144: First Worst Dread – Five
The auto-tailor hummed quietly, fabricating fabric pieces into shape so that they could be sewn together in short order. V'tala had an easier colour pallette to work with, white and nothing more, so she'd let the others go first. That, and they'd all had designs in mind already, while she had still been in the middle of researching styles.
She knew she wanted something bolder than the dress she'd worn on Osatiawjo. She'd still been so thin, then, a fragility to her appearance that she'd never had before, and she wanted to see what it felt like, to lean into a softer image than she'd ever been allowed to have. As a dregil, she'd been expected to maintain a certain physique - all sharply defined muscles without an ounce of fat, but not bulky either. Lean and corded was how she was supposed to look, veins prominent and muscles taut. Even at rest, a dregil was supposed to look like a threat. All that fell to the wayside once she was rotated in and out of stasis, like everything else about well being.
But now she had free reign to shape herself into exactly what she wanted to be. Proper rest, food, and exercise had her muscle tone back - not the preformative definition of what she'd had to maintain for appearances, but the practical mass of muscles built through use. For use. Her arms we thicker than they had ever been allowed, her legs too, her abdomen no longer a hollowed out thing, her abs no longer rigidly visible at all times.
In her old life, she'd always felt wound tight - physically tight - having to hold herself just so for the purpose of being on display, despite the fact that most of the uniforms she wore covered her from neck to sole. A dregil was supposed to act a certain way, look a certain way, at attention while in the sight of others, and the constant maintenance of that stiff posture had her nerves fraying so often that she'd been shocked, sometimes, that she simply hadn't just vibrate herself into subatomic particles. She was sure it was only the totality of her dlegh that had kept her whole under that pressure.
Now she felt steady, solid. Her posture could ease, her muscles could relax, their definition softened by a diet meant to sustain her, not just maintain her. And she felt powerful, powerful in a way that the carefully curated physique of her dregil days had never allowed. Where before she'd felt like a rock slide, a destructive force only because the shattered parts of her were all moving at speed in the same direction, now she was a mountain - whole and unyielding, no force but time left to erode her.
She'd never felt more like herself than she did now, and so she wanted her attire to reflect that. Not the harsh lines of her uniforms, or the gentle curves of her dress, something in between, something more befitting of the woman she'd made herself into. She wanted a suit, something looser than would have been permitted while still bound by her dlegh, something to show off in, not for the sake of being a visible threat, but as someone to be desired. Because she wanted to be desired, and by one person in particular.
She wanted to be desired by Pryseia.
The attention of all those other women back on Trowsorab had been gratifying - the attention of the men less so, but thankfully they'd backed off once she gave them a glare and nothing more - and their desire for her had been thrilling, but these sensations had been fleeting. It hadn't filled her with the same lingering afterglow that lit her up whenever Pryseia so much as caught her eye. She didn't want to have a soft look cast her way before Pryseia's eyes drifted off to something else, she wanted to make it impossible for Pryseia to look at anything other than her.
And so for her suit, she'd gone for something bold.
The pitch of the auto-tailor's whirr changed as the last of the pieces were completed, the machine now moving them all into place to be stitched together. V'tala felt her nerves, then, some echo of the tension she'd constantly been under as a dregil, only now it was her thoughts that had her wound so tight. What if Pryseia didn't have the reaction she hoped to get out of the other woman. What if she did? How would she be able to respond to either? V'tala huffed out a sigh, scrubbing her hands down her face, her pulse thrumming in her fingertips. Maybe in the middle of a break-in on behalf of a group of pirates in exchange for the ancient technology they'd been hunting was not the best time to be having these thoughts, but V'tala found herself powerless to stop thinking about Pryseia.
She wanted this, wanted to do it right, but with the lives they led, their career of choice outside of the destiny that had apparently been designed for them, the opportunity for a quiet, peaceful moment in which she could broach the subject casually was something more rare than the Hyttan artifacts they'd been seeking out as of late. Even now, all of them were busy preparing for the charity event in a few days time, and Pryseia herself was currently in the medbay, having her normal prostheses swapped out for the less functional ones, as, according to the event's restrictions, they wouldn't be allowed past the security measures at the front door. Pryseia hadn't been pleased by that, the process of connecting her nerves to her artificial limb a slow and careful process, one she needed to stay lying down for the entire time. V'tala could more than sympathize with the other woman's ire at being idle for so long. But that meant that Pryseia was out of commission, having agreed to go under for the procedure while Rhea supervised, so she wouldn't be responding to anything for hours yet. And with what they still had yet to prepare, there would be no chance to catch her alone until after they were finished with this mission.
