, pushing me into the blackweed patch.
I remembered my wife; Katrina, a half-elvan like me. Dark skin, black hair, tall and beautiful, just like all those ghosts in my dreams. We’d joined the Tharakmathan legion together. She took to the transformation like a duck to water. I didn’t.
We had a son; Jakan, named for his grandfather. Conceived accidentally during a tour of duty, but that wasn’t forbidden. We raised him onboard the HMS Daventry. I’d taken him to Y’mir to see the crystal towers of Odinlis on his sixth birthday, back when this system had been a lawful place.
By the Allmother, I had a son. Where was he? How old would he be now? How could I have let myself forget him?
He’s with his mother, Katrina told me, or I told myself. Probably the latter isn’t it?
I remembered the onset of madness, the raging voices of my new Tharakmathan mind calling me to battle in all the wrong places. I remember throwing a man into a wall because he spilt his drink on me by accident. I then gutted the security officer who tried to take me to the infirmary for my own good. He was trying to help and I killed him. They wanted to send me to an asylum in the Churchill system; my wife wanted me to go. She thought it would make me better.
I panicked; I stole this ship, ran for the Mcveigh system and never looked back. I remembered forgetting everything and becoming this wretched thing that I was.
“Hey there.” Samantha said brightly, startling me out of my ghastly recollection; she was looking up at me with a heartfelt, loving smile.
My jaw quivered, and my wings twitched nervously. I could do nothing else.
“Emil,” she asked, her smile vanishing. She took my shaking left hand in her own, “What’s wrong?”
The End.
