Stupid Sexy Cryptids [Ch 36, 37]

36: The Baroness of Earth

"This human showed great interest in working for you, according to his own statement that Keiy just sent me. Eighty two percent desire to be a subordinate? You are lucky to have found such an early devotee,” the Wendigo smiled. “Rejoice!”

Galateya didn't rejoice, she looked quite sour at the ‘unexpected consort’ development.

“Ashcroft clearly proved himself useful, like that… other human working with Division 881’s Datamancer and Alpha Scrut. Most importantly," Ixthia's smile widened, "he'll serve as an example of obedience to the Frontenachii Dominion Aegis for future generations. A human hero, uplifted through service to the Frontenachii! Eventually, he could even serve as your Colonial Secretary when you become the Baroness of Earth."

"But—but I don't even know him!" Galateya sputtered. “We just met!”

"Then get to know him. Consider it part of your education in local relations." Ixthia waved dismissively. "I’ll have a diamond medal award ceremony made up later for the three of you that we’ll cast worldwide.”

Galateya made bubbling dragon noises.

“Come now. You need to start somewhere, darling. One local consort is hardly scandalous." Her great-grandmother intoned. “This is your moment to shine, the day you’ve been trained for your entire life!”

Nexxali made a barely concealed strangled sound of a dying cat whose catnip was just taken away.

Galateya tried to formulate words but they didn’t come to her.

"This is an opportunity," Ixthia intoned. "Size it by the reins! Here's your chance. Civilize this human. Train him. Show the fleet that with proper guidance, humans can be more than ‘pain and fear’ emanation resource."

"I'm right here," I pointed out.

"Yes, yes, and you're about to become very privileged," Ixthia said. "Accept the job of being her consort. Galateya needs to start building her power base, and you're going to help her do it. Disappoint me and you will join the other humans on my wall.”

"Elder," Galateya pleaded, "surely there must be—"

"The decision is final. Unless you'd prefer Nexxali to execute this human now for knowing too much. Perhaps you need a few more days of bone-breaking training with your sisters at the capital ship’s colosseum? I'm sure the Celesteel walls would love to welcome you back."

Galateya shuddered visibly.

"I thought not. Marshal Commandant Nexxali, you'll assist my granddaughter in establishing herself. Ensure she has everything she needs to succeed. Help her rise to the top! I want regular reports on her progress. From here on, you answer directly to me!”

"Of course, Legate," Nexxali ground out, tail swishing angrily behind her. 

"Oh, and Galateya?" Ixthia added as her projection began to fade. "A Baroness without kobolds is just embarrassing. Do start by blood-binding that human. If he's as useful as the Marshal claims, he should make an adequate first kobold. Don't slack off and don’t betray my expectations. If Ashcroft is not bound as your consort within… say, ten hours, ALL of you will face my utmost displeasure."

The projection vanished, leaving us in stunned silence.

[9:59:59] Red numbers flashed on the side of Keiy’s hexagonal head.

Galateya stared at the numbers counting down for a few seconds. Then, she exploded, scales shifting into steaming volcanic rocks, the pink flowers dying and turned to ashes. She grabbed Nexxali, shaking her. “What the fuck did you do?! Why did you tell her all that shit?!”

"What?! I helped…" Nexxali hissed, trying to pry Galateya's black claws off her dead suit. "I made everyone look good. Maybe a little… too good.”

“You…!” Galateya growled.

“Yes. Me and my extra-yappy mouth. Blame the human!” the Serval smacked me with her tail. “He stuffed me full of catnip, it makes me ranty!”

Violet dragon eyes glared at me, her claws releasing the cat girl. I shrugged. 

“Welp, guess I'm promoted to babysitter for Miss Can't-Make-Friends!" Nexxali dramatically flopped across my lap. "Lost me a perfectly good human pet though!"

"I'm nobody's pet," I said.

"You're about to be her kobold," Nexxali pointed out. "Which is worse. It's permanent. Forever. Until you die. Which you won’t. Cus’ they won’t let you."

