Morning in the flatlands was warm and promised to blossom into a steamy day as the sun continued to rise. Falar was working the fields, tentatively fertile earth roiling beneath his bare talon-like feet as he scattered tiny seeds into a breeze of his own making. He was close enough to his workhouse to see his two guardbeasts dozing beneath the tall porch, already taking advantage of the shade. Close enough to see the only marked trail that led up the slight hill to the small building, the only capillary of Ryarna roadways that reached his little plot of land from the nearby town.

Close enough to see a two-wheeler and its brown-garbed rider nearly fly up that trail, half-hidden in a cloud of dust and coarse gravel, and slide-stop so neatly that the wheeler skidded under the porch and nearly killed the slower of the two guardbeasts. The rider was already across the wide porch and into the workhouse before the dust settled.

Falar froze, uncertain, his hold on the air around him lax. A stranger just rushed into his workhouse and he… should… do what? He was naked but for the harness that held his seed pouches, his hands and feet filthy with topsoil. Even the guardbeasts were confused, hissing and disconcerted. The younger hopped onto the porch and paced, but it made no move to push open the mesh door and enter the house.

Quietly, the sun-darkened rarra cinched his bag of seed shut and tucked its strap into his belt, then approached the workhouse, gathering more magic to him in case he were confronted with violence. As he crossed the seeded portion of the field, two other wheelers pulled up the trail and idled next to the workhouse, marked in the traditional colors of the Riders. One uniformed rarra was gesturing animatedly from the ground to the house, and the other was already dismounting.

“Hello there,” Falar called to the two lawkeepers. He kept his posture straight, refusing to let his discomfort at his immodesty be detected. He didn’t often receive visitors, and the temperature had been warm enough to warrant working naked; he tried not to regret it.

“There are the marks,” one of them said to the other, pointing to the skid lines that led beneath the porch, where the stranger’s two-wheeler was surprisingly well-hidden in the shadows. “So where is she?”

“What’s going on?” Falan asked, lifting his voice slightly to be heard over the hum of the two magic-powered vehicles. His thought processes still felt as slow as cold honey.

“Fugitive,” the second Rider said, flashing him a hard, half-sympathetic smile. “Suspected pirate. She was stealing food in town.” His voice gave away his sex, like the first speaker’s had given away hers, though Falar couldn’t see the either face past the sun-blocking riding goggles and fine chain-link veil protecting muzzles and throats.

The first Rider swung a long leg over the seat of her wheeler and dismounted, leaving the machine upright on its own power. “Look, she’s probably hiding in your house – do you mind if we look around?” She said nothing about the gathered haze of magic that he still kept close to his skin; either she didn’t notice, which was unlikely, or she didn’t begrudge him his wariness.

Falar couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse, nor was he sure he wanted a thief in his workhouse, so he splayed his long, tapering ears in a shrug and gestured towards the door. The two Riders entered, an invisible aura of ready-to-use magical energy surrounding the first, the second with his short-fingered hand on the hilt of a thin sword.

The door swung shut behind them, and Falar waited at the base of the porch steps, listening with his ears and his magic-sense to detect the first sign of a struggle. The older guardbeast sat next to him, huffing in the heat; he imagined it was still unnerved by its close call with the hard end of a well-crashed wheeler. The younger of the pair sat on the porch and stared down the door, thick tail thumping rhythmically against a post.

Half an hour later, the lawkeepers emerged, empty-handed and disgruntled. “She must have kept running,” the one said to the other, who looked dour.

“Nothing?” Falar queried, a worried expression crossing his face.

“Nothing,” the second Rider said. “Sorry to disturb you. We didn’t leave a mess.” He offered a warmer smile than the other rarra had, and Falar nodded as they mounted their wheelers and rolled down the trail.

