Lesson 9 First Assessment

It had taken her longer than expected to come to her senses. I'd kept a constant eye on her, fascinated by how she explored the ship and interacted with An'tia. The situation would have been a lot worse without the stabhorn. She was the intermediary between the two of us. An'tia connected us even though we'd not been in the same room for the entire week.

Whenever Tara had left the stabhorn to do other things, I'd taken her place. Because of that, An'tia had turned into the most spoilt stabhorn in the universe. Two people to groom and dote on her. She took full advantage of it, demanding me to brush her even when I knew Tara had just done the same.

When I wasn't with An'tia, I worked on the reports for my sire. He'd sent me his notes on the preliminary observations and I'd made the requested changes. He'd demanded surprisingly few corrections. Maybe he'd finally realised that I wasn't as useless as he thought.

I'd written some notes on how Tara interacted with An'tia, but I wasn't ready to share those yet. I'd have to make sure there was no subtext that would suggest I was mated to the Peritan. He'd find out eventually, but I wanted to choose the right moment to tell him.

My plan had been to ask Tara tomorrow if she was ready to go through the questionnaire with me. I was glad she'd come to me instead. Maybe she'd finally accepted that I was her mate. I didn't want to talk about the topic yet, too worried that it might result in another medical emergency.

Realising I'd been quiet for a while, I pulled up the questions on my Commband's holo screen.

"I will record you, is that alright?" I asked.

"What will happen with the recording?"

"It will be automatically transcribed. My sire might take a look at it, but the IGU's data protection guidelines are among the strictest in the galaxy. The recording won't be shared with anyone else outside his research group."

"I guess that's alright then." She leaned back, reassuringly relaxed in my presence. "Shoot."

"What?"

Tara smiled. The entire room seemed to brighten. "Don't take that literally. It means I want you to start."

"Ah. Then I shall shoot." I returned her smile, proud I was using a Peritanism. "Do you believe that An'tia is real?"

Her forehead wrinkled. "Of course."

"Do you believe that there are other animals like An'tia?"

"You said you tame stabhorns, so I have no reason to doubt that there are others."

I had a suspicion I'd tainted the results. My sire wouldn't be happy. I ignored it for now and continued with the questions.

"Back on Peritus, did you believe in stabhorns?"

Tara shook her head. "Neither in stabhorns nor in unicorns. Although I always told the tourists that I believed in unicorns since it's Scotland's national animal. They liked that."

"Do you know any Peritans who believe in stab…unicorns?"

"I don't think so. Some of the other tour guides pretended to, but I'm pretty sure it was a joke. Some children I led around the castle definitely believed in unicorns, but they also believed in Santa and the Easter bunny. There's something strange though that I've thought about a lot in the past few days. I once read this book, The Unicorn Herd. I can"t remember the author"s name, but now that I"ve met an actual unicorn, I have to admit it was strangely realistic. Do you think the author could have met an actual unicorn?"

"Tape, Arizona," I said and watched with amusement as her eyes widened in surprise. "I"ve read it as part of my research. Much more realistic than Once Upon a Unicorn, in which the stabhorn is born without a horn. How preposterous. And don"t get me started on The Little Llama Meets a Unicorn. The llama, which seems to be one of your Peritan land animals, actually becomes a stabhorn. Impossible."

"We sold Once Upon a Unicorn at the castle gift shop!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe we both read the same books even though you're an alien. What are the chances?"

"I am not surprised. You are my mate. It is only natural that we would have similar interests."

Her smile disappeared in an instant. Her eyes turned cold. "I am not your mate."

It hurt to hear her say that, but I didn't try to convince her otherwise. She'd realise the truth at some point. Until then, I had to be patient. It wasn't easy, with my mating cock swollen inside its sheath. I'd tried hard to distract myself from the urge to claim her with both my cocks, complete the starlight ritual, but it was getting more difficult with every day. Now I knew why some males went mad with mating lust.

I returned my attention to the questionnaire. Some of the questions were too silly to ask. My sire would just have to go without answers to those.

"Now that you've met An'tia, would you tell other Peritans about her? Would you try and convince them that unicorns are real?"

She thought for a moment. "As much as I'd want to, they wouldn't take me seriously. Nobody would believe me. They'd either assume I was joking or that I've gone crazy. So no, I don't think I would."

"Last question. Would you tell other Peritans if there was a group of you?"

"If we'd all met An'tia? Maybe. It's more likely, but even so, I still don't think we'd be taken seriously." Tara's smile returned. "Even if we brought proof with us, people would think it's fabricated. Fake news, they call it nowadays. Maybe it's better if nobody knows that stabhorns exist. I don't think humans are ready for them yet."

I grinned. "Nobody will ever be ready for stabhorns. And I say that as someone who was almost killed by one."

My left hand automatically wandered to my stomach. No scar remained, but I didn't need a physical mark to remember the trauma. At the same time, without that accident, I would never have met An'tia.

I gasped at the realisation.

"What is it?" Tara asked.

"An'tia didn't just find you on Peritus. She brought us together. I've been racking my brain about why she stabbed me. She was frightened, but not enough to charge me. I'm usually good with new arrivals. I have enough experience to know how far to push them. I might end up getting kicked or scratched with a horn, but not stabbed. I thought I was losing my touch, but that doesn't match how much An'tia trusts me now. In fact, she stopped rebelling almost as soon as we were on the ship to Peritus. She must have known that injuring me would set me on the path to your planet."

Tara didn't look convinced, but I was sure I'd figured it all out.

"How would she have known that your sire would offer you the job?" she asked.

"I don't know. But it's said that stabhorns have a unique connection to the universe. They know what will happen before it does. And, of course, they're able to find soulmates. It must be part of that magical skill."

"Magic?" she repeated, sounding even more doubtful.

"A token word for anything that cannot yet be explained by science." I stopped when I noticed I sounded like my sire. He would say that when I was still a youngling and believed in the fairy tales the nanny told me.

"It still seems far-fetched to me, but I'm not a stabhorn expert. Is there a way to ask her? I've been wondering how much she understands. How clever are stabhorns?"

"They are more intelligent than most people assume," I explained. "I have the suspicion that they purposely make us underestimate them. They're not just mere beasts. They have a societal structure, they have learned behaviour that gets passed down through generations, they have a sort of language."

"Language?" Tara gasped. "Does that mean you can talk to them?"

"No, so far, nobody has been able to add their language to our translation implants. But if someone ever figures it out, I will add it to your implant immediately."

I realised too late that I'd never told her about the implant. Klat.