[b]third dream[/b] Jeremy is standing in the middle of a field, holding his box. Around him are banners, everywhere, with symbols on them. The one closest is a spiral, with a flower on top, this time. He doesn’t recognize it, and yet, it seems familiar. On the banners around it are more symbols, some he remembers from the last time he was here, others he hadn’t had time to noticed before. A scream in the distance, and Jeremy crouches. It’s back. He doesn’t know what it is, he’s never been able to catch a glimpse of it, but it isn’t the first time it’s been after him. Night after night it chases him away from this place. The banners want to protect him, but there is little they can do. He can’t find safety here. The scream comes again. A metallic screeching that hurts his ears and tries to get inside his head. He can stay here, and try to fight it, but that hasn’t worked before. He needs help. He turns and runs, dodging the banners. He knows he won’t find help among them. He needs to find the end of the forest of banners if he is to find who he is looking for. The banners thin, and beyond them, he can see someone, a darker shape, standing, waiting for him. He pushes himself, the thing is catching up. He needs to reach him. As he clears the banners, he can see it’s a kelsirian, with brown fur and deep amber eyes. He doesn’t stop, he can’t give the thing behind him any chances to catch up to him. The thing screeches, close behind him, when he reaches the kelsirian. The kelsirian closes his arms around him protectively, and roars. That sound eclipses the screeching. * * * * * Jeremy opened his eyes. He didn’t know what had woken him, this time, but he quickly notices that his was the first time he’d woken up in the middle of the night without his stomach in knots. He smiled to himself turned and fell right back to sleep [b]a conversation[/b] Jeremy tossed and turned. He’d woken up, and after trying to fall back to sleep for some time, he looked at the clock. Two AM. And he was fully awake. He could stay here, tossing and turning, or he could go do something productive. A quick shower, dressed, tools in hand, and he was entering the kelsirian ship. The guard just nodded to him, he’d come and gone some much that he didn’t need an escort anymore. If the commander knew that he basically had free reign of the ship, he’d either be horrified, or demanding that he poke in every cubbyhole and report what he found. The corridors were deserted, but he was still surprised to find the lights dimmed, and engineering empty. He’d expected there to always be someone monitoring. He didn’t mind, he could do the work he was planing on alone. * * * * * He’d been working inside the generator for an hour when he heard a door open and close. They had finished replacing the damaged section the previous day, and most of the work now consisted of reconnected the circuitry. Jeremy saw a shadow out the corner of his eyes. It moved around the generator, and then stopped. He could see a pair of kelsirian feet, brown fur marbled with lighter brown. He didn’t understand why the circuits were build so large, He could easily rebuild the circuit he was repairing, small enough to fit eight of them in the same space. He finished the connection and crawled out of the opening. He looked at the kelsirian waiting for him and stood straighter on seeing who it was. “Captain,” Jeremy said, and kept the mental box close by in anticipation of the anxiety attack. “Engineer,” Growler nodded, “how are the repairs going?” “They’re going well, I expect that in a few days we’ll have reconnected all the circuits and we’ll be ready to do a test power up.” Jeremy stayed mentally aware of his state, wondering why the attack hadn’t come yet. His heart was beating fast, but it was with trepidation, not anxiety. “Do you always come to engineering in the middle of the night?” “No.” Growler’s lips stretched in what Jeremy now recognized as a smile. “The guard at the access informed me you’d boarded the ship. I decided to come see you, without being one in a crowd of many.” “How do you get anything done, if you’re always being informed of who comes and goes on the ship?” “I don’t. Normally the information goes to the watch on duty, but I left special orders to be contacted directly when you’re the one to come on the ship” Jeremy felt himself blush. “Why?” he whispered. “Because I’ve been asking the Gods for the day when I can do this.” Growler took a step and reached for Jeremy. He gently ran the back of his hand down his cheek. Jeremy started panting, gazing in Growler’s deep eyes azure eyes. He swallowed and realized he was rubbing his cheek against the hand. He didn’t noticed that Growler was closer until he felt his muzzle against his