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Chapter Text

She had crammed herself into the crawl space under the church. Not very comfortable, and she swallowed more than her fair share of dirt, but she did what had to be done.

She felt footsteps above her, and within a few seconds people were pouring out of the building. Scurrying up to a crack in the wood that outlined the dark space, she peered through, and listened carefully.

Marvelous, Bag, Pluck, Timothy, Dress. These were new ones. She soaked them up, watching the movements and gestures of the people to decode their meaning. She sat in that filthy place for upwards of an hour, and got about two-hundred new words. Once the crowd had dissolved, and no signs of human activity could be detected outside of the church, she slipped out of the crawl space and tore into the woods as fast as her legs would allow her.

After some distance, the solid ground faded into stinking mud and foggy brown puddles. She grimaced with each footstep. She was not accustomed to dirt and mud; back home there were just rocks and lichen. The sliminess of this place was not appreciated.

By the time she reached home, she was starving. ‘Home’ was a crashed hunk of metal in the middle of a swamp that had once been her means of transportation. As she climbed in, she whacked her horn against the doorway. She spat a curse in her language and mumbled about how terrible this planet was as she trudged to the back of the ship.

Ah, finally, some solace. She removed a ragged cloth to reveal half of a rotting deer carcass. The food here wasn’t amazing, but honestly, she didn’t mind it too much.

She sat down next to the deer with a sigh, and began to peel off her muddy clothing to wash. She unhooked a silver pin from her shirt that, in her native tongue, read:

COMMANDER MAJA KANCHA SZÉPNAR
VORTIAN ARMADA
THIRD DIVISION

The pin was sleek and meticulously crafted. It was pretty stupid that she still wore it, considering it was synonymous to sticking a “wanted” poster on her chest. Nevertheless, she kept it proudly displayed at all times, even if she was on a planet that didn’t know a thing about the war.

The war.

She needed to get home and fight.

Unfortunately, she was stuck here until she could obtain a fuel source and some tools. Her ship was broken. This was awful. All this trouble of finding food, learning the native language, navigating the disgusting terrain… it’s not like she hadn’t done this before, but this time it was especially frustrating for some reason. All the frustration was just building up. She clenched her fists.

After a few minutes of angrily ripping off and devouring little chunks of rank deer meat, she stood up. The sun was setting. It was time to do something about this problem, she decided.

Now, being a predator by nature, her senses were especially keen, and she could detect scents with incredible precision. So she decided that she would wander throughout the town by night and see if she could smell anything that might be of interest to her. These people did not seem very advanced, so she doubted anything useful would come of it, but it was worth a try. Time spent here was wasted.

She waited until the sky was completely dark to go on her mission. While she waited, she rinsed her clothes and tinkered with the communications on her ship, which had been badly damaged in the crash. Time after time, all she got was static.

Before she left, she hooked her pin back onto her shirt and picked up the photo of Broeg and Jorghafet that sat on her bedstand. She looked at it every time she left, just in case she didn’t come back. No, she would come back. She had to come back for them. Jorgha’s big, wonderstruck eyes looked up at her, frozen in time, but still full of life. She had to come back for them. Deep breath. Set it down, step out now. Don’t look back.

It was another miserable walk through the swamp. Every now and then, a slimy black creature would latch onto her leg, but it quickly dropped off dead each time. What a truly rancid planet this was.

After some time lurking through the marsh, she caught a glimpse of houses ahead through the mangled branches. She opened her mouth slightly and inhaled. A flood of unfamiliar scents overwhelmed her tongue. Burning carbohydrates, earthen flesh, earthen flora… and a slight hint of raw chemicals. She sensed concentrated ethanol, not like the slightly alcoholic beverages consumed here. Follow that, she thought. That smells promising.

The village was asleep, except for the occasional late-night worker who could be detected by the faint light of a candle glowing in a window. To be safe, she decided to take the high route. The homes were clustered together, close enough for her to jump from roof to roof. With the moonlight to guide her, she leapt and climbed with stealth across the roofs in pursuit of the inorganic smell.

As she scaled the houses, the scent grew more potent, but she soon realized that it was not coming from one of these houses. Instead, it was flowing from the woods at the other end of the village. Strange, she thought, but she jumped to the ground and hurried into the woods. Her senses would not lie.

Oh, there it is.

