Rogue Sloth

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

Okay, so timeline-wise, I was thinking that could go something like this:

- Drei talks to Zalla again either at the end of this day or the beginning of the next one, and she tells him that their fertility specialists want him to bring Artemis on board the ship, so they can speak with/study her.
- He takes her up to the ship, and that's where all the stuff goes down that we talked about before
- Since Artemis can't live off the same food that the aliens eat, they would have to go back down to the earth after it's decided that they're going to be a breeding pair.
- Drei would be taken off the team that was originally assigned to clear out the rest of the humans, since his leaders would find it more important for him to be part of their experiment. However, he and Artemis could still explore the area, and that's how they end up running into those different groups of humans that you listed out earlier.
- All the while, they would be sleeping together intermittently to find out if their two races really can breed, which would cause some awkwardness while they have yet to confess to each other that neither of them are doing it just because they were told to by the Om'phaers

That should give us some direction as we navigate the next parts of the story :) What do you think?

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

That would probably be a good thing though, since she's pretty much a bomb waiting to go off lol

I've been good! The hubs and I just bought furniture for the new place :) We decided to sell our current stuff because it doesn't fit the layout or aesthetic of the house we're moving into. How have you been?

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

Only when Artemis finally released him did Azdrei’in start to relax again. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, trying to calm the frantic racing of his hearts. All she’d done was close the distance between them to express her gratitude for his help. He shouldn’t have responded as if it had been an intimate gesture by a female of his own species. She was a human, a member of the race that his people had all but eliminated from the planet. She wasn’t an option.

Walking with her toward the woods, he wondered if any of the other Yihai were exploring the area nearby. He needed an outlet to get rid of his strange attraction to the human at his side, and some of the warriors who had come to the Earth with him were females. Maybe he would run into one who would be interested in laying with him. None of them had mates, so they were free to sleep together if they wanted to. If he relieved his carnal desires with a member of his own kind, then hopefully his interest in Artemis would be stymied.

Unfortunately, that idea required tracking down another Lunvalgan, and he couldn’t easily do that when Zalla had ordered him to keep watch over the Earthling he’d found.

As they trekked toward the trees, he kept a little more distance between them than usual while she explained the nature of humans to him. Her description of the fight or flight response was familiar to him, since many creatures on Ashad’te had the same instinct, including his own people. It was also the reason why he’d tested her the day before by wrapping his claws around her throat. He’d wanted to find out if she even had enough of a violent streak to fight back when he threatened her.

However, he found it interesting that humans learned to become bad when they were given power, nurtured that way by their parents, or gathered together in large groups. His people tended to behave the opposite way. Perhaps it was because of their close encounter with total extinction, but the Eilix put their collective wellbeing before anything else, and they all did what they could to ensure that their society thrived as best as it could under less than ideal circumstances. If they didn’t take care of each other, dying out was a very real possibility.

“You are welcome,” he replied when she thanked him again, dodging her comment about how she’d missed talking and touching someone else. He was happy to oblige the first desire, but the second reminded him of his unnatural draw to her, so he was reluctant to indulge it. Since they belonged to separate species, it seemed wise to avoid physical contact that might tempt him to get closer to her than he should.

At her question, he shook his head. “I am not sure. I can ask Zalla, but my orders… the warriors’ orders are to kill all humans. I don’t know if we will get new orders if some humans are good.” After running into the young Earthlings, he had quite a bit that he wanted to interrogate his commander about. He was also willing to suggest that the Yihai shouldn’t end the lives of every human who’d survived Strizin. Based on his experiences, he didn’t believe they all needed to die. He just hoped Zalla would be willing to hear him out if he talked to her about it.

