Page 15 of Alien God

At least they’re gone now.

It soothed me, just a little, my anger abating and giving way to exhaustion. I soared down, back to the ground, landing in very deep snow that looked churned and distorted. With a quick sweep of my eyes, I realized it had come from the hill in a small avalanche.

I grimaced, hoping none of the native Sionnachan beasts had been harmed by the deluge. Breathing out in a tight hiss, I began to walk, using small bursts of power to clear the overly deep snow from my path. I didn’t want to fly right now. Right now, I wanted to be in the world, among the trees.

I recognized these trees. Many of them, at least. But they were larger. Older. And there were new young ones I’d never seen. My fingers trailed over their frosted surfaces as I tried to reacquaint myself with the world I felt I’d only just left, but had really been away from for so long.

I paused a wingspan away from the base of one particular tree. It was a tree I knew well – one of the largest even when I’d been a boy. One of the rarer colours, it stood out among the others, shining an iridescent silver-white, the same colour as stone sky blood. When we were young gods, Skalla and I would race each other climbing it. I always won, and I’d half imagined it was because the tree loved me better. That it had helped me somehow.

“So old, and yet still here,” I murmured. Just like me. “I’m sorry I left you to stand guard on your own for so long.”

Thinking of Skalla scaling the tree turned sorrow into a knife inside me. Skalla, as steadfast a friend to me as this tree was. Skalla, beloved child of my father’s only brother. Skalla, who’d nearly killed me and had forced me to abandon Sionnach in the first place, leaving the world open new invaders.

My jaw tightened, and I began to turn away.

But not before something caught my eye. A movement at the base of the old silver tree.

A white hand pushing slowly out of the snow, then stopping.

My wings snapped open in anger. So, there was still one left here, after all. Guts churning with rage, fangs grinding, I collapsed the distance in brutal, driving strides. It seemed an offense beyond anything I could imagine that a human would be hiding and seeking protection from this tree of all trees. All the trees in this forest were mine. But this one felt like mine most of all.

The hand had not moved since working its fingers out of the snow. I knew little of human biology, but based on how the others had been so easily killed by my attacks, it seemed unlikely this one would last much longer.

“This is what happens when you force your way into a world you don’t belong to,” I growled at the limp hand. “Now, you pay the price.”

I decided to leave him there, freezing or suffocating or maybe both. I turned once again to go –

A vivid flash of sunlight reflected off the old silver tree, nearly blinding me and making me falter. My gaze narrowed, whipping back to the tree and the dying human buried at its base.

I hesitated, tail thwapping the snow in irritated motions. The sudden sense that I shouldn’t leave the human there solidified in my skull.

Fine. I’ll kill him myself, then.

With an impatient toss of my hand, my energy pulsed, splitting the snow to reveal a human standing. Or, he had been standing. The lack of snow to support him caused him to toppled forward.

Already dead, then.

But, no. My keen ears pricked, picking up the weak and laboured sound of breathing.

All my rage at the humans returned, blistering as if they were still here and fighting me. The ragged, scorching emotion was entirely focused on this one abandoned warrior. As if he alone was to blame for all of it. I grasped him by the front of his white hooded cloak and slammed his back against the tree. The pain of the motion seemed to shock him into consciousness, a low, cracking groan emanating from his unseen mouth. With my free hand, I held the human’s lolling head upright so I could look at his face.

Cursed stars, these humans were hideous. I’d been to many worlds and seen many beings, but I found the human visage particularly revolting. The broad, shiny black shell of a single eye stretched across the entire upper portion of his face, and he had no nose or mouth that I could see, just a disturbing stretch of white hide.

But...

I could hear that breath much more clearly now. Breath that was coming from where a mouth or nose could be reliably found on many species.

More clothing?

Frustrated by the riddle, I tore at the white, not caring if it really was skin and I was ripping half this creature’s face off. But it wasn’t skin. It was protecting skin instead. And the eye was not an eye, but yet more protective gear. I realized that when I saw the white edges around the black shell pressing harshly into pliable skin, as if it was not naturally meant to be there.

I ripped the black thing away as well.

And froze, harder and more motionless than the trees around me.

Being so repulsed by the human, I’d expected ugliness to continue after tearing away these outer layers. But what I found was something altogether... different.

The human’s face was small, delicate, smooth grey-ish white skin curved over shell-like bone. Her features were placed very similarly to my own, but were smaller. Softer. A slim little nose and a plush, blue-tinted mouth above a pointed chin. Her bluish lips parted as she took a strained breath, revealing two rows of white, blunt teeth. Curling eyelashes fluttered as she tried to focus her gaze – a gaze unlike any other I’d ever seen. White, with rich amber, brown, and black in the middle. Like Sionnachan honey drizzled over snow.

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