A house was situated in the woods in a small clearing, not too far from town. She still had to push through some sharp branches and foliage to get to it. At this point, there were tiny cuts all over her body oozing with thick, black liquid. She examined the structure while working out a thorny dead vine that had tangled around her horns. It was very dark, but she could make out the shape.

Inhale— yes, this is definitely where it’s coming from. There are people in there too. Gross.

She crept across the yard on her pointed legs and leapt onto the roof. All these earthen buildings had sooty entrances through the roof.

Deep breath. Well, here goes.

She climbed into the vertical tunnel and shimmied her way down as quietly as she could. The smell grew stronger.

She dropped onto a pile of burnt wood. No one was in the room. A couch, desk, oil lamp, table with some empty mugs— and a shelf. A shelf stacked with bottles! Bottles of what, she did not know, but the artificial smell was emanating from them. Her eyes lit up with hope.

Please, let this be something of use. Something to get her where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

Cassius awoke to the sound of shattering glass.

The disheveled man sat up. He looked to his wife, who was still asleep on the edge of the bed. She was facing away from him.

He shook her shoulder. Her eyes hazily opened.

“Beatrice, did you hear that? It better not have been that cat of yours.”

“Leo is right here.”

Great, so something was in the house. He kept a musket next to his bed for such occasions. With a sigh of exasperation, he threw his blanket aside, stood up, yanked the gun from its place leaning against the wooden wall, and stumbled out of the bedroom. It was so dark he could hardly make out any of his surroundings.
As he made his way down the stairs, a stench like nothing he had smelled before hit him. It wasn’t a rotten smell, but rather strong and chloric. A wave of uneasiness came upon him.

Cassius could hear faint shuffling sounds coming from his work room, where he kept his substances and materials. His heart dropped when the sound abruptly stopped. Whatever was in there knew of his presence. He continued on, treading lightly, his gun aimed toward the doorway.

There was a light coming from the room. He knew he had put out that lamp before bed. His hands were sweating now.

What he saw when he entered the room left him silent with horror.

Before him in the dim light of the lamp stood a short humanoid creature, grayish blue in color, standing on pointed digitigrade legs like those of an animal. It had pale blue horns curling around its head like a ram, which had some dead thorns draping from them. It was wearing tight, rubbery clothing that was nearly black in color, and a greenish-blue coat of the same material. It was feminine in shape, like a human woman, but muscular and lean unlike the gentler females of Earth. Mud and black scratches covered its body, as if it had just recently clawed its way out of the ground.

But the face. That would be seared in his mind forever.

Unmoving yellow eyes locked with his. They shone like those of a cat, eerily reflecting the dim light. They were small, covered by some sort of green-lensed goggles. Its mouth was slightly open, revealing a set of sharp yellow teeth, but it had no gums. It seemed all of the teeth were part of two razor-sharp saw blades in its mouth. Its eyes flicked down to the bottle in its hands, then quickly returned to contact with his terrified eyes.

It moved.

He shot.

It staggered backwards and made an inhuman noise of pain as one of its curled horns fell to the ground. The half that was still attached to its head had a slimy, jet black piece of meat hanging out, and a substance resembling hot tar began oozing out of the wound. It let out a low growl of pain, and bared its clenched teeth.

“Why?”

Cassius stood still in shock. It had spoken, but its voice was sharp and otherworldly, very much unlike a human voice. It was a distressed sound, almost sad.

“What are you?” His voice quivered, and his thin frame was shaking.

“I am not from here. Put that down.” It gestured to his musket.

He did not put it down, but clutched it tighter.

“Are you a demon? A succubus?”

“I do not know those words. I am not a god of your people. I just need this,” she said, with a nod toward his chemical shelf.

“You are not taking anything from here.” His voice was becoming angry now. This creature really thought it could just come into his home and take his supplies? He had forgotten by now that Beatrice was probably terrified in the bedroom, and that this was an alien creature that may very well be able to rip him to shreds.

It started towards him. He stepped back in terror, and frantically tried to shoot. He missed. It ripped the musket from his hands with an incredible amount of force for such a small creature, and tossed it on the wooden ground with a thud.

He raised a hand, preparing for hand-to-hand combat, but it gripped both of his wrists faster than any human reflex could have. Its tridactyl hands were incredibly cold, and gripped him with a shocking amount of force. He was stiff with terror.

