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Xefros thought it was just ridiculously brave when Joey went to help the beached seagoat lusus.
Watching her made him feel a little like he had while recording illicit anti-highblood songs with Dammek – calling Heiress Trizza out directly, even, with nicknames like “Baby Queen of Calamari.” Scoffing at all that gore-scabbed, legendary power was kind of a Grubbles/Grubbels thing, but Xefros had still been shaking and giggly when Dammek first suggested the idea of singing to Trizza herself. He’d come up with some lyrics, sure, but he’d stuttered a little singing them into his autotune mic the first couple times. Dammek, for his part, had smiled with all his fangs, eyes wild behind his sunglasses.
Yeah, so it was kinda like that. Only instead of risking being tracked down and culled if the wrong highblood got a band poster blown at them by the wind, Joey was staring death right in the turned-over hourglass eyes. She had fangs huge as her arms bared at her and everything, but that Joey Alien was creeping across the sand with Dammek’s book of lusus species anatomy propped open against her chest all the same. She was murmuring to the beast all soft and sing-song. To the tune of one of those laughing-bloody lullabies Subjugglator-types grew up with, Xefros thought, only she’d edited the song so it wasn’t about laughsassins murdering the blasphemous masses, anymore. It was apparently about someone called “Clarissa,” now. That was definitely, definitely something like “blasphemy.”
The seagoat was leaking fizzing purple grape soda blood all over the beach; one of his knobby legs was twisted and Joey was planning to set it as best she could. Xefros was usually the lookout when Joey practiced her space veterinary skills, just like she was usually the lookout when he did stuff like solve puzzles with psychic powers and chat with potentially dangerous ghosts. They had a pretty good system put together.
“We’ll wait for the poor guy to shuffle back into the water…?” Joey’d said, squinting out over the beach they both knew they weren’t supposed to hang out on. A seadweller hotspot, possibly. Who knew how many waterlogged corpses it had seen? “It’s not his fault his troll kid’s part of an awful blood caste thing and might’ve killed a bunch of people, right?”
Some of the highbloods Xefros and Joey had met by that point had been objectively awful experiences, but some others had ended up registered as their Prongle “fronds” or “anemones.” At first Joey had thought it was kind of cute that the “friends” and “enemies” options on that site were fish themed, but it didn’t take her long to remember that the Heiress and plenty of her piratical cronies were actual fish trolls. Xefros didn’t even have to say anything and Joey’s smile just flickered off like a light. Kind of sucked, honestly. It was nice seeing her happy.
The more Xefros learned about Joey, the more it made sense why she wouldn’t want anyone to come home to a hive with no lusus around to meet them. Seeing how little she hesitated before heading down the beach and up to the seagoat, it was stupidly obvious how brave she’d gotten since she’d been scared of Tetrarch Dammek’s lusus just after crashing down to Alternia. And that was really, really saying something, because she’d been pretty mind-bogglingly brave from the start as far as Xefros was concerned. The seagoat was twitching as if with rigor mortis spasms, sun-scorched and blistered through his thin white fur. He’d slept sprawled under Alternia’s too-bright sun, definitely.
“He does look pretty miserable,” Xefros offered. He didn’t have the heart to tell Joey, but unless this was one of the more crazily aggressive seagoats he’d probably just get murdered anyway once he made it to the open sea.
Joey had tended to acid-spitting birds; she’d tended to wolves with eyes running down their backs and voices that reminded Xefros of the wind through those tree branches he’d built his whole hive around. She told him about the way her Pa slaughtered untamed alien animals back on earth, and how badly she’d always wanted to patch them up instead of displaying their corpses around like musty trophies. Even the animals that could kill her, she said. It had been hard at first, but Xefros knew Joey was becoming the kind of person she’d always wanted to be by creeping up on that seagoat and easing Dammek’s animal first aid kit over off her shoulder.
