Date point: 14y 1m 2w AV
“Clan Young Glory,” western unincorporated territories, Gao
Sister Naydra
Naydra and her fellow Sisters were slowly dying. The “Clan” that had “liberated” them from the clutches of what they now knew were biodrones had decided their honored guests needed “protection.” Their so-called protection consisted of imprisonment. Their “protection fees” came in the form of…companionship. That cruel euphemism meant they were forced to spend time in the company of the “Brothers,” whether any of the sisters wanted it or not. Some of the Sisters had resisted. They didn’t last long. Though the pretense of their situation meant their captors kept up the veneer of civilization…on the first night, faintly, their missing Sister’s howls of terror and pain could be heard.
Naydra played along. Most of the brownies in this bastard Clan were large, stupid and aggressive, and she didn’t fancy her chances if any of them ever grew truly angry with her. They were violent too, much more than the love-fights Naydra had grown up reading about and then experiencing as a mother of cubs. No. This was something much darker. It hurt. Not just her body, and not just her feelings. It hurt her very being.
That was particularly true with the supposed Grandfather of this gang of thugs. Koruum was a very large brownie, the biggest Naydra had ever seen. He was one who had worked in the fields all his life and had the gnarled, muscular build of a hard laborer to prove it. He was their leader through no cunning stratagem or personal charisma, oh no. He was their leader because he was the biggest, meanest and stupidest one of them all.
And he was obsessed with Naydra. Day by day, his violent attraction was slowly killing her.
Every day he would demand her company and every day there would be some brief pretense at a civilized relationship before he used his brute strength to take what he wanted. No Female had ever deigned to mate with him and it was easy to see why: he was stupid, crude, and cruel. He was Clanless and without legacy in the truest senses of the words, and was one of the few males Naydra had ever met that was truly beneath the privilege of fatherhood.
The first week of her endless terror was surreal in its self-contradiction. Koruum had made a protracted attempt to woo her, as if being kept against her will could in any be ameliorated by an idiot’s attempt at Civilization. Naydra had rebuffed his crude attempts to charm his way into her good graces. Politely, at first, but more forcefully as time went on. Eventually he dropped the pretense and simply…used her. Her rejection angered him and made their inevitable encounters much worse, and much longer. He had the stamina and strength of a draft animal and seemed to think that if he just used it as much as he could to entertain his “guests,” he would at long last sire a cub.
He wouldn’t, of course. The historically successful Clan harems of their ancient past were comfortably gilded cages; they had to be if the Clan wanted cubs. While, yes, it took much vigorous mating to induce a pregnancy in any gaoian female no matter how fertile, mere copulation wasn’t the end of it. A Female had to live well-fed and free of stress if she would ever hope to conceive. The prisoners of this upstart Clan had neither. Their self-appointed Grandfather and the rest were too ignorant and stupid to understand but that didn’t stop them from trying. Koruum had forced himself on her every night for over a month, to no success. That small victory was almost the only thing sustaining Sister Naydra.
Koruum was, needless to say, displeased, and had begun to threaten her with further pain and torment if she didn’t swell for him. Naydra decided she would rather die than permit that, though if she was being darkly honest with herself, things were likely to keep getting worse and his escalating brutality made that latter possibility a near certainty.
It was strange, really. The inevitability of her fate had produced in her a sort of detached calm, and gave her a space to escape to while she endured Koruum’s loathsome attentions. The more academic side of her wondered at the psychology of such a thing.
Maybe this time he will finally go too far, and I will escape the suffering. Somewhere, deep in the protected shadows of her mind, the thought gave her peace.
…No.
She would survive this.
She would survive, even with Koruum crushing her almost to death with his strength and endlessly grunting away on top of her. Sister Trymin had braved worse, Sister Shoo had battled the Hunters single-handedly and survived.
Naydra would survive, and she would see Koruum pay for his crimes.
Something changed. Loud noises from outside. The sharp staccato of kinetic gunfire.
There was a crash and the door practically exploded open. Before Naydra could react to that, something moved like a lightning strike to her side, slammed a huge, brown paw on Koruum’s shoulder, sunk its claws in and ripped the evil creature off of her. For reasons Naydra couldn’t pin down, the thing she remembered most vividly about that was the almost comical look of surprise on his face as he tumbled backwards over his own tail and almost flew across the room. There was a brief silence. Then a keening snuffle next to her head.
