Chapter Seven

K ris looked over at Yorness as they walked through the marketplace while under guard. “Sorry that I had to bail as your bodyguard.”

Yorness smiled. “I believe that the circumstances excuse any awkwardness, Lady.”

“Call me Kris.”

“No.” Yorness hissed. She laughed.

“Essan calls me Kris.”

“Essan has put out strict orders to respect his soft, new consort.”

Kris opened her mouth and closed it with a snap. “That sounds like I am all weird and squishy.”

Yorness smirked. “He assured us that you are.”

Kris blinked at her friend and laughed. “You are an ass.”

“Yes, Lady Kris. I know, and so do all of my children and grandchildren.”

“Huh. So, where are we going next, Master Merchant?”

Her friend grinned. “Come this way. The textilers have been working in a frenzy to accommodate you. It has become a matter of national pride to find you something you can use.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, Lord Essan has been busy. He wants you to feel at home here.”

“And he is doing it all in one day?” Kris raised her brows as they walked into a shop where five huge displays of fabric were set up around the room. Essan was there talking with a few of the engineers.

Essan walked to her, his wide trousers flowing and his wings up and framing him. It was a happy look. “You have had fun picking out items for our quarters?”

Yorness snorted. “She picked out fruit and ate it while we walked. I am amazed she isn’t sticky.”

Kris grinned. “I stopped to wash my hands.”

Essan reached down and lifted her, kissing her softly. She looped her arms around his neck and idly kicked her feet.

He leaned back. “Have you been having fun?”

“I have not been hauled to a bed in a few hours, so... yes. Now I have a chance to walk it off.” She wrinkled her nose.

He set her on her feet. “Well, these good people are here with their most flame-retardant clothing, and they are waiting for you to show them that we can make something worthy of you.”

She snorted, and he grinned. “You are laying it on thick. I just need fabric samples and an open space.”

The next hour was spent with taking swatches, wrapping them around her body, and tying some dangling lengths on her arms.

She grinned. “I feel like a wind sock. Right, now I need a place to burn.”

Essan lifted her with one arm under her knees and another around her back. He looked back at the merchants. “We will return in a few minutes.”

He walked out with her and grinned. “Hang on.”

He launched skyward, and she leaned against his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“To a quarry.”

“Oh. Nice. Good choice. You aren’t just a pretty face.”

He hissed in laughter, and they flew over the city and toward the mountains. He settled in an excavated area, putting her on her feet.

“Go ahead and heat up anything you see. I will stand at a safe distance. I can regenerate, but pain is still pain.”

“Well, since you are my ride, you can get your wings to a safe place while I do this.” She shooed him, and he walked fifty feet away. “Back up if it gets warm.”

“Of course, my lady.”

She shook out her arms and focused on her hands. She stared into them and raised them up with an orb of fire between them. The air around her heated, and she continued to build energy. Two of the fabric strips on her arms caught fire, and she went up slowly to what she considered defensive heat.

She had twelve samples to test, and six of them didn’t make it through a basic defense heat. When she passed that to go to attack heat, she lost three more samples. Three were holding strong.

Going white hot was only something she could do for a few seconds, but when that was over, she stood with her chest heaving and wearing strips across her breasts and hips and not a lot else. Her arms had heat-damaged strands on them, but she wasn’t naked. She looked at Essan, who was flying toward her. He must have gotten to safety.

“They made a good product.”

He nodded. “So I see. Not completely naked.”

“Nope. Now we can go and get some more fabric.” She turned and walked to him. “Overlord, would you please fly me back to the city?”

He chuckled. “Of course, my lady.”

She settled into his embrace as he cuddled her against him, and then, they were off, and he was leisurely flying back to the city where the eager merchants were waiting.

When he walked in, some of the merchants were excited while others groaned. Yorness had fabric over her arm and smiled. “Why don’t you remove those strips and put something else on? I know you don’t like being naked in public.”

Her original covering had been under the sashes and had been an early casualty. “You have a point, but since I am allowed to use my fire in my own defense here, it is less of a concern.”

Yorness’s eyes widened, and her serpentine eyes showed what Kris had never been able to articulate. As Yorness’s bodyguard, she had been contracted to protect her client but was unable to act in her own defense. Now, she had bodyguards for propriety, but Essan had declared she could defend herself under any circumstances. That was the kind of declaration from the government that she could get behind.

The merchants who had created the surviving samples showed the limited colour range they had been able to come up with with minimal warning.

Yorness stared at her shoulder. “Kris... are you... do you have scales?”

Kris snorted. “Yes. I didn’t, but now I do. They are coming in, and Essan is fucking delighted about it.”

Essan walked up to her and bent to kiss the freckling of scales along her shoulders. “Yes, I am. You will soon be impervious to our environment, and we can copulate outdoors on a regular basis.”

Yorness covered her mouth in amusement.

Kris was resigned. “Is your brain in your pants? Is that how you were designed?”

Essan ran a hand down her back and cupped her ass. “You would know better than any others here. You can examine how I was constructed anytime.”