“You have removed my horn. For this I have no choice but to be under your dominion for seven axial rotations of your planet. Tell me what I must do to get those bottles.” Her voice was more abrupt and her articulation sharper than that expected of humans. It was quite uncanny.

He now was hit with that stench again, that chloric smell. Yes, this creature was definitely a female. He could see it now that she was close. She stared into his eyes without fear. Under his dominion? As in, he could order her to do whatever he pleased? She obviously harbored a superhuman strength. Perhaps this could be of use to him. The ideas began to unfold in his mind of what he may be able to achieve with this opportunity. He could quite possibly bring ruin to his competitors, accumulate great amounts of wealth, and have any woman he so desired. Yes, he would take this opportunity. Seven days would be quite enough.

“I see. Unhand me.”

Her hands dropped to her side. His hands were now cold and pale from lack of blood flow.

Though the selfish ideas were unfurling in his head, he was still rather horrified by the creature. But, being a natural logician, he was also intrigued. She seemed demonic, but did not emanate the evil and dread that so many associated with demonic apparitions. She had the look of a genuinely lost creature.

He slowly made his way to an armchair to sit down, never taking his eyes off of her. He sat down, and folded his hands together tensely.

“Now tell me, what are you? How did you get here?”

She pointed to the chimney.

“No, I mean how did you find yourself in this... realm?”

“My ship failed. I had no choice but to stop here. I am from Vort, Heino Vorto.”

She said the last part in a completely different articulation and accent, so he knew she was speaking in her native tongue.

“What is Vort?”

“My planet. As your people would say, my fatherland.”

“And where is this Vort?”

She promptly walked to a window and pointed to the sky, as if he would be able to tell where she was pointing. She knew exactly where it was among the stars, though it was not visible. Fascinating. So this really was an extraterrestrial, like the creatures of fiction and philosophical thought exercises.

“Do you have a name?”

“Jornja Maja Kancha Szépnar. My name is Maja.”

Chapter Text

She was fairly disgusted at the sight of a human up close. Far too warm, she thought. Too malleable-looking. But her disgust was overshadowed by extreme frustration. This creature had shot off her horn, and now she was bound to him for seven entire days. It was an undeniable and irreversible tenet of her culture. Now, she had to perform every deed he so desired. There was no way of escaping it without dishonoring her people.

“My name is Cassius Howarth. How do you know English?”

She was jolted out of her thoughts by his question.

“The building you call the church, I sit under it and listen to the conversations. I decode by listening for associations.”

“So you are intelligent. Perhaps you could help me. You see, I am an apothecary, but on the side I am an alchemist. I am looking for a way to create gold out of other substances. Do you know how to do that?”

Alchemist? Creating gold? What a strange species this was.

“Yes, I know how to do that. Your language likely has no words to describe the process, so there is no use in my trying to explain.”

Maja was alarmed at the look of avarice in his eyes which appeared when she said yes. What made gold different from any other element? For some reason, these humans really loved gold, more than any other metal. She already knew this from previous observations. So strange.

He asked more questions. She told him about her planet, the war, her biology, her culture, and why she had to follow his orders for seven days. The poor alien answered more questions than she would have cared to. She let him touch the blood flowing from her broken horn, after which he recoiled and shook his hand due to the basicity of it. He had picked up half of her pale blue horn from the ground and was examining it closely, careful not to touch the black liquid dripping from it. He seemed thoroughly fascinated, but not in a wholesome or childlike way.

After a while, she noticed another human face peek out from the doorway in the hall. It was a female, and she seemed overtaken by terror when Maja locked eyes with her.

“Cassius?” she said in a faint, quavering voice, her eyes wide and unmoving.

“Get back in that bedroom, Beatrice,” he snapped back. “Everything is fine.”

She retreated.

“Who is that?”

“My pest of a wife. She can never keep her nose out of a man’s business.”

Whatever that meant.

He turned to her once more, that look of deep thought and rapacity still in his eyes.

“Say, Maja, may I ask absolutely anything of you?”

“Yes. If it is within my physical ability I may not deny.”

The man interrogated her by the yellow light of the oil lamp until dawn. She did not grow tired, but hungry, and began to think about her deer carcass back home. Each day it had tasted better with putrefaction. Cassius seemed disgusted beyond belief when she made this remark.