It was a nerve-wracking, beautiful thing, watching her coo about “Who’s a good majestic space ocean carnivore? You are! Yes, it’s you!” while dodging the seagoat’s halfhearted attempts to lift his head and chomp down on her whole. The beast’s goat beard had sand and salt water crusted in it. He was missing some of his scales.
Xefros called, “Joey, your arm!” and Joey spun just out of reach again, lifting said arm up in a graceful earth ballet move to avoid the seagoat’s jaws. The Subjugglator-lusus twitched forward, moaning with an ancient, starving rage, but Joey stuck his neck with a tranquilizer vial from Dammek’s bag before one of those sharper-than-sharp fangs could slice her.
Xefros could breathe easier, then. He smirked a little – what else would he expect from his new action-hero alien friend, what with all her climbing through air vents that stunk like chemical gunk and Tetrarch Dammek’s trash disposal pit? What with how she’d lifted him out of the rubble that used to be his hive roof, too… And even how she held his arm steadily in crowded places, sometimes, trying not to look like she was afraid her disguise would slip and suddenly everyone around them would be screaming about aliens, snapping pictures for Prongle. Getting ready to cull.
To Joey, Xefros was truly, truly one of a kind – the only troll, rustblood or no, who knew the name of her homeworld. Who helped her get all disguised in the evening. Who she knew without a single doubt was never going to cull her for anything. Or, at least, he hoped she knew.
Xefros got a little angry with himself when he thought too much about Joey reaching out to him, or about propping Joey up when he could. He sometimes replayed moments with her in his head, like when her eyes stretched so wide and awestruck watching him do simple, irrelevant things like lifting a twig with his fragile psychic powers. She’d almost turned inside out with excitement the first time he summoned some spirits to see if trying to cross a particular bridge would be a death sentence.
But even when he replayed those moments, he was careful to remind himself that it was in a purely platonic way. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything like pale for Joey. Not only did she have to go back to her earth someday probably soon, but he already had a moirail who could work the drums like a force of nature, so loud and thundering he shook you down to your bones. Xefros’s moirail was a Tetrarch, even, one of the four principle leaders of a revolution thousands of sweeps in the making.
Sometimes, Dammek squeezed Xefros’s arm hard, like he was trying to hug him close in a way that made sense to him. He clapped Xefros on the back – told him he was part of something huge. All his smiles were a conspirator’s smiles. He monitored Xefros’s hive almost as diligently as his own, so he could always know he wasn’t taken. Wasn’t hurt.
Joey rolled her strange pale-white alien eyes and scoffed, when they talked about Dammek. She told Xefros that if somebody made him sleep away from the comfort of sopor slime or throw himself through flaming rings like in an action movie they had to tell him why first. She said she would have told him why. She said Dammek was at least a little to blame, too, for all the “crappy things” Xefros said about himself – at least as far as she could tell. Because even when it was the hemospectrum talking, Dammek had made it his business to topple that same exact system. Or, you know. Try. That change should start with him, Joey thought.
“You’re his moirail,” she said, putting an awkward stress on the word like she still wasn’t completely used to it. She’d slipped up and said “boyfriend” a couple times, which Xefros said was okay even if he knew it wasn’t exactly the same thing. “You’re his moirail, and he should want to make this blood-spectrum thing stop hurting you first and foremost.”
“It’s not Tetrarch Dammek’s fault what’s in my head,” Xefros insisted. “I’m sorry I say stuff like that a lot.”
And Joey groaned, “Aw, don’t look so guilty. That wasn’t my point. Dang it.”
All those stupid, stewing emotions were probably why Xefros was daring enough to stick one of his troll headphones in and listen to some of Dammek’s music while watching Joey tenderly attach a splint to the seagoat’s leg – while scanning the horizon for signs of seadweller pirate ships or battle submarines stirring in the deep. The splint Joey was using would melt after a while, which she said was like an amazing alien twist on the dissolvable stitches humans used back on earth. Sometimes Xefros kind of hoped whatever traitorous feelings he had for Joey would work the same way – dissolve like stitches after the shock wore off, after what was bent out of shape in him healed.