“Mmmm… immortality job benefits. Do I get a gun proof magic suit too?” I joked. “And my own gun spider bae? Or do we get to share Keiy? I like Keiy.”

The gun blushed again.

“I don’t think they’d give hexasuits to the low tier life. You won’t be able to interact with such properly due to lack of a heart core. Also, you’re far too cheerful for someone who has less than ten hours of freedom,” Nexxali commented, stretching diagonally.

I turned to Galateya who had fallen suspiciously silent. The dragon covered her face with her hexasuit gloves, sniffing. Her scales shifted from jagged rocks to dead bark, blue and green moss gracing her maine. 

It took me another moment to notice that she was crying.

“Really?” Nexxali rolled her eyes. “You’re that much against kobolds and me being your personal instructor?”

“Sup, future consort?” I offered lightly, patting Galateya’s shoulder. “Why so glum? Does the concept of a shotgun wedding bother you?”

Wet, violet eyes stared at me between black-gloved fingers, my words derailing the dragon girl from her depression spiral. “Huh? You’re the consort… not me!”

“Nexy, go with Keiy and fetch your gun out of the well,” I ordered, pushing the Serval off my lap.

"Ugh. Why is everyone ordering me around today?” She complained. “It’s like nobody respects my Marshal authority on this damn planet!”

"Someone needs to supervise Keiy, Marshal," I gave her a meaningful look.

The Serval's golden eyes widened slightly as she caught my meaning. "Right. Yes. The well searchery needs... supervision. Come on, Keiy. Let's go fish out my gun."

"I can retrieve it alone," Keiy said. 

"Nope! You need my expert guidance on well-based gun retrieval!" Nexxali chattered. "Very technical process. Requires a Marshal's oversight. Be back in ten minutes!"

The back door slammed behind them, leaving me alone with a distraught dragon girl.

Front mind: Poor dragon is having a rough day.
Back mind: The complications increase. If she blood-binds me, how does that affect my deal with Shady? Wait, do I even have a deal with Shady? Can someone have multiple blood pacts? And what happens when Shady sees me? What if she smells the pact on me? A problem for the future me to deal with, no doubt.

"Want to talk about what’s bothering you?" I asked the sniffing dragon. 

Her tears trailed down her face. Small, sad, blue flowers bloomed across her scales and on the fabric of the seat wherever the tears fell.

"It's not… just," she said quietly.

"What isn't?"

"Any of this. All of it." Her scales gradually shifted to weathered, white driftwood. "The insane lies Nexxali piled up around us. The blood contracts. The conquest. The way my great-grandmother manipulates everyone like pieces on a board. The way I was raised to… like humans just in case we were to run into a human-populated world! None of it is just!"

"Why do you care about justice so much?" I asked. "Such isn't usually high on the conquistador priority list of planetary invaders. Are you that different from your sisters?"

Galateya looked at me with deep violet eyes shifting to green from below. "Doctor Iowsh taught me that my Omnitype, Taniwha, is inherently aligned to justice. It's not just philosophy for me. It's... physical. Biological. When things are unjust, I literally feel it. Like nausea. Like drowning. It doesn’t match the ‘Fear’ waveforms desired by the Wendigos."

“So, you desire Justice like Wendigos desire Fear,” I contemplated. “That does sound like an inconvenient incompatibility.”

"Do you know what it's like being on those damned ships? Every surface is made from the suffering of enslaved species. Every decoration is someone's eternal torment! And I have to pretend it doesn't make me want to tear my own scales off!"

“You're on Earth now so it's all good, right?”

She stood and began pacing, leaving blooming flowers on my floor in her wake between floorboards. "Don’t you get it?! That damned cat dug us all early graves with her stupid mouth! Where the fuck are we gonna find remains of fourty vampire thralls?! And my great-grandmother wants me to blood-bind you into absolute obedience like a thinking piece of meat… which is the OPPOSITE of justice!"

“Surely you can overcome your Omnytype desires?” I asked, thinking of Shady. The Wendigo girl did enjoy scaring me. Jumping at me from behind trees in the dark or emerging from a closet or from under my bed was her favourite type of prank to pull on me. 