It was a Female. A huge female, with the scars of a proven warrior in a healed snarl across her powerful, elegant muzzle. She smelled of death and strength and compassion like the Battle-Sisters who fought alongside Great Mother Tiritya. She was a Savior, a winged messenger from the old stories. She was—
“Are you okay?”
Naydra keened.
She keened like she hadn’t since her cubhood. Her Savior pressed her muzzle against Naydra’s own and held it there, the world for the moment forgotten.
There was a groan in the corner. Koruum shook his head, rolled onto his back, then remembered where he was and snapped to alertness. He kipped himself up and onto his feet in a single, explosively powerful motion. Great Mother he was strong, and one look at his short-furred bulk confirmed it. Her Savior pulled away and approached warily, a dangerous growl bubbling up from deep in her chest. But as impressive as her Savior was, she was really nothing compared to Koruum. He knew it, too.
“Two beautiful females to sire my cubs! I’m gonna enjoy breaking you.”
Naydra sat up and keened again—how could her Savior win against such a massive male? He charged and Savior only barely managed to parry. He was fast and handily dodged the Savior’s counter-attack with her blade. She’d attack, he’d side-step or weave…his feral grin grew wider and wider. He couldn’t lose.
Until he did.
Naydra…couldn’t really see what happened. What she saw was that her Savior moved too fast to understand and suddenly, Koruum wasn’t so terrifying after all. He whirled around in a confused motion, desperately lashing out against his tormentor, but every attack was blocked, redirected, avoided. The Savior stabbed him, cut him—all of that in just a few seconds. Savior stepped back and sneered, while Koruum wobbled on his feet for a moment, then slumped to the floor.
At that moment another…creature came barging through the door. It moved so much faster than Savior it couldn’t be real. It slammed into Naydra’s tormentor and crashed into the wall with a sickening crunch. Koruum slumped, coughed blood, and looked about ready to die—
“Not yet, you worthless shitstain.” The male—and he was so much more of a male than Koruum or anyone else that Naydra had ever seen—flipped her tormentor face-down and sat on him, pinning his torso with his sheer weight and controlling him with one gigantic paw contemptuously pressing down on his head. That paw was so huge it almost wrapped around Koruum’s skull, and the claws–!
The bestial male reached with his other paw to retrieve an injector of some kind and mercilessly stabbed it into Koruum’s torso, which elicited a cub-like squeal of pain.
“MEDIC.” The gravelly boom of his voice was almost unreal.
Savior was by her side again, now with a first aid blanket and a container of water. Naydra was too confused to follow everything that happened next. More females came in. She learned that her savior was actually Myun, the legend herself, and not once did she leave Naydra’s side. Others were in and out, medics were doing something to Koruum…
Soon the racket died down. The gigantic male prowled back in with another behind him and talked to the medics in a low voice.
He turned his eyes to Naydra and she instinctively recoiled. He winced, briefly, and flattened his big, pointed ears against his huge skull. But now that she could properly see his face she realized that he wasn’t just any Stoneback, he was—
“If you want, I will leave,” he said quietly. “All the males will leave.” He crouched down on all four paws and got well below her eye level. “Tell me what you want me to do. I will do it.”
Naydra couldn’t, she just wanted to bathe and sleep forever, and…
He duck-nodded and padded over to Koruum. “I’m takin’ this piece o’ nava husk with me.” The hulking male slammed his paw down on Koruum’s back with a sickening crack and sunk his terrible claws into him, all the way down to the roots. Koruum squirmed mightily in a soundless howl of pain, but the hulking brute didn’t care. He dragged the would-be Grandfather out like so much meat to the butcher.
The room was empty, now. Only Myun was there.
“Great Father will want to know what you need,” she said, gently.
So it was him. Naydra didn’t know what to think about that just then.
“And the Mother-Supreme is here too. She also needs to hear. When you’re ready.”
“…What happens next?”
“We evacuate you to Cimbrean, you and the other Sisters. Gao is no place for an unprotected Female just now.”
What an appalling statement that was.
“What will he do?”