“When I talk to Zalla about you next, I will do what I can to make her see that some humans are good,” he promised, sidestepping a low-hanging tree branch.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

Yeah, Drei isn't quite there yet, but at least he's starting to notice his attraction to her. I'm thinking it could be kind of funny if he develops a crush on her around the same time as his leaders pair him and Artemis up as a breeding couple. He'd try to pretend like he isn't ecstatic about it, since the other Lunvalgans would expect him to be disappointed, but internally, he'd be like "well this is great" xD

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

I liked your last post a lot. There was quite a bit for Azdrei'in to think about, and he's also starting to realize that he isn't as good as he thought at separating humans from Lunvalgans, haha.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

“Only I know English,” Azdrei’in responded idly to the male human’s question as he soothed the wounded child. He noticed that the adolescent had used a different inflection when he spoke than their kind usually did when asking about something, but he didn’t understand what it meant, so he dismissed it. At the moment, his focus was better applied to helping Artemis’s patient relax while she treated her leg. He curled his fingers around her small ankle while the physician set the bones in place and used tubes as a splint to hold them still, waiting until after she was done before he finally let go again.

Rising to his full height, he watched as Artemis gave the male her food and a container of what he could only guess was a medicine of some sort. The way they interacted reminded him of his own people, and he marveled again at how similar their species were. The sight also made him wonder, though, why the Earthlings were supposed to be a violent race. Everything he’d seen so far had told him the opposite. Artemis had only attacked him when she’d feared for her life, and the young humans had behaved the same way. They only seemed to resort to fighting if they believed their lives depended on it, just like the Lunvalgans did. How could his leaders say, then, that they were savages who needed to die before his kind could inhabit the planet?

Perplexed by the thought, he glanced at the youngest one in her bed one more time before he followed Artemis back out into the open. “How many humans are good?” he asked with a frown when she told him she wanted to help the good ones. The more of them he encountered, the more unsettled he felt about the Eilix’s decision to wipe them all out with a virus. If they had all been brutes like he’d initially been led to believe, it would have been easy to brush off their extinction as a necessary evil. However, if most humans were like Artemis and the two children, he wasn’t certain that he could ignore the genocide so carelessly.

He didn’t have time to ponder over it before she suddenly told him to trust her and wrapped her arms around his midriff in an embrace. The unexpected touch made him stiffen in surprise, and he looked down at her bemusedly. He didn’t know why she’d decided to hug him, but it wasn’t the act itself that caught him off guard. He was even more startled by his own reaction to it. His hearts beat quicker, and his breath hitched the same way it would have if he’d been touched by a female of his own species. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Objectively, he’d thought that Artemis was aesthetically appealing, with her exotic light skin, red hair and brightly colored eyes, but they belonged to two different races. He couldn’t look at her the same way he would a Lunvalgan female. It was illogical.

Distracted by his own inner turmoil, it took a moment before her question registered in his head. As he snapped out of his brief trance, Azdrei’in tore his gaze away from her to look at the woods around them. He needed to fix his attention on something besides the feeling of her warm body pressed against his. “Not there,” he replied with a gesture toward the tall buildings of the ruins he’d passed through the day before. Knowing there were infected humans in that area, he wanted to stay far away from it to keep her out of danger. “Other places are fine. I don’t care where we go.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

He's trying his best to make Iris feel better, haha.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Holding Iris close to himself, Caspian could tell that she wasn’t quite as relaxed as he was. He couldn’t say he was surprised though. She always seemed to be tense with worry about something or another. Some of her fears were justified, since they did have some uphill battles ahead of them on their way to being together. However, he suspected that her elevated sense of anxiety was mostly attributed to the trauma she’d been through since the moment she’d ended up in the capital the first time. The combination of amnesia, manipulation by the rebellion, running from and being captured by the same people, and then landing in prison and the hospital in the capital was a lot for anyone to go through. He couldn’t blame her for having lasting stress from the experiences.

