"Where am I?" Tempest had already heard xyn refer to where she was several tis before, but Tempest wanted to make sure that she had every detail correct.
"You are in Thraqe."
"Is that the na of the planet or just this place?" Tempest continued.
"It is the na of this..." xyn turned her head to the side as if she were thinking or waiting for sothing to translate. "You’d call it a country. It’s our civilized land. This is the planet of Ustea."
"So there are other countries?" Tempest queried.
"Yes, there are two other inhabited landmasses, but unfortunately the population there is nothing but savages."
Tempest gasped at the word "savages? Is that really what you ant to say?"
At any other ti, when Tempest heard the word savage, it was due to people being intolerant. No one should be called a savage unless they were truly beasts.
"Yes, uncivilized."
"Do you an that the people there are just not like you?" Tempest narrowed her eyes at xyn.
"No, I an they are uncivilized. We Thraqen are a vast people. Many are different, but those on the lands of Skoq and Uspanx are as close to wild beasts as any being on this planet. They sacrifice their young, do not wear clothes, their language is nothing more than grunts and basal expressions, they eat their dead."
The final description was enough to cause Tempest’s eyes to widen in shock. These Skoq and Uspanx lands definitely didn’t sound like a place Tempest ever wanted to visit.
"Okay, I got it. Let’s move on." Tempest wanted to get as much information out of xyn as she could. "You told before that I was one of the few that had made it this far into the transition. What did that an? Do you have any other humans on this planet?"
"As of last count there are six other humans on the planet, four we suspect will succumb to the wilderness in the coming days. Two we have kept in deep sleep due to the nature of their retrieval."
"Retrieval? You an their abduction?" Tempest clenched her jaw. She didn’t want xyn to sugarcoat what had happened to her. She didn’t mysteriously appear on the planet of Ustea. She was taken.
"Abduction. Yes. I suppose you can call it that. The high council thought it would be easier to take compatible won who had already forgone their lives on their ho planets."
Forgone their lives? Does that an they abducted her because she had tried to take her own life?
"You brought here because I tried to kill myself?"
xyn smiled and nodded her head once.
Tempest closed her eyes tightly and silently berated herself. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t been so stupid, she wouldn’t be in this situation.
When she opened her eyes again, xyn was still looking at her, but there was no judgnt in those large eyes.
"You said sothing about Royals wanting to know more about my kind?"
"Yes, they are very interested in humans. Human won, to be specific."
"Why? What do the Thraqen people want with human won?"
xyn looked away as if she would rather not tell Tempest the truth of the matter. "Unfortunately, though our world is technologically advanced and we’ve made countless biological advancents, there are so illnesses and plagues that we just haven’t been able to overco. Most of the population believes that we’ve been cursed by the old gods. For the past three generations, my species has been unable to produce many single-genital females."
The confusion must have been clear on Tempest’s face.
Did she really say single genital? What does that an.
The more xyn talked, the more confused Tempest beca. "You an you have people on this planet with more than one set of genitals?"
"Yes, don’t you?" xyn tilted her head as she questioned Tempest.
"I an yes, but that’s usually an anomaly. Not the usual case."
"On Ustea, there are several combinations that can occur. An alpha male, the strongest of our civilization, will have two penises. An alpha female will have a vagina and a penis. Beta males will only have one penis. Beta females will only have a vagina, but they will lack the internal organs, uterus, and fallopian tubes, needed for reproduction. Oga males will have no genitals and, unfortunately, are only used as pleasure serfs. Oga won are the only ones in our population who can bear children. Long story short, our entire civilization depends on being able to find females that are compatible and able to reproduce." xyn released a deep breath and waited for Tempest to complete her round of questions.
Tempest nearly laughed out loud, "And you...expect ...to do this?"
xyn’s face fell. "Well, no one will force you. You have to understand oga females are viewed as sacred. Nearly god-like. You would be treated like a princess. I promise you, it’ll be a wonderful experience."
At that point, Tempest couldn’t hold back any longer. She laughed loudly and from her gut. She laughed so long and hard that tears sprang to her eyes and leaked down her face.
"You can’t be serious." Tempest composed herself and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Well, yes, I’m very serious."
"No, you aren’t." Tempest narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, I am." xyn nodded her head like that would stop the panic that was surging beneath Tempest’s surface.
"I want to leave. I want to go ho. Get back to earth now." Tempest raised her voice to the point that xyn cringed away.
"Please calm down."
"How the hell can I calm down? You’re planning to marry to so alien who has the sole purpose of knocking up. I don’t want that. I’m not going to do it. You just told that you wouldn’t force , so I’m telling you that I’m not going to do it. You might as well just take back now and save both of us the headache." Tempest fought to take a deep breath.
"You don’t understand. I can’t."
"Why the hell not?" Tempest screeched.
xyn put her hands back up into that surrendering gesture.
This ti it did nothing to quell the anger inside Tempest.
After a few seconds of silence, xyn continued, "I can’t take you back because your planet is restricted to my kind. We are too advanced, and it would create an international incident. The last thing we want to do is start so kind of war."
Tempest’s heart dropped. xyn just told her in clear words that there was no way that she would be going back to Earth. She would be stuck on Ustea for the foreseeable future.
"I still don’t want to get married. Why would I want to pledge my life to a man I don’t know? That’s not how it’s done in my culture."
"Life?" xyn furrowed her brow.
"Yes, you said I’m supposed to be married..."
"True, but marriage is only a contracted set ti."
"Contract? Set ti?" Tempest tried to understand.
"Yes, for 22 double moon cycles."
"What is a moon cycle? I an, how long is that in Earth ti?" Tempest asked.
xyn pulled up the floating display again and flipped through a few icons. "Based on what I can understand, it would be six earth months."
A spark of hope blood in Tempest’s gut. "That’s all? And what happens after the six months? Will I have to marry again?"
"No, not for another..." xyn paused and looked at the display again, "Five earth years."
The excitent nearly overwheld her. If Tempest were to believe everything that xyn had told her, she would get married, let her pseudo-husband pamper her, and then figure out how to live on an alien planet. That is until she t soone who would risk taking her back to earth.
Tempest prayed it wouldn’t take five years.
She looked at xyn and hoped that she could really trust all that the alien had just told her. She’d already told her that if she chose not to marry, they’d put her out in the wilderness, and Tempest knew she wouldn’t survive there. This was the only option. The only way to stay alive.
Tempest straightened her spine. She kept xyn’s gaze before she said, "Alright, let’s make so poor man’s wife."
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