Where am I? When am I? Where is Ola?

These were three questions Xenon could not answer for Female 7-133—Fensa. The memory of her screaming that name at him in the snow haunted him while she slept.

Drakkon had names but only used them to refer to themselves. For example, Xenon often referred to himself as “Xenon” on his reports. However, it would never occur to him to call his uncle, or even his nearly same-aged cousin, by their given names. So her demand that he call her by this strange name, even though it seemed to be neither title nor label, continued to disturb him long after her voice gave way to the liquid streaming from her eyes.

The Far Travelers also did not have a naming convention, and when they did, it was often along the lines of labeling. Whale Killer. Son of Big Fish Hunter. He thought briefly of one of the Far Travelers he’d killed to assert final claim on the female anomaly: King of Us.

And he once more did not understand. The female was not merely an anomaly, but an impossibility. The images she had flashed into his head. Her talent for mating. Almost as if she had somehow made study of the practice beforehand, and rendered it into art.

On his fire planet, mating served as a simple biological process. A necessary activity to implant a drakkon’s seed in a drakki’s womb. In fact, the operation was so distasteful to some drakkon, Xenon’s great-grandfather commissioned a task force of doctors and scientists to find a solution to the problem when his son’s male works refused to drop to mate the Queen.

For this purpose was the fating portal created. Designed for perfect DNA matches that would almost guarantee a live birth. If a drakkon were lucky enough to be fated, or matched, intercourse was no longer required to attach his gametes to his fated mate’s egg. Xenon’s own parents were DNA matched. And though they had been lauded throughout their planet as the first king and queen to produce not one, but two male heirs in as many generations as could be remembered, he doubted his parents had ever touched one another for any reason beyond reverence.

Fenrir’s experiments still had similar problems reproducing. The numbers weren’t as drastically low as on Drakkon, but with the brutal multi-male matings followed by an exceedingly long nine-month gestation period, less than half the Royal Geneticist’s experiments survived childbirth. Which was another reason the observation team would need to wait a thousand years to determine if Fenrir’s latest experimental groups of hybrids were viable.

However, the images the female anomaly had pushed into his head had been mind-blowing. A lupin mother with dark skin who had not just one, but three children. Apparently, the female anomaly had a twin sister. They looked nothing alike, beyond their skin color and height, but had shared a womb together. Twins!

Supposedly in early Drakkon history, such double births had occasionally occurred. But never in current times, and such layings had become the stuff of legends. As far as Xenon had read and seen, none of the Royal Geneticist’s experiments had produced more than one live birth at a time.

Also, neither the lupins nor the anthros had exhibited behavior remotely resembling the images Fensa pushed into his mind. Much holding and pressing of lips. Intimacy without mating. For the seeming sake of intimacy itself. For this, Xenon had no frame of reference.

Even more startling, the clothes these people wore in the female anomaly’s mind pictures did not seem to come from animals. They looked to be made from a fragile material, one he had not heard tale of on this planet or on his own.

The female anomaly was either delusional or had a history he could not fathom. Still, as he watched her sleep on the red examination table in his lab, he could not believe her delusional.

She spoke at a level that was, if not exactly polite or formal, near the same complexity of thought and word to his own. She claimed to be a princess, which went with the monarchical instincts the Royal Geneticist had implanted in the core DNA of his new species. And of course, she had somehow gestated his baby.

Then there was the other evidence…

The way his male works continued to respond to her, despite the cessation of her mating fever. He could feel his hemipenis swell inside his lower pelvis. Aching with a pain so sweet, he had to turn away from her sleeping form for fear of what he might be compelled to do.

This was the female anomaly’s strangest effect by far. The way she rendered him near incapable of controlling his shell.

The wall started to scroll above her head. Her nutrient levels were again low. But tubing wasn’t advised for pregnant drakki, and Xenon was too scared of the effect it might have on the fragile hybrid fetus gestating inside her to attempt to use the tubes on his pregnant lupin.

He’d need to hunt to keep her well-nourished. And soon. But…

He did not want to leave her alone while he hunted. He thought of the Far Travelers who’d tried to claim her…and of the hostile anthros who had somehow found their way to his glacier station. What if she woke before he returned? And wandered out again?

Instead of leaving directly for the hunt, he reprogrammed the lab not to keep her confined inside for twelve hours. Only twelve, he’d decided, because the thought of her trapped inside a room filled with a large quantity of technical equipment longer than that did not sit well with him.

Now he could go. But once again, he did not.

