What you call humans.
Now came the big question:Why are you doing this?
We are showing you the power our kind has over yours so you do not do something rash that alerts the Royal Huntmaster to your presence.
The Royal Huntmaster…Is that the dark-blue dragon?
A long silence. I wondered if I needed to try again to form a more intentional thought.
But then the voice answered.Yes.
One word. No further explanation. I found out then that I could roll my eyes—maybe because I needed to blink for lubrication.
Oh, sigh emoji, he was going to make me grill him for every bit of information.
A Royal Huntmaster means your kind has royals. Someone in charge?
Yes.
So is that guy your king or some kind of prince? Is that why you bowed to him?
No. He is a… we do not have an equivalent word in your language. He is the nephew of our former king and the cousin of the current king. His family line commands formal respect, as he is fourth in line for the throne behind his father.
And you think he will hurt me?
We know he will hurt you, for you are proof.
Proof of what?
Another long silence.The answers to these questions are ones you will not like.
You sound like Aengus.
Yes, because we both remain uncertain of how you will receive such information.
Well, I certainly won’t be able to physically lose it on you again, so now is as good a time as any to just spill.
This time the silence lasted so long, I really didn’t think he would answer.
But for once, I won the waiting game when Diarmuid gave in.Your hybrid kind serve as our assistants in our hunts of hominids, which are a Drakkon delicacy.We have come to your planet on a one-thousand year mission to prove whether yourkind and the anthrohominids are merely sub-sapient fauna without the ability to form complex thought or an evolving species with a viable chance of creating civilization.
I blinked. Hard.
Excuse me? Are you trying to say that Drakkon eat people, like as a special snack? And you’re here to figure out whether humans and werewolves deserve to be more than your meat and your hunting dogs?
We warned you might not like the answers to your questions.
Actually, I hated the answers. But for the sake of getting the full story, I pressed on.We are a sapient species capable of creating civilization. I’m proof of that.
You are, and if the Royal Huntmaster were to find out about you, he would more likely erase the proof of your existence than celebrate it.
My stomach rolled with a familiar dread. The kind that washes over you when you realize a system or corporation is corrupt from the inside out.
So, he’d kill me to disprove what you’re trying to prove?
Yes.
I wanted to follow that story string, but my main question still hadn’t been answered.
