Page 17

M y world is a screaming, over-saturated lie.

The light from Xylos's twin suns is no longer just light; it is a physical assault, a blade of searing white that pierces my eyelids and makes my optic nerve ache.

The gentle hum of insect life I once documented has become a deafening roar, a dissonant chorus that grinds against my skull.

Every scent is a chemical weapon, every gust of wind a rasp of sandpaper against my raw skin.

Systemic failure. Complete sensory overload.

I try to anchor myself with clinical terminology, a final, desperate act of intellectual defiance against my own biological collapse. The atmospheric compounds, the very air I breathe, have become a poison. Without the stabilizing buffer of the bond, my body is losing its war with this planet.

My limbs feel like lead, my movements clumsy and uncoordinated. I stumble from my shelter, a flimsy construction of salvaged metal and woven vines that now seems laughably inadequate. I need my medkit. I need my datapad. I need data. The data will save me. The data has always been my salvation.

A wave of nausea and vertigo sends me to my knees. The world tilts, the screaming colors and sounds swirling into a vortex. Through the chaos, a shape resolves itself at the edge of the clearing. A hallucination. It must be.

Subject: Jaro. Form: Beast. Observation: Twelve feet of horned, scaled fury. His golden eyes are fixed on me, burning with a possessive fire that feels more real than the ground beneath my hands.

Hypothesis: The fever is affecting my visual cortex, projecting an image of my primary source of psychological stress.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the image, but it remains, a terrifyingly solid presence in the wavering, overly-bright landscape.

The storm I'd seen gathering in the mountains has arrived, the sky turning a bruised purple.

The wind howls, a mournful sound that echoes the storm raging inside my own head.

I try to crawl, to drag myself back to the illusion of safety I have built. But my muscles refuse my commands. My scientific mind, my last line of view, is dissolving into a chaotic soup of fragmented data and raw, primal fear.

The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is a pair of glowing golden eyes, filled with an anguish that feels like my own. My last coherent thought is not a scientific formula. It is not a survival protocol.

It is a name, whispered on a feverish, broken breath.

Jaro.

* * *

Consciousness returns in fragments, like corrupted data files. I am floating in a sea of heat and cold, my body an unreliable vessel.

Observation: I am lying on my bedroll. The shelter wall, previously damaged, has been reinforced with interwoven branches. A new, tightly stretched tarp from my emergency kit covers the opening, keeping the driving rain out. My skin is cool. Someone has been bathing my face with a damp cloth.

I drift.

Time has no meaning. There is only the fever, a burning sun inside me, and the bond, a cold ache in my chest. Sometimes, through the haze, I feel him. Not a hallucination, but a presence. A low thrum of protective energy on the edge of my awareness. He is close.

He defied the council. He came for me.

The thought is a flicker of clarity in the delirium. It should terrify me. He is coming to drag me back, to force the claiming. But the feeling that bleeds across the bond isn't triumph. It's a gut-wrenching, soul-deep worry. His worry. For me.

Another moment of lucidity. I am awake enough to sip water from the canteen placed beside my head. It is fresh. My other canteen, which was nearly empty, is now full. He brought me water. He is providing for me, but he is not here. He is keeping his distance.

Hypothesis: Subject Jaro is exhibiting behavior inconsistent with traditional Xylosian claiming protocols. He is providing resources without asserting dominance. He is respecting my stated demand for autonomy, even in my most vulnerable state.

This data does not compute.

I slip back under, into the churning sea of fever dreams. The forest pulses with impossible colors. Plants with crystalline leaves sing in a language I almost understand. The world is data, pure and overwhelming, and my mind is the processor, overheating, on the verge of catastrophic failure.

And then, the forest changes. The screaming colors soften. The deafening sounds coalesce into a single, rhythmic pulse, like a great heart beating. The air is warm, fragrant with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and something else... something that smells like him. Like home.

He is here. Not as a hallucination or a distant echo, but standing before me, solid and real. He is in his humanoid form, dressed in the simple leathers he wore on our journey, his amber eyes clear and steady. The fever-heat recedes, leaving only the gentle warmth of the bond pulsing between us.

“Where are we?” I ask, and my voice is whole, my thoughts lucid.

“I do not know,” he says, his own voice clear, without the cultural or linguistic barriers that have always stood between us. “A place our hearts made, I think.”

I look down at myself. I am not sick. I am not weak. I am whole. “A shared dreamscape. Induced by the bond's resonance under extreme physiological stress.”

He gives a small, sad smile. “You are still a scientist, even in a dream.”

“It's who I am, Jaro. It's all I am.”

“No. It is not.” He takes a step closer, and the air around us shimmers. “I have felt your heart, Kendra. It is more than just data and analysis.”