Myun squirmed a bit uncomfortably. “Well…exactly what you want. Koruum was a serial reject by all the labor Clans, including Stoneback, and for the Great Father, well: it’s personal. So I guess the answer to that is, if you let him, Daar will do a great many things to Koruum and every male here. Please,” she almost whined, “Think carefully before you answer.”
There was nothing to think about. “Any male living here deserves it.”
“…You are certain?”
“Yes.”
Myun seemed resigned. “Okay. But you tell him yourself. Brother Fiin!”
A head popped around the corner. “Yes, Sister?”
“Get the Great Father, please.”
He duck-nodded and disappeared. Naydra didn’t have to wait long before she felt a slight tremor through the ground and in padded the Great Father on all fours. He approached, respectfully, but his presence even then was utterly overwhelming.
“You wanted me, my Sister?”
Myun spoke up first. “She has decided, My Father.”
“…Thank you, my daughter.” He turned his head back, “May I ask your name?”
“…S–Sister Naydra.”
“Okay. May I speak with you alone?”
Naydra cast a nervous glance to Myun, who duck-nodded encouragingly. “You couldn’t be safer with anyone, Sister. I’ll be just around the corner, okay?”
“…Okay.” Myun stalked out of the room, leaving her alone with the Great Father.
He looked about, shook out his pelt, then sat on his haunches next to her and sighed. “Sister, this thing, it’s…an abomination.” She could smell a rage on him that was so much stronger than any she had ever smelled, it was honestly terrifying. “I would do very much to avenge it. But the Humans have a saying,” the Great Father warned, “It goes something like, ‘wish carefully, you may just get it.’ So I must ask you, and I must have an answer: are any here worthy of any kind of mercy?”
Naydra didn’t hesitate. “No.”
“…You are certain of this? We found some males living outside the compound…”
“They raped my Sisters to death, Great Father,” she spat. “I heard them take turns while that thing you dragged out of here tried to do the very same to me.”
For just a moment the Great Father’s entire body tensed, and the scent of rage pulsed much more strongly. He growled low in his throat, but some incredible discipline of his quickly re-asserted control.
“…Then they will be punished, Sister. I promise.”
“I will witness it.” Naydra was far beyond innocence.
“…If you wish. I hope you might reconsider that—”
“No. I will see them pay with their lives. All of them.”
Daar didn’t say anything. He simply duck-nodded, turned around, and padded out.
There was medical care, then. And food. Sweet, glorious food. A Mother-blessed reunion with her Sisters, a large tent outside of the hated compound with naxas blankets and pillows…
They slept for what felt like an age. When they woke up they did little but huddle together and comfort each other, and eat when their fellow Sisters brought them food.
By mid-day they could hear construction of some kind. By the early evening, Myun showed up with a trepidatious set of her ears. “The Great Father will grant justice tonight. You may witness, as you requested. He hopes you will reconsider. It…will not be pleasant.”
Every Sister went to watch.
Daar was there, waiting on the platform they had hastily assembled. A series of wooden beams that crossed with each other had also been erected, and a prisoner stood each in front of one.
He looked up at Naydra, sighed, then picked up Koruum one-pawed exactly like he was a runty, misbehaving cub.
He turned back to his prisoner and snarled in the most dangerous voice Naydra had ever heard. “You will be an example to everyone of the depth of my wrath, Koruum.” The comparatively little male trembled in terror but Daar did not delay. He broke the prisoner with his bare paws like anyone might break a stick, and ignored the sickening crunches and the screams and the blood. He slammed his ruined prisoner against the crossed beams and held hi m there with a single paw. With the other he picked up a large mallet, and—
Naydra watched, and wished she hadn’t.
Date point: 14y 2m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean
House hunting
Xiù Chang
Cimbrean had changed quite a lot since the last time Xiù had visited. The war on Gao had been ongoing for about four months now and the flood of refugees had, from what she could tell, only intensified. There was so much loss in the air. Everywhere she looked, Xiù could see it on the face of cubs, in the set of a Mother’s ears. The Humans weren’t immune, either. On some of them there was a grim determination to get through the day. Others had a more…negative energy she found difficult to fathom.