So he listened to the music Dammek had put on his phone and willed himself to remember. He started with some Grubbles/Grubbels songs, and thought about band practices crammed in among Dammek’s tumbling piles and smeary, hardening dishes. There were times when he’d kind of lost himself in singing – when he got all wrapped up in comparing folding fancy napkins to the way highbloods folded people’s lives to suit their goofy whims, maybe. And then he’d felt like he might really be on the same page as Dammek, sometimes. Like they might actually, truly be a set together.
But then, of course, Xefros got a little embarrassed listening to his own autotuned voice over and over, and switched to something else. He remembered lying on his stomach on the floor of Dammek’s hive, pretending he wasn’t grossed out by the sticky clumps of something he’d just put his arm in. He’d be half-reading a butling manual, maybe, and listening to Green Blood from Dammek’s speakers – “Troll Green Day” to some stuffier highbloods. Dammek would be fiddling with his computers, close enough to reach down and ruffle Xefros’s hair before asking if it was time to get something to eat.
“Alternian Idiot” was one of the album posters Dammek had hanging on his hive wall. Xefros had stared at that fist crushing the mother grub egg while waiting for Dammek to come home from distributing some of their music loads of times. Afraid he’d never come back – so afraid it ached inside like he’d tripped and stubbed his heart on something. Dammek was all he’d had, back then, and they both knew that if Dammek got culled for anything it would probably be for stepping out of line. Maybe with the revolution; maybe with the Grubbles. That was why his deercat lusus had chosen him, after all. He had that kind of spirit that screamed to smash things and lead armies. That screamed just to scream, sometimes.
Xefros had sat all alone in Tetrarch Dammek’s hive, in the gloom and the smell of it, and willed him to just open the door and step inside alive.
It hadn’t mattered, then, whether Dammek permanently borrowed his stuff and trashed his hive, or whether he sometimes seemed to relish being super cryptic and springing surprise preparedness tests on Xefros in the middle of serious, emotional conversations. It mattered that he was breathing, and his bronze blood was pumping, and he was probably off somewhere making a mess.
And all that still mattered to Xefros, just like it mattered that Joey didn’t become some injured seagoat’s snack. They were both his friends, whatever else they were. Ballerinas or revolutionaries, “big sisters” or occasional jerks Joey wanted to give a talking to. Whatever new thoughts and understandings Xefros was picking up traveling Alternia with a human, he didn’t know who he’d be if he let his relationships just stop mattering. They could grow, and shift. But they mattered.
It mattered that Dammek wasn’t an impossible distance away, too, maybe cold or broken or eaten up by one of those monsters Joey talked about. Or her “brother” Jude’s mysteriously terrible pet, whatever that was. Maybe his Summoning ability wouldn’t work on earth animals when he needed it. Maybe Joey’s babysitter – apparently quite the strife expert – would mistake him for just another monster and he’d die without anyone around even knowing his name.
Xefros listened from “The Signless of Subgrubia” all the way through to “Give Me Sopor Slime” before Joey was finished fixing up the limp seagoat lusus – rubbing pain relievers into his burned-up scabs, making sure his splint was just right. Swabbing sticky-sweet purple blood out of his fur. She was so tender. Xefros wasn’t used to seeing anyone’s eyes get as soft and earnest as Joey’s did. She’d turned those soft eyes on him, too, sometimes. Making sure all his bones were whole after a strife; making sure his nose bleed-y headaches went away.
Xefros wasn’t used to being taken care of the way Joey was willing to take care of him. He imagined the novelty would wear off eventually, but so far… Nope.
When she was done, Joey climbed back up to the sandy hill where Xefros had perched, propped up next to his sleeping sloth lusus. He grabbed a human-friendly soda out of his inventory and slipped it over to her; she scooped up his spare earphone and squished it into her strange alien hearduct.
Again, they had a bit of a system put together, by that point.
