Xenoth marveled for a moment at what brilliant, fucked up designs their bodies were. No water wasted, dozens of prehensile limbs, built-in camouflage and weapons. But keep a male separated from his female for too long and his body went into shock, spilled all its fluids, and if he was lucky, put him into a coma. Where was the Z’arth-blasted sense inthat?!
“You’re all I have left, Urzan. If anything happens to you…” Xenoth swallowed, squeezing his brother’s kropek gently. “I don’t know what I’d do.”
Urzan squeezed back, holding on tightly for a long moment.
“I’ll hook up my bio-sensors to your feed tomorrow,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “So you can monitor my changes.”
“And you’ll talk to Arzog?” Xenoth asked.
Urzan nodded. “I’ll talk to Arzog.
Xenoth sighed with relief. “Good.”
He shifted awkwardly, not sure what to do next. “Did you want me to stay, or…?”
Urzan snorted, withdrawing his kropek.
“Go back to bed, Xenoth” his voice was gentle. “I’ll try to be quieter.”
It was Xenoth’s turn to snort. “As if I could sleep with your moaning. I’ll take a walk. Message me when you’re finished or if you need me to bring you anything.”
“Thank you, Xen.”
Xenoth nodded, closing the door gently. “Goodnight, Urzan.”
As he left their shared suite, Xenoth activated the bio-sensors he’d installed in their cleansing area weeks ago. It was set to only a very basic level of sensing, nothing that would violate his brother’s privacy, but it would let him know if his brother collapsed or was otherwise incapacitated.
Considering that Urzan had kept the change in his fluid production hidden from him forthree months, Xenoth did not think activating the sensor to be a particularly unwise course of action.
???
Xenoth walked for hours.
Urzan had messaged him not terribly long after he’d left their rooms, but once Xenoth had begun moving, he couldn’t seem to stop. His feet had taken him all over the compound, wandering through every public space within the community. He’d stopped in on the station that monitored the planet’s security systems—the entire reason his people had been contracted to come to WLN269—but all was quiet, and his presence there only made the other Z’arthaxians on duty nervous.
He left and continued along the perimeter until he found himself staring at the sunrise over the gryllrogi fields. The lavender grain that fed the giant insects waved gently in the planetary breeze filtering in through the bio-shield. A few of the insectoids could be seen hopping through the tall grain, their purple exoskeletons glinting in the growing sunlight.
As Xenoth stood on the catwalk overlooking the fields, they began humming, their rear legs rubbing together to create a strange, rhythmic song that grew stronger as the light brightened around them.
It was beautiful. And calming.
Xenoth found himself just staring, his senses hypnotized as he let his thoughts wander, his tired mind tumbling over and over all of the problems currently plaguing his people.
His people. HA!
Xenoth was a far cry from a leader.
The only reason he even had the designation as Zah was because his brother was nearly mate-bound to the current ranking female on the planet. And his brother couldn’t lead; Urzan’s attentions would, eventually, be taken up by his responsibilities as his female’s Primary. That was, of course, assuming that Y’arza ever returned from where she was currently voluntarily trapped within the Queen’s palace.
Xenoth sighed heavily.
For a few moments he turned off the coding holding a few strands of his kropek in the intricate knot which indicated his status. His teal chiton fluttered lightly in the breeze, its loose fabric flowing easily around his muscular legs as his dark green kropek shimmered down over his shoulders to cover them likea cape. He put his head in his hands, running his fingers up through his loosened locks, touching the strands he kept woven secretly against his scalp softly.
Three of his fathers’ and a piece of his mother’s kropek lay still beneath his touch. No hint of the buzzing electricity sending him messages from across the stars. Although bereft of their original hosts, being woven into Xenoth’s scalp had kept enough energy running through the strands to keep the core memories encoded within them alive.
Xenoth was beyond grateful that he had access to the memories, even if they were just figments of light dancing behind his ocular receptors, and not live messages from his family.
While Xenoth certainly had his own memories he could skim through, the ones from his fathers were special. Hand-picked moments they had chosen to send with him when he left home to accompany Urzan to the Queen’s palace. Mostly of him as a wikwik running around in the nude and giggling as his fathers chased him with their kropeks.