As sunlight began to illuminate the room, Maja noticed more of his features. He was gaunt, with little muscle or fat to his form. On his head was a shiny collection of thin brown fibers, which he had called ‘hair’. The darkness of this hair was in stark contrast to the pallity of his skin. His clammy hands, which had too many fingers for her liking, were covered in what seemed to be surface-level burn scars. His eyes were wide and rather unsettling, with dark circles beneath them. She did not like the coldness of them.

Soon, it was fully morning, and the sunlight allowed for full visibility in the house. She could now see the clutter of the home. Papers and writing utensils were strewn about, jars and bottles of unknown substances were sitting on just about every surface, and books were piled haphazardly about the place. It was such a different style compared to Vortian architecture. Much more stuffy, too.

Before long, Beatrice was peeking out once more, one hand around the doorway. She looked as though she hadn’t slept. She seemed younger than Cassius, and in better health than him. She had a more pleasant complexion, with golden hair, gray eyes, and light freckles upon her face. Maja’s mother and two siblings had freckles. She remembered looking at them and wondering why she had none.

“May I come out now?”

“Yes, you may,” Cassius answered in an authoritative tone. “This creature is Maja. She will not hurt you. Go about your business.”

The woman did not respond. She gingerly stepped out of the hallway, her eyes locked on Maja the entire time. The Vortian was rather unsettled by the way the man addressed who she assumed to be his partner. Broeg never told her what she was allowed to do, or vice versa. Strange. She missed Broeg.

“Hello.”

The woman gasped at the alien’s salutation. Isn’t that the human word of greeting? Sheesh, I’m just trying to be polite, she thought. Am I really that scary? You should be scared of yourselves. You are the scary ones.

A small creature covered in hair trotted out behind Beatrice, and walked toward the main room. It sat down before Maja and made a rancid noise.

Ah, some breakfast.

She picked up the creature, which was surprisingly complacent, opened her mouth to reveal a set of calcified razors, and was just about to bite down when a high-pitched shriek was emitted from the woman.

“The cat! The cat! Put him down, put him down!”

Maja dropped the creature and watched as Beatrice scrambled to pick it up. She cradled it close, the way a mother would cradle her offspring.

“You mean that is not food?”

She was genuinely puzzled. Why else would you keep a dumb creature in the home if not to eat? Wow, these people were crazy.

“No!” she hissed back, shaking. “This is my pet!”

Well, okay. She supposed she would have to find a meal somewhere else.

She spent the rest of the morning answering questions from Cassius as he worked diligently on some sort of potion. His wife scurried about trying to clean up his mess, and made sure his mug was perpetually full of whatever beverage he desired. Every now and then someone would come knocking on the door for some sort of medicine or remedy, and Maja would be ordered to hide in the bedroom. No one who came about wanted to stay and chat, except for the occasional woman who would cast a pitiful glance upon Beatrice and exchange pleasantries with her. There was a general air of desolace and darkness about the place.

Cassius talked about his dissatisfaction almost constantly. He told her about his aspirations for great wealth, and his desire for a certain woman named Adeline. When he spoke of her, his voice had a sound of obsession, and that cupidity returned to his eyes. Did he not already have a partner? Maja had never been interested in another male as long as she had Broeg. She didn’t understand why he had to tell her all this, but she had no choice but to listen.

Some ways into the evening, Cassius turned to Maja, who was seated on the floor beside him, attempting to make a device from some scraps of metal. She looked up at him, breaking her concentration.

“Maja, I have a task for you. I need you to do away with Adeline’s husband, a man called Mr. Tullingham. This is the only way I will ever have a chance of possessing her. Could you do this discreetly? That is to say, make it seem as though he simply disappeared?”

“Yes. I will require a way to identify him, though. Anything he has touched will do.”

She supposed it wouldn’t be much of a hassle or moral issue to kill one of these creatures. They did not seem particularly virtuous or intelligent, and definitely not beautiful.

He spent a moment rummaging through some papers, then stood up and pulled a medicine bottle from the shelf.

“He took this into his home about a week ago, when he was sick with a cold.”

The Vortian snatched the bottle from his hand, held it against her open mouth, and inhaled deeply. Yes, that was it. She had the scent. Cassius seemed rather disturbed by this display. She handed it back to him.