“Do you just not give a shit about being magically enslaved?!” the Taniwha barked, “What is wrong with you?! How can you be so calm about this?!”

"What if it wasn't slavery?" I said.

She stopped pacing. "What?"

"The blood contract. What if we made one based on equal cooperation instead of dominance?"

Galateya stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "That's... that's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because blood contracts are inherently hierarchical! The dragon dominates, the kobold serves. That's how they work!"

"Says who?" I asked. "Has anyone actually tried making an equal one?"

"I..." She frowned. "No, but that's because it wouldn't work. There’s a power differential. A dragon and a kobold. Master and servant."

“Uh-huh,” I hummed. “But what if it works?”

“It CANNOT work because that’s not how things…”

“Consider this—You’re on MY Earth now, Galateya,” I channelled the Emperor. “Things here don’t work right. The pradavarian Scrutimancers can’t sniff out your lost Princess and her kobold Emperor no matter how hard they try. Why is that?”

“Too much Linearity,” Galateya said. “Your world’s Aether is too Linear. Plus, I think that… that collective human observation creates a causality field that actively rejects and decays magical frameworks.”

“Exactly,” I said sagely. “So why don’t we make a blood contract where we’re equal… one that we’d both be satisfied with, one that’s one hundred percent just.”

"That's..." Galateya sat back down with a deep sigh. "I've never heard of such a thing. The Binding contract texts are very clear—dragons command, kobolds obey!"

“On other planets,” I insisted. “Not here.”

“And what if you are bound fully, mentally broken into total obedience?” Galateya demanded. “I already hate myself, hate what I have to do! How can I live with myself…”

“Just don’t,” I said.

“Don’t?”

“Don’t hate yourself,” I offered. “Move forward. Do better. Bind us as friends who can build something ‘just’ together. You seem a far better option as planetary Baroness than any of the clueless Frontenachii Commanders who can’t even tell whether Garry Cotter is real.”

"I… I don't even know how blood pacts work exactly," she admitted. "I've never made one. I've actively avoided looking deeper into it because the whole concept disgusts me. Doctor Iowsh described the ritual for me once when I was younger. It was… awful and one sided. Keiy will probably want to supervise me and do the whole hand-cutting thing and display the words for me to say… so I don’t fuck it up. I… I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to bind anyone as a slave, it’s not right, not balanced, not just!”

“So we don’t use the Frontenachii contract wording,” I said. “And we do it while Keiy is away. Like… right now.”

“Now?” She blinked.

“Yes, now,” I said. I walked into the kitchen and returned with a knife. “We might not get another chance. It’s just cutting our hands and saying the right words, right?”

“Yes… but,” Galateya mewled, staring at me with wide eyes as I sliced a number eight into my hand going over the old scar made by Shady.

“Can your great-grandmother or other Wendigos pull answers out of your head with their mental hooks?” I asked.

“If they push very hard… yes,” Galateya replied. “I… I haven’t been trained in mental defences like the Wendigos. I can sorta push them out but I’m not the best at it.”

“You will need to learn how to fully shield your innermost thoughts then,” I said, offering her the knife.

Violet eyes searched mine for a long moment, then she sighed and accepted the knife. She whispered something and the right glove of her hexasuit crawled off her fingers down to her wrist. "This is completely insane. We're about to violate millennia of Frontenachii tradition based on your hunch that your Earth's physics will let us cheat."

"Not cheat," I corrected, watching blood well up in my palm. "Innovate. I’m one hundred percent certain that this will work. Trust me."

She stared at the blade, then at her own white-bark, scaled, exposed hand. "What exactly do we even say?"

Once again, I recalled that summer day with Shady, the words we'd exchanged under the oak tree. "We each declare ourselves equals, bound by blood and soul. No hierarchy. No master and servant. Just... partners."

"Partners." She tested the word like it might bite her. "And you're sure this will satisfy my great-grandmother's requirement?"