But the overwhelming energy—and it was overwhelming—was one of compassion. Compassion from the Governor-General all the way down to the littlest toddler. Homes had been opened, parks repurposed. The jump portal could hardly handle the influx of aid that was arriving every ten minutes and the city bent all their resources to expanding and improving the refugee camp growing steadily on its borders. That, more than anything else, told her they were making the right decision, in the right place, and at the right time.
It did make housing expensive, though.
They were on their way to the fourth and final viewing. Xiù was generally a early bird but that morning she just couldn’t seem to find her center; something like jet lag, maybe? In any case, they were looking for a large apartment or home that would be a good choice for a growing family, and the pickings were…slim. Slim, and one needed to know someone to get their foot in the door in the first place. So really, a lot like Vancouver, from what Xiù remembered.
Fortunately they did have an angle. They had Sister Niral, diplomatic agent of the Clan of Females…and lately, a licensed realtor. Someone had to handle their property concerns, after all, so why send that money to an outside agent? They also had three cubs along with them, all of which were climbing all over Julian while they walked down Delaney Row. And he delighted in them! He’d flip them over his shoulder, hold two aloft with one arm and gently toss the third—a very precocious young male—with his other. It was adorable and it took much restraint on Xiù’s part not to coo while she watched. Niral’s ears said she very much approved, too.
Allison teased him relentlessly and couldn’t hide her grin. Nor could Julian, and he chuckled softly to himself while he one-arm curled the littlest chittering cub, who made awe-filled sounds and kept asking him to do it again, and again, and again. He was going to make an amazing father.
“Thank you so much for doing this, Niral. I know this was short notice…” Xiù seemed to be their natural spokeswoman, and besides: Niral was always good for fascinating conversation.
“It is no problem, Sister Shoo! Though I admit it’s been hard to find any openings for, uh, family accomodations.”
“Tough market?” Julian had placed the youngest cub on the back of his neck, and endured sharp claws and little paws gripping with a deathclutch in his hair.
“Yes, though that is not surprising. There was a fifth, an opening in Warhorse’s apartment building, but…”
“Probably best not to mix friendship and business.”
Niral duck-nodded and led them toward their waiting shuttle. “This final home is a bit out of of the way…”
Julian perked up at that. “Oh?”
“You’ll see.”
The ride over was quick, just enough time for the cubs to start squirming from sitting still, but not long enough that they attempted to wriggle free of their car seats.
“Here it is. It’s the most expensive property out of the four I picked for you…but I hope you can see why.”
They were definitely in the upmarket part of town now, on the south bank of Palace Lake. From what Xiù could recall from the tourist guide, that was the expensive part of town tucked away in the quiet south-west corner.
It certainly had a stunning view. Palace Lake was fed by an aquifer that came up in the courtyard of what had once been the palace and was now the Thinghall, and had been groomed and channeled into a pair of crashing water features. Throw in the alien architecture of the Thinghall itself on top of the rock, and there was probably nowhere else on any Human planet with a view quite like it.
Julian was firmly non-committal, and remained much more interested in the cubs.
“Lake Park is quieter than Quarterside or Riverside parks, but that’s not the really attractive part. Check out the house itself.”
Unusually for Folctha, it wasn’t an apartment or a mid-terrace town house, but a genuine standalone property with an interestingly chunky L-shaped footprint that gave it a fenced deck—private, but keeping the view. Inside was open-plan, with a huge kitchen abutting a sprawling living space divided up by the built-in furniture rather than by proper walls.
The middle floor was two bedrooms, both with an en-suite bathroom and a sliding door out onto a second deck above the kitchen, and the top floor was a huge studio bedroom all to itself. Xiù didn’t even want to guess how many square feet the whole thing came out to—it had to be more than twice the size of her parents’ tiny place in Vancouver in total.
It certainly made an impression on Allison when she discovered that it had a basement as well. And a double garage!
“You can actually breathe in here!” she declared upon opening the closet in the master bedroom and discovering that it wasn’t that much smaller than their quarters on Misfit. “Christ.”
Julian took his time as he ambled around the house studying it with a critical, calm eye. While Xiù and Allison cooed over the house’s features, he kept his cards closer to his chest. One of the more endearing things about him was how much he was a man…but not just because of his body. Not really. For her the real attraction was in a bunch of subtle, not-too-loud kinds of ways, like how he looked like he was taking notes as he made short, pertinent observations. “Basement slab needs sealing. Garage is a bit small for a double…nice big shower, though.”
