Copyright 2024 – Daemon D. Hart
Please consider make a donation to Nifty! This site is unique on the net and deserves your support.
The Human Bearer
Junior liked sleeping between them, holding one long strand of Xana's hair in his little fist, while his other hand wrapped around Riordan's right thumb. He was holding that part of his dada close to his chest, as if he was afraid that his parents might disappear while he was sleeping. Riordan held him tightly and even though it wasn't the most comfortable sleeping position and that the events of the day were giving way to wide-eyed nightmares in his mind, a pleasant drowsiness began to envelop him in its kind embrace.
He was aware that he was dreaming. As much as some dreams could be as real as they could get, in this instance, he simply knew that what his eyes saw had to be a mere figment of the imagination.
Not necessarily his imagination, he thought. It was an odd detail, wasn't it? A sudden awareness of another form of consciousness, much larger than his, being close, engulfed all his senses. Whatever that thing was, it existed all around him.
He was walking down a large wet corridor. The walls left and right were curved, seemingly meeting the ceiling for what looked like a stretched dome in a perfect seamless fashion. There was no end in sight, but Riordan continued to walk. His steps splashed the water underneath his feet at rhythmic intervals. He felt like a soldier marching on into the unknown.
The maw of the dark corridor appeared ahead of him like a huge black hole, but it was there he needed to search for answers. He was wearing a long robe that brushed through the water, leaving a long trail behind him; for a moment, he looked back and noticed how the wet surface appeared to freeze in his wake. That trail made by the coarse cloth of his robe remained unchanged.
He turned again and looked ahead. The immediate shock forced him to take a leap backwards, only that his back met a wall. Right before him, from the large black hole, a serpent's head emerged. It was immense, taking up the whole space, and it was moving slowly towards him. Its green eyes were deep and hypnotizing, while a forked tongue slipped in and out, tasting the air.
Riordan could hear his heartbeat accelerating, becoming stronger, while his pulse made all the veins in his body jerk wildly. The reptilian head stopped inches from his face, holding his stare like in a forceful grip.
You're seeking answers, Earthian.
That's an understatement.
It felt only natural that they would communicate in that manner. Riordan willed his breathing to slow down, in an effort to control his panic.
Your human mind is not capable of understanding the answers. Knowing that, are you still willing to continue your search?
Just try me. I've been told that I'm brilliant.
Was the strange huge snake going to notice his snarky tone and shut him down by turning his dream around?
It didn't seem so. The snake only moved his head closer until Riordan's eyes began to water since he couldn't focus on anything anymore. And then, he felt the long slippery tongue pushing past his lips, and further in. The sensation of vomiting was strong, but Riordan struggled against it. The muscled organ in his mouth was slimy and strong, and it tasted of the deep, as that was the only way to describe it. The deep of what wasn't something he had figured out just yet.
His eyes could focus again, but it was something else he was currently seeing. What was it, though?
Is this... a planet? As if he was watching parts of a whole, and all of it at the same time, water and sky tumbled together, and there was land too, and vegetation, and mountains, and all sorts of creatures frolicking through the trees and underwater, undefined shapes he had nothing to compare them to. A surrealistic painting in movement, without a beginning or an end.
I'm showing you the past and the future, Earthian.
Can't you do it in a, let's say, more organized fashion? I think I'm getting dizzy.
As I told you, your human mind is too weak to grasp it. You demanded to be showed it anyway.
The snake had a point, and Riordan focused on his breathing for a bit so that he could put his head to better use. Even if it had to be one of the strangest dreams he'd ever had in his life, it seemed also important. Maybe its details would fade once he woke up, so being careful not to miss anything now was essential.
Is this Tanez? Or Xeno, the way I've never seen it?
You are asking redundant questions, Earthian.
I can't exactly help it.
Ask what you truly wish to ask.
Riordan took a moment. What bothered him the most was personal, and this huge reptile currently licking his brain with that huge forked tongue couldn't possibly understand things of that sort, right? He had to be honest, nonetheless.
Are my children real? Not the one sleeping between me and his father now. Nor the ones I'm carrying inside me.
Children of Xeno are not yours.
You didn't answer my question.
You're asking it wrong.
What did Xana keep telling him? That they were creatures of logic, that what mattered to them the most was for things to make sense, no feelings involved. He decided to take another stab at it.
What are those snakes that Junior saw?
Calling them snakes is insulting.
I can't possibly be hurting your feelings. You're above that, right?
Silence stretched, so much so that Riordan feared that his dream would come to an end before getting a glimpse into a very complicated future that waited for all of them.