neck, and then a tongue moved up along it. He backed up until he hit the generator console. He put his hands on each side of Growler’s head and forced him back in front of him. He tried to kiss him, but lips on muzzle didn’t work very well. After a moment of surprise Growler licked his lips and nibbled them gently. Jeremy returned the gesture, and then yelped in surprise when Growler lifted him, and sat him on the console. Jeremy wrapped his legs around him and pulled him against him, gasping as he felt the kelsirian’s erection pressed against him. Why wasn’t he afraid of what was obviously going to happen, Jeremy wondered to himself. He didn’t know, but he did feel he needed some breathing room. He pulled out of the nibbling. “Is this really an appropriate place for this?” he asked softly. “No, it isn’t.” He could see the effort Growler had to make to calm himself. They were gazing in each other’s eyes when they heard a light gasp. They turned to see a furry back walking away. A moment later a door opened and closed. “I guess,” Jeremy said, “that if the others are arriving, I should get back to work.” He didn’t want to work. He wanted to stay in Growler’s arms, to find out what else might happen. Growler reluctantly pulled away. “Yes, I expect you should.” “Wait, why me?” The question had been at the back of his mind since he’d suspected why Growler kept looking in on him. The kelsirian tilted his head. “You have a ship full of people, I’m not even the same species as you. Why do you want me?” “Because each time I see you, I’m alive. My heart tells me that you’re the one for me. That you are the warrior for me.” “I’m not a warrior,” Jeremy looked away, and Growler gently grabbed his cheek and made him turn his head so he could look in his eyes. “You are a warrior, I saw it on that first day, when you fought not to react to your affliction. I saw it when you came back on the ship, knowing that you’d see me, and terrified of that moment. The battles you fought have been inside you, but you still fought them.” He pulled him down from the console. “When you are ready to have your meal, come find me. I would be honored to have it with you.” He nibbled on the side of Jeremy’s lips before heading out. Jeremy was still dazed when Thuruk walked around the generator. He shook his head to clear it, and realized the kelsirian was looking at him oddly. “What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked. Had he done something horribly wrong by being that close to the ships captain? “What are you doing?” Great, he had done something wrong. He tried a few times to explain himself, finally saying. “We were just talking.” He wondered if it sounded as lame to Thuruk as it did to him. “Is that what humans call what I saw?” Jeremy reddened. He grabbed a tool and turned to get back in the generator, where Thuruk couldn’t see his embarrassment, but the kelsirian grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” “Look,” Jeremy said with a sigh, “I’m sorry if me and Gr . . . The captain did something wrong, I didn’t know.” “He left,” was all Thuruk said in response. “Yes, we have work to do.” “You let him leave?” “We have to repair the generator.” Thuruk took the tool out of his hand and grabbed him by the shoulders. “The generator can wait. Listen to me, are you really going to let your Heart walk away from you?” Jeremy was taken aback by the earnestness in Thuruk’s voice. He looked at the generator, an inert machine, and then beyond it, at the door he couldn’t see, but knew Growler had left by. “No, I’m not.” He ran out of engineering without a second thought. [b]mythology[/b] “Thuruk said something that I’m wondering about,” Jeremy said. They were lying in Growler’s bed, a bowl shaped mattress in the floor. It was surprisingly comfortable to curl up together in it. Growler was behind him, arms wrapped around Jeremy’s chest. They were still mostly clothed, being simply bare chested. They had been this way since they’d entered the room, quite some time ago, and Jeremy was happy things hadn’t progressed further, he wasn’t sure he was ready for more. “What did he say?” Growler rubbed his muzzle in his hair. “It was just before I ran after you. He said that I was letting my heart walk away from me. I got that he referred to you, but what did he mean?” Growler was silent for a moment, just resting his head on his. “In the beginning of times, Thuruksamian, the father God, created us, and for a time everything was fine. We functioned as he had made us. We survived, we saw to the land, saw to the beasts, and procreated, but eventually he felt that something wasn’t right. We did all those things he had made us to do, but we didn’t take joy in what we did. We survived, but we didn’t seem to