Chapter 11
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The forest around him felt alien. A cursory look reminded him of the forests of Earth, but as time passed, it seemed less and less... normal. Strange shadows lurked in the trees, and twisted mockeries of Earth flora could be seen here and there. Kelly was no expert mage, but even he could feel strange magical energies involved. The fauna were even worse by their absence. The only signs of animals at all were strange tracks and distant noises. He thought nothing could be worse than the eerie silence that had first greeted them, but he was quickly being proven wrong.
Kuthrine seemed to be trying to keep herself composed and falling short, and even Anderson looked nervous. Whether the forest or their "caretaker" was the cause, he didn't know. 'Speaking of her, I wonder why she seems so agitated. I thought Dras were forest dwellers. Shouldn't this feel like home to her?'
The Dras in question was looking... er... in fact, for convenience's sake, Kelly decided to describe the primary sense of the Dras in terms of sight, since it seemed to work similarly enough. The Dras in question was looking from side to side in quick, jerking movements as they walked. Alien body language was difficult to read in the best of circumstances, but Kelly got the distinct impression that she was afraid of something. Since they were stuck here for a while, he decided being conversational with the enemy might not be so bad.
"Hey, what's your name?" The Dras snapped her attention to him, straightening her sword: she probably wanted to remind him of his position.
"I was not informed that drones were given names."
"But you're not a drone." The alien laughed, in the weird, barking growl kind of way that they did. Kelly felt his spine shiver.
"You humans love to ignore obvious facts in favor of your own delusions. It's a wonder the initial invasion failed so spectacularly."
Anderson picked his head up at that. "What? Why should you care? You overthrew the tyrants that did that."
"I would repeat myself, but that is a less obvious fact. I'll tell you this, because you won't be able to inform anyone else, and I feel no particular duty to keep this secret: the "revolution" you are referring to was fake. It was a ploy to regain humanity's trust. Ask the mage-female."
Kelly had heard rumors of this in the Academy, especially in his exopolitical classes. He was more curious about her response to his drone comment, though. "Shush Anderson. What were you saying before, that you actually are a drone?"
"Legally, yes. I prefer ex-drone, now, however. That's another little secret: drones are captured Dras. The Empire gets free labor without the public backlash associated with slavery, and the Escape gets to pretend it isn't infiltrating the Empire when its agents get caught." Kelly opened his mouth to speak, but the... ex-drone cut him off. "I'm not interested in discussing ethics with a human. Save your breath. You can grunt and moan at your fellow apes later. To answer your question, I go by the title of Tiamat. TYR! I have your escaped pets!"
Kelly returned his attention to his surroundings and noticed that they were back at the landing site. The other Dras, evidently named Tyr, came out of the ship with a body in his arms. "Fellow hunter, Tiamat. I feared for your safety."
Tiamat seemed to puff up and her wings extended slightly. "I am not a hatchling."
"Then allow me to beg your advice. What do you think we should do with this?" Tyr dumped the corpse of the ship's pilot on the ground. Anderson swore and looked away. Kuthrine looked like she was trying to ignore the situation. Kelly just stared. 'Guy tries his best to save us, and here he is; the only one of us to die. So far, at least.' They still has no idea what the Dras wanted with them, only that they were apparently enemies.
Tiamat circled the corpse. "It wasn't a mage, and even if it was, it'll be stale soon. You could have one of the mages try and preserve it, for emergencies. I doubt it will be delicious, but I don't know what else you could do with it." Tiamat crouched and removed her hood. Tyr looked away, but Kelly hadn't seen a live Dras's face before. As expected, there was no eyes, just a large, spine-ringed depression that served as a sensory organ, using a magic aura to sense the world around them. The mouth shocked him, however. The cadavers and images he had seen hadn't prepared him for how expressive their face could be, or how easy it was to read.
Tiamat looked very curious at the moment, gently prodding the corpse. She glanced at Kelly and noticed him watching her. An expression that probably translated to a devilish grin crossed her face, and just as quickly disappeared. She raised her hand, and quickly pulled the sleeve back to reveal 4 digits, tipped with curved, black claws that were almost an inch in length. Still staring at Kelly, she jabbed one of her claws into the pilot's neck and pulled it back out. Kelly shuddered, but wasn't able to look away. Tiamat turned her head to examine her bloody claw, eventually giving it an experimental taste.
Shaking her head, she stood and replaced her sleeve. Tyr turned to face her again. "If you are finished behaving like an Omega-"
"It's yours. I have no desire for it. I'll hunt something else."
"Of course. As an Agent, I advise you to avoid killing anything civilized. Avoid the horned equine-like creatures, at the very least. I plan to use at least one of them."
Tiamat shrank a bit. "Yes, Tyr."
Kelly had trouble following Dras conversations, even with his studies, but figured there had been a hidden reprimand in there. Dras seemed to like being blunt in a cryptic way. He liked to call it anti-sarcasm, but he wasn't sure if that was actually a good term for it. "Uh..." Both Dras turned to face him. "Sorry, I was, uh, curious as to what an Omega is." Kelly shrugged self-consciously.
Tiamat took the liberty of answering first. "Wild Starborn. Vicious creatures. We exiled them."
Tyr shook his head. "An Omega is one who was hatched outside the Escape. Currently, all Omegas are exiled due to rebellion. Those are the facts."
Well, that just sunk several popular theories at the Academy. 'I guess that's what we get for thinking we knew so much about them. I didn't even know they were capable of internal conflict of that level.' The idea of "wild" Dras was also shocking, in the same sense that a "wild" human was. Human's don't generally think of themselves as tamed, but maybe Dras were different. 'Or maybe alien psychology is alien and difficult to understand. Yeah, let's go with that'
"Wait... what was that about horned equines?"