“D’you like it or not, Etsicitty?” Allison asked him after the third or fourth room.
“…Eh. It’s very nice,” he was quick to say, “But, I dunno. It’s just a house.”
“You mean it’s not a Julian house,” Xiù observed.
That earned her a sideways smile and one of his trademark chuckles. “A Julian house, eh? What’s that like?”
“I’m thinking…squeaky front door, beavers out in the backwoods, shed full of hunting and fishing gear…” Xiù counted off on her fingers, and Allison stifled a laugh. Just for a moment, there’d been a flash of nostalgia there.
“The squeak is important,” he said with an almost straight face. “Could do without the beaver. Shed would be nice…”
“Right. So it’s too fancy for you, babe?” Allison asked. Julian shuffled his feet.
“…It’s very nice,” he repeated. Allison snorted.
“Christ, you’re so goddamned Minnesota sometimes.”
“Well? What do you want me to say? I’ve never bought a house—how much is this?”
Niral consulted her tablet. “It’s listing for just shy of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”
Julian practically choked. “That’s like a million dollars!”
Allison gave him a patient look. “Babe. We can afford a million dollars. We wouldn’t even have to mortgage, we could buy this place outright.”
“I could build this house for, I dunno, like a tenth of that!”
“You don’t have time, babe, and you couldn’t build it here,” Xiù said. “So…do we like the address? The lake, the park, and all that stuff?”
“I mean…yeah? It’s nice and quiet here…”
“And private,” Xiù added.
“Okay, but seriously. Come down and look at the basement. They didn’t even seal the floor. I can’t find the sump! It feels like this place was slapped together in eleven seconds by a fat man named George.”
There was a moment of confused silence, broken by Niral’s genteel cough.
“That’s…specific,” she commented.
“Every fat construction worker is named George,” he said drily. “And they never seal floors.”
“That does put a damper on it,” Allison agreed. “Literally.”
Julian sighed. “I mean, it’s not unfixable. It’s level, at least. I think. I didn’t bring my carpenter’s square to actually check ‘cuz, y’know, I’d assumed a million dollar house would be built right.”
Allison rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You don’t have a carpenter’s square yet, babe. You can put one in the garage!”
“Yes I do! And would I put it next to your motorbike, huh? Or in the basement, next to my slabbin’ toys and bikini babe posters?” Julian troll-grinned, “Is that how it goes?”
Allison had the perfect deadpan response at the ready. “Only if we all agree they’re smokin’ hot. Anyway…is it fixable? I’m sure we can use an unsealed basement to haggle them down, but if it can’t be fixed then this place is a bust.”
Julian sighed. “Oh, it’s fixable. I just, I dunno. I feel like we’re rushing into spending a lot of money, maybe.”
“…Julian, when was the last time you looked at our net worth?” Xiù asked him.
“…Ten minutes ago. We’re, uh…up about two grand this morning.”
Allison snorted. “So we’re up about two grand since breakfast? At that rate we’d be able to buy this place in…what, three months?”
Xiù felt the need to moderate, again. Julian was being way too cautious for her tastes, but that didn’t mean she had to let Al’s gung-ho predilections go unchallenged. “That’s not fair Allison. Stock markets are kinda frothy. But still. We can afford it. Don’t worry about the money. Is it what we want?”
He still seemed torn. “I mean…okay. I like the design. It’s kinda funky shaped. The built-in furniture is a little weird but I guess that’s how rich people do. I like the park. But I’m worried the home is actually garbage.”
Niral cleared her throat. “Folctha has…quite robust building codes,” she said.
Julian rolled his eyes. “That does not mean a goddamned thing, Niral. Building codes are what men like George break for fun.”
“But it does mean that if the place is garbage then you can sue this hypothetical George for every penny he ever made…and the MBG legal department give other lawyers nightmares.”
“Yes, because that’s exactly what I want to deal with while I’m covered in mud on an alien world!”
“Didn’t they handle the bullshit with your grampa’s place?” Allison recalled.
“…Yes.”
“While we were stuck in a box preparing to get covered in mud on an alien world,” Xiù added. He threw his hands up in despair.
