Epilogue

Ophelia

T hat evening, as had become our habit, we settled around the bonfire on the beach where we held our communal meals. The females had made it a point of going back hunting for the best possible celebration feast tonight. Although I would stuff my face with my share of meat, I also prepared a small portion of salad for myself.

Being predominantly carnivores, the Nazhrals often only ate meat, which naturally didn’t meet my dietary needs. The occasional side dishes they had mostly consisted of starch and carbs. I needed my greens. Normally, I would steam some veggies in the kitchen or grill some of them next to the spit. But tonight, I was in the mood for something different.

I quickly whipped up a traditional chef salad with their equivalent of lettuce—although it was more like spinach—tomatoes, a purple thing that tasted like slightly sweet cucumber, grated carrots, and a few green olives from the stash I’d brought with me. To my delight, I found out I could get more olives delivered to Melelyn, as they were not naturally produced here.

I hastened back to the beach. Before I even settled down next to Gaelec, every head turned my way, their nostrils flaring, and the oddest expression descending over their features.

I glanced down at myself, wondering if I had spilled something on me or was somehow suffering a wardrobe malfunction. But nothing looked out of place.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, baffled.

They sniffed the air, and Gaelec’s eyes darkened, looking slightly glazed over as he leaned towards my salad.

“What is that?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave.

“A salad?” I said, sounding both uncertain and as if it should be obvious.

“I’ve seen those vegetables before, but not those green things,” he said, looking a bit more restless.

“That?” I asked, pointing at one of the olives. “I’ve eaten them frequently at the house,” I said, still just as confused.

And then it dawned on me that I normally ate them during the day when he was off working.

“Do you want to try one, or does this smell bother you?”

“I would try one!”

The eagerness with which he replied threw me for a loop. Judging by their collective weird reaction, I had expected them to tell me to get rid of it, and that it smelled foul to their particularly sensitive noses. Relieved, I happily gave him one.

“I wouldn’t mind trying one as well,” Kazaer said, everyone else nodding with the same hopeful glances. “It smells amazing!”

Although stunned, I agreed and started spreading them around. Thankfully, as I previously cut them in half, there was just enough for everyone with a couple left in my bowl. But the spectacle that followed initially had me on the verge of panic before I ended up nearly laughing my ass off.

Their collective eyes glazed over, and they started moaning and purring, some of them even slightly twitching. I almost expected them to start rolling on the ground. To my shock, they didn’t flat out chew and swallow, but most of them were just sucking on the small piece, half chewing in that playful way one would pretend to bite someone else.

They all looked high…

However, and to my utter relief, it wasn’t in the scary way of a junkie or someone who got utterly wasted. They struck me more like someone having a nice buzz after a couple of drinks, but still very functional and aware.

As I vaguely recalled something about cats and olives, I whipped out my com to do a quick search only to have it confirmed. It turned out that olives shared some of the chemical compounds found in catnip, especially nepetalactone. Cats could detect those chemicals with the receptors in their noses and mouths. That explained why their noses started twitching the minute I showed up with my salad, and why they were making the pleasure last by not swallowing right away.

For the next thirty minutes, I just watched my entire Pride having a blast over such a simple ingredient before fully recovering from it. Thankfully, olives were not harmful to felines. We needed to confirm that the same would apply to Nazhrals.

I already discovered that, like cats, Nazhrals couldn’t taste sweetness. Due to genetic mutations that affected their taste receptors, felines couldn’t enjoy the unique taste of anything sugary. So much for the chocolate croissants, cakes, and other pastries I had planned on making to introduce them to some human dishes. It was even more disturbing that I didn’t know how the final taste would come across to them.

Naturally, they not only made sure I would order more olives in the future, but they also discussed the possibility of growing them right here on Melelyn. It currently was an untapped market that could possibly give us the financial independence we needed. Obviously, it would require a bit more investigation to make sure it was not only safe for the population, but also that introducing these trees to their home world’s ecosystem wouldn’t be harmful.

GAELEC

I n the week that followed, a major overhaul occurred in Nevian Valley. As expected, Rozel was forced to step down from her role as Head Matriarch in favor of her sister Pryia. It was unfortunate that it took so long for this to happen. Ylis’s mother had always been the better choice. It would take a long time for them to rebuild, but evicting Moriak was the first step in the right direction.

That, too, had been rather tragic. When he refused to leave, the females turned on him and drove him out of the village with deep cuts and lacerations instead of peacefully with his bags. Injured, without weapons or provisions, he roamed the forest for a couple of weeks during which every village he approached turned him away. That some of his wounds had begun to fester only made matters worse. No Pride would want to shelter a sick male.

Three days after his last rejection, huntresses found him nearly dead, being ravaged by a Sikkal. They killed the beast and called a city shuttle to have him brought to a hospital in the capital. Although he survived, he lost a leg and a couple fingers, on top of being permanently disfigured by vicious claw marks. With today’s advanced technology, he could have been mostly mended, but he didn’t have the credits for it. Considering all the wealth he’d acquired by selling us off to his recruiter buddy, he should have been able to cover the cost. However, he apparently blew all of it to buy the Matriarchs’ clemency after the disastrous Levendoc mission. Naturally, Rozel had gladly taken everything he had. He should have known that it wouldn’t save him if he made a single other mistake, especially once he ran out of credits.

The fool should have left with his wealth while he still could. Instead, broke, disfigured, amputated, and with little professional education, he failed to find a decent job in the city. In desperation, he turned to Ranor to find him one of those safe missions he had shunned for the rest of us. Ranor totally found him a mission. It just turned out not to be as safe as he claimed. Last I heard, he’d in fact given Moriak a one-way ticket to Molvi.