Kris looked up at him. “I tried that, but you wanted to return the favour first.” That was true, but she had a spray of freckles across the base of her spine that had fascinated him. He had been fascinated until she was sure he had licked them all off.

“So many adorable peculiarities that I am recording for any future offspring. They deserve to know what you were and what you became.”

Kris sighed. “That seems awfully involved.”

“Oh, I am planning a mural on the side of my palace.”

Yorness was speaking with the merchants and engineers. A few minutes later, they brought out a prototype. It was a standard assembly of panels, but the shoulder pieces were now thin straps that started a cascade of ten more pieces that ended up draping over her biceps. It was a fancy version of the standard Kifessan clothing.

The sash was brought up, and Essan took it and wrapped it carefully, settling the fabric in the manner he preferred. It was snug and lower on her hips than she liked, but he seemed pleased with the display if his hug was any indicator. His hand settled over the small of her back, and she blinked. Ah, freckle access.

Essan chuckled. “Your first scales appeared here.”

She stared at him. “What? When?”

He chuckled. “Before you woke.”

She leaned into his hand. “We are going to have to discuss your fascination with that spot.”

He smirked. “I look forward to it. For now, what ideas do you have for your clothing?”

“Can I have a tablet?”

“Certainly. We will link your results to the merchants and build your wardrobe from there.”

“Oh. Well then.” She turned to the merchants and engineers. “Thank you for your efforts today. I understand that the tech involved is usually destined for something more important, but my dignity will be intact because of your fabric. Oh, and if you ever think to cut corners... I will be testing these garments when they arrive and after each wash.”

The research teams smiled and bowed. Yorness grinned. “So, Lady, did you want to come over for dinner?”

“I am not sure what Essan has in mind.” That was a blatant lie. Essan’s fingers were trailing over her spine slowly.

Essan chuckled. “Of course, Yorness. We will be there. Life is better for her now that her immune system has been corrected.”

Kris smiled. “I guess we are coming for dinner.”

Yorness squeezed her hand. “See you at sundown.”

Essan pulled her in close and said, “We have another afternoon of court, but we should have some time after lunch.”

“Lunch? I have already eaten.”

He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. “Good. More for me.”

She clutched at his arms as he hauled her back to the palace.

Her cheeks were still pink when she settled on her throne next to his. He was glowing with good health. Apparently, once she trusted her partner, she could cum fairly easily. If Hmrain could get stronger from absorbing her pleasure output, Essan was going to turn into a superhero or supervillain. It depended on where the teeth were.

Today, there were petitions for land expansions and arable studies as the population was slowly growing and more crops were necessary.

Kris was interested and paid attention as the methods for turning wild land into a cultivated farm were discussed. Her grandfather would have been delighted. He loved farming, and farming on an alien world would have been endlessly fascinating.

“Kris, what is wrong?”

She looked to Essan, and he stroked her cheek. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about all the family that is no longer with me. I lost everyone.”

“You have not mentioned that yet.”

“I don’t want to bother you. It is just... what happened. It doesn’t matter. It’s the past. Nothing can change it. I was lucky to end up working cargo with Harwin.”

“I am interested in your story.”

She glanced at the gathered folk. “I think I will save my little tale of woe for later.”

He looked at her closely, wiped her tears, and nodded. “Yes, but I want to hear about your family.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

Essan kissed her cheek and whispered, “It’s important for the archive. Any characteristics that our children have that are not Hmrain must be explained. So, we need to know everything about you.”

She nodded. “Got it. It isn’t a very interesting history.”

“Interesting or not, we need to know about your people, your history, and your traditions.”

“Oh, um, they are different from Kifessan.”

“Obviously. I am eager to hear points of commonality.”

“Oh, there are gifting events, celebrations of the change of seasons.”

“We have some of those.”

“I would say birthdays, but my years differed from those here, so they don’t line up.”

“We will work that out.” He smiled. “I will find your information in your file.”

“It’s not a big deal. If you want to mark the day, you can use the day I landed here.”

He nodded. “I will consider it. Are you really interested in farming?”

“Yeah. My family has a history of farming, and I did a genealogy project. For every five farmers, there was one dancer.”

He smiled. “You do move very well and are surprisingly limber.”

Kris wrinkled her nose. “We have a room full of people watching.”

He raised his brows. “Do we?”

She turned her head and blinked. The room was empty. “You have to show me that hand signal.”

Essan kissed her and got to his feet. “Come on. We are going to go for some exercise, and then, we will return to Yorness’s house for dinner.”

Before she could comment, he picked her up in his arms and walked out the front door of the palace. He kissed her and launched skyward.

“Where are we going?”

“We are going to investigate agriculture, and you will learn how things are done here. We use techniques from many worlds, from manual labour, where the practitioners are meditative, to automated planting and harvesting. We have a few hours, and I thought it would be a nice change of pace for you.”

“As opposed to you trying to drain me and being sadly unable to?”

He chuckled. “Yes. Your bottomless capacity for pleasure explains quite a bit. Your species contains treasures that we haven’t experienced before.”

“We just increased the odds. Now, we are being used as planet fillers because we are astonishingly prolific as long as complete and caring medical assistance is available for the pregnant females. For some of my kind, that is a first.”