“I will go at dusk.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Cassius was sitting in his armchair, reading a newspaper. Tensions between the French and British were rising, it seemed. He read a statement issued by King George on the matter. He envied the king. One day he would be like a king, he thought to himself. He would have all the gold he wanted.

He wondered where Maja was. Had she followed her orders? He was filled with anticipation. How wonderful it would be to never see that wretched husband of Adeline’s again. Now, if he could just get rid of Beatrice, he could have her at last. He couldn’t kill her, though; he would have no one to wait on him if he did. That was another matter entirely. Mostly, he just wanted to see Tullingham gone. It was better for no one to have Adeline if he could not possess her.

As if on cue, the doorknob at the back door began to rattle. The rattle soon escalated to a banging noise.

“Beatrice, get the door, for God’s sake,” he yelled. The woman hurried to the door, her dress flowing frantically as she stumbled over books and glass bottles.

The door squealed as she slowly opened it. Cassius heard a terrified whimper from her.

The creature had returned. She had undoubtedly done her job.

She walked up to the armchair, and stood silently before him. Her mouth was covered in dried blood, as well as her pointed fingers. There was a splatter here and there on her clothing and limbs, indicating that a struggle had taken place. However, it seemed she had no fresh wounds.

He interrogated her on the process of killing him and disposing of the body. She had done it flawlessly. No one had seen or heard a thing. Being much stronger than him, she had knocked him unconscious, then carried him into the forest, where he awoke and she finished the deed. Tullingham had been a robust man, and the ease with which she had killed him made even Cassius uneasy. Nevertheless, he was elated that one of his competitors had been eliminated. He was one step closer to possessing Adeline.

He asked her how she had learned to kill. She said that since her species were carnivores, it came naturally, but her skills had been honed in some sort of massive alien military academy. According to her word, she was a great warrior and politician before the war, during which her planet was occupied. It was difficult to believe, but he supposed he had to believe it, considering an alien really was right before his eyes.

She seemed unperturbed by the entire experience. He watched as she returned to work on her little scrap metal project, but not before repulsively licking the blood off of her hands as a cat would. He hadn’t noticed before, but her tongue was pointed and segmented, very much unlike those of humans. At some point while she was out and about, she had wrapped her broken horn with fabric so that the flesh was no longer hanging out.

Now, Cassius was thinking about who was next to go. There was a rich man in town by the name of Sir Mitchell, who he had always been jealous of. The man had never worked a day in his life, but had inherited all of his fortune. Perhaps he could make it look as though he had run off with his money. Yes, he would tell Maja to kill him discreetly as she had killed Tullingham, and bring back his gold and riches. Those riches wouldn’t be enough for Cassius, of course, but they would suffice for the time being.

He gave his orders to Maja, and told her that the man could be found in the largest house in town. She left promptly at dusk to complete her assignment.

—

The alien hid inside a shrub on the side of a lavish home. She was peeking through the window. Lights were on, but they would soon be out, she knew. The man she was observing was fat, well dressed, and solitary. Prognosis: Easy to overtake, difficult to carry.

Snow was beginning to drift down from the sky, which was a pleasure to her. It reminded her of the snow-capped mountaintops of Vort. When the snowfall became deep, she would bring Jorgha out to play in it with his cousins. She missed watching her little offspring run and explore and grow. Hey, enough of that. You have a job to do, she reminded herself. Okay. Let’s get to work.

She did a thorough examination of her surroundings. No one around. Lights were off inside. With great agility, she scaled the sheer brick side of the house. Her body was made for climbing, so this was not a hard task for her. Her pointed feet and fingers made latching onto the tiny crevices between the bricks relatively easy. She swung onto the roof, and made her way down the chimney.

She was in. Very dark, but she could see enough to get around. The moonlight from a window gave a haunting glow to her shiny horns and smooth skin. Inside the kitchen, she spotted the same tool she had used to knock out Tullingham hanging on the wall: a cast-iron skillet. Jackpot. Those things could take a human out with just a tap. She grabbed it, and made her way upstairs. With a deep inhale, she pinpointed which room he was in.

She slowly turned the doorknob, and the door creaked open. The man was asleep.

“My apologies”, she murmured in her native tongue.

She walked over without a sound, raised the skillet, and took a swing. Not a single stir. He was out cold, never even saw her. Well, that was easy. She placed the skillet on the ground. Now for the hard part.

