ACCESS GRANTED
The wall slides open, revealing a round space six feet in diameter. The floor is lit through bright plastic, but there is nothing inside it. The walls are pitch black and metallic. It looks like a storage space, but there's nothing stored here… and then it clicks. I am going to be stored here.
This is the most claustrophobic sight I have ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. I’ve been in cages, but you can almost always see out of cages. The world still exists outside them, even if you can’t get to it. But here, there’s something about the way the dark walls suck all the light out of the floor, which doesn’t seem able to generate enough light to fight the dark. It’s like being inside a metaphor for my most hopeless moments.
“This is a secure part of the ship. Scizzor cannot reach you here,” Warden tells me. “I will obtain furnishings for you, and perhaps some kind of entertainment so you do not go mad.”
“Why are you trying to save me? Why not just give me to him?”
“Because I believe you deserve punishment. Not death.”
I don’t know if I believe him, but I do know that he could have given me to his ferocious broodkin to be torn apart and he didn’t. Scythkin are one thing, even more than they are aggressive. They are possessive.
And this one has chosen me.
That terrifies me, but it is also my only hope of survival. If I escape and that angry scythkin brother of his comes after me, I will be hurt, badly. He does not care that I am human, and that my flesh is sacred. I heard the pain in his voice, and I know what it means. It means he will destroy almost anything for a chance at feeling even slightly better. I know that feeling too.
“I’d say stay here, but you don’t have a choice,” Warden says. “In time, when Scizzor calms down, we may be able to move you from here, but for the moment, this is your world.”
* * *
Released from his grasp, and finally alone, I walk around the room. I have been in some cells in my time, but this beats any of them. It is seamless. There is not so much as a weld or a meeting of walls. The light at the very center illuminates the darkness, and there is nothing outside it. This is a big dark hole. A floating, reinforced grave in the stars, and I might never get out of it.
I slide down one part of the circular wall and cover my face with my hands. I have felt despair before many times, though I am usually given to hope. You don’t do what I have done without thinking your actions will lead to something positive eventually. Vengeance is corrupted hope.
But I don’t see how I get out of here. There is one way in, and only Warden can open it. It takes his very blood to make the wall slide away. Until he returns, I am left here almost entirely alone besides the collar around my neck. Touching it gives me a sense of connection to the scythkin who left me here.
Warden
Scizzor is dangerous. Denying him his prey is also dangerous. He needs a distraction. Somewhere to vent his rage. I know better than to just tell him not to think about Silver. He won’t be able to stop himself from thinking about her. He won’t be able to help himself from tearing the ship apart to get to her.
“Scizzor.”
He turns around, clutching a tankard full of synth. Synth is a little like alcohol, but it isn’t a sedative or an intoxicant. It’s a soother. I’m glad to see him using it. It means he is trying to get himself under control.
There is nothing scythkin hate more than being out of control. We are vicious, but we are not wild creatures. We are intelligent, and we need our wits about us. I am pleased to see Scizzor trying to wrestle his rage. It means a lot.
“You should have told me.”
“Maybe. You know now. And I think we both know that you can’t stay here and go on as normal knowing what you know.”
“Are you casting me off the ship, Warden?” His eyes flare.
“I’m not casting you anywhere. But I think it is time we stopped orbiting dead planets and went to do something that will renew our vigor and pride. I think we need to prepare a new broodsite. And I think that you should descend and mate with the matriarchs of your choosing.”
What I am offering him is more than an honor. Usually only first hatched mate with matriarchs. If their right to mate is challenged by other broodkin, the battle to inseminate their eggs can be brutal. Scizzor never had any reason to believe that he would ever spread his seed.
What he needs, what we all need in the wake of Saya’s death, is hope. This may give him hope.
His eyes dim a moment. He looks away, and takes a long swig of the synth. I feel myself relax, just a little. This might work. He might get what he needs. I might get what I need.
“We are going to claim a planet for the matriarchs,” I tell him. “You are going to take our last hatched and raze the surface of the world below, consume every part of it until it is a scorched site ready for our brood.”
“You’re trying to send me away so you can spend time with your little human, keep her safe, play with her, enjoy her while the brood who care are somewhere distant?”
Scizzor is not stupid.
“No. I am trying to show you that our mission holds. Saya’s mission holds.”
“It doesn’t. It can’t. She will never lay. She will never fight for her clutch. She will never rend the flesh of other matriarchs and spread their blood around the nest for her freshly hatched brood to feast upon. She had her whole breeding life ahead of her…”
“You will spawn,” I tell him. “You will spread your seed on eggs waiting to be fertilized, and we will pass our seed on that way. You share blood with Saya.”
“You are really going to let me spawn?” He laughs, incredulous. “That is for the first hatched to do. The first must spread his seed, so the resulting spawn is as strong as it can be. You are telling me you do not want the honor of spreading your seed across the waiting fresh-laid eggs of a matriarch in her prime?”
“I want you to have something in the wake of our loss,” I tell him. “Your seed shall be spread. Not mine.”
He takes another long draught of synth and regards me with suspicion.
“Or is it that you intend to breed with the human?”
“You know we cannot breed with humans. We lay eggs. They gestate their young inside their bodies. It is not a compatible breeding process.”
“I forget that,” he says. “It is so disgustingly meaty, to carry around their young inside them.”
“Humans are disgusting,” I say, not meaning a word of it. I think humans are beautiful. I think the one I have in storage is the most beautiful one I have ever laid eyes on. I formed a mate bond instantly upon seeing her, and having touched her, taken in her scent, had a taste of her chemical composition, I am even more intrigued by her.
Caged
Silver
He fucked me and I gave him my pleasure. Then he confined me and I feel nothing but despair. In the dark, memories return. Bad memories. Good memories. Memories which make my eyes water, and others which make my hand slip down between my thighs to touch the ravaged places where the scythkin claimed me.
I could come again, thinking about him inside me, knowing that he filled me up first with his cock, and then with his seed. I should have resisted more. I should have stopped myself from enjoying it. But I couldn’t. There is something between us. Something which exists outside the torment I suffer with every day.