Page 28

28

Kroaicho

My mind is too full of what just happened to sleep, but my skin is still lit up bright orange, despite the odd tangles of my thoughts.

At first I thought I was hurting zha somehow, but the bright flaring of green and orange zha showed where the black clothing didn’t cover helped settle my red fear. Now zha is sleeping… all of the confusing words and explosive energy settled and contained.

Zha is beautiful. The greatest treasure I’ve ever found. So I just keep staring, losing myself in the swirling shifts and odd, twitching human expressions.

But then the twitching becomes more violent and not long after zha is moaning out zha’s pain sound, skin lighting in reds and blues.

Wait… is that a steady purple on zha’s neck underneath the shifting colors? I look closer, my segments trembling as I watch zha’s usually perpetually amused white-brown skin transition to a rougher, purple… hide?

When zha starts moaning loader and thrashing, I fully panic, lighting the cave red as I shift my segments so I can lay zha on the purple grasses. Then I shoot up to my four back limbs, unsure what to do for a long moment before dashing out of the cave, looking for the nearest human to explain what is happening to Olivia.

Surely they will know?

Luckily the pink one is crouched not far from the cave, back turned, and then zha scrambles around, raising the metal weapon as I run toward zha.

“Come quickly,” I urge. “Something is wrong with Olivia.”

I turn, limbs tripping over each other in my haste, and run back to the cave, the pink human coming up beside me at an impressive speed.

Zha skids to a stop beside me as I chitter inanely, arms reaching out to Olivia, but unsure of what to do. Zha would not want me to touch zha, I know it.

“ Fuck ,” the pink one mutters, then clears zha’s throat. “It’s alright, big guy . She is just changing. You two must have had a fun time, right?”

Zha punches one of my limbs with zha’s small arm and it hurts more than I expect.

“This is… normal? For humans?”

“Not really, but on this fucking planet it is. Although…” the pink one bites zha’s lips, the pause making the red on my skin flare even brighter.

“What?” I chitter harshly.

“My changes happened while I slept and weren’t all that bad,” the pink one says. “Drasuk would have told me if I was thrashing around… trust me. She is taking on changes from you and me. Fuck . I should have told her no about the blood.”

I blink. What does that mean? I grind my tusks, then startle when zha starts yelling.

“Thivoll!” the pink one yells out. “Get Ree here now!”

Then the pink one moves over to Olivia and holds zha down, containing zha’s thrashing. I want to protest, to tell the pink one that Olivia wouldn’t like that, but I don’t know what humans need.

I hear a thundering sound, like something heavy running before the pink one’s blue beast appears. Right after comes the purple human with the manticorid. None of the pink on my skin is from the sight of it, though my mind is telling me to flee.

The purple human slides off the manticorid’s back, stumbling over to Olivia, then also starts touching zha. I’m shuffling from two limbs to another two, unsure what to say, or how to help.

I think over everything I’ve seen while I was here, scouring my mind for anything that might help, then remembering where I woke up.

“There was a place,” I chitter, voice high. “With screens and technology, and braceaaer. It might have something that would help.”

“What is he saying?” the manticorid rumbles in zha’s native tongue.

I switch to zha’s language and repeat myself.

The manticorid and the blue beast both turn to me, eyes intense. “Come,” says the manticorid. “My name is Thivoll. This is Drasuk. Ree and Kira will help Olivia. She will be well, but you are correct that something in the facility might help. Tell us everything you know.”

I resist for a moment, but then the manticorid wraps a black scaled hand around one of my upper limbs and gently pulls me away.

“Humans are hard to kill,” the blue one… Drasuk, says. “They just keep coming back so they can confuse and annoy you. Olivia will come through this even stronger… what is your name?”

“Kroaicho,” I chitter.

Drasuk repeats it back, mangling the pronunciation, but I don’t protest, letting them lead me out of the cave.

“Tell us,” the manticorid rumbles, and so I do.