"It's still a blood pact." I shrugged. “Your grandmother ain’t gonna come down from orbit to check on us, right? She’s probably going to rely on Keiy and Nexxali to keep us in line, right? That’s why she threatened all of us, not just you.”

“Right.” Galateya took a deep breath. The knife trembled slightly in her grip. "Abyss, I've spent my entire life avoiding this moment. I'm… so not ready.”

37: An Open Concept Circle

“You can do it,” I nodded encouragingly. “It'll be just. Just friends, partners with a mission to bring Justice to humans and Omnids.”

Galateya let out a bitter laugh. "Doctor Iowsh would find this poetically absurd."

She closed her eyes and relaxed and the texture of her scales softened, exposed arm turning… pink and human, claws folding into clear nails.

I looked from her hand up her shifting figure and then at her face. “What the hell… you…”

A very tall human girl with jet black hair and violet eyes stared back at me. “My phase-shift allows me to look like anyone,” she said. “This is… a human version of me, I suppose.”

“Can you become a Wendigo?” I wondered.

“I haven't tried,” she shrugged. “Maybe? It’s hard to shift into a specific thing on your planet due to the Linearity.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and then sliced into her palm, creating the same infinity symbol I'd carved. Her blood was red and human just like mine, but then slowly began to blossom into small, red flowers.

"How do you even know that rune?" she wondered, looking at the symbol on our palms.

"Saw it somewhere," I lied. “Infinity. Sideways eight. Seems like a cool binding pattern, right?”

She didn't look convinced but didn't press further. "What do we say?”

"You go first. Say exactly this…"

I modified Shady’s words in my head, keeping the structure but changing the participants. I quickly typed out the words on my tablet, bleeding over the screen slightly: "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii, claim Ashcroft Julian Clifford as my equal, bound by the power of my fractal engine heart, blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle."

Her dark eyebrows rose at the last part as she read the words on the screen. "What… others?"

"Future-proofing," I said a half-truth, mostly thinking about Shady who will probably chew my face off for making pacts with other Omnid girls. "Just in case we’d want to add more… friends to your power base later, Miss Baroness. Strategic flexibility and whatnot. Maybe we can add Nexy, if she behaves, etcetera. Your grandmother wants you to have lots of kobolds, right?”

“She does. That's pretty… Clever,” Galateya agreed, biting her lip in a far too human gesture.

"Go on,” I encouraged. “Say the words before the gun and cat return.”

Galateya straightened. When she spoke, her voice carried that odd, quirky auto-tune harmonic quality again, multiple tones weaving together. "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii, claim Ashcroft Julian Clifford as my equal, bound by the power of my fractal engine heart, blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle!"

The air seemed to tense around us. She looked at me expectantly.

I cleared my throat. "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Ashcroft Julian Clifford, claim Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii as my equal, bound by the power of her fractal engine heart, by blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle!"

We pressed our palms together.

"In every world," she added breathlessly, squeezing my hand harder, though I hadn't written that part down. I guessed that she must have learned it from somewhere else, possibly from her Thunderbird instructor. "Across eternity."

"In every world," I agreed, squeezing back. "Across eternity."

The effect was immediate and nothing like what happened with Shady. Where that had been warm and tingly, like pins and needles, this was like grabbing a live wire while standing in a puddle of liquid crystals. I felt something fundamental shift, not in my body but in the space around it. The world took on a strange shimmer at the edges of my vision, like looking through water. Violet stars ignited all around me, stretching far, far past the walls of the Clifford estate.

The dragon girl underwent a bewildering shift, waves of textures running across her hand, face and hair. She stared at me with wide eyes, mouth open in an O.

The back door burst open.

I blinked and the eerie, violet, infinite stars were gone. Galateya’s glove rapidly crawled back on her hand. She shifted fully back into her dragon self, her snout lengthening, orange-red, semi-transparent, crystalline flowers blossoming from her hair.

Nexxali strutted in, her sidearm dripping well water and pond scum. Behind her, Keiy skittered along, also dripping and covered in random well detritus.

"My gun is retrieved!" Nexxali announced, waving her weapon at me.