“What is this place?” I ask again, looking around at the surreal, beautiful forest.

“A place where we can speak without misunderstanding,” he says. “A place for... truth.”

The word hangs in the air. Truth. A variable I have been unable to accurately quantify.

“Alright, Jaro. Let's talk about truth,” I say, crossing my arms. “Tell me the truth about the claiming ceremony.”

He doesn't flinch. He just looks at me, his gaze direct. “It was the only path I could see.”

“The only path? Or the easiest path? The one your culture laid out for you, a path of dominance and possession that required no thought, no empathy, no understanding of who I am.”

There. The anger is still there. Sharp and clean.

“I thought it would protect you,” he says, his voice low. “I thought giving you my name, my status, would shield you from Vex and the others. I thought it was what a warrior does for his mate. He claims her. He protects what is his.”

“ What is his ,” I repeat, the words tasting like poison.

That's the core of the problem, isn't it?

The fundamental error in your logic. I am not a thing to be owned.

“Did you ever once consider what that ritual would do to me?

To the person inside the 'alien female' you were so determined to protect?”

He looks down, his massive shoulders slumping slightly.

It is the first time I have ever seen him look defeated.

“I... did not understand. My people... we do not think of it in this way. The bond is a sign of strength. The claiming is a demonstration of that strength. It is how we have always survived.”

“By possessing your females? By treating them as territory to be conquered and held?” The questions are sharp, accusatory, but they need to be asked.

“It is not... it was not meant to be a cruelty,” he says, finally meeting my eyes again. The raw vulnerability there is staggering. “It was meant to be an honor. To be claimed by the prince... it is a high station. I did not see... I could not see it through your eyes.”

I feel my anger begin to soften, replaced by a weary sadness. He's not malicious. He's just... indoctrinated. A product of his culture, his world.

“And you, Kendra,” he says, his voice taking on a new intensity. “Why did you run? Why must you always be alone? Why is the idea of accepting protection so terrifying to you?”

His questions hit their mark, piercing through my scientific detachment. Because no one ever protected me. They managed me. My intellect. My potential. But not me. Never just me.

“Because protection has always come with a price I'm not willing to pay,” I admit, my voice a whisper.

“My identity. My autonomy. Jaro, I've spent my entire life fighting not to be defined by other people's expectations.

My parents saw a prodigy, my colleagues saw a rival, the Directorate saw an asset.

No one has ever just seen... me. If I let you claim me, I become 'Jaro's mate.

' Another label. Another cage. I would cease to be Dr. Kendra Miles. I would just be... yours.”

I see understanding dawn in his eyes. He is finally seeing it. Seeing me. “You are afraid of disappearing.”

“I'm terrified of it,” I confess, the admission leaving me breathless. “It's the one variable I can't control. The one threat I can't out-think.”

He closes the distance between us, his presence a warm, solid certainty in this dream world. He doesn't touch me. He just stands before me, his gaze holding mine.

“The bond does not seek to erase you, Kendra,” he says, his voice filled with a conviction that resonates deep in my soul.

“I felt your mind when the fever was at its worst. It is... brilliant. Vast. Why would I want to extinguish such a light? The bond chose you not to make you less, but to make us... more.”

He gestures to the forest around us. “You see this world as a scientist. You see the data, the systems, the hidden logic. I see it as a warrior. I feel the life-scent of the predators, the rhythm of the seasons, the spiritual pulse of the mountain. Alone, we each see only half of the truth.”

He finally reaches out, his hand hovering in the space between us. “The claiming ceremony was my world's clumsy attempt to express this. A flawed ritual, I see that now. But the instinct behind it... the need to join our strengths... that was real.”

I look at his outstretched hand. I look at his face, at the raw honesty in his amber eyes. He is not asking for submission. He is asking for partnership. An integration of variables. A new hypothesis.

My fever has not broken, not in the real world. But here, in this place between our hearts, the storm has passed. A new, fragile understanding is taking root. I can feel it, a tentative warmth spreading from the mark on my chest.

I lift my hand and place it in his. His fingers close around mine, strong and warm. A perfect fit.

The dream-forest begins to fade, the colors bleeding back into the harsh, painful reality of the fever. But the understanding remains. The connection holds.

I feel myself surface, dragged from the depths of the fever-dream. My eyelids flutter open. The storm outside has lessened to a steady drizzle. The screaming sensory overload has quieted to a manageable roar.

Through the rain-streaked opening of my shelter, I see him. He is sitting by a small, smokeless fire, his back to me, a silent, watchful guardian. He is keeping his distance, respecting the boundary I drew. But he is here. He stayed.

And for the first time since I woke up on this hostile, beautiful world, I don't feel alone.