There was a theory swirling inside his head. An implausible but perhaps not impossible explanation for the lupin. A single line from the Royal Geneticist’s court presentation echoed in Xenon’s head. “This species has the promise to evolve, to indeed develop a civilization as prominent as our own,” the old drakkon had told them. “Hunting them as game would deprive them and the universe of this opportunity.”

And only then did Xenon finally understand what had unsettled him so about the “love” concept the female anomaly had pushed into his head. Civilization. Many, if not all, of those images had shown the unmistakable signs of a level of civilization this species was many thousands of years away from achieving.

That’s when he decided to wall-hail the Mission Geneticist who was currently replicating the Royal Geneticist’s work in Zone 4. He kept the view screen off, of course, to avoid questions about his eye wound…or the pregnant lupin on his examination table in the background.

“Prince of Drakkon.” The Team Geneticist’s voice answered Xenon’s hail in the way of their people: by title as opposed to name.

“Geneticist,” Xenon answered in kind, thinking how much simpler this form of address was for all parties. Another reason he could not understand the female anomaly’s desire to have him address her as “Fensa” as opposed to her title: Female 7-133. “I have a theoretical question about our mission fertility gates that I require help to debone.”

“Of course, Prince. I honor you here as I do on our home planet,” the Team Geneticist answered.

Well, that was one thing this green drakkon did not have in common with his blue uncle, Xenon thought to himself darkly before continuing, “The mission’s fating portals, to my knowing, are the same ones we use throughout our planet. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Prince, that is correct. Are you having problems with the codes on yours? I believed testing is not scheduled for another 50 solar rotations, but if you wish to begin your experiments now, I can fly there to help you—that is, if you’re willing to lift the Zone 7 restriction.”

Xenon wondered then if he hadn’t created an unintentional challenge with his ban. It seemed a conversation did not pass where other drakkon did not find some way to ask him to lift his zone restrictions.

“No, thank you,” he answered, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

“Truly, Prince of Drakkon, I would burn happy to help you with this endeavor.”

To be a royal on this trip was apparently to be thought incapable in every way possible. First, his uncle doubted his results, and now the geneticist assumed he could not do something as simple as encode a portal. “I can handle the encoding, I assure you. As I said, my question is theoretical. The portal is designed for our kind, a species with a lengthy life span in comparison to the lupinhominids, a species which…”

He searched for the right words. And the Geneticist offered, “Most likely won’t survive one-hundred years, much less the thousand we’re trying to achieve with the help of the fated gates.”

“Yes…” he agreed, despite the distaste that now arose upon his tongue at the thought of the female anomaly’s species not surviving the 1000 years it would take to conduct their study. “But if we use this anti-matter technology with this species, could there be a possibility that a wolf from, say, another era might be a match with one of this era, no matter the time frame?”

A thoughtful pause. “I have never considered this idea as this is the first time we’ve ever attempted to employ this technology with such a short-lived species, but yes…I suppose the fating portal could be turned into a sort of time mechanism, as it were, if the computers determined two individuals from two different time frames were a match. Would you like me to include this as a noted risk in the official report to the royal court?”

“Ah, no, that won’t be necessary,” Xenon answered after a moment. “This was just bit of theory I was unknotting. No need to put such fanciful conjectures in the official report without a mission physicist to verify it.”

“Yes, better not to. But when we return to Drakkon, I will visit with a few physicists I know to discuss this possibility, and then might I provide assistance.”

“You do honor me with your attention,” Xenon replied. Then as was customary, he made his farewells with a simple, “Geneticist.”

“Prince,” the Mission Geneticist answered.

Xenon stood at the wall for some time after the call had ended. Thinking about his current situation. Then about his uncle. After some thought, he sent another message. This one communicated by Drakkon text rather than a wall-hail. He cared not to answer any further questions from his uncle.

“Do you ever sleep?”

The female anomaly’s voice filled his mind, and he turned to find her sitting atop the examination table. Staring at him through eyes still hooded with sleep.

“Yes, I do,” he answered. “For a very short time during daylight hours. After the baby is laid and has reached adulthood, I will hibernate for one thousand or so moons.”

“Moons…? I think you mean months. That’s what they call it where I come from.”

Xenon didn’t answer. Did not know how to without upsetting her. So he remained silent, only to be met with yet another difficult question.

“Did you sedate me again? To get me to calm down?”

“No,” he answered. “As I told you before, pregnant dra—” He paused, not knowing what to call her. Lupin seemed wrong on his mind’s tongue now, given the precious gift she carried inside her womb. But still, she was not drakki, not one of his kind.

