It’s then that Zyntarr groans and rolls to his back. My heart freezes. He’s been hit in the chest.
Desperately gesturing to Yix with the little spear, I demand, “heal him! If you want me to be your friend, do everything you can for my mate!”
Yix looks down at Zyn, his antennae twitching as his mandibles open and close.
“Now!”
* * *
“Will this work? Will he be completely healed?
“He will be conscious and healthy again,” Yix says as he continues to slowly move his hand-held healing device over Zyn’s injuries. The thing has a screen with lights and dials, but it honestly looks like a high-tech version of a scan-gun from the supermarket or a warehouse. “But I cannot heal these scars without taking him to the medical bay at Moon’s Rest Station. They have better facilities than this unlicensed medi-scanner.”
Tyll and I kneel at one side of Zyntarr’s big body, with Yix at the other. We watch as Yix’s machine works its magic. The flesh of his wound knits back together like the light from the device is encouraging his cells to divide at an exponential rate.
“It is a little crude,” Yix says as he works. “But it is something.” He’d also used the device to scan Zyn for any internal damage. Luckily, there was none. “It is the kind of healing I had offered Yel,” he comments, peering over his shoulder at the dead bug man still limply pinned to the tree. “But he refused my help.”
“I’m glad you didn’t get to help him,” I say through gritted teeth.
Yix sighs and gets back to work on Zyntarr. “You are probably right to feel that. He would have told Mama Z’rykby what I had done, and she would have eaten me.”
I… don’t really know what to say to that. “She is your wife?” I ask, brushing Zyntarr’s hair away from his sweat-beaded face.
“Yes, Yel, Yat, and I are married to Mama Z’rykby, plus several others. It is sometimes hard to keep count as she is always disposing of husbands and gaining more as soon as she can,” he says as the last of the main blast site on Zyn’s chest knits together. “I am lucky enough to have survived for so long. Yel and Yat have been with her even longer.”
I clench my teeth together. I don’t really want to be talking about this. My eyes fixate on the steady way Zyn’s chest is rising and falling with each of his breaths. We came so close to that stopping. I came so close to losing him. All because I made the wrong choice.
If we hadn’t come out here-
“Bea,” Zyntarr coughs, turning his big head toward my touch. His eyes open ever so slightly, but I can tell it’s a struggle for him.
“Shh-shh,” I murmur, stroking his face. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re okay.”
“My father…” little Tyll sniffs beside me.
Tearing my gaze away from Zyn now that Yix is sweeping the scanner over him again, I look over to Zuul. He still lays there in a heap on the ground. Yix had said it was too late for him and his little handheld magical device wouldn’t do anything.
“I know, Tyll,” I whisper, rubbing the little boy’s back. “That was really scary, and your father was very brave.” Leaning into me, Tyll takes a shaky breath. Pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, I continue, “we’ll make sure to take him back to the village so you can say a proper goodbye.”
Yix stands then, dusting off his long, colorful robes with his boney, buggy hands. “There, that is all I can do for him with what I have. I will leave you with the medi-scanner, a blaster and a flare, but I really cannot be here when more of the native species arrive to help you.” He looks at his wrist in an oddly human way, and that’s when I see a wristwatch poking out from underthe long sleeve of his robe. It’s such an odd thing to see an alien wearing, with its orange strap featuring the black silhouettes of cats and bats.
Looking down to Zyn again, he looks like he’s in not-so-peaceful sleep. He’s healed, though, and that’s what matters. “When will he wake up?” I ask.
“Oh!” Yix exclaims, before turning the dial on his scanner and then pressing it to Zyntarr’s chest. “Right about…now.”
There’s a kind of whirring sound that ends in a‘ker-dumph’that shocks Zyntarr awake. He jerks on the ground, his eyes opening wide. The inhale he takes is a huge gulp of air like he’s just broken the surface of deep waters. Zyntarr doesn’t even release that inhale before he’s grabbed a fistful of Yix’s robes, dragging him closer so they are face-to-face. “Where is my Bea!” he snarls. “You will not take her from me!”
“I’m here, I’m here,” I say, grabbing for his face, trying to turn it to face me instead of boring into the soul of Yix. “Look at me, Zyn,” I murmur, almost cooing at him like he were a frightened animal. Taking his jaw, I prize his gaze away from the alien and toward me.
Zyntarr visibly relaxes. “Bea.”
He releases Yix, and from the corner of my eye, I see the buggy man slump to the side, a hand on his chest as though facing my Zyntarr like that had been the scariest moment of his life.
“Bea,” he murmurs, his beautiful blue eye roaming my face. Reaching up, he twines a tendril of my hair between his big, thick, dirty fingertips. “I thought I had lost you.”
“I thought I’d lost you too.” I’m smiling but my vision is blurry and my breathing is all jagged. I can’t cry. I need to be strong for little Tyll and for Zyntarr too. We’re not out of the woods yet - figuratively, and literally.
Yix is giving me supplies, and a flare to attract the attention of other Trixikka, but he can’t stay. I understand why. They will probably kill him for what his party did to Zuul.