With a great heave, she pulled the man from the bed by the hands. He was easily one-and-a-half feet taller than her, and who knows how much heavier. He landed with a thud on the ground. She dragged him down the stairs, at which point she stopped and sniffed out the gold she was supposed to retrieve. Once she had found that, it was off to the woods, where the deed would be finished.

He began to stir about halfway to the cover of the trees. She walked even faster, despite the weight of the gold and the man she was dragging. What a struggle. What a waste of time. As much as she just wanted to leave, it would be utterly disrespectful to her people to not fulfill her duty. She kept going, trudging on through the snow.

He was awake by the time they were deep into the woods. She let go of him. He was too stunned to make a sound. He just stared at her, probably hoping this was some sort of nightmare or psychosis. Some sympathy was beginning to show itself in the depths of that massive brain of hers. No, that was not convenient now. It did not take much for her predatory instincts to overwhelm any pity that arose within her. Better go ahead and finish it.

So she finished it, with a punctual bite to the jugular. He was done for after a few seconds.

Now, this time, she sat for a moment to contemplate what she had done. She stared at the body. The eyes were glazed over now, but she remembered the look of terror and panic in his eyes in those last few seconds. She couldn’t help but feel that what she did was at least a bit wrong. This wasn’t like in war or rivalry. This was a creature that had really, truly, done nothing to her. She just watched the red blood drip from him for a few minutes. She had never seen a planet where the creatures bled crimson. This man had been someone’s child once, she thought. He may have been to a human mother what Jorghafet was to her. He hadn’t been a sophisticated creature, but surely he had some emotion. Something worth saving.

In her alien philosophy, it would be disrespectful to leave his body here without putting it to any use whatsoever. Best use of it at the moment? A meal. So, she ate her fill, threw the sack of gold upon her back, and began the trek home. No one would find him here.

Chapter Text

Cassius was patiently awaiting his assassin’s return. He wondered just how much wealth she would bring back to him. Surely a good bit, but that would just be the start of his fortune, he decided.

Early in the morning, about 4 o’clock, the scratching noise at the doorknob signaled her return. She could not open the spherical knobs with her hands, she said, only the ones you pushed down like a lever. Fascinating how intelligent and capable a creature could be while remaining inept at simple tasks because of physiology.

He opened the door for her after rising groggily from bed, but was jolted awake at the sight of an enormous sack weighed down with riches. Maja held it out to him. He took it from her hand and stumbled back from the weight of it. It clunked onto the hardwood floor. He scrambled down to open it up, and a look of pure delight shone on his face. It was even more than he thought it would be. This alien was the most fortunate thing that had ever happened to him!

“Pick this up and follow me.”

She followed his orders effortlessly. The creature looked up at him, expressionless. The tips of her teeth stuck out of her mouth like tiny daggers. It was an unpleasant sight. Especially when they were covered in dry blood.

He led her to a small cellar under the house, and told her to drop the goods there. She looked at him with an uneasy glint in her eyes, as if she found him disturbing. She was the monster here, not him.

Cassius did not go back to sleep. Instead, he sat in the living room, asking Maja some more about her people. Every answer she gave was relatively brief, perhaps because she did not know his language well. He asked about the shiny pin on her shirt, which was covered in some illegible alien lettering of lines and dots. A twinge of pride revealed itself in her voice when she spoke of her grand origins. However, when the subject of family relations and courtship came about, her conceit seemed to fade away. English waned into her native tongue, and her voice lowered in volume. After a while, she simply refused to speak. This frustrated him, but he left her alone.

--

Later in the day, when the snow was falling and the sky was gray, there was an incident.

Maja’s attention was jolted from a little gadget she had constructed when she heard Cassius’s voice escalate into a shout. Apparently, Beatrice had failed to carry out some petty order which he had given her. The Vortian looked up to observe the commotion. The woman looked petrified as her callous husband reprimanded her. Some sort of fluid was streaming from her eyes. She was looking down, almost cowering in fear.

He lifted his hand. She flinched. He slapped her across the face.

Now this is just horrible, she thought to herself. Why would a creature ever cause harm to its own family? Was this woman not his kin? His partner? Oh, what she would give to go back home to her sweet Broeg and revel in his company and touch. And here was this man, this man she was now understanding to be rather terrible, purposefully causing distress to his partner for the trifling crime of not catering to his every desire. She had been sitting on the floor observing this whole ordeal, but she rose now with clenched fists. Cassius advanced toward the woman, who shrieked in terror and turned away.