V'tala would have to act on her feelings either during or after it was all said and done, and she honestly couldn't decide which option felt more terrifying.
Within the auto-tailor, her ensemble for the event was finally taking shape, and V'tala took a steadying breath as she watched it come into being. Regardless of if she said anything to the other woman, or didn't, she'd still be getting to spend the night with her, arm in arm as they ran distraction for Malakh and Viatrix. Pulling out her data pad, V'tala went over the activities planned for the evening, wanting to make sure that nothing would catch her off guard. They were there to do a job, after all, even if her heart would much rather be doing something else.
After tucking away her completed suit in her bedroom, V'tala made her way to the medbay. An oversight had made itself known to her during her review of the charity event's itinerary, and given the expertise on the subject she'd shown while on vacation on Osatiawjo, V'tala knew that Rhea would be able to remedy this deficiency in her skill set.
But even though she stepped into the medbay with the full intent of seeking out the doctor's assistance, it was still on Pryseia that V'tala's eyes fell first.
Asleep on one of the beds, her left arm held in place while the nerve connections were made with her more realistic prosthetic, Pryseia was slightly curled over on one side, her right arm draped across her stomach and one leg tucked under the other, her tail dangling over the edge of the bed, twitching as she dreamed. She was in her pyjamas again, a strip of skin peeking out from between her shorts and her tank top, and there were patches of darker blue all across her, machine cut and looking slightly damp, pieces of temporary, synthetic skin meant to hide the scars that littered her body. They were trying to go into this as covertly as possible, and Pryseia's appearance was striking enough to be recognized where they didn't want it to be. Her left eye was completely covered by one of these skin patches, while the corresponding damage in her left horn had finally grown out, both of them now the same height, both of them completely black. The white streak in her hair still lingered, but Pryseia had been looking into hairstyles that would hide that without having to undergo some sort of more intensive procedure to get rid of it. V'tala was glad, because she was quite fond of that feature. But to be fair, she was quite fond of all of Pryseia's features.
It was a far cry from the last time V'tala had seen her laid out in the medbay like this, and she couldn't stop the rattling breath that escaped her at the sight.
"You alright over there?" Came Rhea's voice from her office, the woman in question peeking around the door, quiet music drifting from somewhere further inside. Forcefully pulling her gaze away from the sleeping Pryseia, V'tala made her way over to the office.
"I was hoping you could help me with something?" She asked once she came to a stop in the doorway of that side room, leaning against the doorframe, "I've discovered a gap in my knowledge."
"Of course, what is it?" Rhea asked, shutting off the screen of the console she'd been working on so she could give V'tala her full attention.
That was one of the many things V'tala appreciated about her - when you spoke with Rhea, you were given her total focus. It was a far cry from how she'd been treated as an afterthought by her own people, and V'tala could barely articulate how much it meant to her.
Instead of doing that, however, she pulled her data pad from her pocket and showed it to Rhea as she said, "I don't know how to perform this dance."
It was a promotional reel from one of Labhi's previous events, showing a ballroom full of people dancing to the live orchestra set up towards the back of the space. Partners twirled together across the floor, following along to the three part beat of their accompaniment. "I tried practicing it on my own, but I couldn't get it."
"Yeah, it's a little awkward to learn how to waltz without a partner," Rhea agreed, "But I can show you the ropes. We don't really have the room in here, but there's some empty space in the medbay big enough to serve as an impromptu dance floor."
Rhea motioned her out of the office with a wave of her hand, picking up what V'tala had assumed was just a pen, until the quiet music followed them along as Rhea came up behind her, fiddling with the thing in her hands. The music changed as she twisted different sections on the cylindrical device, like a radio being tuned through stations, until it settled on a song with the same rhythm as the one that previous guests had been dancing to in the video V'tala had shared.
Tossing the music device onto one of the empty beds, Rhea said, "Okay, so first of all you've gotta pay attention to the beat. One two three, one two three. That's what you've gotta be stepping in time to, like you're in a box."
