Wilds Born

There's the clause and here's a bit of the violence as well. Well, not just a bit. What I like about this world is that if something like this happens, something like what happens afterward happens and I don't have to sit there for hours wondering what the heck I'm going to do about this.

Besides possibly a bad bad thing that isn't illegal because the guy technically doesn't exist.

This chapter also introduces a new character, one who will be there almost constantly through the story. I was trying to include a strong female in there. A strong female who had more than a few chapters and who was actually part of the plot. Sometimes she's impatient or a bit snappy but that could be chalked up to her age (she is, infact, four years younger than El)

The most difficult part I had about this story was the names. Of. The three main characters only. Not of anyoen else, just them. Which was annoying and actually stopped my writing for a few hours as I tried to figure it out. This chapter names the other two and I was off like a rocket.

I really don't like this chapter, but apparently this is what happens when you call your magical inheritance a piece of tin.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




Four years passed and for four years he stumbled about learning the ring’s ins and outs. Or, at least tried to. He knew that there were supposed to be vibrations and, as time went on, words, but it was like feeling in the dark for a single grain of sand on a beach. He and the ring were not cleanly meshed, he realised quickly. The great-elder hadn’t heard words after four years, it was all unconsciously done. He had to think very hard about something to come to the conclusion because his own walls kept him and the ring separated.

Father and mother gathered the elders on the first day of his twentieth year and chose a name for him. Nu. He was the last of his age group to receive a name and thus he had learned his duties while being called bearer of the ring, ring bearer, ring keeper and a number of other nicknames.

Most were reluctant to accept him as the ring bearer and Syano didn’t accept him at all. The big male made every effort to make Nu’s life miserable as he could. Nothing and no one, not even Nu’s older sister, who became mated to Syano, could change the male’s mind. Having lost the position of ring bearer, Syano was aiming to take father’s position as tribe leader.

Nu didn’t want Syano to become leader, the only thing keeping him safe from Syano was father and mother’s positions in the tribe and mother was already training her replacement. The quiet eyed girl who would be the tribe’s next power healer hadn’t the backbone to stand up against Syano. Father wouldn’t have the strength to keep Syano in place much longer.

Then father ‘fell’ out of the tree and broke his hip, wouldn’t be able to move for several months and then mother wasn’t certain how well he would be.

Nu went down to the river side to think. He sat there, cross legged, and looked out over the river, wondering what he should do. The tribe needed a new leader and the elders seemed to be watching him more and more, to see who he spoke to, who interacted with him. But no one in the tribe could take on Syano the way father could. It seemed that Syano was destined to be the new leader, whether he was a good man or not.

Though others didn’t seem to notice so much that Syano wasn’t very nice or good. Most of them seemed too intimidated by Syano, who made every effort to be the top dog. The elders were distracted by their own mortality, that was the problem.

Nu huffed and held his hand up in front of his face, looking down at the ring, “look. You’re supposed to help me! Find me a leader who is strong and courageous and righteous, one like father, who can rule with a steady hand. Bet you can’t do that. There’s not a single male, across the entire forest or in civilization like father. Useless piece of tin.” He dropped his hand into his lap even as he recalled something great-elder often said about being careful what one wished for. This wasn’t the same thing though, was it?

A leader, they needed a leader. Someone who could bring Syano to his knees and force him into submission. The other tribes, otter and snake, didn’t have strong males to spare and neither had females to spare at all.

Civilization.

Nu stood and turned towards the north, to where he knew civilization was. That was where he had to go, civilization had millions of people. Surely amongst them someone would be capable of leading the tribe. But how would he get there? Nu sighed and shook his head, it was a stupid idea. Going into civilization meant that one needed an identification card and money, they had to know the mannerisms of the people and the current fashions. He would have to read, he realised with a grimace. Something that he was not good at, not by far.

In fact, reading was where he failed. All the letters scrambled about on him.

There was no way that he could infiltrate civilization. He just wasn’t that good and that would require leaving mother and father alone in the tribe, by themselves. Who could possibly stand against Syano then? Who would keep Syano from doing something to hurt father or take father out of the picture entirely?

Nu growled out his frustration and turned back to the water. That was when he noticed the changes in the land around him. Water, running by him, moved differently than it had before. The air tasted of orange and rage wafted through the air. Rage, that he understood. With a twitch, Nu ducked, twisted and slammed his fist into Syano’s gut. His closed fist hit a solid wall of muscle. One should never strike another with a closed fist. Vibrations shook up his arm and his hand hurt like he had just hit solid stone but it paused Syano for just a moment and gave Nu time to shift backwards and away from the second strike.