They are and they aren't. They exist and don't exist. They have no beginning and no end.
Can you show them to me? How they truly are? Why are they here? Why do I feel like they're mine?
Because they are yours and they aren't. The why is always the same. The Xeno race must prevail, regardless of the means.
The planet disappeared from before his eyes, and Riordan had a sensation as if the air had just been sucked out of his lungs. It wasn't completely unfamiliar. He had felt like this before.
Open your eyes, Earthian, if you wish so much to understand.
I had no idea I had closed them.
He was floating in space, he realized. And the sensation had been inside him before, when he and Lewis's husbands had escaped Galatea to remain stranded in the vast ocean of nothingness before Kyle picked them and saved them in his improvised escape pod.
I can't breathe.
Strengthen your mind to see the truth. You can do what you think you can do. Nothing else.
The weight in his chest lifted, as his mind struggled to ignore that the body it governed was growing weak due to the lack of oxygen.
Now look around. See.
The big serpent's voice commanded him, no, compelled him to do as told. His body moved effortlessly, and he was turning, his eyes searching for something.
It was right there. Tu'lek, as he remembered it seen from the outside. But there was something wrong with it. Its huge metallic structure seemed crushed in a bizarre embrace. It took him a moment to understand that huge coils like bodies of snakes wrapped around the ship in the middle. They were moving, wrapping around it faster and faster, covering every inch of it.
What's going on? Are we going to die?
As expected from a feeble mind like yours. It's the opposite.
What?
He jerked awake, and this time, after a few seconds of complete confusion, he understood that he was on the ship, in the quarters he shared with Xana and his little one. His hand searched for Junior first, and he sighed in relief when he felt the small body by his side. A bit farther, and Xana was there too, reassuring him with his mere presence.
What a dream. Was there any truth in it? Or was his imagination in overdrive because of all the strangeness of these days? He lay down again. He'd ask Xana in the morning what he thought of it.
The sound of voices made him open his eyes. He blinked the sleep still hanging from his eyelids away and searched for the source of the noise. At the door of their quarters, Xana was involved in a quarrel of sorts with the lizard guards. What struck Riordan as being the weirdest part of it was that Xana appeared to conduct his berating of those guards in a language made out of gurgling sounds and hisses. Was this the lizards' language? As far as he knew, Xana was an expert in language learning and the like, which meant that he could use that to communicate with other species. It had never crossed his mind before that the creatures from Xana's mother's planet would have other means of communication than Earthian speech or telepathy.
Xana turned and looked at him. The doors closed and the Xeno moved closer to the bed. He offered Riordan his hand. "It appears that His Royal Chancellor has been keeping quite a lot from us," he said and pursed his lips.
"What's going on?" Riordan hurried to get up and threw a look around. Junior was in the water tank, still sleeping. He appeared so serene amidst all that, as children had to remain, always.
"Not only you, but I, as well, must remain inside. For my protection," Xana said and grunted, as if that notion was beyond his comprehension.
"For real? And how come you didn't just knock some sense into those guys at our door? They can't keep you here. I doubt they're stronger than you."
"You are correct, of course. But there is something going on, and I'd rather not leave you here by yourself with our child. Nor do I want to drag you in the middle of a dangerous situation. These guards have only our best interest at heart. Their orders are clear and logical."
"Are you really sure about it, Xana? Because there were lizards like these ones onboard Galatea, if you remember. They were serving Gamni Gafilos. Am I right?"
"Yes, you are, my love." Xana took him into his arms and caressed his head.
Riordan had a feeling there was something he wanted to tell his husband, but he had no idea what it was. Not right now. What was going on? And what was he missing?
"Hey," Xana called out to him. "Where did you go?"
Riordan rubbed his temples and groaned. "I don't know. I only have a feeling that I was supposed to tell you something, to share something with you, something important. Only that I don't know what it is."
"Unless you've dreamed of this thing, I can't understand what it could be."
Riordan's eyes grew wide. He grabbed Xana's arms and looked him in the eye. "That's it! I dreamed of something! But what was it..." He looked sideways, as he tried to focus on pieces of memory that were struggling to surface. "I think," he began cautiously, "that I dreamed of a deity of yours or something like that."
"We do not have the same system of religious beliefs as you do on Earth. Can't this wait, my love? I must talk to His Royal Chancellor, but he appears to be unavailable."
"So, you're ringing, but no one's home? How's that even possible?"
Xana's body turned rigid as his eyes fluttered shut. He didn't remove his hands from around Riordan, so at least that was a bit assuring in a way.