At her side, Rhea demonstrated for her, once, and V'tala copied along on the second pass. Seeing it like this, it made it much easier for V'tala to mimic. Rhea led her through more than that, more than just standing in place and stepping to time. She pulled her into the dance proper, settling one of V'tala's hands on her waist before taking the other in one of her own, Rhea danced backwards through the room, giving her pointers the entire time.
"You don't want to be so stiff with your arms," Rhea teased her lightly, "Just relax into each motion. Yeah, that's better! Just like that. You and Pryseia will be turning heads if you keep that up."
At the mention of the sleeping woman's name, V'tala's eyes darted over to where she still lay asleep, only briefly, but still long enough for her to miss her next step and stumble in Rhea's hold.
"There's going to be a lot of other dancers around you, so any missteps are probably going to go unnoticed," Rhea told her kindly, a soft look on her face that V'tala couldn't decipher, "That, and in a waltz, people's attentions are probably going to be on their partners."
"Good to know." V'tala said, embarrassment and joy warring within her. She forced other thoughts from her mind and focused on the task at hand. She didn't just need to learn the steps of this dance before the charity event, she needed to master them. Anything to have Pryseia's attention focused solely on her.
But she couldn't do that if she allowed herself to be distracted by the sleeping woman. Focusing as Rhea moved them through the steps of the dance, V'tala asked, "Did you learn to dance like this on your homeworld?"
"No, from the Thalatte, believe it or not," Rhea replied with a dark rumble of laughter, "The officers were very fond of having parties, and they liked having dancers around for the ambience of it all while they drank and dined. It was such a fucking waste of time, but at least we learned how to dance out of it. Pryseia's honestly better at this than I am. Must be all that skating she did."
V'tala let out a hum of agreement at that, the memory of Pryseia leaping and spinning back on Osatiawjo immediately coming to mind, but thankfully not distracting her from the task at hand. She'd be making new memories of Pryseia in motion soon enough, this time with her in her arms.
That thought had her blood singing through her veins.
Something was wrong, Elytra could feel it. A strange undercurrent of heat was rippling through the ship, completely unlike anything she'd felt before. It had her nerves completely on edge.
She'd thought it had come from the medbay at first, but all she'd found there was Rhea cleaning up the synthetic skin around Pryseia's left eye, her scar hidden away and both her eyes gold on black.
"Anything of note happen while I was indisposed?" Pryseia had asked her, but Elytra could only shrug in response.
"Nevara's bringing us in to the subspace around the system where this charity thing's going to be taking place, so nothing but pastel outside. Anything in particular you want for dinner?"
"Surprise me, but please ensure that there is ample available for everyone," Pryseia had told her, a wry grin on her face, "Unconscious though I may have been, the procedure has left me ravenous."
Bidding the pair of them farewell, Elytra had made her way to the mess hall, and with every step of the way, the odd feeling grew stronger.
It was an alien sensation, like some scalding hot hunger, or a thirst for blood, something covetous that felt like it could never be sated. When she entered the mess, it was to find Malakh at the counter, the knife in her hand clacking loudly against the cutting board as she diced some kind of vegetable, the line of her shoulders like a rigid bar beneath the t-shirt she was wearing. She was so focused on the task at hand that she didn't react when Elytra called out to her, and made no move when she entered her periphery.
Reaching out gently, Elytra touched Malakh's elbow, and the instant she did, she was struck by a wall of fury, immediately followed by a crashing wave of shame and embarrassment. Malakh went perfectly still after that, closing her eyes and taking three deep, grounding breaths through her nose, and as she did Elytra felt the alien sensation dim somewhat, though it didn't depart. Malakh was burning like a brand, and she didn't know why.
"Sorry," the woman in question said thickly, her voice low and rough, like she'd blown it screaming, "I- none of that was directed at you."
"What happened?" Elytra asked quietly, her mind already jumping to worst case scenarios - she'd never felt Malakh like this. She'd never felt anyone like this.
Whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn't for Malakh to let out a tired laugh, putting her knife down as she stepped away from the counter. Elytra couldn't help but notice that there was a tremble in the other woman's hands.
Blowing out a breath, Malakh told her, "Nothing bad, just inconvenient timing. My species, we reach peak fertility once a year, and our hormones kind of go into overdrive. So guess what I just got hit with?"
Elytra gave her a sympathetic frown, and internally admonished herself for not having any more information about what Malakh was going through. From the storm of emotions blasting through her, it couldn't be fun. Instead, she asked, "Is there anything I can do?"