“Future mothers cannot be given drugs that might harm the young they carry. You—you released water that contained trace amounts of several biological compounds from your eyes. This eye water seemed to have some kind of sedation effect on you.”

Confusion flitted across her face, followed by a very small upturning of her full lips. “Okay, I’m pretty sure you’re referring to my tears. You’re trying to say I cried myself to sleep?”

“Tears,” he repeated, not liking the sound of the word, or the memory of them streaming down her face. “They are a sedative, yes?”

“More like a byproduct of extreme emotion. Anger, sadness, sometimes relief and happiness.”

“But you were not relieved or happy to see your planet’s two moons.”

“No, more like angry and frustrated.”

He analyzed the heat coming off her body. Her flame remained neutral. Even though she spoke of past upset. He confessed, “I understand you not, Female 7-133.”

“Yeah, I get that,” she answered with another slight upturn of her lips. “I think… I think we’re misunderstanding each other. You’re saying you don’t want to upset me, but I don’t think you realize the only thing that upsets me more than those two moons, is the not knowing. I have no idea what a female dragon is like, but for me the not knowing is worse than anything you could tell me.”

Now he became quiet. “I find it very hard to believe the knowledge would prevent your upset, Female 7-133.”

“And I find you very hard to believe.”

To Fensa, these words were as good as a confession, akin to dropping a truth bomb into their conversation. But the dragon’s expression didn’t change as he said, “I understand you not, Female 7-133.” Again.

No, of course he didn’t. How could he when he had no idea who she really was? Even though they were now technically mated through the child she now carried.

She didn’t want to go there. Really didn’t want to go there. If you took out all the fear and crazy discovery and severe confusion, it had been nice not getting treated like a complete freak for a few days. But she had to tell him, didn’t she? Had to explain why she, of all people, couldn’t handle not knowing who he was or where she was or…all the rest.

With a sigh, Fensa started pushing words into his head. Telling him a story she’d never told anyone, even when the therapist tried to extract it from her.

“I have a twin sister. Her name is Ola. She’s named after my papa, who’s called Olafr. We both have the same coloring and brownish red hair, but other than that, we look nothing alike. She’s bold and gregarious, and I’m quiet and shy. She hated every moment of school, and I loved it to the point that I wanted to become a theoretical physicist. We’re complete opposites, but she is one of the best people I know. She’s the first person I remember. I hugged her in my crib, and we slept in the same bed until I was eighteen. She’s my best friend, and my main confidante. I tell her everything, and she knows everything about me. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Until I was eighteen, we did everything together. Went everywhere together…I think you get it.”

Xenon nodded. She imagined he must be relieved to finally understand what she was saying. “And what passed with this sister upon your eighteenth solar? Did she die?”

“No,” Fensa answered on a wince. “You see, my Aunt Tu—really she’s my cousin, but in my family, we call everybody old enough to be your mom “aunt” no matter how they’re related to you. Anyway, Aunt Tu and her husband have this leadership camp, and though I didn’t want to go, my papa made me because he’s a Viking. So I did. And one night, Ola woke me up to go to the latrine with her. We got to talking afterward. I thought I was whispering, but I guess Aunt Tu and Grady were still up and they saw me…talking with Ola. They watched me with her for over an hour. I guess they were trying to figure out what to do about it.”

“I do not understand. Though my brother has little familial feeling for me, and I for him, I cannot imagine it being considered a terrible thing to converse with one’s sibling well into the night.”

Fensa clamped her lips, finding it hard to push out the next words. But somehow, she managed to force them out of her head and into his. “The thing is, no one can see Ola but me. She started off as an imaginary friend of sorts, but when my parents started to get worried about me still talking with her, I began pretending I couldn’t see her anymore. But I did. I always did.”

“Until I was eighteen. With Aunt Tu’s help, my parents committed me to a mental facility. And I was diagnosed with…well a bunch of stuff. But the main label that counted was schizophrenia. They gave me drugs. And Ola went away. So I guess they had a point. But then I missed her, so I stopped taking the drugs. And after I stopped taking the drugs, Ola came back, and I got caught up in a new obsession. Arizona has a time gate. I had this feeling I should go there. I can’t tell you why. But it was like Ola: undeniable to me, crazy to others. So after like a thousand escape attempts, I finally made it to the gate. I wasn’t going to say anything, I swear. I only wanted to look at it, to try and figure out why it was calling to me so insistently. But then the people from the facility caught up to me. They were running up the mountain toward me, and suddenly the words my papa had given me, but only for emergencies, slipped out. And now here I am.”