After they’d been gone for a few minutes, Falar looked at the wheeler under the porch, then at his workhouse. “You come with me,” he told the younger guardbeast. It rose, all bristly hairs and patches of armored skin, and entered the house first when he opened the door. He followed the shambling creature into the unlit hallway that led through the belly of the building. It was still dark and cool inside.

“Um, whoever you are – they’re gone. They didn’t see your wheeler. I–” Falar stopped talking when he felt the chilling touch of steel glide across his throat. The guardbeast turned several seconds too late, snarling, but it stopped its charge when Falar lifted a warning finger. His hands were shaking.

“Thanks for not squealing,” a smooth voice purred in his ear. He shivered. “Curious, though – why say nothing? I could kill you now. Didn’t you think of that before they went on their merry way?”

Falar tried to keep his voice from going shrill as sweat crept down his back. Even his mastery of air magic would not stop a knife from cutting through his flesh at such intimate range. “People who steal food normally need it. People who murder for money are a different story.” As an afterthought, he added, “I don’t have much money.” He wondered if he could rip the air from her lungs before she could put that blade into him and calculated that, at best, it would end with both of them dead.

The thief – pirate? – chuckled richly and removed her dagger from his throat, then stepped back with a click of clawed feet on the wooden floorboards. “Keen ear, that.” Falar slowly turned and looked up at the taller rarra.

Scars lined her fog-grey skin like creases in fabric, and a few discolored patches of fine hairs suggested old burn wounds near her neck and shoulders. The thin horn that arced upwards from her forehead was broken at the tip, an ugly disfigurement that bespoke a rough past. She was lean and muscular and nothing like the townsfolk and ranchwomen that he’d seen – especially considering the half-dozen weapons she wore on her person like he wore seed pouches. Her clothing was leather, a rare thing on Ryarna, tailored to fit her and designed to provide limited armor over vulnerable areas. There was a ship’s ID patch stitched on her vest, but he couldn’t make out the faded letters in the dim hallway.

“I’ll take my wheeler and go,” she said with a hint of a smile, meeting his wide eyes. “You keep your animals off me, and you can go back to your fields. Sound good?”

Falar considered her reasonable offer, not exactly eager to pit his magic against her steel and unwilling to risk his sturdy guardbeasts against what seemed to be an experienced intersun fighter. He surprised them both when he asked, “Are you really a pirate?”

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creation

Blood-red light. Fire-hot breath.

The vaguest of shapes – body, four legs, head, neck, tail. Deep in the chest and broad through the shoulders, thick in the limb, heavy in the jaw.

Blood and fire, interlacing like drumbeats, like heartbeats. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. A brand new heart contracting in an unfinished chest.

A spark. A glimpse of spirit. A nascent soul. Tha-thump.

Flesh knit heavy, bones knit solid. Tha-thump. Thick skin and thicker fur. Tha-thump. Sharp teeth and sharper claws. Tha-thump.

‘Average’ denied. Rebuke denied. Power demanded. Tha-thump.

Battle won. Far-seeing eyes, keen ears, sensitive nose. Tha-thump. Long whiskers and callused pawpads. Tha-thump.

Blood and fire, interlacing like sine and cosine, like firing synapses. Tha-thump. Alert, aware, analyzing. Tha-thump.

Cold, pale blue gaze unlidded. Tha-thump. First view of blinding light – a spinning orb – and a towering tree with bright leaves. Tha-thump.

Body coalescing like the first breath of the world, a shuddering inhale, a wave of physical sensation. Tha-thump.

Weight settling, pressing paws into the earth, gravity taking hold of a freshly-completed frame. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

A silent voice older than time, a language deeper than intuition. “You are she.” Tha-thump.

A long pink tongue awkward against heavy teeth. Vocal chords snarling into soundwaves. “I am.”

The spinning light, luminous enough to blind, met with unblinking eyes. “Then you are she. You are the perfect one. What do you call yourself, she who awoke before created?”

No hesitation. No uncertainty. “I shall be called Redwood, as mighty as the kûsani under which I was created, and as red as blood, heart, and fire.”