Still, he did his best to help her calm down, running his hand gently down and up her back while they laid on the bed. Even if he couldn’t totally alleviate her fears, he wanted her to know that he was there for her. He’d meant it when he’d told her he was planning to do everything in his power to make sure they could stay together. That also meant being a supportive partner while times were still difficult. No matter what happened, he intended to be by her side, shouldering the same burdens and helping her stand on her feet when she felt overwhelmed. Her wellbeing meant just as much to him as the whole kingdom’s, if not more so.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he murmured without opening his eyes, still tired since they hadn’t gotten up yet. “I’m not mad at you. I don’t like to see you upset, but you can be honest with me about how you’re feeling.” Stretching languidly, he forced himself to meet her gaze, so he could offer her another reassuring smile as he brushed off her attempt to change the subject. “I understand why you’re worried. There’s a lot that we still have to deal with. We’re safe right now though, so I just meant that we should try to relax a little while we have the chance.” It was opportunistic, and he knew it, but it was the best they were going to get until he came up with a solution to the issue of his father.

Not giving up on his plan to help her have a good time yet, his smile turned sly, and he leaned up on his arm to hover over her. “You know, I’m pretty hungry too, but not for breakfast…” he whispered suggestively before he pressed his lips to hers in a deep kiss. With his free hand, he caressed her cheek and entangled his legs with hers under the sheets. The way their bodies fit together was imprinted on his memories forever, and as the images resurfaced in his mind, his heart fluttered excitedly.

After a moment—or longer. He always lost track of time when he was with her—Cas pulled back just enough to catch his breath and grinned at her playfully, “I’m never going to get tired of doing this.”

Plenty of Sharks in the Sea [BuzzingBee & Dagger]

Oof xD But true.

I'm also so excited to bring Matt into it. He's gonna be a really interesting villain character to write

Plenty of Sharks in the Sea [BuzzingBee & Dagger]

It really was too bad that Daniel was just her chance at dinner for an evening. He was one of the most handsome men Alex had conned recently as well as the most interesting by far. Most of the time, the guys she left the clubs with were at least ten to twenty years her senior—sometimes more—and they all had a penchant for talking about themselves until she wondered just how far she could shove her fork through her ear. By contrast, the businessman beside her was obviously successful, but he was so good at downplaying his accomplishments that she found herself in the unfamiliar territory of actually wanting to ask him more about himself. It was a strange place to be, but for those eyes and that smile, she wouldn’t mind if he wanted to tell her about how he’d gone from wannabe rocker to the wolf of Wallstreet all night long.

…Platonically, of course. Her two whiskey cocktails on an empty stomach may have been demanding otherwise, but she wasn’t as impulsive as her friend, Whitney. She’d made a vow to herself that she would never go home with any guy she just met, and damn it, she was going to keep it, even if his chaste touch to her shoulders tempted her to reconsider her convictions.

Walking with Daniel out of the bar, Alex noticed that he continued to play the role of gentleman by holding the door open for her. She thanked him politely and stepped through the opening first, realizing belatedly that she probably should have brought a jacket. The night was brisk, and it was difficult to stay warm for someone who had almost no meat on her bones. The light breeze cut through her like a knife, but even when her “date” asked if she would prefer to hail a cab, she shook her head. “A walk sounds nice,” she lied. “No point in wasting the opportunity when our restaurant is right around the block. Let’s go.”

Really, sitting in the back of a taxi would have been far more comfortable, but two motivations compelled her to say no. The first and most prominent was that her drinks had gone straight to her head, and she needed to sober up a little, so she wouldn’t do anything stupid. The second was that vehicles were dangerous. As a rule, she tried to avoid them unless she absolutely had to climb into the back of a car for some reason. Once inside, she would be at the mercy of the driver, and she was aware that cabbies could be bought. Her past demons followed her wherever she went, so she couldn’t risk getting into a car and finding herself being whisked away to somewhere that she did not want to go. It was safer to walk, so she could run if she needed to get away quickly.

Hoping to distract from her subtle shivering, so Daniel wouldn’t notice and wonder why she’d picked the less comfortable mode of travel, she clasped her hands behind her back and casted him another smile. “So, where do you work?” she asking, selecting a topic that she felt certain he’d be interested in chatting about. There wasn’t a single person on the face of the planet who dressed as smartly as he did and kept his occupation to himself. Well, unless they were FBI, but the odds of that were so low that she’d take her chances.