Page 31

31

Kroaicho

By the time I make it back to Olivia, exhaustion is pulling at my limbs. I step inside, shaking off the dust and dirt that's clung to my skin, but the moment I enter, I notice something off.

I glance around, my eyes scanning the dark corners, but there's no sign of Olivia.

Zha is gone.

I feel my body tense, a wave of irritation crashing over me as my glow darkens to purple. Of course, zha didn't stay somewhere I expect.

For a moment, I stand still, letting the dark purple glow pulse from my body in time with my rising frustration. I will always be dark purple as long as I'm with zha. As long as zha is part of my hoard…

No other creature has ever stirred such an endless stream of irritation in me. Zha is like a constant storm, always shifting, always pushing against me.

Red fear thrums again and I take a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. To realize that this isn’t really about zha, but far more to do with how few items I was able to carry here. I place the precious treasures gently on the ground, then turn back around.

I let out a long breath, but then think back to what Ree said at the facility. My stories, my knowledge, has value to them. Zha called me treasure… does that make me part of Ree’s hoard? Can that happen simultaneously?

For a moment my skin whirls in shades of blue, but then orange replaces it. That feels… very satisfying. I have value to others and they have value to me. I will have to think on this more as I shift what a hoard means or how I could be part of one that is bigger than I am, while also claiming it as my own.

I look down at the items.

The impulse to find more is still there and I still embrace it, but I can feel it shifting back in priority. I can do more than gather items. There is a more important goal, with far richer, if sometimes very confusing, stories.

It makes my middle segment feel warm.

This shift of thinking is new, but there is one thing I know for sure. Olivia has the most value. Zha will always be the most important part of my hoard. I will always follow, or how will I know zha is safe?

My red glow dims slightly as I step back outside, scanning the area for any sign of zha’s tracks. It doesn't take long to spot them—depressions in the grass, leading away from the cave and toward the cliffs beyond. Zha’s confusing, multi-species scent wafting toward me from the same direction.

With a sigh, I follow the tracks, moving faster now, my spikes twitching with each step. Why does zha always do this? Why can't zha just stay where it's safe?

The terrain is rougher as I approach the portion of the valley that tapers off into cliffs, the wind biting at my skin. I push forward, determined to find zha and bring zha back. As I round a corner, I see zha in the distance, staring up at the sharply rising cliff face.

For a moment, I just watch. Zha's colors are different now, shimmering in the light. Zha glows brighter, not the dull, pale pink of before as I walked away, finally giving in to the need to check the hoard, but something more vibrant. Something beautiful.

I blink, momentarily caught off guard. I've never seen zha like this before. There's a lightness to zha, a glow that's mesmerizing. My own body reacts without thinking, the usual confusion returning as my skin flickers to blue.

The purple hide underlying it all fits zha. Simmering anger, regardless of what other colors zha might show, it’s right there, waiting to jump out.

I move closer, my eyes locked on zha. Zha is beautiful. More than I've ever noticed. The way zha’s light flickers across zha’s skin, the way the colors of purple hide, yellow tail, green hair blend together… It's captivating.

I catch myself staring, and I quickly look away, my spikes twitching with discomfort. No. I can't let myself be distracted. I need to get zha back to the cave. That's all that matters.

But when I look again, I can't help but think that no other treasure I've ever found—no gem, no piece of rare metal, no artifact—could ever compare to the sight before me. Even all of my treasures together would not match the way zha shines.

Why do I have to keep reminding myself of this?

As I draw closer, zha turns, noticing me. A soft, high-pitched sound escapes zha’s mouth, and I feel a strange sensation rise up from deep within me—a rumble, a vibration that echoes through my chest.

I blink in surprise, watching as zha lets out another sound, this time louder, and my body reacts again, the blue light shifting, flashing orange as joy sparks in my chest.

Zha looks over at me, and the moment our eyes meet, I see it—a flash of orange on zha's skin, matching my own. It's brief, barely there, but I see it. And for some reason, it makes my middle segment tingle with a sensation I've never felt before.

I move closer, standing beside zha now, but I don't speak.

Zha doesn't say anything either, but I can feel zha’s presence next to me, warm and glowing. For a long time, we just stand there, side by side, watching the valley.

The thought lingers in the back of my mind as we stand there in silence again.

"We should return. Predators will soon be up and about. We should rest before it is night."

Zha hums lowly in the back of zha’s throat and I resist the urge to shiver.

"I doubt they would live long, but alright,” zha concedes.

We don’t talk after that, both lost in thoughts, both exhausted by the day’s events, but the orange glow as we settle into the cave communicates everything that needs to be said.

***

“No one is carrying rocks for you, Kroaicho,” Ree tells me again. “And we don’t have time to go into your cave even if we had space for your… treasure.”

The way zha says the last word sounds like just what I have come to expect from humans. No respect for history and an obsession with ugly things. I grind my tusks, opening my mouth to argue again, then shut it.