Scents whipped to shreds by the radiance’s rotation. “And what shall you call your people, O Redwood?”

Broad black nose beginning to distinguish smells despite the whirling winds. Snf snf. “They shall be called Korats, for the word pleases me.”

A long pause. Korats. ‘Kings’ in a tongue not Lavanian. “You are unprecedented. Lavana would bow before you, should you choose to take her. This you must know.”

Ears angling backwards, a tacit display of disapproval. “Lavana is my home. Not my slave; not my kingdom. I hold no dreams of tyranny in my heart.”

A longer pause, the self-contained blaze spinning within its own tornado. “…then you are she.”

Confidence. Surety. “She I am, and she I will always be. None shall take my life, nor conquer my people.” Tha-thump. “Give me my sisters’ shadows, that I may add them to mine.”

Disdain. Disagreement. “They are weak.”

A lowering of the voice from baritone to growling thunder. “They are no weaker than I, and you daren’t call Redwood weak.” Tha-thump.

Silence. Two bodiless shadows crept over the fields and bled into hers, making it as black as the void.

Pleased. “Take it. My sisters and I shall lead our people together.” Unprecedented, three Originals instead of one.

A sound like shattering crystal – the abyss-dark shadow vanished entirely. Below the ledge, below the kûsani, the first fifty Korats breathed their first lungful of wind together. Three distinct breeds: black, tan, … and red. “I shall be watching.” Tha-thump.

Body became permanent in every final detail as the light rose into the lavender sky like a phoenix ascending. Tha-thump. Redwood breathed deeply, flesh and fur and bone moving in sweet synchronicity. Tha-thump. Scents were easily read and sounds suddenly audible as the wind calmed. The retreat of brilliant luminance let color creep into vision, staining objects with vivid life. Natural sunlight and a planet-born breeze replaced the alien power of the intangible Creator as its light faded entirely from view.

The red mother smiled.

Tha-thump.

the first day

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“I’m tired of holograms.” Jenny poked a finger into the illusory sky, and it rippled like water. “Can’t we go outside? Please?”

“The air is unsafe,” the AI replied in the same calm, sweet voice it always used. Its engineers had tried to make it sound compassionate and loving, but to Jenny, it only sounded like a poor replacement for her mother. “You may not leave the compound.”

Jenny sighed into her long hair, twisting and flopping onto the fake grass. The ‘ground’ was as soft as a mattress, and she bounced slightly. “Can I see someone today, at least?” she whined, folding her arms and pillowing her face on her jacket’s puffy sleeves. The hood nestled loosely against the back of her neck.

“Who would you like to visit? I will pass along your request.”

She rolled her eyes and chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “How about Sam?”

“Hold, please. Relaying request.”

Jenny huffed, kicking her booted toes against the ground. She couldn’t quite remember what real dirt felt like, but she was sure it didn’t bounce like that. If she kicked hard enough, her heel would rebound almost to the seat of her jeans.

“Request denied.” The AI tried to sound apologetic and failed. “I’m very sorry, Jennifer.”

“It’s Jenny,” she snapped, frowning. She wasn’t sure why Sam wouldn’t want to see her – maybe he had already used up his daily visitation with someone else. “Fine, um. How about Gina?”

“Hold, please. Relaying request.”

“God this is boring.” Jenny rolled onto her back, knees poking upwards as she planted her feet on the spongy ground. The sky had stopped rippling, and its fake sun had nearly set. She wouldn’t have much time before darkness was projected over her living quarters and she had to stay in her bed until she fell asleep.

“Request denied.” The same response, the same tone. “I’m very sorry, Je–”

“Why the denial, huh?” Jenny demanded. “Is it too late or something? There’s still like an hour left.” The AI didn’t respond, and Jenny muttered something decidedly unkind under her breath and sat up. “Fine. I want to get a book out.”

“You may choose one book from the shelf,” the AI agreed placidly.