“No ganging up!” he protested. “…You two really want this place, huh?”
“Yeah. We knew this morning when we saw the listing. You were off getting groceries, remember? And it’ll be nice to move out of the Statler.”
That seemed to annoy him. “So you, what? Decided this was the place while I wasn’t there? I won’t deny it’s in a great location but c’mon!”
“Julian.” Allison gave him her you’re-being-silly look. “It’s a good house, the problems are fixable and if you’re really worried about it, we’ll just need to pick a good home inspector.”
“…I want a good one. One not named George.”
“God, anyone! They can even come from Earth for all I care! I’ll pay the travel expenses myself if you’ll just quit being a dummy and admit you like this place!”
“But I don’t, though!” He blurted out, then had regrets the moment Niral quietly slipped away into another room. “Well, okay. No. I…fuck. I dunno. I just want something right here that’s like…half this. It’s too much. Not the cost, I mean—”
Allison softened. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I just wanted you to quit dancing around it. I’m sorry.”
Xiù thought that was maybe unfair. It wasn’t that Julian was dancing around anything. It was more that when he thought or felt something, the words came later when he needed to say them. She’d noticed that tic of his a while ago and it was both charming and a little frustrating.
“…I’m sorry too,” he sighed, and with a quick peck on the lips the argument was gone again. “I just…don’t like it as much. It ain’t bad, I just…for some reason I can’t see us here in my mind’s eye. I always figured we’d pick somewhere, uh…cozier.”
Niral had returned to the room when the voices had quieted. “There are smaller properties, but they will not have three bedrooms. You humans enjoy building family housing like small communes. And they will cost about the same; it’s a tough market.”
Xiù nodded along, then picked up where Niral left off. “Look…we don’t have to decide today, but we do have to all want the place, not just accept it.” She looked at Julian meaningfully.
He didn’t quite relent, but he did scratch the back of his head and concede to the possibility. “No promises yet…lemme get a workout in and think about it.”
“Christ, the more you hang out with the SOR the more they rub off on you,” Allison snorted, but she took Julian’s hand and kissed his cheek. “Go. Think. Slab to your heart’s content. And if you don’t wanna live here then that’s fine. It has to be your house too.”
Julian’s embarrassed little grin was unfairly sexy, and he either didn’t know it or was the most ruthlessly manipulative man Xiù knew, and she knew him too well to believe that. “Okay. I’ll be a bit late. Adam’s got something planned.”
“Okay, but you have to promise not to be grumpy after. Last time he had something planned you got real cranky.”
“Heh.” It was a grim, humorless chuckle. “He can really put the hurt on. Anyway…” Julian checked his phone and pulled a face, “Shit! Gotta run, I’m almost late. Love you both!” With that, he grabbed his bag and charged out the door and sprinted off into the distance.
Allison stood in the middle of the floor with her arms folded staring after him until Xiù draped herself around her from behind, wrapped her arms around her waist, settled her chin on Allison’s shoulders and squeezed. “He’ll be fine.”
Allison sighed. “…I just wish…does he know what he wants? I don’t think he does, sometimes.”
“He just takes a while to figure it out,” Xiù promised, then raised a finger to playfully flick the end of Allison’s nose. “We’re not all as decisive as you.”
“I’d like a little decisiveness from him! I mean…” Her face blushed just a bit, which was a rare sight on Allison. “Besides, y’know.” She coughed slightly and blushed harder.
Even Niral’s ears flicked.
“It’s not a small decision,” Xiù tactfully side-stepped Allison’s embarrassment. “He’s always been the careful one. Would you want him to just jump into things? Or be led by the nose wherever we drag him?” Xiù asked.
“No!”
“Right.”
Allison thought about that for a second, then nodded and unwound.
“…Right.”
Xiù smiled, kissed her and let go. “Shǎguā.”
Niral asked tactfully, “So shall I tell the seller you’re interested? I have other clients today…”
Xiù decided to be a bit more assertive, just for once. “Yes. I’ll make the earnest payment.” When Allison looked at her, “What? If he doesn’t like it I’ll be out some cash, but if he does I’m not missing out on this. Just…don’t tell him.” She turned to Niral. “Either of you.”
“Our little secret.”