Vemoltak's Heart

Vemoltak

Another night without rest.

I glance at the door.

Light from the little sister has begun peeking through underneath. The bigger of our suns would not appear for a while still. Yet, I know I wouldn’t attempt sleeping again.

With a sigh, I get up and splash water on my face. It rids any remnants of sleep from my eyes, and I wish it would rid the nightmares just as swiftly.

I shake my head off the lingering thoughts and head out.

The night shift is patrolling dutifully, as expected. A few cast a glance my way as I walk past. The new recruits seem surprised to see me. Most others have gotten used to my increasingly frequent presence.

I turn and begin walking through the deserted town. As I take in the growing light, I imagine what she would’ve looked like in the pinks and purples of our sister suns. Bittersweet pain spreads through me and I welcome it.

She would’ve been beautiful.

She would’ve been cared for.

Loved.

I will find you in our next lives, my mate, I tell her in my mind, hoping the Gods will pass on the message. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.

It began a year ago. I’d been on the yearly tour to patrol the far territories. As the heir to Clan Valtrek, the kingdom’s security fell to me. Rather, our clan.

But with my father’s deteriorating health, more and more of the duties had been passed down to me ahead of the official title.

I didn’t mind it. I’d been trained my whole life for it, and I was glad to finally be of service to my clan and my chief.

I’d run point of the yearly patrol for the last four changes of seasons. I knew the path well by now, and had gotten familiar with the many stops along the way. I was towards the end of the tour, visiting with regional leader Norke, whose quiet and focused demeanor I appreciated, when the floor gave out from under me.

One second I was in the guest room taking off my leathers for sleep, the next I was standing somewhere bright and loud.

Creatures rushed past me, as did colorful contraptions that carried more of the oddly colored people.

The light was bleak but powerful, nothing like the beautiful violets of my world, and it already pained my skin to stand under it.

A shrill voice rambled on by me. It was closer than the other incessant voices and noises.

Without meaning to, I turned to it.

I could feel a weight on my face, and my vision held a definite line towards the edges where it became too blurry to make out anything past it. Still, I was able to make out the creature from where the shrill noise originated.

It had hair the color of piss and skin that pinked like weeks-old meat. Her eyes were white with a dull blue center.

Everything about it disgusted me, but for some reason my body leaned in as if trying to hear the high-pitched squeaks better.

“Oh, come on! You can’t back out now. I already told Teddy you’re going, so, really, it’d be you disappointing him if you don’t show,” it said.

She didn’t speak Teoka, but I seemed to understand most of what she said.

My body took a deep breath, and I almost choked on the stench of this world, of the creature talking to me.

Then, a voice responded. “I don’t know, Sarah…” my body said softly.

This voice was nothing like the sarah’s. This voice was gentle and soothing, like a caress that swept through my core.

It was the only thing from this world so far that was pleasant and I immediately wanted more of it.

The sarah creature reached for me and yanked me forward.

My body was smaller and struggled to keep up with the crowd walking with and against us. My eyes dashed up to a pole that flashed orange symbols at us. Somewhere in our mind I knew the symbols were a warning.

The sarah pulled our arm again to drag us to the path ahead. It hurt, but no complaints were made.

“It’s just lunch,” the sarah said while her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

The sight nauseated me, yet this body didn’t seem to react that way. Instead, our shoulders dropped.

“You don’t have to marry the guy, Fenny," the sarah continued. "Although, it wouldn’t hurt you to get laid…”

Marry? Laid? These were not words used much in my language but I could put together the meaning. My body looked down to where its hands wrung together nervously at the mention of mating.

Again, I couldn’t help but notice the differences between this body and the rest of this awful world.

The coloring was a more pleasant soft shade of yellow that reminded me of the first rays the big sister sun gave out in the morning.

The hands I so anxiously picked at were delicate to the point of being… cute. Even with the extra digit, the movement of her fingers was captivating.

“I know, but-” that gentle voice began only to be cut off by the sarah’s screeching.

“Mark! Teddy! We’re over here,” it said as it waved.

Anger coursed through me. Whomever’s body I was in - for at the time I refused to acknowledge the only logical explanation - was being ignored and made to feel uncomfortable. I felt it with her rapidly pounding heart.

She looked up and we made eye contact with a larger creature, clearly a male of the species, that advanced towards us.

The look in his eyes was predatory and her body sent a warning shiver through her unconsciously.

I missed the greetings exchanged between them and focused on her. From what I could make out, she was smaller than any of the creatures present. Not just that, but her shoulders caved in on themselves, making her smaller, as she avoided looking at the males.

The other female seemed to have no trouble talking with the males. She even touched their arms freely through her yapping.

Meanwhile, my woman slid into a seat and busied herself with a slab of writing on the table. She ignored the conversation around her until the other female jabbed her on the side.

“Right, Fenny?”

My woman looked up then. Her delicate fingers came up to her face to adjust the vision perimeter, as she searched the sarah’s face for a response.

