Chapter Text
Prologue
I admit it. I miss my humans.
“They’ll be back, SecUnit.”
He’s trying to be kind. I wish I hadn’t said I could just shut down. They all worry about me. They keep finding things for me to do. It’s weird.
They’re uncomfortable with me in ways I’m not used to. Not in the “is the scary killer bot really safe to be around” way that I’m used to, but in the way I don’t like to be touched, which admittedly was sometimes a thing, but here everyone is forever touching, snuggling, having sex, wrapping tails, whatever.
I’ve just about got used to polite, kind, touches to the wrist. I think I’ll never get used to people sleeping in like, piles. Maybe reptiles who aren’t Raksura do that? Is that a thing? If I think of them as reptilian people sleeping in piles that seems easier, though I don’t know why.
They don’t worry at all about my lack of a human body, which is definitely weird. They sometimes forget and offer me tea or something, and are apologetic, but it’s not something that bothers them. Moon has tried to explain this to me.
“There are just so many kinds of groundlings. Maybe not everyone here has travelled so much, but we’ve all heard stories.”
I’ve seen enough strange groundlings just around here: the Kek, kind of small people made of sticks, who found me and continue to take a kindly interest in me (as far I can tell, they’re not easy to understand). And the giant treelings, not officially groundlings I guess (if there’s an official definition, which I doubt), but they’re definitely sentient.
That’s how Raksura define people. If you’re sentient, Raksura won’t eat you. You’re safe.
(On the other hand, if you’re a grasseater large enough to be worth the trouble, watch out, they’re coming for you.)
Chime tried to explain a bit about magic. Magic worries me. It’s too close to the alien remnants which the evil corporations are ready to kill for. According to Chime, lots of people use magic, but for the Raksura it’s more than that. I’m ready to believe in the mentors’ magic, because how could I not when they fixed me with just some kind of salve and a so-called healing sleep, but Chime quoted someone called Flower, who was a mentor and a shaman who died and who everyone misses very much, who used to say that Raksura were actually made of magic. According to Chime she meant that there is no rational explanation for Raksura being able to shift between human form and a larger reptilian form. (Groundling form. I need to stop thinking of them as human. They’re not human.) Never mind that whatever they’re wearing or carrying shifts as well. (The babies are funny. There’s a point where they’re old enough to shift but don’t really know how to control it, which is kind of weird and also a little bit cute.) And seeing winged reptiles leaping up walls and across ceilings or hanging by their foot claws in quiet corners of the mountain tree creeped me out at first, particularly when I started recognising people I knew. And particularly when they’re fucking Stone.