Page 12 of Taken to Voraxia
Two… I hear the distant sound of a glider approaching…
One… I am blown back over the stone when the amp explodes in Kiki’s hands, radiating shit-stained wind and waves of cascading energy.
4
Raku
I touch down onto the moon — thehumanmoon — when the world is still dark. History mirrors itself with Bo’Raku and Va’Raku flanking me as we descend the ship.
Bo’Raku, the welp, survived his trial. For lying to his Raku about the nature of the beings on this moon and denying them basic provisions, he was condemned, but because it was his Bo’Raku before him who initiated contact with this moon — a male already in exile for atrocities committed on Nobu — he was given a chance.
Perhaps his actions truly were not intended to harm. Perhaps he truly is merely a simple warrior following decrees laid down rotations earlier…
And perhaps he isn’t.
The trial by combat was as bloody as it was unsatisfying, for though I had the honor of dealing the final blow to his chest — a wound delivered by flail that stripped him of his protective plates, sure to scar, as well as Cxrian’s claim on the moon — I longed to do more. To do worse. To see him malnourished, wearing the threadbare rags of my Rakukanna’s people, stripped of all rights and returned to his slave name, as they carry their slave names still.
But now I stand beside him, exhibiting restraint. Unable to deliver the death blow, for I am Raku. Impartial. Just. Cognizant of the recommendations of my advisors, and aware of the danger in allowing my actions to be molded by my Xanaxana above my reason. Unable to ruin him.As Xoran would.But I am no longer Xoran.
Thus, Bo’Raku joins me now to help interpret actions and clarify past agreements between the Dra’Kesh and the humans. He also comes to voice the change in ownership of this moon colony to the humans himself, in a final act of submission.
Va’Raku, in turn, comes for reasons I do not fully understand. Nobu faces its most severe icefall and other xub’Raku volunteered, yet he insisted.
We descend onto the sands now, my xub’Raku falling slightly behind, as do all other thoughts.
I inhale deeply. My skin burns and tingles, like water rushing over the deadly shores of Mithru and its pearlescent crystallite beaches. The crystallite is the only thing left once the scalding acidic water retreats, and as it burns each solar, I burn too, as I have for the past rotation.
The air smells just as it had then. Flat and desolate, sand and brittle birch, a little like waste, but more than that, I can scenther,tendrils woven through the restlike a stain that once was and lingers, despite the source’s absence.
The leader, a female who is ascribed the slave monikerMathildarushes over the sands towards me, a small group trailing in her wake.
Behind this alleged Antikythera Council, pretty, youthful human females have gathered themselves into two rows in front of their cheap peg fence, waiting to be hunted, mated and bred as their ritual demands of them. And behind the fence, male and female humans stand gathered, looking on with ridgeless expressions I cannot interpret.
I exhale.Today, the torture of my Xanaxana ends and I make the female mine, whether she understands the meaning of Rakukanna or not.
There are no clouds in the sky to keep the sun from charring this barren land, so everything is brighter than it should be. Almost as bright as the xamxin river of my home, but nowhere near as magnificent. Under the harsh white sky, everything here is dull, putrid, forgotten. All things, but the one.
My gaze sharpens, plucking out an isolated form among the rest. My body stills. My xora stiffens painfully and my sac, below it, grips tight against my body. Weighted like stones, I have not released my seed in a full rotation, needing the female the universe made mine to complete the Xanaxana. That sacred instinct would accept nothing less. And here she is. My Rakukanna.
My Miari.
The Mathilda creature attempts to speak to me, but I raise my hand, demanding her silence as I wade forward, drawn to my precious human as a lesser planet to a star.
She kneels in front of the females utterly nude and saliva pools in my mouth. My ridged tongue swells, making it difficult to swallow as I take in such an expance of uninterrupted vermilion flesh.
Soft auburn curls drop to a narrowed waist and shift over the smooth, rounded mounds on her chest whenever the breeze touches them. She is so beautiful. Perfect, and yet, as I draw closer, I feel my Xanaxana’s strange retreat.
Something is wrong. And again, history repeats itself.
The female kneeling in the skin of my Rakukanna smells distantly ofher, but she also smells of someone else. Jealousy absconds with my reason, but only until my next breath.Female. The scent she wears is female. Though that means nothing, I find myself both assuaged and simultaneously vexed.This is not her lover. This is something else.
Has the Xanaxana diminished with time? Did I miss the moment to truly claim her? I could erupt with rage at the thought, but I push past that frail disappointment and recognize that to have her here before me, submissive as she is, is enough. She will be mine soon and she will know her place at my side, and in my breeding harness, and on her throne.
“Rakukanna,” I say.
She tilts her face up, tracking my approach until I stand directly before her. I drop to one knee and grip her neck as a male grips his female in a Xiveri signal of respect and wait for the surge of heat I felt the last time I touched her.
One rotation ago the world had incinerated itself but now, only ice and chill are left.Something is wrong.My desire flattens like a corpse’s pulse. My xora softens. My Xanaxana retreats. I am gutted by this. Gutted by her. By thislieshe seeks to tell me.