“Sorry, I was focused on the menu,” she said apologetically after a moment, voice barely more than a breath.

The sarah sent her an annoyed look but turned back to the males with a smile. “Yes, we’re so free tonight.”

My woman began to quietly panic at this.

A moment later, a sour voice whispered at her from across the table.

“Can’t wait to see you tonight. Wear something sexy,” the male said. She leaned away from him slightly, any response stuck in her throat.

She left most of her food untouched, and did not bother to drink the murky blue liquid placed before her. After the sarah finished eating, my woman tapped her gently on the shoulder.

“Bathroom?” she said in that small voice. The gross woman did a head motion and stood to let her out.

We looked back towards the table one last time before leaving and caught the male looking at her. That uncomfortable feeling went through her body again as he traced her body with his eyes.

She turned quickly and rushed away. Her hands reached into her clothing and produced a solid square object. Her fingers flew over it, seemingly commanding light and writing to appear on the surface.

I felt the pull of my own world taking me away from her.

I would’ve gladly gone back before. Now? I resisted it.

It felt wrong to leave her behind like this. But my mind returned to its own body in the lands overseen by Norke.

The familiar blues and purples of my world were both comforting and exasperating.

After the first time, I was pulled to her nearly every night. On the nights I wasn't, I laid in bed wondering what she was doing. Whether she was safe and comfortable.

Although the visits took place during my nights, I was there for her days.

She seemed to work at a building as large as the palace. Instead of meetings, it held writings. There were rows upon rows of storage that held collected writings she called books.

She tended to the books and the building, and occasionally helped others of her kind searching for specific books.

However, most of her time was spent reading. I couldn't read the writing, but I followed her feelings as she read, eagerly wondering what influenced her so.

When she wasn't working, she spent time at home.

Her dwelling was like her - gentle, cozy, delicate.

Parts of her wall were colored in soft blues and greens. Others were not colored at all, the yellow sunlight pouring in.

Her bedding and seating were covered with layers and layers of the plushest furs of all colors.

Her favorite activity seemed to be wrapping her small frame in a large fur and tucking herself in for reading.

My favorite activity was listening to her breathing as she read.

Occasionally, the solid object that lit up when another wanted to reach her - a phone- would make an incessant buzzing that took her from the comfort of her home.

More often than not, the one disrupting her life was the woman named Sarah.

I hated Sarah.

She was loud, smelly, and always dragged Fenny into places she didn't want to be in.

As for Fenny, she remained the only pleasant thing about her world.

While I witnessed a lot of her life, she remained a mystery to me. Only her voice and hands were known to me.

I memorized them, and after a while they became a calming thought outside of my visits, in the real world.

Fenny was all gentleness, softness, sweetness. There was no part of her that wished others ill. Never a mean word spoken, even when she would be justified to do so.

And her body… I’d never seen more than the flesh of her hands, but she looked down often enough that the covered swell of her breasts was a familiar hill from under which her covered feet peeked through. And I’d felt those hands comfort her when she was stressed or scared or cold.

Instead of the layer of fur that coated my skin, hers was supple sort of soft. No battle scars, no callouses from years of yielding weapons.

Fenny was my opposite in nearly every way.

In short, I was hopelessly enamoured by someone that I didn’t know and, for all intents and purposes, was not real.

The more the visits occurred, the more I lost my grip on the real world.

It was hard to focus on the task at hand with my sleep devoted to Fenny, and my frustration lashing out at those around me.

While I looked forward to every time I connected with her, every visit left me frustrated.

Fenny’s people were brutish. They mistreated her often, spoke down to her, used her for their benefit.

And she let them.

I simultaneously loved and hated her gentle nature.

Then, several turns of the moon after, for the first time, I was pulled during the day.

The familiar feeling came over me and I submitted to it urgently, her fear spreading through me before the connection was fully established.

“Vemoltak?” I heard Chief Banor call out distantly, but my mind was already with her.

Her world was dark like a deep cave even though her walls usually let the sunlight in. It must’ve been night in her world, yet no moonlight came through.

Worse than that, her vision perimeter was gone.

I knew the shapes of her home like my own and still struggled to make out even the most basic of forms. It was like trying to see through dark, murky water.

Fenny flailed about as her body lifted on its own. Her hands smacked the vision perimeter she usually wore on her face and they went flying to the ground where nothing stood out.

Her whimpers cut through me as sharp pains went through her body.

The feeling was unlike anything I’d felt in battle. I knew of no weapon that could do this.

“Hang in there,” I said through the connection. I knew she could not hear me. She never did.

“Please, Fenny, be strong,” I said anyway.

They were empty words. I couldn’t help her. I didn’t even know what was happening.

The connection faltered for a moment and when I felt her again, her world was different.

It was hard to make out anything, but she was somewhere else. The white lights here were cold and harsher than those from her single yellow sun.

Fenny blinked a few times but her vision was still too blurry to make out more than big shapes. I didn’t recognize them, and it seems neither did she.