"Would you mind stepping in to work on supper?" Malakh said, pointing to the nearby screen where she had a recipe brought up, "I need to see Rhea about this. She'll be able to get me on something to level me out."
Nodding as she stepped over to pick up the knife, Elytra told her, "Of course. I've got things covered here."
"Thanks." Malakh told her, leaning forward enough to press their foreheads together briefly before she turned and left the room.
Elytra sighed, turning to the vegetables, her nerves finally settling. Whatever was wrong with Malakh, Rhea would be more than able to sort out.
Rhea was just putting the last of her supplies away - Pryseia was up and gone, her prostheses and skin patches in place for their operation just days away - when she heard the medbay door hiss open behind her. Back turned as it was, she knew exactly who had just stepped through her door, the bond that she shared with the other woman practically singing at her proximity.
Turning around, whatever Rhea had been about to say died on her lips when she caught sight of her wife, the other woman standing there looking wrecked, chest heaving and eyes blown, a tremor coursing through her body like she was fighting against some violent instinct. The sight of her like that had something dangerous coiling low in her gut, some answering call to whatever it was that Malakh's body was saying, a searing wave of want coursing through her so powerfully that Rhea had to grip the shelf behind her.
These were not normal symptoms she was experiencing, this was something else entirely. Her encyclopedic medical knowledge supplied an answer, just not one that was endemic to her own biology.
"You've gone into heat."
Malakh flinched like she was about to surge forward, but she held herself in place as she croaked, "I'm waxing, not waning. The Thalatte took me before I was old enough to go through a proper cycle, but I had a few false starts, and I'd always waned. I don't know what to do with this."
Colloquial terms, but Rhea knew precisely what her vedja's biology was doing to her.
"I'm waning," she said, surprised at how rough her own voice sounded, "The way human biology works, I'm always waning. You're my vedja, you had no choice but to wax."
The laugh that scraped out of Malakh's throat was borderline manic as she pressed her palms into her eyes. "Of all the times for this to hit! You've gotta be able to whip up something to quell this within me, right?"
Rhea's mind was immediately dragging that information to the forefront of her thoughts, the precise chemical compounds she'd need to replicate to get the desired results, all that it would do, and all the side effects.
It also provided her with a much more expedient and safer method of dealing with this untimely issue, and that had her pulse thundering in her ears.
"I can quell it, alright." Rhea told her, voice pitching low with want, and Malakh dropped her hands, her trembling growing worse.
"What are you saying?" Malakh demanded, her entire body wound tight enough that Rhea had a passing worry that her wife might sprain something. "Rhea, this is dangerous. I've never been like this before, I don't know how to handle what's happening to me. You need to get me on some kind of drug to suppress it!"
Taking a careful step forward, Rhea told her, "Suppressants would numb it, but wouldn't make it go away. Your symptoms will linger for days, leaving you irritable, unable to focus, and in no state to be running the stealth mission happening the day after tomorrow. We need to deal with this now, while we have the time."
"And how are we supposed to do that without drugs?" Malakh demanded, a wild look in her eyes as Rhea stepped in close enough that she had to look up at her.
Her voice dropping an octave, quiet enough just for her and her alone, Rhea told her, "I fuck it out of you."
The noise that escaped Malakh then was low, possessive, her eyes snapping shut as something convulsed through her, her trembling growing worse as she fought to keep herself in place.
"Do you know what you're asking?" She hissed out between clenched teeth, "This is dangerous! I don't know how to control this! What if I hurt you!?"
Rhea fully stepped up to her then, cupping a hand around her wife's rigid jaw, her thumb brushing over the tense muscles therein, and Malakh could do nothing but lean into the touch, even as she warred against herself. Holding her in place, Rhea leaned down to kiss her, and beneath her Malakh snapped. She surged up into the kiss, her mouth hot and demanding, hands coming up to tangle in Rhea's hair as she forced the kiss deeper, a desperate sound growling out of her throat that Rhea greedily swallowed. Rhea slid her hand down her vedja's neck, resting it against her sternum, Malakh's heartbeat hammering against her palm.
And then she pushed.
With a desperate, furious noise, Malakh's eyes snapped open, Rhea's longer limb forcing Malakh's hands out of her hair, and she surged forward, hands gripping around Rhea's bicep as she tried to bodily haul herself back to where she wanted to be, but her efforts were useless. Her eyes were completely blown now, breath coming out of her in harsh pants, teeth bared as she attempted to force herself closer to her wife, but Rhea just made a gentle shushing noise, her thumb brushing against her wife's chest as she said, "Baby, I promise you, there's nothing you could physically do to hurt me."