Joey listened for a second and then wrinkled her nose. The music wasn’t her thing, apparently. She scooted forward just a little, so she could see the album art and figure out who exactly was singing about papping horrorterrors out of dreams and eating slime so as not to feel so much hurt and rage. Xefros knew the look of realization when it crossed her face. It was amazing how easy it was for him to read Joey’s expressions. Maybe she’d seen the album poster hanging up back at Dammek’s.
“I know you miss him,” Joey said.
Xefros kept quiet. Suddenly his eyes were burning, and his throat tasted thick and dark. He didn’t like crying in front of Dammek… Who knew what crying in front of Joey would feel like? Maybe it would feel as natural as crying all by himself, and that was maybe a little scarier than the alternative.
It’s just that he did miss Dammek, and it’s just that Joey had cared enough to know.
Joey cleared her own throat and smiled crookedly. “And he probably misses you, too. If he didn’t, then –” She mimed bonking Dammek on the head with her flashlight, and Xefros shook his head.
“I hope he’s okay,” he said. His voice was very quiet. Should he even be confiding in Joey like this? He’d watched Dammek’s action movies with him for sweeps – he’d dragged Dammek away from his computers when he was sick and practically shoved him into his recuperacoon. Apologizing the whole time, of course. Apologizing as he wiggled off Dammek’s sweaty boots, and apologizing as he folded his shades up neatly on a table that was otherwise complete chaos. Dammek had mumbled something incoherent about then, and Xefros liked to think it was about needing him.
Joey shifted, plucking Xefros’s headphone out of her ear. She had little pearls in her fleshy human earlobes, and she said they were a lot like cheaper versions of something her mother used to wear. They caught the moonlight, pink-green and swimmy.
“You know, I’m kind of jealous of Dammek,” Joey said.
Xefros jolted, feeling his stomach drop, feeling his hands get colder. “You are?”
Joey hesitated, and then nudged his shoulder. “That ‘communing with animals’ thing. That sounds really convenient for anyone with a space veterinarian’s bag like this.”
“Oh, ya,” Xefros said, feeling a little smile twitching up his lip despite everything.
“And you know what else?”
“What?”
“When I passed him in space – you know, in those beams of snake-light? I only saw him for a second, but he looked so calm. Just going ‘hm’ out at everything. Not even a little scared.”
“Ha,” Xefros said rather than laughed. “Well, that’s Dammek for you.”
“There you go,” said Joey. “It’s like, I’m scared to death for Jude, if I’m honest… But I keep telling myself about how excited he probably is to meet a real alien.” She paused. “So I’m trying to focus on how there are ways he could be totally okay right now. I hope Dammek’s not being a jerk to him.”
Xefros laughed a little for real, that time. He thought about Dammek telling him how the highbloods were scared of his psychic powers, his expression all proud and fierce and, sure, maybe even half-mad. Proud of Xefros, too. Wanting to get him all excited about everything good his blood meant. Dammek’s arm felt so solid around him, sometimes.
“It’s like you think he’s only a jerk,” Xefros offered. “Sorry, but…”
“Oh, nobody’s only a jerk. Not even my Pa’s only a jerk. I know he must have done something right to get you to like him so much.” Did Joey sound a little jealous, or was Xefros’s imagination playing tricks on him? She smiled sadly down at the injured seagoat lusus – she slipped the headphone back into her ear. It looked like maybe there were other things she could have said, but she swallowed them back.
“And I know you’re just looking out for me,” Xefros hazarded. It was a risky thing to say, considering he was pretty sure she felt a little pale for him. When he took that risk, Joey seemed to scoot in closer.
“Yeah,” she said. “Good.”
They sat together, arms brushing just a little but not too much. After a while, Joey kind of propped her head on Xefros’s shoulder. They watched as the seagoat faded back into the waking world and tested out his legs. Joey’s splint held solid. The creature shifted, breathing so much deeper and without as much pain. He dragged himself back towards Alternia’s merciless ocean.
Joey really was good at healing things. Xefros sat between her and the music – between her and Dammek, in a way – until it was time to go.