"What about others? What about your hive of common consciousness or whatever you're calling it?" Riordan was asking his questions quickly, while his mind still tried to piece together the strange dream he must have had the night before. It had been a huge serpent inside a corridor...
"Tu'lek is being attacked," Xana said in a single breath.
"What?" Riordan lost track of his strange dream again. "Attacked? Who's behind it?"
Xana looked seriously troubled now. The hum of Xeno conversations floated all around Riordan, but it looked like he still needed a couple more lessons to fully understand them. It didn't help that his body and mind both were going in full alert now. He hurried to the water tank, hovering over the surface. He took a short breath before sinking his arms in and taking Junior out slowly and gently.
"What should we do?" he whispered at Xana, grateful that Junior remained sleeping even while handled like that. "Where can we hide?"
"We fight. We don't hide," Xana said, his words short and quick.
"I agree you should," Riordan replied in the same manner, "but I need to take Junior to safety first. Is there even such a thing here, on the ship?"
Xana suddenly hissed and threw his head back. Riordan couldn't recall ever having seen his husband like that. There was something wild and animal-like about him. And unknown.
He frowned for a moment. That reminded him of something. The long dark corridor from his dream came back to him. Not only as a memory, but as if he was back there.
It all lasted for a second and no longer. But he knew something now. He grabbed Xana's arm, trying to get his husband's attention. It seemed like Xana was in a trance of sort, and his eyes were strange, rolled in his head.
"Xana, what is it?" he whispered anxiously.
A low growl made his hair stand on end, and it took him a moment to understand that it was Junior making that sound. His little body was tense and his head was thrown back, just like his father's. But his eyes were still clear, and Riordan shook him. "Junior, baby," he called out. "I'm here. Don't be scared."
Those words seemed so futile, rising from the feeble mind of an Earthian...
What the hell? Riordan looked around, feeling scared like never. The hum of Xenos talking all at once had turned into something else, a chant of sorts. He had never heard anything like it ever before.
"You're both scaring me," Riordan mumbled as he began to walk backwards, towards the wall farthest from the door. He pulled at Xana's arm, trying to get him to do the same. With Junior was easier, because the boy was still in his arms, and he wasn't struggling to get free.
He couldn't say what else save for instinct made him move away from the door. That had to be where the danger would come from, and that was his conviction, regardless of how baseless it seemed.
Xana moved in front of him, his arms opened wide. He was protecting him and Junior, Riordan realized. That had to be the explanation for it, but his gut told him that no, that was wrong, no one could protect them, Xana included, because that evil he sensed, something dark and wide and bigger than everything...
He almost dropped Junior as a head splitting ache crossed his skull like electricity. He kept himself upright by putting his hand against the wall behind him. With the other arm, he kept Junior close.
Dada, I go too!
Junior, wait, where?
His mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out. As if the ability to speak had been cut from him. Deep ominous sounds rose from the belly of the ship. Riordan felt like they were trapped in a submarine sunk at the bottom of the ocean, and creatures of the deep hit its flimsy metal walls with their bodies, bent on getting inside.
I go fight!
Junior's warning came a moment too late. The doors opened suddenly, and the boy wiggled out of his parent's arms, slithering on the floor with so much speed that Riordan, in his desperation, threw himself over to catch him, and only ended up hitting the ground with a painful thud.
Xana was even faster. Riordan only saw the disappearing tails of the most important people in his life, and it took him too much precious time to push himself up and start running after them.
Once out in the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks. The guards were gone from the door. There was no sign of Xana or Junior in sight.
And the corridor was wet and silent and dark. The memory of his dream from the night before came rushing to him like the first wave of a tsunami. Riordan trembled from head to toes, as both fear and cold overwhelmed him.
No, he steeled himself. He wasn't a useless feeble Earthian, he decided. He had come this far, hadn't he? Through all those crazy things, through fighting losing battles so many times already, and he was still here.
He started running. Even though he knew that it had to be that he was running towards the very heart of danger, that was where everyone was already. Xana, Junior, all the Xenos and bearers on the ship, and even though he had the distinct realization that he had been left behind to be protected, that wasn't something he wanted for himself.
His place was there, with them, regardless of what that meant.
Parent.
A whisper floated to him.
Our parent.
Now it was spoken on many different voices.
We fight for you.
tbc
Interested in reading ahead? You can do it here:
https://subscribestar.adult/daemon-d-hart
Or check out my latest story on Smashwords - Spending His Honeymoon with Daddy-in-Law - Part One:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1609632