Xenon was quiet for a long time. So long, Fensa feared he might never ever talk again. But then he asked, “And this twin sister…do you see her now?”

Fensa shook her head. “No. But that might be a bad thing. I’m afraid. Like, really afraid I’ve had a full-blown mental breakdown. That you’re not real. That none of this is real. I mean, with my history, how can I be sure?”

Another digesting silence. Then more words appeared inside her head, “Perhaps you should ask.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My father suffered from similar delusions after my mother passed. It is not uncommon on our planet, and is referred to as ‘The Widower’s Madness.’ Often did he think he saw my mother. Admonishing him for not being reverent enough. Cursing him for giving her a second babe so that she should die after miraculously surviving my brother’s birth. My mother would come to my father with these accusations, not only when he slept, but also when he was awake, making it hard for him to perform his duties as king. After receiving his diagnosis, the doctors advised my father to ask his delusion if she were real. You see, delusions can make suggestions, and they can talk to you, but they cannot lie. If you ask them a question such as this, they will either deflect or be forced to tell you the truth. I would give you this same advice. If you fear I am not real, then ask me.”

She blinked. Mind a little blown by his acceptance of her back story, and his solution. “You’re saying I should ask if you’re real? And if you say yes, that means you are?”

“And if I attempt to distract you onto other subjects, that means I am not,” he added.

“Okay…” Fensa said, both her heart and voice tentative. Then she met his unblinking gaze and asked, “Are you real?”

“Yes,” he answered, almost immediately. “Yes, I am real. I have many titles, including Prince of Drakkon, Brother of the New King of Drakkon, and Son to the Old King of Drakkon. I cannot be chased away by drugs or reason. This, Female 7-133, you can believe as truth.”

With those words of reassurance, Fensa let out a deep sigh of relief. Believing in his existence outside her mind in a way she’d had not been able to believe in Ola’s.

“These words you believe?” he asked inside her mind. At least, it sounded like a question. His voice had a dark monotone quality that made it hard to tell question from statement of fact.

“Yes,” she answered. “I don’t know why I believe you, but I do.”

“Good. It pleases me to know you no longer have question concerning my reality.”

Her, too. Her, too. Especially because at long last, she had the answer to the question that had haunted her for years: where was Ola?

Ola, as the doctors had been telling her for years, was not real. Therefore, Ola’s whereabouts didn’t matter any longer because…she didn’t exist.

Fensa missed her sister, of course, but an odd solace stole over her. Her spirit lightening because this dragon, unlike the wolves she’d left behind, not only didn’t judge her but had just given her the first clean bill of mental health in her adult life. Of course, this still left two other questions still unanswered…

Where am I? When am I?

“Please. Please tell me whatever you know.” That was the thing. She couldn’t stand the not knowing. Fensa’s tone took on a throaty quality as she begged the dragon to tell her everything he knew. Even if the answers to her questions might horrify her.

He looked away. It was a simple act. But on an otherwise unblinking, expressionless dragon, his slight gesture seemed the equivalent of a clear statement that he was torn about how to proceed.

Sensing a weakening in his resolve, Fensa took his hand in hers. Thankfully not webbed—like his foot—and without a scale in sight. Really, it was the most human thing about him. And well designed, as if he’d taken the best things the human body had to offer, but ignored the other stuff like feet that didn’t help one swim or fly faster, and genitals that left a male’s baby makers exposed and at risk of injury, or worse.

Of all his parts, she found she liked his hands one most of all. And she pressed that oh-so-human hand to the side of her face, seeking comfort in it. In him.

“Please,” she whispered again. “You’re the father of my baby, and I don’t even know your name. Just give me something. Anything. Please.”

Just give me something. Anything. Please.

The begging was his undoing. The same as when she begged him to give her claim instead of handing her over to the Group 7 males. Female 7-133 sat naked upon his exam table, her chest flame burning with anxiety as she pressed his hand to the side of her face. He had no idea why she would do such a thing, yet this simple act of physical contact made him feel powerless to resist her.

As if he’d ingested a truth serum, Xenon found himself speaking. “My given name is Xenon, as your given name is Fensa. However, on my planet, I would not be referred as such. There, we use titles alone. For most of my life, my title was Second Prince of Drakkon. But shortly before I arrived here, my title changed. I am the second son of the former King of Drakkon. However, he died a few rotations ago, and now my brother, the former Crown Prince of Drakkon, sits upon our throne. He is the King of Drakkon, and I am now the Prince of Drakkon.”