Syano collected himself quickly and launched himself on Nu, who struggled against the larger male. He was smaller, he had less muscle, but he knew how a body worked. Nu managed to shift and use Syano’s weight against him, rolling atop the larger male for a moment before he launched himself away. Striking the ground a little ways away, Nu grabbed hold of a stone and threw it at Syano’s head. The stone struck solidly and bounced away, as if Syano’s head was made of rock.

Wouldn’t really surprise Nu, given the stubbornness Syano was known for.

The larger male growled and rushed towards him. Nu tried to leap up and over but his legs weren’t working properly. Or he simply didn’t jump high enough. Syano caught his ankle and spun, slamming the smaller male into the shoreline between river and land. The breath rushed out of Nu’s chest and he felt a terrible burning sensation. He couldn’t catch his breath and with frightened horror, he realised why. The bones in his chest had broken. Breath, breath, just get whatever amount of air into his chest that he could and survive this.

If he was cleanly meshed to the ring, this couldn’t happen, but he wasn’t, he and the ring were still two separate entities. This left Nu struggling against a physical form and battering weakly at the mental stability of Syano. He got no where in either area. Syano’s mind was locked down and the simple attempt to lock himself away kept Nu out of Syano’s mind. His fingers were tingling and his arms heavy. As he struggled, Syano beat him about the arms and torso, catching him upside the head a few times but still he fought on.

It wasn’t that he was weak, it was just that Syano was stronger. And had a head made out of rock.

Somehow, some point, Nu managed to catch Syano off guard, he wasn’t even paying attention any longer, he couldn’t keep facts straight. All he knew was that suddenly he was up and hobbling away from Syano. The edges of his vision were dark and he couldn’t seem to feel anything at all. Which was why, when the world tilted sideways suddenly, he didn’t understand what was going on. Not until he hit the water and he caught a startled thought.

Syano had tackled him and the pair of them had fallen in the river. This was Nu’s strong point. Like a fish, he was, turning expertly and using the water to help his broken body move. He planted a foot in Syano’s chest and kicked the male towards a rock that he knew was there. One that he had struck many times himself. The moment Syano hit the rock, the male’s mind opened with a pop. Nu couldn’t find a vicious thought in his own mind, all he could do to Syano was pour fear and anxiety into the larger male and hope that it weakened his boundaries and his resolve.

Nu turned to swim back to the shore and made a mistake, a terrible mistake. He hit the strongest part of the current, because he was disoriented and weakened, he couldn’t fight it’s tug. The water dragged him further under and tumbled him down river. God knew how far he was dragged before he managed to break the surface and drag in a painful, tearing breath before he was pulled under once more. By the time he broke the surface again, he was in unknown territory. Tame land, barely, he made his way to the shore and coughed, crying as he did so at the pain. Dragging himself onto the shore, Nu collapsed, whining loudly at the grinding in his chest, where broken bone was rubbing against broken bone.

He was pretty certain that the fact that his bones were grinding against one another, was a really bad thing. Especially when they were the bones in his-

“MOTHER!”

Nu choked up blood when he heard the thump and the voice, cutting across the sounds of the forest. The pounding footsteps towards him were of one person, male, huge. As big as father. The creature bent over him, filling his nose with the smell of metal. Bright eyes looked over him, a hand laid gently on his shoulder and concern, genuine concern.

“MOTHER!” the voice snapped out as Nu’s heart began beating erratically.

The ring, the ring had to be passed on. Nu pushed his hand against the male’s knee. He had to pass on the ring to someone before he.

“I’m right, here, what made you run off so… dear God in heaven,” the female voice dropped off so quickly that Nu tried to move, to see if she had fainted. The bright eyed male held him in place, murmuring something to him as the female beeped and then said, “airlift, south, south-west five clicks. Immediate medical aid needed. Wilds male of unknown origins.” the female beeped again, then said, “what are you doing just standing there, issue the needle.”

“But-”

“Do it.” in a very firm tone. The female stood over Nu and growled at bright eyes, “he’s suffering and you’re afraid to administer a needle. If you weren’t my own son, I’d call you daft.”

Nu winced as something slammed into his shoulder. Pain, agonizing pain and as quickly as it came, it was gone and tingling release was oozing through his body. No more pain.

He was dimly aware as bright eyes and the female rolled him, as they touched him and poked him, finding his wounds. He watched dizzily as a giant, stiff looking bird came floating down and people came running out of it. People came out of a bird. How strange.

He tried to bat them away when they touched him, when they lifted him and set him on a something and then lifted him off of the ground. These strangers, these bird people, carried him into their bird. Everything inside smelled heavily of metals and like the adults and elders. He felt the hollow bird creature lift and rise. Nothing could keep his attention long. He caught bits of conversation and the motions they made over him. He noticed the beeping of something in the background and the way bright eyes held his hand the entire time, no matter what anyone else was doing. Bright eyes, father had taught him the old words, he knew what bright eyes was.