truly live. “He pondered that do to for a time. He considered wiping the slate clean and starting anew, but he didn’t. He cared for us. If there had been a fault, it was his, not ours. So, he set to work repairing his error. He made Hearts, enough for all of us, those he had created and those who were then born of his creations. “When he was done, he gave them to Salmialie, the messenger God, to bring them to us. Salmialie was normally reliable, but this time, he was distracted by Gezbiliam. Gezbiliam is the Goddess of inspiration, but she isn’t always the most . . . lets say, stable of the Gods. Thuruksamian had been locked in his workshop, so she didn’t know what he had made, and she wanted to know. “It was an easy task for her to distract Salmialie. The messenger had a thing for her, which she normally ignored, but this time she took full advantage of it. She drew him to her bed and plied him with food, wine and sex. When he was fully sated, and sleeping. She opened the package he had been carrying, and saw the Hearts. “They were precious things, not very big, and fragile, but beautiful. She had a flash of anger that Thuruksamian had been able to make something of such beauty without her help. She almost broke them, but she stopped herself. Gezbiliam is devious. She through, why destroy them, when she could tinker with them, maybe add some confusion to the lot. “And tinker with them she did. And then, feeling that it wouldn’t be enough, she shuffled the Hearts in the package, so that none of them would end up with the person it was destined for. When Salmialie woke, alone, he grab the package, unaware of what had been done to its content, and made his deliveries. “What Thuruksamian had put in the heart was happiness, joy, life. What Gezbiliam added was passion, rage, sorrows, envy. And the Hearts being given to the wrong person gave us longing. We can feel that something is missing, and we spend our life looking for our Heart. And when we find it, if we find it, we truly become alive.” Jeremy took in the story silently. “We have something similar,” he eventually said. “I guess. We call it, being soul mates. They say that when souls are made they are connected to another one, and if we meet the person that has that soul, we can feel it.” “You don’t sound like you believe it.” Growler ran a finger down his chest. “Until I met you, I didn’t. I’d never really thought about it. I didn’t have any plan on finding someone to spend my life with.” “You were planing on being alone?” there was dismay in Growler’s voice. “Considering what was done to me, is that so surprising? Every time I thought about what I might want in a mate, I became sick, ‘cause they’d programmed me to be sick if I thought about other men this way, and even if I didn’t realize it, that’s what I wanted. Women never interested me, so I just stopped thinking about it.” He felt Growler’s arms tighten around him, and they were silent for some time. “Thuruksamian,” Jeremey said, mangling the name, as he mangled every kelsirian names. “That sounds a lot like Thuruk’s name.” “He’s named after him. His full name is Thurukselminial. It’s a mix of the name for the father God, and the God of work, Lalminuial.” Jeremy had had a few session with the kelsirian linguist, so he now understood the language enough to understand that the ‘sel’ meant ‘of both’ that it linked both names as one. “I’m named after the Gods of the hunt, and the God of protection.” “You’re well named.” Jeremy smiled. “Is everyone one named after Gods?” Jeremy asked. “No, not anymore. His family and mine are rather traditional.” “Won’t they have a problem with you loving me then?” Growler laughed. “No. What we have is tradition. You have my Heart and I have yours. They would never fight against that.” “Your Thuruksamian certainly sent the Hearts far.” “His reach is infinite, but I think my heart being misplaced so far is more Gezbiliam’s work. The Hunter and her aren’t on the best of terms. I can easily see her sending my heart so far, to hurt him, through me. But a hunter never stops hunting until he catches his quarry.” He nibbled on Jeremy’s neck, who squirmed in his arms. “Do you all imagine your gods affecting your lives?” He asked, once his had caught his breath. “Imagine? We don’t imagine it, the Gods do intervene in our lives,” Growler said. Jeremy turned and faced him. “Come on. gods aren’t real. Our ancestors made them up as a way to explain how to world worked, and they became part of our mythology. I really don’t want to offend you, but you can’t really think gods are real.” “Do you know why we docked at your station?” “You needed to make repairs.” Growler shook his head. “No, that’s just the excuse we fabricated. We are here to find out how advance