"Also, there was no vampire in the well,” Keiy noted.

"Alas, Wellington got away," Nexxali said with half-assed conviction.

Keiy's trio of red eyes swiveled toward me, then focused on my hand. A red ray of light flashed out, scanning my bloody, closed fist. The beam swept up my arm, across my chest, then over Galateya.

The gun went very still and then bounced happily on all six legs.

"My congratulations, Galateya!" Keiy bobbed with a tone of pride in her mechanical voice. "You've successfully bound your first kobold. The pact Astral signature is deep and unmistakable." A pause. "Though I am disappointed I didn't get to participate as a witness of the ceremony. I had prepared seventeen different binding recitations sorted by formality level! I do hope that you will invite me to your next kobold consort binding ritual as your trusted bridesmaid symbiote.”

The countdown timer on Keiy's head flashed with [00:00:00] and then exploded into an animated display of colorful fireworks. Little holographic sparkles cascaded around the spider-gun's form like celebratory confetti.

"Achievement unlocked," Keiy added dryly. "First kobold acquired. Legate Ixthia is very pleased with your rapid progress and sends her best wishes to enjoy your human consort to the fullest tonight."

Nexxali's golden eyes darted between Galateya and me with the expression of someone who'd just watched their winning lottery ticket get eaten by a goat.

"You... two actually did it? Seriously?" She stepped closer, sniffing the air. "Already? While we were fishing for guns?"

"We… managed," Galateya said shyly, trying to sound casual while pink flowers continued to bloom in her crystalline hair.

The Serval looked distraught. She turned to me with a betrayed look. "Ash! I marketed you to the Frontenachii as a hero! I made you my friend! Is this how you repay me?"

"Deal with it," I said, feeling exhausted by the entire situation and the future problems it was going to cause. "I'ma go wrap this up before I bleed all over my floor."

I headed toward the kitchen, leaving the three aliens to process things. 

I rummaged through the kitchen drawers until I found the ancient first aid kit Grandpa had kept stocked. The gauze was yellowed with age but still sterile in its packaging. 

“I thought that you were cool, but you’re just like the others!” Nexxali loudly growled at Galateya. I heard her claws clattering across the floor as she appeared at my side.

“Yes?” I asked.

Nexxali caught my wrist before I could reach for the gauze. "Hold still, dummy."

Without warning, she brought my bleeding palm to her mouth and began licking the wound. Her rough, wet, sandpapery tongue scraped across the cuts, making me wince.

"What are you—" I hissed.

"Pradavarian saliva is antibacterial and antiviral," she muttered between licks. "Speeds up healing. Standard field medicine." 

She grabbed the gauze from the counter with her free hand and began to wrap my palm. The movements were quick and steady, almost aggressive.

"I'm disappointed in you," she grumbled. "Thought you were smarter than this. Becoming a kobold without leverage? You just... handed yourself over to that dragon girl like a complete knob? Just because she’s… inexperienced and probably won't boss you around too badly, it doesn’t mean that…"

“Who do you take me for?” I leaned closer, lowering my voice. 

“A dumb human who…” she began and then fell silent as she observed my smug grin. “What did you do?”

"What if I told you I could make a blood contract with you too?" I offered.

Nexxali's hands froze mid-wrap. Her ears tilted back. "What?"

"If you behave," I continued quietly, glancing toward the living room where Galateya and Keiy were having a discussion about hoards or something. "My contract with Galateya is... open-ended."

"Open-ended?" Her whiskers and ears twitched, eyes blooming wide. "What? How?! That's not... I've never heard of..." Feeline eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Blood contracts don't work like that. They're exclusive. One dragon, many kobolds. That's the whole point of… inescapable servitude and empowering your owner."

“Not servitude,” I said. “Friendship.”

She stared at me for a minute, then let out a low whistle. "You clever, clever human." Her tail swished upright as she resumed wrapping my hand, this time with gentler movements. "You actually convinced that clueless dragon girl to modify the binding terms?"

"Maybe."

"Does she understand?" Nexxali asked, tying off the bandage with a neat knot.