Maja calmly walked over, and thrust herself before the woman. She locked eyes with Cassius, giving him the coldest and most carnivorous glare she could muster. He lowered his hand. She just stared silently. She may have been under his dominion, but she was still a terrifying creature to confront.

Once the third night of service was upon her, the wretched man had decided his next order. Now, this one truly made Maja question the overall virtue of this species. Cassius had a brother who he was very jealous of, it seemed. A brother who had been much more successful than him in life, and had inherited the family fortune. According to the customs of human inheritance, Cassius was the next in line to possess this fortune. If his brother was killed, he would receive it. For this reason Cassius ordered her to kill him. ‘Just find the scent that closely resembles my own but is slightly different,’ he had told her. His next of kin.

Maja had always been competitive with her siblings, but she would never do them harm. She loved them. How could a creature be so ungrateful? Well, orders are orders.

So, as on the previous two nights, she left at dusk for the hunt. It took her an hour or so of lurking to catch and follow the scent. When she at last came upon the house, she could tell that it was a bit more opulent than that of Cassius, and definitely more tidy.

Once she was situated in some shrubbery outside of the dining room window, she stretched her neck to peer into the home. Five people were eating at the table, three of them children. Just like my family growing up, she thought. No, stop that sentimental mess. Upon eavesdropping on their conversation, she discovered that the disappearances of Tullingham and Mitchell were currently the talk of the town.

Through the glass she could hear the man talk and laugh with his wife and children, attempting to distract them from the troubling current events. They seemed to be a happy family. Cassius’s brother seemed much kinder than him. No wonder he was more successful and had won his parent’s favor.

Well, I have to do what I have to do, she thought.

Midnight approached, and she found herself in the bedroom of her target with a skillet in hand once more.

She took her shot. Out cold. Removing him from the bed was a much riskier task than the night before, considering his wife was sleeping beside him, but she was able to do so. She slipped out of the house and into the night with the man draped around her shoulders.

By the time she was a comfortable distance into the woods, the man was fighting. She held all of his limbs down with her arms as she trudged on. Her muscles were flexed to their full extent in order to restrain him. He was shouting. Help, Help; What are you; God help me. But they were too deep in the wilderness for anyone to hear him.

Once she reached a suitable spot for the deed to be finished, she dropped him to the ground. Rotting leaves crunched where he fell. He tried to scramble to his feet and run, but was no match for Maja’s predatory reflexes. She snagged him by the shirt and he fell to the ground again.

He had the liquid running from his eyes, which Cassius had called ‘crying’. Yes, he was crying. A sign of distress in humans.

“What are you doing?” he whispered hoarsely.

This time she did not restrain her sympathy as much.

“What are you?”

She could not bring herself to answer. What was she? A vagabond? A Vortian doing her sacred duty? Or simply a murderer?

“I have a family. Please.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. She had to get this over with.

She gripped both of his wrists in her cold blue hands, and pressed his flailing legs down with her powerful knees. The man’s quivering face was just inches from her own. He was not a beautiful creature, but so, so full of terror. Her carnivorous instincts were beginning to activate, and she was involuntarily salivating. Her yellow teeth were clenched and bared. Her pale eyes were wide. Her grip on him tightened. A low, gurgling growl was being emitted from her throat. She wondered how she looked to him, hovering above his face in the moonlight, her eyes growing sharp and demonic with some kind of innate ferocity. No, no, Maja, you are supposed to be a civilized creature. What are you doing? What are you? You have a family! Please!

The man had green eyes. Broeg had green eyes, too.

She saw her partner’s face flash before her, full of the terror of the man writhing beneath her. For a moment he was Broeg. She saw his gray skin, his silver horns, his broad shoulders being forced down by her hands. His sweet green eyes begged her to let go. Then it was over, and he was just a putrid human again, screeching and thrashing beneath her.

She bit down, released, bit again. She could not bear to see him struggle for breath as the others had done. She had to make sure he was completely dead. Third bite. No gurgling. He was gone. Normally she was drawn to the taste of flesh, but this time she found it nauseating. She turned her head and vomited in the leaves.