It shamed me to rejoice at his downfall. And yet, he deserved to get a proper taste of the pain he subjected others to. It just saddened me that he was sent to a Gray Quadrant as, in his current state, he probably wouldn’t last more than a week. He should have served twelve plus years in a Light Quadrant to fully pay for his crimes.

But I refused to waste any additional mental energy on him.

Oluina fell into a deep depression. She attempted to join a different Pride only to be soundly rejected by every single one of them. Word of her attack on my mate spread far and wide. As I didn’t believe the Nevian females would have further harmed their reputation by leaking that information, I assumed one of our males—most probably the younger ones—shared that info. I couldn’t blame them for it. After how she and Moriak caused the deaths of so many innocent young males, they would want to protect each other from someone like her.

As for us, we were steadily thriving. Despite the scarcity of funds, we had a comfortable life, and all our basic needs were met. With the arrival of the fishing ship, we finally started getting a steady stream of credits. We wouldn’t get rich off it, but it allowed us to acquire some of the creature comforts we lacked.

Andrane proved to be a real blessing. Even though she had no intention of remaining with us for the long haul, she took getting our village off on the right foot extremely seriously. For her, this was a live rehearsal for when she would start her own Pride with her sisters. Thanks to the more advanced administrative training she received specifically for that purpose, she helped set all that management side of things.

She ended up being the one training Ophelia, sharing her contacts and procedure for acquiring supplies from the capital, inventory management, taxes and finances, etc.

In parallel, Ophelia and Andrane both worked with my mate’s contacts with the charities, the UPO, and the Obosian carceral education teams to build the list of programs we would be offering our males. This whole thing ended up blowing up into something much bigger.

My mate had the brilliant idea of opening access to those programs to other Prides. Every day, the teenagers from various Prides would attend a weekly class with hands-on training in the integrated holodeck of our largest deployable building. As they could never access that technology in the near future, many of our neighbors gladly participated. In exchange, they compensated us with credits—for those who could afford it—or with the crafted goods we sorely needed.

Although quite a few young females joined the training, the overwhelming majority of participants were males, specifically acquiring the trade skills that would open safer opportunities for them in the future.

On that front, the Enforcers came through for us even more than the charitable organizations. They paired us with a recruitment agent who found us some of the most lucrative temporary off-world jobs. As we couldn’t really afford to send our own males off on most of those missions, which lasted on average three to six months, Kazaer suggested that we operate as what my mate called a middle-man.

The principle was quite simple. The Enforcer agent sent us regular lists of jobs to be filled. We narrowed down suitable candidates. Once they got a job, they received their full wages, and the employer paid us a finder’s fee of ten percent of their salaries. It was a huge incentive for the participants as Prides normally took twenty-five to forty percent of the males’ wages, and that didn’t guarantee they would still have a place in their village when they returned.

Although we remained extremely picky as to who we allowed to become permanent members of our Pride, we set up a comfortable camp at the edge of our territory where those temporary workers could return and stay in-between contracts. It was connected to our power grid and com system, providing them with greater comfort than most nomad camps, with proper dormitories, hygiene facilities, and discounted cost on food.

It turned out that olives were already a thing in the capital but were considered a gourmet delicacy that only the rich got to enjoy. Ophelia got us all the legal and agricultural approvals necessary to buy a dozen already mature olive trees to plant here. They became our biggest source of income.

We ran into a few hiccups along the way and expected to face many more hurdles in the future, but things were looking up. It would take years to iron out all the kinks, and we would continue to redefine ourselves over time.

We also understood that what we were creating was an anomaly. I initially had the crazy idea that more villages like ours would pop up in the future, but it was too fundamental a change to our way of life. Our people weren’t ready for it, and frankly most didn’t want it, not even our males. Andrane helped open my eyes on that front.

We were a matriarchal society, and our males actually had the instinctive—not to say genetic—need to roam. In truth, I had a happy youth and been excited about setting off. Losing her eighteen-year-old brother to the raid against Ophelia’s vessel convinced Andrane that she didn’t want her sons and the males in her future Pride to meet a similar fate. Working with her helped us better refine the services we were offering to keep our traditional Prides thriving and our males of all ages safe and prospering.

As I gazed upon my Pride, gathering on the beach for the evening communal meal, I couldn’t help a smile. We started off a handful, and now fifty-four people—twelve of them females—were happily bringing the seasoned meat to the spit.

A week ago, Ylis gave birth to two cubs, a male named Kaden after Ylis’s sire, and a female named Lia, after my mate. Even now, Ophelia was standing outside our house, cooing at her namesake. I walked up to her and drew her into my embrace. I kissed Lia’s little forehead before kissing my mate.

“Someone is quite fond of her niece,” I said teasingly.

“Someone most definitely is. In fact, someone was thinking she should get rid of her contraceptive implant,” my mate said teasingly, although I didn’t miss the slight tension in her voice.

My heart leapt in my chest. Since Ylis and Kazaer announced they were expecting, I’d been burning with the desire for us to start our own family. But as we’d just completed our trial period, and with still so much work to do building our new village, I had been reluctant to add that pressure on her.

“The little ones could certainly use more friends to play with. So I would tend to agree with that idea,” I said tenderly.

“Really?!” Ophelia exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with joy.

I chuckled and nodded. “Yes, my Ophelia. I love you. I want everything with you, including a family.”

“I love you, too, Gaelec,” she said, her eyes misting. “Believe me, I’ve been ready for a while now. We said for better or for worse. The worst is behind us. Every day since with you, with our Pride, has only gotten better.”

“Then let’s do it. For better or for worse, so long as we’re together, no challenge will ever be too great.”

And yes, many more challenges awaited us. But all that mattered was that we were together. We were free. We were safe. We were home.

THE END.