I keep trying to think of different ways to explain to them, frantic to convince them, my middle segment twisting in pain at the idea of losing another hoard. I can’t do it again. I can’t…

“I need your help, Kroaicho,” Olivia grits out.

Zha is trying to keep a bundle of weapons from shifting off zha’s back, but even with zha’s newly enhance strength, zha is too small to effectively carry it. I look down at my collection of beautiful items clutched against me, then back to the ugly mass of metal and hand-woven grasses keeping it all bundled together and my middle segment hurts even more.

My upper limbs tremble as I slowly, painfully, place my treasures on the grass, chittering out my pain as I do it. Then I exhale a long breath and move over to help.

It’s no trouble to carry the weapons, but I can’t move my eyes away from the pile I’m leaving behind, careful to not think of the mounds of similar items deep in the caves beneath us.

“I can carry one of them,” Olivia says in a soft voice. “Which one?”

How will I decide?

I choose hastily, knowing that if I linger, I may not make myself move. Instead, I use one of my middle limbs to touch one of the crystals and then start following the rest of the group out of the valley, my skin lit fully pink as I trudge along.

The journey is long. Long enough that I have time to think, especially since everyone is being carefully quiet. Even the argila somehow know to not let out their usual braying, though Rin’s constant fussing is likely the cause.

Olivia seems worried about me, skin lighting up with blues and reds when zha looks over. Zha asks me to tell zha stories of my lost treasures back in the cave behind us and I comply in a low voice. Each one I tell makes it feel like the treasure is not lost; the story remains.

After the fourth story, I realize zha knew that all along. Zha’s skin is lit up white with amusement and that inner whisper lets me know this shift in zha’s story.

At first, my skin thrums purple at being led in such a way, but then I decide that I have been ignoring too many of the signals and whispers.

It’s always been a bad habit that my zhann liked to point out. Whatever doesn’t fit how I want to think about the world, such as gender in other species, I ignore.

Life is far less confusing that way… but it isn’t going to help me right now. I already left my hoard—which is the source of the tight feeling in my middle segment—I should try to shift my thinking so the decision is worth it.

I start looking around at the group, paying far closer attention than I ever have to other beings.

I remember how differently I saw Olivia earlier and try to apply the same new vision to the rest. To the way the dappled moonlight moves along Drasuk’s blue hide, signaling just how confusing zha always finds Kira. Then to the shifting orange and green fur that wafts from Thivoll’s long mane, also fitting for how playful and completely absorbed zha is with Ree, zha’s purple, orange, and black treasure that rides on zha’s back, issuing silent commands to the group.

Then to the black and green of Kuret, a fitting combination to how focused zha is on Rin. The lightness of green, mixed with the pure black a zhann would signal for a zhannel… except in a new orientation. One I’m still beginning to appreciate as I think of how to become two with Olivia.

Except… we aren’t just two, are we? I look around at the dizzying array of colors moving around me, opening my vision up to catch more details in the dark… and I finally see it. What Olivia has been trying to communicate. A glittering, living hoard.

My middle segment leaps as orange lights up my skin, but then red quickly takes over. A living hoard means a mobile hoard, I realize in horror. A hoard that is easily lost. That won’t stay in one place, just like Olivia won’t. That can be… killed.

How could I ever, possibly protect a hoard such as this?

How?

My skin pulses red and blue as I think of all the ways each of the bright treasure beings around me could die. No, no, no. This is far worse.

“What’s wrong, Kroaicho?” Olivia whispers to me, skin lighting with concern.

After a deep breath, I settle my middle segment, reminding myself that the greatest treasures are the hardest to keep from being stolen. That a zhasie just has to fight all the harder, be all the more vicious to keep those treasures safe.

I move my head back and forth in the human gesture as my skin settles back to a dull blue and orange. “Nothing,” I chitter back softly.

Olivia moves zha’s head up and down, and doesn’t speak again.

I spend the rest of the long trek thinking of ways to protect this new hoard. I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I don’t realize we have exited the forest until I stumble on rocks and plunge into the water. After a small moment of panic as I sink into the water—which is never a place a zhasie should ever be—strong tentacles wrap around me.

Eli is once again yellow in zha’s pride as zha holds me aloft. I light up purple for a short moment as Olivia asks if I am alright, but then sink back into my thoughts, skin lit blue as I strategize. The soft laughter of the humans after Eli deposits me back on the shore barely registers on my mind.

I don’t even balk at being carried in Wroahk’s tentacles after everyone points out that I will sink to the bottom of the lake, incapable of swimming. After we move across, I only cast a quick glance at the glittering rocks on the shore and don’t complain when the cave they offer smells of some foul beast.

I have never had a more important strategy to think through, and I had the most sought after hoard of all zhasie before ending up here. This is far, far more important than what I had on my home planet.

I will not fail to protect this living hoard. I can’t.