Chapter 55: Fraternizing With The Enemy
The person he had spent days in deep dark space for slept peacefully.
His porcelain body rested against the Emperor’s chest, his head tucked beneath the Vashki ruler’s chin while one of the Emperor’s arms remained firmly wrapped around him. Thira’s ring glowed faintly against his ankle as the Emperor drew lazy circles of over their intertwined hands.
"We meet again, demon child."
The soldiers from before fell to one knee, their heads bowed as they offered their respect to their ruler.
"What do you mean ’again’?"
Lik In’a growled and pushed K down to his knees,
"You must bow before the emperor!"
He pushed back against the large hand but it only came down harder.
"Leave him be, he is a stranger to our customs after all. I’ll allow this once."
The hand clamped aorund his helmet slowly lifted and the soldiers bowed one more time before leaving.
The doors clicked close and K struck.
His armored boots padded against the ceramic like ground, silver plating broke and scattered in the air as he boosted off a slightly raised platform. His fist aiming for giant Vashki on its throne.
"You’re fast... and quite foolish."
The Vashki raised its hand and all of sudden K slammed into the floor. His armor pressed into him as if an invisible hand was holding and pressing him down into the ground.
"You’re the one who took Thira... give him back to and there will be no bloodshed."
Tuk guffawed.
He had heard humans threaten him but bargaining?
The last time a human bargained with him, it cost him someone he cherished second to Vae’Thira.
"What gives you the guts to bargain with me?"
"You don’t want your people massacred, do you?"
"You’re severly outnumbered, killing you is as easing as scratching my back."
The Vashki was right but that still didn’t mean he would give up. He needed to get Thira out of here.
"Was it you in the footage?"
"Footage? Ah~ Yes, I simply came to your planet to take what was mine."
"What?"
"He never told you?" His porcelain head lowered to look at the slumbering one in his arms, "Vae’Thira, I’m a little hurt." Then looked back at the struggling K.
"A little introduction wouldn’t hurt I guess. I am Tuk’Aon the mate of Tuk Vae’Thira, son of Tuk’Ina and the supreme emperor of Qashka."
Mate?
Mate as in spouse?
"What the hell do you mean ’mate’?"
"Mate as in the one who Thira gave his ring to."
"Thira isn’t yours... he belongs to us."
"He belongs to you?"
"Haha."
"You’re hilarious too, I guess."
"When you say Thira belongs to you, do you have anything of yours connected to him that makes you claim him as yours?"
K growled, the invisible pressure seemed to increase each time he struggled to stand against it.
"He is my father and my mother."
"Well, that is a valuable reason but does it count really?"
"Does it count as this?"
Tuk spread his thighs causing Thira’s legs to slip down and turn towards K.
"W-what did you do to him?"
Thira’s stomach glowed faintly with a subtle bulge, a ring sat around his wrist tucked into Tuk’s garment.
"I simply fufilled his ultimate wish."
It was then Kagu’s words echoed in his head.
The doctor has been running compatibility tests with humans...to ensure the extinction of his species, The Miwa, doesn’t happen.
Has Thira betrayed the human race?
Ding!
[QUEST UPDATE]
QUEST: FIND THE KEPT ONE
UPDATE: RESCUE THE KEPT ONE
Objective:
Locate and return the missing individual designated as THE KEPT ONE to safety.
Current Status: Alive.
Location: Qashka.
Life Signs: ....
Time Remaining: 5hours 59minutes 60seconds.
Quest Condition:
LOCATE THE KEPT ONE
Failure Condition:
Termination of Host.
Reward:
CLASSIFIED
Additional Information:
THE KEPT ONE MUST BE KEPT ALIVE.
...
..
.
What time was it now?What time was it now?
He couldn’t tell with the thick curtains of the emperor’s room. His quarters had been demolished after the bathroom incident and he had been forced to stay here with Tuk.
"...Tuk?"
His voice was hoarse and it hurt to breathe, his stomach felt weird and heavy too.
"Sleep more, you need it."
A large hand pulled him away from the edge of the bed and into the cool feel of hard skin.
"What did you do to me?"