He paused to see if any of his words made sense to her. Although she seemed to hail from an advanced civilization, he still found it hard to believe an upright primate would be capable of understanding advanced ideas, much less more complicated concepts like a line of succession.

And indeed, her eyes lowered, her chest flame reddening over with sadness. But when her eyes returned to his, instead of expressing confusion, she said, “I’m sorry for your loss. My father recently passed as well. Losing a father is hard. I’m sorry you lost yours.”

“I did not lose him, as you say. He died. After a very long life. And he left behind two sons. Most would commend him for living a more excellent life than most.”

He said these words because they were true. Yet at the same time, his chest flame suddenly flared with anger. “Yes, my father lived a long commendable life. But he sent me away on his deathbed for worry of what my brother might do to me after his death. And then he died before our ships reached your planet,” he confessed to Female 7-133.

Xenon remembered, then, the ugly flame that had lit his stomach and chest for his first few rotations on this planet. A strange loneliness overtook him because both he and his father had known this trip was more exile than opportunity. “Sometimes my flame burns with anger toward my brother.”

“Resentment,” she supplied. “Because he was so busy playing Cleopatra, you never got to say goodbye to your father.”

“I do not know this Cleopatra.”

“She’s a queen from long ago. One of the last Egyptian jackal shifters. Famous for being a great seductress, but even more interesting, I think, is that she was the lone survivor of a bloody sibling rivalry for the throne. I’m pretty sure she was exiled for a while, too, but it’s been so long since Aunt Alisha told me that story, I can’t be sure.”

The female must have sensed his confusion because she broke off and said, “Tell me more. About you. About your home.”

“You have my title, so there is little more to know about me save my home. I hail from Drakkon, a planet about one-hundred-and-eighty thousand wing hours from here—”

He stopped when her flame sparked with confusion. “You do not understand the concept?” He’d been afraid of this; that the female anomaly, despite her high level of intelligence, would still be unable to fathom things like planets, or space travel.

But then she said, “I understand everything but the term ‘wing hours.’”

He thought about this and reluctantly confessed, “I have no way to explain this to you. It is a unit of measurement based on the average speed of drakkon flight. However, we came to this planet in ships that also used that unit of measurement. I am not sure how to put it in terms a non-drakkon would understand.”

Her lips turned down at his words, but her flame did not change color. And he realized she was trying to puzzle the issue out when she asked, “Does your planet share the same sun as our planet?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Then you’re in our solar system. And is your planet hotter or colder than this one?”

“Much, much hotter. We call it the fire planet. It has a daytime temperature more than eight times this planet’s highest temperature. And at night it drops to nearly three times the coldest cold of your planet.”

“Does it have an atmosphere?”

“Yes, of course.”

Female 7-133’s brow creased at his answer, but her flame continued to burn bright with more curiosity than confusion, so he continued to what would certainly be the more upsetting part for her.

“Our planet has always used yours as—I suppose you would call it a sort of hunting ground. A place to cull fresh meat, since we possess no animals on our planet. Only nutrients, like those in the tubes. And the anthrohomonids are the most desired meat of all…and now does your flame burn upset. This is why I had no wish to tell you these things, Female 7-133.”

“Well think about it. You just told me you guys come to this planet to hunt and eat us,” she answered. “Can you blame me for being at least a little upset?”

“Not you,” he felt compelled to correct her. His stomach turned at the thought of eating one of the lupins. “Your hybrid species is one we don’t find appetizing. However, our Royal Geneticist experimented with a few anthrosplices. Your species was meant to be a gift to my father. To assist in the royal hunts.”

Now her eyes open and closed, so rapidly, the action felt more deliberate than biological. “Okay, are you trying to say you came back here to use my people as hunting dogs?!”

Much as he’d anticipated, he did not like the turn this conversation was taking. Her flame burned offended and appalled. Which was why he rushed to inform her, “No, that is not the reason my team returned here. This Fenrir you mentioned before. Can you tell me whom you believe him to be?”

Her head jerked a bit, and her flame sparked with surprise. “Um, ok. Fenrir. He’s the Norse god of werewolves. He’s also my father’s god—one of many. My mother believes in a single deity, though.”

Xenon’s flame flared triumphant, a few more hypotheses falling into place. “Yes, it’s just as I thought. Your father has been god-spoken.”

“God-spoken?” she repeated.