human research is on antimatter technology.” “I’ve seen your generator, remember? That’s no excuse. The damage is plenty real.” “It is, but it wasn’t suppose to be. Alix, was just suppose to disable it, so that when the station scanned us they’d see we didn’t have main power. While here we’d scan the station, access the computers and find out what we needed. Then our ‘repairs’ would be done and we’d leave.” “I thought you were a merchant,” Jeremy said. “And I thought Humans didn’t have a working antimatter generator,” Growler replied with a smile. Jeremy looked away for a moment. “So what happened?” he looked back to him. “Alix disabled the generator, and there was an explosion, it nearly killed him.” “So he made a mistake.” “No. Alix is my Engineer. He’s a master at his craft. He doesn’t make mistake. Gralgriran intervened because he wanted me to meet you.” Jeremy eyed hims suspiciously. “Consider this, my little hunter, if the explosion hadn’t happened, or if Alix hadn’t been gravely hurt, I probably wouldn’t have left the ship, or maybe just to meet the station’s commander, a courtesy. You certainly wouldn’t have been there. “Because Alix was hurt to the point he couldn’t even direct the repairs, I had to contact the commander, via Querik, to let him know what had happen and that we would be at the station for a long time, either until Alix was sufficiently healed, or another ship came to help with the repair. That’s when he offered to have his antimatter expert help out. You. I couldn’t refuse the offer, but I requested to be present. I wanted to see who I was going to have to let on my ship, and judge that person myself.” “You do realize you only got me, because our actual expert, Alison, wasn’t here.” “Really?” “Yeah. She left the day before you showed up.” Growler stared at him, his lips slowly tightening in a smile. Jeremy suddenly realized the reason for the smile. “You can’t be serious, it’s just a coincidence that she left just before you arrived.” “What is a ‘coincidence’?” He carefully pronounced the word. “It’s the word we use for a when a series of unrelated event can seem related.” Growler nodded. “Then coincidence, is the human word for when the Gods Meddle.” Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Think about it Jeremy. Look at the number of events that had to line up, so we would meet. If any one of them hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here right now.” Jeremy looked at him, having trouble believing he as serious. Coincidences were just that. Sure, it seemed extraordinary, but then so was life. That didn’t mean some sort of extra dimensional being had a hand in creating it, right? He felt his confidence waver. Extra dimension were a scientific fact, they couldn’t be breached from this side, but did that mean it couldn’t happen from the other side? He shook his head. No, that was ridiculous. Their lives weren’t guided by other beings. They couldn’t be. He sighed. Okay, life could be a series of accidents, over millions and billions of years, but their circumstance was over a few days, a week at most. He had to admit that was a lot of coincidences in such a short amount of time. “Are your g . . . Gods always interfering in your life?” “No, just at important junctions.” “So at those times you have to do what they want?” “Hardly. We aren’t machines. When we realize one of Them is intervening, we can fight them. They don’t all have our best interest in mind. Of course, most of the time, we don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late to do much about it. They can be very subtle. Then there’s the problem of figuring out who is intervening, that will affect how you respond. When the explosion occurred, and Alix was injured, I knew someone was intervening, but I didn’t start suspecting who, until I met you.” “And then?” “You mean other than force myself not to grab you by the shoulders until you realized what you meant to me?” Jeremy chuckled. “What could I do? I made sure to be around you as much as I could, and not drive you away with the obvious problem you had being me around. Querik did tell me to be patient, that he was helping as best as he could, but ultimately, I could only hope that Gralgriran knew what he was doing, and that we could defeat what ever Gezbiliam’s plan was.” Jeremy rested his head on his lover’s chest. “You do realize that a lot of that sounds like justification after the fact.” Growler laughed. “Yes, I expect it does.” They were silent for some time. “Tell me your full name, please,” Jeremy whispered. “My full name is Gralgiranselhelrarvnir” Jeremy’s bones rattled as the name washed over him, and his heart swelled. He looked into Gralgiranselhelrarvnir’s eyes, and kissed him. He was ready.