She scrambled off of the body in some sort of hysteria, and keeled over beside it in grief. She touched the silver pin on her shirt, and a wave of anguish came upon her. Devoid of her status, her people, her home, and her family, she was nothing but a raptorial animal. On Vort, she had been an idol, a scientist, a mother, a hero. Here she was reduced to a flesh-craving beast. Oh Broeg, Jorghafet, I need you, she wailed in the sharp and melancholy accent of her native tongue. Crimson blood dripped from her maw. Mother, father, I need you. Please. I need to get back to you. Please come find me.

She spent a few hours grieving next to the man’s body as if it were that of her mate. It took a while for her to break out of the neurosis that she was entrapped in. She sat on her knees, stared at the spot in the sky where her home was, and cried out pitifully to her family and friends until her voice was hoarse. She had to get back and fight for them. That’s why she had been born with these ferocious instincts. To fight for them.

On her way back to Cassius’s home, Maja devised a plan to cut her obligation of service short without breaking any particular rule of the ancient code. She was fairly positive that it would work, having observed the man for long enough to understand his twisted motives. That wretched human had pushed her to her breaking point indeed. Her only choice now was to take matters into her own hands.

Chapter Text

Cassius was tired of waiting for that stupid little creature to come back. It was past dawn. Had she done the job he ordered her to do? He felt a slight tinge of guilt for killing his own brother, the one who had grown up beside him, but the guilt was nothing compared to the benefits he would reap from the deed.

Oh, finally. The doorknob was rattling.

Beatrice rushed to the door, and opened it to reveal the creature, covered in dry blood and mud once more. She looked more unhinged than she had after the previous two jobs, but other than that, all was normal. At his request she described her process to him, which made him feel a bit better. It had been a fast job, his brother had not suffered much. It didn’t matter anyway. The inheritance was his now.

“Cassius, I have made an observation that you may be interested in,” the alien said.

He was surprised. She had never addressed him by name, nor actually offered information to him. Well, it must be important, then.

“And what is that?”

“I have overheard conversations in the town. With the recent disappearances of prominent men in the community, some lower men are envious of the status you now possess, being an apothecary and having an ample salary.”

He wanted to react angrily, but this information also pleased his ego. Finally, the town was recognizing his status! But he was also anxious that some man might try to rid him of this newly possessed power. Surely he would not let this happen. Lucky for me, I have an infallible scout and assassin under my dominion for the next four days, he thought to himself.

“Well, in that case, your next order is to kill the most ambitious and megalomaniacal man in town.”

He felt pretty satisfied with himself until she grabbed him by the throat.

--

The look of crazed fury and betrayal in the man’s wild eyes was unlike any emotion Maja had ever witnessed before.

He struggled, clawed at her, kicked at her, but her powerful alien arm only tightened its grip. Her dark veins shone through her muted blue skin as she flexed her muscles.

I am following your orders, she thought with scorn.

According to the moral code of her society, Cassius was not a creature deserving of life. He had no predatory instinct, but was full of malice. He had a partner who he was bound to, but desired another. His brother, his own kin, had been a kind man, but he had killed him. No excuse for his vileness could be detected.

She let go of the gaunt man, who stumbled to the floor, gasping for breath. He flashed her another furious glance, but he knew he was defeated. She had never seen such crazy eyes before.

Beatrice was watching from the kitchen, her eyes wide. She seemed scared, yes, but also a bit hopeful.

Maja finished him off the same way she had killed his own three victims, but with far less respect. She pulled him up by the hair, delivered an abrupt bite to the neck, and let him fall back to the floor. He was gone, with little suffering involved.

Beatrice looked down at the limp body of her husband, and then to Maja. The alien gave her a curt nod of acknowledgement.

As frightened as she was, the woman’s eyes seemed to thank her.

As soon as the deed was done, she prepared for her departure. In a potato sack she found lying on the floor, she calmly packed the bottles she required, the devices she had constructed in the house, and lastly, her broken horn. It had been sitting on the kitchen table upright, like some sort of trophy.

“Thanks a lot. I will wear my horn armor next time,” she remarked in her native tongue as she examined the broken piece and placed it into the sack.

She did not announce her departure, but simply slipped out of the back door, which had a lever knob on the inside. That nightmare was over. She began the trek through the marshlands back to her ship, which she had plans to repair.

She touched her pin once more, but felt a steady determination this time. Broeg, Jorgha, I am coming back for you. I will fight for you. I will be home soon.
~