Yes, god-spoken—which was just as easy to explain to another with no concept of drakkon culture as “wing hours.”

Instead of trying, he said, “On Drakkon, Fenrir is drakkon for Royal Geneticist. It is possible your father hails from the original experiment group the Royal Geneticist worked with in Zone 2. As I said, he created your kind as a gift to the King. However, over time, the Royal Geneticist came to feel much the way you do about our hunts. He has petitioned the Drakkon court to give this planet sanctuary status which would permanently eliminate it from the hunt. He believes if left to your own devices, your species, both the anthros and lupins, have the capacity to evolve into a civilization on par with our own. And because of this, he feels our hunts would irreversibly disrupt a native species capable of higher thought.”

“Irreversibly disrupt,” she repeated.

“Yes, and for this reason am I here with a team of about one hundred other drakkon. We have been tasked with conducting a 1000 solar rotation study of your species.”

She shook her head. “But I don’t understand. Why would you need to study us? We already have a civilization. At least we did, before—whatever turned Earth into a frozen post-apocalyptic wasteland.”

Now, it was his flame’s turn to burn with discomfit. He’d known some of his explanations about the origins of her species would confuse and anger her. But he imagined what he was about to tell her would truly distress her, without a flame of doubt.

“Female 7-133. Do you understand that my species has a longer lifespan than yours?”

“Yeah, I got that when you told me you were over 2000,” she answered.

“But again, it should be noted I am relatively young by Drakkon standards,” he explained gently.

The female repeated the deliberate opening and closing of her eyes. Then said, “So you guys live a really long time. I guess that makes sense. My father’s time feels like a long time ago. But if your Fenrir’s still alive…”

He resisted the urge to sigh steam. She was proving herself not to be unintelligent. But… “Female 7-133, my advanced tools have confused you,” he told her, keeping his voice as calm as he could. Even if speaking to her about these matters broke almost every mission protocol he’d been given for interacting with the native population. “Please, show me several images as you did before. Show me a day in your life.”

She hesitated. But then he began to see the pictures again. An alarm of some sort was buzzing. From his mate’s point of view, he saw himself wake to a hot drinking vessel of brown liquid on top of a small box. He took a sip, then disappeared into a room. This part appeared to be censored because his mate’s thoughts lit with embarrassment before the mind’s image emerged, fresh and clean, in a simple short-sleeved shirt and a pair of what looked like short pants. He then walked through the door of a single room with a bodily evacuation facility, down the hallway, to a room filled with other lupin hominids. They were gathered around what looked like long examination tables, set low to the ground with platforms for sitting. But instead of undergoing medical procedures, they ate what looked like meat, an unknown yellow substance, and a food composed of some manner of brown plant. After this, he and a few other lupins gathered in a group with a man wearing a white coat. This being her viewpoint, he could not see anyone’s flame, but he sensed through her knowledge that the man in the white coat was not flesh-and-blood “real”, but something called an avatar. One who visited with this group because he charged with overseeing their mental health.

This avatar confirmed Xenon’s hypothesis. “That is satisfactory,” he told her.

Then because it had seemed to give her some comfort before, Xenon placed a hand on her cheek. “What you showed me is clear evidence of an advanced civilization. Not one as advanced as my own, but an advanced one nonetheless.”

“Great! Then you have your answer to Fenrir’s petition. You can go back and tell the others we’re a viable species.”

“I could, but they would not accept my word as truth. Because according to our early calculations, it will take nearly half a drakkon’s lifetime for the advanced lifeforms of this planet to accomplish the level of sophistication you have shown me.”

“Half a dragon’s lifetime,” she repeated. He could see the fear and panic burning in her chest, as bright as when she was first brought to him. “Exactly how long do dragon’s live?”

“Approximately twenty thousand of your planet’s revolutions around our sun.”

“Oh, God…”

And though he braced himself for her flame to redden with distress, it cooled instead, as if something unfathomably cold had washed over her.

“I cannot tell if you are upset, or do not understand my words.”

“Both.”

“Do you wish for me to explain this to you more slowly?”

The female shook her head. “Sorry. Where I come from, we say we don’t understand something when what we mean is we don’t want to understand. But yeah, I get what you’re saying. I didn’t go forward in time; I went back. Like, so far back, my father’s Viking Age divorce code doesn’t work on the gate. Because it hasn’t even been created yet. And that’s why you don’t get half the stuff I say. Most, if not all, of my references happened a hell of a long time from now. Including poetry and sarcasm and videogames and books and just about everything I love. And so, yay! I haven’t had a complete mental breakdown. I don’t have to worry that my civilization was blasted back into the stone age. I’m in the actual Stone Age. My aunt, the historian, would be totally freaking out if she’d landed here. Like totally gassed. Too bad…”

She made a strange chortling sound in her chest as her lips lifted in the way anthros occasionally used to indicate happiness. But Xenon could see by her flame that she was not happy. “You are upset,” he said again.

