S’samph’s eyes flickered to S’kasia’s clutch of unliving eggs in the basket by the stove and instantly knew it was the wrong thing to do as soon as he had. Now wasn’t the time to remind her that he wasn’t the only one wallowing in their loss. He looked away, but S’kasia had already registered his shift in attention. Her frill flared high around her throat.
“I never agreed to a mating.” He started to defend himself, but his clutch-sister was finished with him. S’samph had nothing to say to excuse himself and the words were feeble on his tongue.
“You are a uselessf’fret! Do you know the patience we have all shown you? Don’t mate her then. Waste yourself into the dust of your fruitless farm!” She threw the spoon hard against the floor where it cracked cleanly in two. “Latilla is gone. Either we make a new life for ourselves here, or we can spend the rest of our breaths trapped in the past with our ancestors.” She glanced toward her clutch of eggs, acknowledging her own hypocrisy while also speaking the inalienable truth. But S’kasia was a better latil’e than he had ever been. Her stubborn refusal to allow them to be separated was the only thing that had helped them survive long enough to eventually make their way to Laurus.
“I’m not trying to make things more complicated.”
S’kasia drew herself up to her full height which brought her a full head taller than him. “I heard about what you said to Eleri. Myla told the entire town. You are no clutch brother of mine to treat a female in that way.”
“It was wrong of me.” He could at least admit his behavior had been terrible, even if he wouldn’t agree to mate with Eleri. However, the admission of guilt did little to placate his clutch sister. S’kasia hissed and pointed toward the door of her nest.
“Get out. Don’t come near me or my clutch again until you fix things.” Her golden frill expanded to its full circumference. “You promised me, S’samph. You promised you would try. I promised our sires I would take care of you when we left Latilla, but you make it so difficult.”
“Eleri doesn’t want me. It’s not like anything’s changed since we came here.” He started to pace up the narrow floor space of the entryway to S’kasia’s nest. His clutch-sister showed no signs of sympathy or even pity. Her body was filled with rage, and the longer S’samph moved, the more he realized the flaws in his behavior.
“Did you expect her to throw herself at you and proclaim her undying feelings? She waited for you at the luxportal for nearly two shifts of the suns. Her people burn and sicken in the sun! A latil’e female would have your tail for a trophy if youtreated her with such disrespect.”
S’samph shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He felt ashamed for being a miserable creature, but none of his shame would rectify the situation, nor did it make him any more inclined to convince the human female to accept him as her mate.
Finally, he settled for the easiest truth. “I didn’t know this about her people.”
“Of course, you didn’t! You didn’t read the IA manual on humans. You lied and told me you would read it, but you never did. May the goddess forgive you for such dishonor.” S’kasia gestured to the wired datapad on a low outcropping where she slept. "I have learned many things about Eleri’s people, but she didn’t come here for me.” Her frill rippled with annoyance as she leveled him with her stare. “If she didn’t want you, she wouldn’t have approved the match when I sent it to her!”
“This wasn’t my choice.” S’samph’s frill sagged with resignation. The accusations, if true, were inexcusable. Even if he didn’t want her for a mate, he had no right to endanger her. Even more so if she had chosen him. Out of all her options she had chosen him. He struggled to reconcile the idea. A female had chosen him, and he had been too entrenched in his own misgivings to learn anything about the process.
“Are you going to go to the mate that I picked for you and behave honorably, or will you bring more shame down on this nest?”
“I’ll talk to her to clarify the situation.”
“You are going to talk to her and beg her forgiveness.” S’kasia placed a testing hand on the shell of her nearest egg and then adjusted the heat on the stove.
“It’s an unfair request.”
“Try anyway.” She shoved a bowl of g’gek at him. Her annoyance was plain since she’d only given him a few sad slivers of meat in the portion of stew, and the g’gek was watered down.
“Only if she’s willing.”
“For your sake I hope she is.”
“I’m not some ravik to force anyone to spend time with me if they’re not interested.” His frill lifted at the implication of his clutch sister’s words, intended or not.
S’kasia’s frill wilted around her neck. “If you don’t claim her, there are many others who would be interested.”
“I understand.”
S’kasia drank deeply from her own concentrated bowl of g’gek before deigning to pay attention to him again. “I truly hope you do. She is agood female. I thought you deserved a good female, but you have made me realize I was wrong.”
“I don’t deserve much of anything.”
She paused for a long breath, staring down at him from across the table before finally setting her bowl down with a decisive click. “I find it difficult to argue with you, even though I know the goddess and my sisters in flame would encourage me to offer you words of comfort. Hopefully, Eleri is more forgiving. I picked her specifically for her high empathy scores.”
S’samph’s tail drooped at the mention of the human’s name. He’d been cold with her, it was true, but he hoped it would make things easier for her. If he was cold and inhospitable it would be simple for her to move on and choose someone else. Someone better. S’samph stared into his bowl of food trying to figure out how in the maw of fire he was going to approach the human after what he’d said to her earlier that day.
CHAPTER 3
ELERI
“Eleri of Gaia?” At first, she thought the village leader was the same arrogant kyrot male who had almost hit her with his levibike, but this male was taller and had darker fur than the other with patches of silvery gray polka dotting through. He peered out of the door to a makeshift office. A rickety table with a wired datapad propped in the center of the room and a few haphazard stacks of real paper books cluttered the corners. Eleri couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anything printed on real paper.