Jenny stood, brushed the fake grass from her jacket, and jogged to the other side of the small lawn. The illusion of distant mountains shimmered away, revealing the presumably-real bookshelf that stretched from ceiling to floor. Its contents changed every day, and Jenny hadn’t seen a book show up twice yet. She had learned to choose carefully and read quickly, since the AI would only allow her to keep a book out for a single day.

She scanned the titles, found one that looked immersive and interesting, and plucked it from the shelf. The hologram of horizon returned, only the very tips of the fake mountains still lit with fake sunlight.

Jenny sighed and turned away, book pressed to her chest. She twirled in a circle until the sunset-painted clouds were a blur of watery colors, then fell to the ground on her back. Her head hit the fake grass and bounced, barely a flicker of pain from the impact. She snorted and opened the book.

She was half a chapter in and already losing track of time when the sky went completely dark, leaving only the light from the book’s luminous pages. She had read another two paragraphs before she realized that the moon and stars had not appeared in the fake sky, and she slowly closed the book, a finger stuck between pages to hold her place.

There was no light. None. “Um. AI…?” Jenny asked, voice quavering. She’d never seen it this dark.

The AI didn’t respond. “Lights on,” Jenny said a little more firmly, the simple commands of her living quarters ingrained in her since childhood.

The lights didn’t respond, either. Jenny opened the book and slowly got to her feet. She walked to where the bookshelf had been, using the book’s glowing pages to navigate across the fake grass.

Rusted, corrugated metal greeted her horrified eyes, and freshly-cut wires glimmered in the low light, dangling loose halfway down a severed pipe.

“Everybody has ‘n animal.” He smiled, leaning back in his rocking chair and pulling his worn blanket around his knees. Something creaked when he moved – old wood or old bones, she couldn’t tell.

“Their animal shows isself in diff’rent ways. Maybe they’re ‘n artist or writer, an’ ‘at animal is their muse. Maybe they’re a scientist, an’ ‘at animal pulls ’em t’learn about living things. Maybe they’re ‘n occultist, an’ ‘at animal is their spirit guide or their animal totem. Maybe they’re a furry, an’ they think they chose ‘at animal t’express ’emselves. Maybe they’re s’ hollowed out by the world around them ‘at th’ animal is just a favorite, a passing name or image, an’ nothing more. Maybe they’re s’ worn thin an’ grey-eyed ‘at their animal died right along with their heart, years ‘go.

“Or, sometimes, ‘at animal isn’t separate from us. ‘At animal is us.” He lifted a wrinkled, spotty hand, tremors racing through his crooked fingers. His fingernails were yellow and cracked, but they were thick and heavy and unusually rounded.

“Our bodies start forgetting ‘at they have t’be human, ‘specially if we change a lot. My nails’re a dog’s claws now. Sometimes, my eyes don’t go back t’blue for days an’ days.” He smiled again, showing off worsening teeth. “We live a long time, us animal-people. And ‘ere’s never any telling when an animal-person will find ’emselves an’ figure it all out for th’ first time.

“We ain’t werewolves like in th’ movies.” The smile faded from his lined face. “We ain’t monsters, an’ we ain’t looking t’hurt nobody. We’re just animal-folk, living our lives as best we can. Some take it ‘pon ’emselves t’help others find their animals, howe’er their animals show ’emselves. Most of us, we just live quiet. It’s getting harder, what with th’ world changing ’round us, t’keep normal folks from finding out ’bout us. But we’re doing alright. Just a li’l underground people, like th’ old Christians or th’ new pagans, like th’ Irish back in th’ railroad days – just living our lives, not wanting trouble.” He peered at her with white-clouded eyes. “D’ya understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded with a little smile. “I do, sir.”

He chuckled raspily. “Don’t need t’call me sir. I ain’t a stranger t’ya.”

Her smile widened, showing teeth. “Alright. It’s just very wordy to call you Great-Great-Great-Grandfather all the time.”