“No,” she insisted. “I’m just…processing. It’s okay. I wanted the truth, and I got it.”

“Yes, but I can see you are very upset. I would make you happy during these coming, as you called them, months. Happy, not angry or frustrated. Please, Mother of My Drakkon, tell me how I can return your flame to bright orange.”

Her brow furrowed, lips turned down again, as new sparks of confusion lit up her head flame. “Um…what? What exactly do you mean by ‘make my flame return to bright orange?’”

Finally, an answer he could give without upsetting her. “Your flame is dark now. Blue. I seek to return it to a brighter shade, so you burn pleased with all I provide.”

Another downturn of her lips, then, “Okay, when you look at me, what exactly are you seeing?”

“Due to my injury, I confess I cannot see your outer skin as well as before. But I can make out your facial movements, and I have no problem discerning your flame.”

“My flame…” she repeated. “Tell me if I’ve got this right: you can see my heat signature using only your eyes?”

Before Xenon could express confusion, she provided a mind picture of a male glowing red with fear. He appeared to have an advanced weapon in his hands as he looked around for an unseen attacker.

“Yes, that is how I see you, as you put it. But who is this male in your image? And why is he so afeared?”

She let out a long breath, before answering, “He’s afeared of a huge alien who’s come to our planet to hunt humans like trophies.”

At her words, Xenon’s fire went cold. Yet she gave another chortle. “That was, like, my papa’s favorite movie. Now I’m fated to it! If he could see me now…”

More chortling, but her flame…

“Your ‘heat signature’ is now as distressed as when you were crying.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him again. “I’m processing. Just processing it all in my own way. Eventually, I’ll accept this, but right now…”

The female anomaly stopped speaking. So he offered, “Do you require holding?”

“No, you don’t have to hug me. I’m just…processing. Just…”

Another unfinished sentence. And instead of arguing with her further, he did something he would never have dared if she’d been drakki. He wrapped his arms around her without permission and held her close. Tucked inside his arms so tight, he wondered if she could hear the suddenly rapid beating of his three-chambered heart…or feel how his flame warmed to have her near.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, even as she burrowed her head further into his chest.

He didn’t answer.

And she didn’t pull away.

He stood there in this strange position, listening to the distant booms of the shifting glacier ice, and the gentle trickling of his drakkon-made stream.

Perhaps they would have stood there in this way until her flame returned to good color. But his male works soon interfered.

The female stiffened inside his arms. “Is that…?”

He stepped back. Quickly.

“I apologize,” he said with a formal bow, trying to ignore the sudden swelling of his male works as they grew against the binding of his webbed skin, threatening to descend. “I am sorry to fail you in this way. Despite your having already quickened with my seed, I find I am still unable to control my male works in your presence.”

He backed away. Determined to remove himself from her.

But she held up a hand to stay his retreat.

“Really? You still want me that way? Even though I’m already pregnant? And not a—what did you call female dragons?”

“Drakki,” he supplied. His tone stiff. But perhaps not as much as another part of his body. “And again, I apologize. I do not know why my male works continue to react in this fashion. It might be our biological differences. Perhaps my body understands not that you have already been seeded.”

Mentioning this turned out to be a mistake. With one flash of memory, his second penis went from swelling to moving beneath his clothes. Seeking Female 7-133’s wet sex like a predator scenting its prey.

He could no longer hold on to his reserve. “I am abjectly sorry. I will remove myself. From this room. From this station, if that is what it takes to gain control of myself.”

“Xenon.” She said the word out loud.

He stopped short at the surprise of hearing his given name upon her lips. He’d never been called by it before.

She moved off the table and walked over to his polar bear furs, stopping at the edge closest to where he stood.

“Itsohkay.” Again, she said the words out loud. In her strange tongue. Which he could not understand.

Yet…

Xenon watched in a state of arrest as she began to remove the clothes from her large body. After the last fabricated boot came off, she held out her hand to him.

“Itsokay,” she repeated. Then inside his head, she said, “It’s okay.”

But it was not okay. He started to tell her this, but before he could protest again, she fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him down. Again, she pressed her lips to his. But this time her tongue did not try to part his lips to seek entrance.