She instinctively crawled back and away from the looming figures. Her back hit something solid yet wet. Her trembling head looked up to find another figure above her.

It moved to grab her, the details of it not visible until its hand wrapped around her throat. There, right below her nose, she could see a green appendage dripping in a foul substance.

Her eyes darted back to the creature, still unable to define anything further than the hand at her throat.

A small scream escaped her as it threw her to the others. They made gurgling sounds, their appendages reaching for her. They squeezed her soft body in painful ways with appendages she could not see or try to avoid.

When another heart wrenching sob escaped her, one of the creatures stopped. It made a rough sound that was immediately followed by a hard smack.

She had no hope of guarding from it. A ringing sound exploded in her right ear.

She landed on the floor by one of the creatures, which promptly lashed out against her other ear, and we felt the trickle of something warm rolling down her neck.

Fenny’s head pounded.

Their wet and gurgling sounds were distorted through her damaged ears. She flinched as a slimy appendage traced the blood on her neck.

It was all she could do to curl up against the onslaught that ensued.

The connection faltered as her consciousness did.

This time especially, I resisted. I couldn’t leave her. I wouldn’t leave her.

Gods, please, I begged uselessly. Help me. Help her.

I came back into my body with a roar.

Chief Banor and Draximir were holding me down.

“He’s back,” I heard Dorek tell them as my vision adjusted. Being able to see more than shapes and shadows again was disorientating for a moment and I closed my eyes against the feeling.

“What in the Gods’ name is going on, Vemoltak?”

My body had shifted in its vain efforts to save Fenny, foolishly thinking we could help her. I took control of my breathing and shifted back.

When I opened my eyes, I was wholly back in the council chambers.

It fully sunk in then.

Fenny was gone.

This wasn’t like the other times.

Something in me couldn’t feel her anymore.

“My mate… is dead,” I said.

Silence fell upon the room.

No one stopped me as I stood and left.

The reality of it crushed me over the next couple of moons turning.

I could not protect her.

Me, the heir of clan Valtrek.

Vemoltak, the great defender, could not protect his mate as she was savagely murdered.

No one brought up my mate, not even the Chief, and neither did I.

Fenny was mine.

Her shy voice. Her gentle movements. Her warm nature.

I held onto every memory of her and pushed them so deep into my core that no one could ever hope to take them from me.

And so, when I had my first nightmare a handful of days ago, I thought nothing of it.

Her pain, her fear, her whimpers, replayed over and over in my head every day as it was. So what if they followed me into sleep now? This was the price I’d have to pay for failing her.

Somehow, the nightmares were different, though. While her murder replayed in my waking mind, my sleeping form saw different images.

They were unfocused. Vague shadows moved about. Sometimes they approached, sometimes not. Some shadows resembled her attackers. Others were shaped like Sarah, the woman I’d come to abhor for her mistreatment of my sweet Fenny, but I knew it wasn’t her.

Then there was the lack of sounds. It was too quiet in my nightmares. I often looked around helplessly, unsure with the lack of sound if more creatures would unexpectedly attack from behind. Occasionally, a ringing would break through the silence just to pound my head.

I came to the conclusion that the Gods were punishing me for my failure as a mate.

Fenny suffered until her last breath. It seemed only fair that I would feel as she did.

Small. Helpless. Unable to see, unable to hear, unable to defend myself.

And so, for the last several days, I’ve been unable to sleep. I wasn’t getting much sleep before, but I was truly getting none now.

As I make my way to the palace gardens, wondering whether Fenny would’ve liked the polka flowers grown here, a dark feeling pricks my awareness.

I look up to see a burning star. It grows and grows as it crosses the waking sky.

“Vemoltak!” I hear Draximir shout from inside. I rush to the palace, eyeing the growing star with every step.

I find Draximir and Dorek suiting up as if for war. I join them without hesitation.

“What is it?”

Draximir doesn’t stop but his movements falter as his words hit me. “My mate is in the falling star. She needs me.”

My hands stop. A year ago I would’ve questioned every part of that sentence. Now? Visions of Fenny flood through me.

“Why do we need battle gear to meet your mate?”

He shoots me a look and I continue strapping my weapons on. “She’s not alone. Something has her.”

I push down the bile that rises in my throat.

Draximir doesn’t notice, his eyes already looking for his mount as we walk out. “She was taken from her home by a race of disgusting creatures. My mate is fierce, but she is no match for them. Not that she seems to know that,” he says, tone conflicted.

Fenny's soft hands clutched to her head flash in mine.

“We must follow the star and be ready when it touches ground,” he says somewhere nearby.

“Your mate. Is she Teoka?”

Draximir gives me a grave look. He straightens on his mount. “She is not.”

He gives me a challenging look, as if waiting for me to oppose this mission.

I flick my tail in acknowledgement. “Let us be fast then,” I say and break into a gallop.

A numb feeling takes hold of me as we ride.