It was several seconds before Malakh was able to get herself under control, closing her eyes and sliding her hands down to Rhea's forearms, not to try and drag them back together, but to ground herself as she wrestled against the need thundering through her. Eventually she spoke, her voice raw as she asked, "Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't," Rhea promised her, "Taking care of things this way will have it flushed from your system by tomorrow, and won't have you snapping at every stray noise like being on drugs would. This is kinda how your biology is supposed to work, after all."
Malakh nodded, her tremors lessening, though they didn't stop entirely. Pushing her gently away, Rhea said, "Go to our room and wait for me. I won't be long."
For one painful, lingering moment, Malakh refused to move, leaving the last thing she wanted to do. But swallowing heavily she nodded again, stepping away of her own volition, and her hands trailed against Rhea's arm as she went.
"You better be quick." She said once she reached the door to the medbay, and like it was the most painful thing in the world, Malakh turned and walked away.
Once the door slid shut, separating the pair of them, Rhea let out a shaky breath, turning to lean both hands against the nearest surface. A desire was coursing through her so thickly that her vision was growing dark around the edges, and she had to just stand there and breathe for a moment.
"Sooooooo…" Viatrix's voice sounded from one of the consoles, "Do you want me to let the others that you two are gonna be busy for a bit?"
Laughing weakly, Rhea said, "I appreciate the offer, but I should do it myself. Where is everyone?"
"In the mess hall getting dinner ready." Viatrix told her.
Nodding at that, Rhea said, "Good. We're not going to be able to make it, so I may as well grab something to keep us going while I'm there."
Just as Viatrix had said, the others were in the mess hall, V'tala helping Elytra with dinner preparations while Nevara and Pryseia (dressed and out of her pyjamas now) set the table.
Turning as Rhea entered, Elytra shot her a worried look as she asked, "Did you get Malakh sorted?"
Rhea couldn't stop the laugh that escaped her as she said, "Not yet, that's what I came to tell you all about. Malakh's hit the peak of her fertility cycle, and if we try to dull it with drugs, she's going to be too frazzled to focus on the mission, and we can't afford that."
"What are our options, then?" Nevara asked, watching as Rhea made her way over to one of the cupboards, pulling out a tray before loading it up with some of the nutrient tubes they kept on hand when one of them wasn't feeling up to a proper meal, "Do we postpone the mission until later in the month?"
"Nothing so drastic," Rhea told her, going over to the food fabricator and selecting the option for electrolyte beverages, and multiples of them, "Not to be crass, and this isn't an excuse to get out of any of our chores tomorrow, but the most expedient way to deal with this is to have Malakh breed me. It's what her biology is demanding."
"Ah," Pryseia breathed, sounding relieved that it wasn't anything more than that, "She's waxing, then, I take it?"
"Yup," Rhea told her, popping the 'p' at the end, "Should have her system back in order by the morning, lunch at the latest, but we'll both be ready to go for our mission the day after, I can assure you."
"Have fun?" V'tala offered, unsure of the protocol in this situation, and that got a proper laugh out of Rhea.
"Oh, we will, but that just means that the two of us aren't going to be available for a hot second, so DO NOT! Get into any kind of trouble while we're dealing with this! You're gonna be down your medic and your engineer for the foreseeable, and we're going to be a little too occupied to be dealing with any kind of catastrophes!"
"So seek out the Thalatte forces gunning for us, got it." Viatrix snickered, and Rhea rolled her eyes, her tray loaded up with enough food and drink to carry her and Malakh through to tomorrow.
"Sure, have fun with that. I'm gonna be a little too busy banging my hot, hot wife to participate."
With a nod after that, Rhea left the mess hall, the door hissing shut behind her.
Frowning, her mandibles clacking together once, Nevara turned to Elytra and asked, "Are you going to be okay, being inundated with all that?"
It was Elytra's turn to laugh this time, saying, "Oh, I don't get a hint of anything when they're in their room. Malakh rigged up a psychic dampener in there once we got the tech from the Quanvengier - when they lock the door for their private time, it automatically switches on. I'm glad. After everything they went through under the claws of the Thalatte, they deserve their privacy."