"Understand what?" I asked innocently.

"That you've left the door open for... additions to your little partnership."

"Obviously. The words were very specific about 'others joining our circle,'" I said. "She agreed to them."

Nexxali's grin returned. "Oh, you devious little primitive. Playing multiple angles like a Highborn Frontenachii courtier." She patted my bandaged hand. "Fine. I'll be nice. For now. But only because I'm curious like a cat to see how spectacularly this mess progresses into an even bigger… mess."

"Such confidence in my plans."

"What plans?" She snorted. "You're totally making this up as you go. I can smell the panicked sweat under all that false bravado."

I shrugged. She wasn't wrong, but I wasn't about to admit it to her.

. . .

"We should head into town," I announced, grabbing my car keys. "Grocery store first, then that bookstore café as I promised Galya."

"I'm not sitting in the back," Nexxali declared immediately.

"You are," Galateya stated. "I'm his… uhhh… employer now. I get the front seat… next to my… consort."

Nexxali made a bothered-cat noise.

“Also, I need the front seat because I'm taller," the dragon insisted.

"That's heightist discrimination!" Nexxali protested. “I’m your superior! I demand the front seat!”

Five minutes of arguing later, and getting Nexxali, me and Galateya extra Voicecast rings from the Corpse Seeker, we'd all piled into the Cherokee. 

Galateya had won the front seat through sheer draconic stubbornness. Nexxali sprawled across the entire back seat, deliberately taking up as much space as possible while Keiy perched on the rear window ledge like the world's most dangerous bobblehead, sticking her head out the window.

"This vehicle is incredibly primitive," the gun observed as I turned the ignition. "No dragonheart fusion core, no gravitic stabilizers, not even basic ward shield generators."

"It has cup holders," I pointed out, pulling onto the main road. "And fuzzy dice."

"The dice serve no functional purpose," Keiy said.

"They're lucky," I explained.

"Luck without wards is not a quantifiable—"

"Keiy, shut up and enjoy the ride," Nexxali interrupted.

Galateya watched the forest blur past. "Your Earth has so many trees."

"What did you expect?" I asked.

"I don't know." She touched the window glass. "My entire life was five rooms. The bubble's arboretum had about hundred plants, engineered to maximize oxygen and magic production. These..." she gestured at the endless forest, "there must be millions."

"Billions," I corrected. "You never left the time bubble?"

"Not until recently… when the Scruts discovered that Princess Aquillianne’s trail led to a new, un-administered human world. I inhabited five rooms for twenty subjective years. The classroom, the dormitory, the training hall, the cafeteria, and the arboretum." Her voice became bitter. "My prad instructors and caretakers made sure I understood how privileged I was to have my own nook with a door within the dormitory."

"How were your instructors?"

Her scales flickered to defensive grays. "Three Pradavarian wolves. Veterans who'd died so many times they barely remembered their original worlds. They were... efficient educators."

"Efficient?"

"They believed in corporal punishment. Every mistake earned a reinforced wooden sword strike. Every question they deemed stupid earned two." She absently rubbed her arm. "Commander Vossir was the worst. She'd lost most of her memories to repeated resurrections, but she remembered how to hurt without leaving permanent damage."

"That sounds like abuse."

"Just… Frontenachii education," she said flatly. "Though I suspect they might have been harder on me because I wasn't a pure Wendigo. My Taniwha traits made me 'soft,' they often said. Too concerned with fairness."

The Cascade town sign appeared ahead. Population: 1,447. Though, after the invasion, who knew how accurate that was anymore.

"Yumland Groceries first," I announced, pulling into the parking lot. 

"Alright," I turned to face everyone. "Nexxali, Keiy—you two are on grocery duty. Get enough food for everyone for a week."

"Why do we have to shop?" Nexxali whined.

"Because Galateya and I have a date," I said. "As commanded by her great-grandmother. Right Keiy?"

“Correct,” the gun bobbed. “The Legate expects me to send her relationship progress updates.”

"It's not a date," Galateya protested, white scales flushing with pink moss.