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He strides through it without hesitation. I wait for him to look around then he motions us inside. Once we’re all through he closes the door while the three of us look at the new, secret room we’ve entered.
Massive tube looking things rise from floor to ceiling along one wall. Each of them is full of an opaque, dark, bubbling liquid. A loud screech makes me jump but it’s only Bahr dragging a heavy desk over to block the door we came in.
Charlie is at the tubes, studying them, so I turn my attention to the rest of the room. There are workstations with more of the alien machines as well as equipment, all of which seems well cared for. I don’t understand any of this, but it looks like a fancy lab.
“Got it,” Charlie says and then there is a click.
The tubes light up and we girls give a collective gasp. Bodies float inside the liquid. There are six tubes total. Four have shapes in them, two of which are toddler sized Zmaj. The tiny forms float motionlessly. My stomach knots around a hard ball of ice.
I walk closer, involuntarily drawn to the smaller ones first. The bodies have tubes connecting them to the machines. When I get closer, I see that they’re not like any other Zmaj. The two child bodies each have an extra set of arms, smaller than their regular arms, but still there. I shake my head and swallow bile.
“What are they doing?” I whisper.
Bahr moves up behind me and I look over and up at him. He stares, grim faced, his eyes dark as he growls.
“This is not natural,” he says. “Tajss would never approve.”
“Tajss?” I ask. “You mean… the planet?”
He nods sharply.
“How does the planet approve or disapprove?”
“I can’t read this, Bahr can you?” Charlie sinterrupts, and even she is subdued and speaking softly.
He turns and walks over to the screen she is at. I can’t take my eyes off the bodies. Asia stands next to me and neither of us speaks for a long time. The wrongness is an abrasion in my head, like an itch you can’t scratch no matter how you try.
The moment is broken when Bahr roars which sound is immediately followed by breaking glass. Asia and I spin, I’m sure we’re under attack, but instead it’s Bahr destroying the machine. His rage is palpable, and he lets it all out on the inanimate technology.
When at last he’s done, he stands with hunched shoulders, head hanging as he breathes heavily. Charlie stands next to Asia and I, having ducked and run when Bahr’s tantrum began. The three of us look at each other, no one sure what to do. Charlie shrugs and gently pushes me forward.
Great. Feeling incredibly timid, nerves jangling, I approach Bahr slowly.
“Bahr?” I ask as I come close.
He doesn’t answer or react. I reach my hand towards him, still feeling tentative and uncertain. When my fingers contact his cool scales that are so incredibly smooth, he stiffens for an instant then relaxes.
I assume this is a good sign and press my palm against his back, tucking my hand under the fold of his wings. I step around to stand beside him. He’s staring at the ground, chest still heaving, and if I didn’t know better I’d swear he was about to cry. The look on his face is one of utter devastation. A loss so deep, so painful, that it forms its own lines that weren’t there before.
“Bahr?” I say again. “Are you, are you okay?”
His eyes close slowly. It’s a Zmaj thing that I’ve noticed before, an ability to blink in what for a human would be slow motion. The lids clench and he keeps his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath, holds it, then exhales slowly. Only then does he open his eyes and raise them to meet mine.
“It’s a lie,” he exhales.
I feel his pain. My chest aches and pressure is building in my head. I don’t even know what it is that’s a lie, but I see and feel how much it hurts him. I want to make that pain stop. I don’t know how but it doesn’t matter. I know, in this moment, I will do anything to never see him like this.
And just like that I realize another truth about myself. About us.
I love him.
This. It isn’t only desire or need, or interest in a new experience. Love. I love him. And that’s a truth that stuns me into silence.
His body trembles so I do the only thing that makes sense. I wrap my arms around his torso and hold him tightly.
His massive arms, each bicep is almost as big as one of my thighs, enclose around me and he squeezes. I press my face to his chest, enjoying the coolness of his scales, feeling the sensations of the ridges where each scale overlaps with the next. Of my warmth radiating in and how his body takes my warmth and responds by warming to match.
I adjust my arms a couple of times before finding the right position. His wings make a hug awkward. I put my arms lower than I would on a human so that I’m under the part where they connect to his body.