His eyes crinkled as he chortled, slapping his knee. “Then just call me Great!”

Alix thumped with a steady stride towards the nearest employee entrance, the ever-present cameras ignoring her – she was only human. She slid her wallet from the back pocket of her bluejeans, stepped around fresh splatters of green-tinged blood, and hovered the wallet and its embedded chip in front of the security reader. It beeped permissively, and she cranked open the three-inch-thick door to step inside the stairwell.

The blood was nothing new, although it painted the pavement nearly every morning with another coat. The xin were always cutting into each other, and while the company frowned on such fights indoors, the parking lot was the equivalent of a xin free-for-all ring. Once or twice, she’d even seen severed digits still twitching in pools of ichor.

A xin almost ran into her, in fact, as the door swung shut and made the hallway dim; but the alien stopped short like a marionette with strings suddenly taut, curled over her a few inches away. She looked two feet up, into its eyes, and did not smile. Xin didn’t like smiles; smiles were mammalian. Smiles showed teeth, and showing teeth was the sign of a predator. “You’ve got a drip,” Alix said by way of greeting, flicking her eyes like a gesture to the gash oozing blood above one of the xin’s whiteless eyes.

The xin lifted an arched finger, wiped the blood away, and licked its finger clean with a long tongue. Thank you, it signed to her, using an awkward mixture of its native language and adopted ASL. They were good lip-readers, most of them, but they lacked lips with which to reply.

Alix nodded, the movement gentle to avoid startling, and stepped aside so the xin could use the door. It did, gauntly skinny body slipping between her and the wall with insectoid grace.

Shaking her head, she walked up the newly decarpeted stairs – even with strict discouragement of fighting, xin bloodstains got everywhere, and now only the most formal of conference rooms were retaining their lush carpet. The floors elsewhere were being turned to hardwood or stone tile – the warehouse was already cement-floored, metal-walled. Xin wore shoe-like pads at work, so talon scratches were a non-issue, even for fine wood floors.

The xin were humbly apologetic for the necessity, and on their breaks, the artistic ones – which was the vast majority of them – painted alien murals on the new walls. Twin suns in the sky and clouds like fire; three moons, too bright to let starlight pass; volcanoes and ash deserts and lush, lush forests growing from soil as black as xin eyes.

Alix thought they were pretty. The murals, at least, if not the xin themselves. Some of her coworkers gave fake smiles because they didn’t understand, and the xin shied away.

A few of her coworkers gave deliberate smiles to make the xin afraid, and those she kept an eye on.

It had been nearly two generations since the human-xin wars ended. Nearly two generations since the xin won Earth. Nearly two generations before the biggest misunderstanding of space-age history was discovered; the xin learned enough pieces of human sign language to convey that they didn’t want to fight, or dominate, or colonize. They wanted to ally. To co-exist. Every science fiction dream come true, after years of warfare and millions dead on both sides. Bittersweet.

Nearly two generations, and the biggest cities of most first-world countries had initiated the xin as full citizens. Human xenophobia could do little in the face of facts: the xin had won. The xin wanted to ally. To avoid another war, to avoid being truly conquered, the xin would be integrated. Alix doubted that, at the time, the world’s leaders had realized the lie of their helplessness.

The xin, for all their rapid-healing that made their incessant physical contests a moot point in terms of long-term damage, for all their physical resiliency and eternal history of personal combat, were afraid of humans and their guns. A bullet – several, really – could kill a xin before the xin could heal. And in xin culture, such a thing was unheard-of. Xin never fought to the death except in the most terrible of situations.

For the xin, war with Earth had been one long, terrible situation.

Alix sank into her chair and flicked on her monitors, glancing over and giving a signed hello, good morning to her xin coworker, who was not yet proficient at reading fleshy lips. It met her gaze with what may have been relief, may have been welcome, and signed back, Very good morning, now.

It was hard not to smile in response.