Tuk slid his palm up Thira’s hand, a ring of his disconnected from his body and latched onto the Miwa’s hand.
Immediately, the smaller Vashki jerked. Pain exploded in his veins and spread through his body. The sensation continued until he was a shaking mess of tears and silver blood.
"Going by the natural customs of our people, I should be taking your ring but that would mean taking your voice and your song... I don’t want that, Thira."
"What are... w-what are you doing to m-me?" He choked through pants and wet gasps.
"What I should have done a very long time ago."
The ring hummed to life and seared into his silver plating eliciting another wave of pain and strangled cries.
"If I had marked you as my mate from the beginning, all these wouldn’t have happened... you wouldn’t have been so desperate to make child with another U’Kan!"
Thira shook terribly, "h-how did you... I told him to not..."
"Look over there, Thira."
Tuk held his drenched face and turned it to the wall on their right. On the wall lined heads.
Heads of traitors, those who committed treason against the emperor, those who defied his word. But one particular head stood out to Thira.
"I personally executed him... I tore him... limb from limb and I fed on his blood."
"M-monster..." He mumbled beneath his shaky breath, "you’re a monster."
"Why do you weep, my beloved? Your interaction with him had no affection, all it bore was a bastard you forged into a second traitor. So tell me, why do you weep?"
"Let go of me."
"No, you must see the consequences of your reckless actions."
"No! Please!"
"Accountability, Thira, you must be accountable for your actions. If I had just done this earlier, you wouldn’t have had the gall to play and betray me in my face but you did that on purpose, didn’t you?"
"...no... I beg of you...."
"You knew I couldn’t bring myself to kill you... so you took advantage of every opportunity you got and you hurt me... over and over again. You know how much I cherish you and yet you—"
"...you know I never for once bore affection for you!"
"Liar."
"You know it!"
"You said to my face, Thira."
"We were kids! We were ignorant and we made promises we couldn’t keep!"
"I am keeping it..."
"You’re forcing it on me!"
Thira began to kick and punch at the body that held him still.
"You’re a monster! Let me go!"
"I’m forcing it?"
The room suddenly went cold. The temperature dropping to many degrees of biting cold. The Miwa shuddered but he didn’t stop fighting.
"I am forcing my affection on you, Thira?"
"..."
"Answer me!"
The room shook and the bed began to sink into itself.
"Yes, you bastard! Yes! You think I wanted to be a Miwa? You think I wanted to be in this ridiculous place? I fucking hated every moment of this! Yes, I once loved you... but not anymore, not after the blood you shed or what you took from me!"
"..."
"The plan was to bear a child so my people would continue to live but then your rotten eye found me. My mother just couldn’t pass up on the opportunity for her generation to bear the child of a U’Kan. A noble one to be precise."
"And so she set us up, and you just couldn’t say no! I wasn’t in my right mind and you still went ahead! You knew how much I wanted to fufil my duties as a Miwa and get on with my life but you just wouldn’t let me have that."
"You gave me my first child. And you took him before he could even breathe Qashka’s air, do you know what that did to me?"
"Bearing a child would kill you, you were to fragile to carry one... so I killed it."
Thira scoffed, speechless, and then burst into a hysterical laughter.
"That’s very caring of you, the one who gave it to me without my consent! Oh stars, I hate you! I always will!"
Tuk growled, his hand shot up and grabbed the weeping Miwa’s neck.
"You will not utter such words to me. I forbid you."
"Oh fuck you!"
"Do not speak with their tongue to me!"
"Why? Is it because they killed your mother?"
"Watch it, Thira."
"Or what? You’d kill me like you killed your—-!!"
The hand around his throat squeezed.
"I said... watch it."
"Let... cough....let me go! Dis...gusting... bastard!"
"You have shown so much boldness for the past few days, have you noticed the changes in your body, Thira?"
"!!"
"I don’t need to remind you of why you feel that way, do I?"
"I’d just claw it out of me like you did."
"With my ring on you? You would not be able to but that really doesn’t matter... the demon child is coming for you, isn’t he?"
"..."
"He is... haha, I would tear him from limb... to limb... and feed on his blood just like his father."