His wings beat slowly, and he nodded. “That is a manual farm. It is to teach children where food comes from and how it has been in the past and on other worlds.”

She looked and blinked at all the demonstrated types of farming that she could imagine.

“First, we have aquaculture. The Kif were originally semi-aquatic.”

He settled next to a massive tank that was being fed by a small waterfall through a series of tiers that the fish were swimming in. The smallest were at the bottom, climbing when they were larger.

“That is so neat.” She smiled and looked at the tiny rainbow-coloured fish in the lower pond area of the container. It was the size of a skating rink and about twenty feet high. There were stairs up inside the enclosure to reach the levels she had seen as Essan descended.

“Ah, our arrival has tripped the predator sensors.” He chuckled and set her on her feet.

Four farm hands were approaching warily but stopped when Essan flared his wings.

“Overlord. We weren’t expecting a visit.”

“My consort wishes to see how we grow our food. She has an interest in agriculture.”

The men blinked, and one bowed and ran off.

Kris asked, “Where is he going?”

“To get the property owner.”

“Why?”

“Because I am the overlord, and there is etiquette involved.”

“Oh. We didn’t get that. Harwin and I got hold-maintenance and cargo-handling instructions instead. I thought it was more useful at the time, but then, I never thought I would end up on a world with someone like you.”

He leaned in and kissed her temple. “Nor I you. But, here you are, and you are going to immerse yourself in our culture, and they are going to understand why you are the one to spawn the next generation.”

“You seem awfully sure about that.”

Essan chuckled. “I am willing to put as much time and focus as is necessary to accomplish our offspring, and then, to make sure it wasn’t a singular event, we will do it again.”

Kris wrinkled her nose, and he grinned. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple again. “You will be fine.”

“I will be huge.”

“That too. And the gestation of a Hmrain will be longer than that of your species. It will grow slowly and develop within you to an extreme degree.”

“A Hmrain? You mean a half-breed.”

“No, the designers changed you for a purpose, and I believe they are tired of making more Hmrain. They will likely go on to other species and other parts of the universe.”

She blinked. “Well, crossing fingers that it will take time so I can get acclimated to the idea.”

He chuckled. “What did you think we were doing?”

“Practicing?” She looked at him hopefully.

He hissed softly. “Excellent. Tell me when I have gotten it right.”

She blushed, and the farmer arrived.

The man bowed. “Overlord. Welcome to the farm. Is there any particular reason for your visit?”

“My consort’s family has a relationship with farming, and it is the most animated I have seen her in court since she arrived.” He smiled. “So, you were the first farmer that I thought of, and as you have all levels of tech here, it was more likely that she would find something familiar to her home world.”

“Thank you, Grandfather.” The dark blue male with shiny scales smiled. “So, you are my new grandmother?”

Kris shrugged. “I guess. Oh, I am going to tell Yorness that she has to treat me with additional respect and possibly a cute nickname, like Nana.”

The farmer grinned and extended his hand to her. “I am Mortetic.”

“Pleased to meet you. I am Kris.”

“So, what should I call you? Nana Kris?”

Kris laughed, and he blinked in surprise. Kris sighed. “Sorry. I don’t hiss for laughter unless I remember to do it.”

“It is fine, Nana. It was simply startling.”

“So, what do you grow here? If you have time. I mean, if you are busy, we can come another day.”

Mortetic smiled. “I have time. That is why I hire assistants. It leaves me time to take my family on tours.”

They began the tour, and Kris was so happy. The methods weren’t different, and finally, there was something that Kris could see on an alien world that had a simple comparison with Earth. They discussed tilling, composting, leaving areas fallow, and the different methods to plow and plant.

She was about to step into the aquaculture area when an amused Essan wrapped an arm around her and kept her dry.

“It is time to head to Yorness’s for dinner.”

Mortetic smiled. “You know Yorness?”

“Yes. She is how I got here. I was her bodyguard on a few worlds. Me and a friend of mine, but the friend decided to pursue her interests on a different world.”

He nodded. “I will be seeing you at the family gatherings then.”

Krist looked up at Essan. “They will?”

“Of course. Most of them make their way to the palace every five years for a celebration and introduction of new family members to me.” He hissed softly. “Guess what year this is?”

“Family-gathering year?”

“We have a month, and then, they arrive.”

Kris sighed. “Uh-huh. So, when can I call Harwin?”

“We will discuss that after dinner. Thank you for your hospitality, Mortetic. We will see you soon.”

“Oh, definitely. She is worth knowing. Finally, a woman of good sense in the arms of a Hmrain.”

Essan laughed and arranged her in his arms comfortably. “Well, we are bound to find one if we look hard enough.”

She glanced at him. “You weren’t even trying.”

“And yet, you fell into my arms.”

“You pulled me off a bird.”

“And then you were in my arms.”

“I was plastered against your chest.”

He hissed and opened his wings. “The point is I have you now.”

Essan lunged skyward, and her rebuttals and Mortetic’s amused hisses were left behind.

Time for dinner.