Instead she pushed her entire body into his, jutting her hips so her lower half pressed into him.

And that was it for nobility. Or reason. The feel of her body against his overwhelmed his senses, and suddenly they were both on the floor. His body covering her back as he pushed her into a kneeling position, and pulled his fabricated pants down. His male works did not merely descend but sprang forth. Violent in their need to be inside this woman.

“Calm down,” she said, coming out of the kneel he’d just put her in, and turning to face him.

He sucked in a breath when she reached back, taking his second penis in hand, stroking its rigid length. Somehow calming, but not nearly sating it, with her touch.

“I did this to you?” She posed the question with a soft voice inside his head.

He answered with the rough nod of the Far Travelers, unable to push words into her when her hand was around him like this.

Then she leaned forward. And took his other penis into her mouth.

His breath didn’t just catch; his respiratory system stopped working altogether. Xenon’s body lit up with a flame so hot; he was certain it could easily burn him alive. Melting his insides as surely as an enemy drakkon’s roar of fire.

He supposed he might die. Supposed and did not care.

But when he felt the now familiar pressure building up inside his seed sacs, he somehow managed to push the words into her. “I am calmer now,” he said gravely. “I would prefer to seed your sex.”

She seemed to be deciding how to answer. But after a few more indolent sucks and strokes, she removed him from her mouth.

“Okay, fuck me then,” she said, holding his gaze as she laid herself back on the fur, her luscious milking mounds in the air. “Fuck me. Make me forget who I was. Who you are.”

His brain understood little of what she said, but his male organs easily found their way between her legs, his hands lifting her by the hips to better receive him. As if having agreed to take turns, his second penis entered her birthing canal, while his first snaked up behind her. Tight. Dry. He might hurt her.

In response, his penis oozed a viscous substance from its tip. A lubricant of some sort, Xenon realized when the tip swirled the thick substance around her other opening. And with an instinct he had no idea he possessed, he grabbed her around her full thighs and circled her legs around his waist. Opening her backside up to him and consequentially, allowing him to sink in ever deeper.

By the Mothers! It felt amazing to be inside her like this again. Able to gaze upon her as he…what had she called it? “Fuck”…as he fucked her. It was like a homecoming, and a discovery at the same time. Though that made little sense.

Poetry, he remembered her saying earlier.

Being inside of her felt like poetry.

Poetry he didn’t get to enjoy for long. Before he could give her his claiming bite, she began to babble aloud in her language again. “Ohgod! Ohgod!”

Her wet, vertical slit squeezed down so hard on his second penis, it began the seeding process before Xenon could think to command it otherwise. But the rush of pleasure up his spine obliterated any regrets he might have had.

In that blinding moment, he better understood the upright primates. Why they spent so much of their time attempting to breed. What he could not understand was his own race. Why they made no attempts to mate outside of breeding. Why they never sought this pleasure out.

She was the mother of his hatchling. He, her acolyte, mating her as he was bid. But in that moment, he felt selfish. Like he would fuck her and fuck her until they both ceased to exist. Until they both turned into ether…antimatter.

At least that was how he felt until another sound broke through the haze.

She was leaking water from her eyes again. Or as she had called it, “crying.”

“Did I…hurt you?” he pushed into her mind as he quickly pulled out of her. The mere thought nearly extinguished his hot flame with heavy guilt. He would never perform the mating act with her again. He would sleep elsewhere if he had to—

“No, the opposite. You made me feel something other than overwhelming sadness for what I have lost. Thank you.”

But still, she continued to cry.

“I will lie with you upon the furs, and hold you while you cry yourself to sleep.”

“No, you do not have to.”

Not wishing another argument, he did as he was learning to do with her: followed through on his decision without listening to her spoken request. As good as his mate was at breeding, she was rather odd when it came to expressing her true flame. Masking her desires behind strange noises and denials of the obvious.

Observing her flame, instead of her words, he gathered her in his arms and tucked her head into his chest as she continued to cry.

Strange. Only a few rotations ago, his flame had been a cold blue. He’d been alone by choice, but far lonelier than he cared to admit, even to himself.

Yet now his flame burned bright and warm as he held the drakki-sized wolf hybrid. The mother of his young. His flame was turbulent with worry and change. He was, after all, a drakkon in violation of nearly every protocol created specifically for this trip. Yet sleep stole over him quickly in this position. And as his eyes closed for a much-needed rest, he found himself wishing he could keep his new treasure for longer than three moons.