“Elsya.”

Nu faded from existence, certain that this was the end of him.

***

“Why am I going?” cousin snapped.

El shook his head as cousin’s sister shifted her weight and pinned her sibling with a look, “shut. Up. And piss off you haughty little bitch.”

El was liking cousin’s sister more and more. The sister was what was deemed a broken embryo, she had been tampered with invitro and had been born as a set of twins. She hadn’t been expected to survive, but it was her womb sibling that had died instead. Four years younger than cousin, she hadn’t been introduced to the world until three days after cousin had put herself in El’s bed last.

Right about the time mother tore cousin’s throat out. Cousin was just cousin, or sister in some cases, but cousin’s sister was, “fuck you, Yao, you stupid bitch.”

“Bring it, whore, I can take you any day,” Yao snapped back as mother slid off her headset and finished giving orders to the flight crew.

“Language,” she said dimly, checking her gloves, “today we are going to be exploring a new region of the wilds. Looking for any new plant or animal that we can. Insect even. Our busy period begins in six days, when we begin harvesting the Toleran females, but we still need to collect during busy times to make up for the lack of income during the ten year lulls between generations. El, watch Yao’s back. Yao, watch your sister.

“This is the wilds, children.”

“Mother-”

“El.”

“Mother.”

“No matter how much it calls to you-”

“You’ve told me a hundred times, I’m not just going to go running off into the wilds,” El protested, “besides, that’s why I’ve got that tracking device in my heel, isn’t it?”

“Check your equipment, each of you has a quick medi-pack as well as two needles. One will paralyze whoever is struck by it, the other will kill a big beast. If you are bitten by a trapdoor spider you have ten seconds to take the green tabs attached to your glove. If you lose this tab, you will die. The neck brace will keep you alive, stop,” mother looked at cousin, “fiddling. With. It.”

“Why do I have to go?” cousin growled.

“Because, I hate you,” mother responded coldly.

“Not my fault he’s a bastard,” cousin responded.

“Maybe if your father hadn’t learned about your sexcapades, he wouldn’t have been so eager to let me take you into the wilds,” mother said very quickly, “Yao, we need your sister alive. Let’s show your father that you are more capable than she is, shall we?”

“How dare you, I am right here!”

Yao rolled her eyes and her head towards her sister, “you crossed a line when you crawled into cousin’s bed naked. Then called him a bastard just because he’s gay and turned you down. Whiner.” she looked at mother, “I love how I can call her whatever I want when father isn’t around and there’s not a thing she can do about it!”

“There is a certain satisfaction one extracts by having someone very firmly by the balls,” mother murmured, walking up to the door of the transport, “the medi-vac will be within range at all times, all we need to do is call and it will be to us within three minutes.

“All we are going to do is take a little walk.”

El looked at Yao and spotted three canisters on her arm. Basically, Yao had three needles, “why does she have three needles.”

“One’s for you, if you go wild on us,” mother responded calmly, “I’m not quite ready to lose my son to the wilds. You’ll have to excuse an old woman’s desperation.”

“You aren’t that old.” El muttered.

“Hundred and eleven, even in my youth, that was old,” mother muttered, “Yao?”

Yao was dressed head to foot in a skin tight plexi-metallic suit. Form fitting and once size fits all. Up the sides were pockets and on her hip was a taser that would bring down a silver backed gorilla. Against her back hip was her medi-pack. Yao was six foot five with brown hair, brown eyes and a nasty disposition towards what she called ‘stupid people.’

Included in that category was her own sister. Who was almost a mirror image of Yao, but with vivid orange eyes with pupils like a cat’s and spiky orange hair. Cousin was thinner and larger in the chest. Thanks to plastic surgery.

Which El didn’t understand, as cousin was gifted with a large chest via genetic manipulation, thus why would she need to boost her size after birth?

Mother had cropped her hair, an younger look for the matriarch of the Gomesh family despite the gray hairs that were showing through the tight crop. Like most genetics, mother was showing off her gray hair instead of trying to hide it as most commoners did. Gray hair, mother said, was a badge of honour, it meant that she was getting older and that soon, someone else would be caring for her.

“Three, two. One,” mother pressed a button beside the door and it whooshed open. Cool air filled the cabin of the air lift immediately, “step carefully, come on. We’ll walk to the river and back.”

Mother stepped off, then cousin, then Yao. El waited a moment before he stepped off the transport. On the ground, out in the wilds. No temptation to run, not that he had anywhere to run to anyhow. He felt like moving about, like using the area he had to stretch his muscles. But being outside always made him feel like that. Mother glanced at him before motioning with her head and leading the way down a path.

Yes, mother was taking them down a path. As in a trail through the forest that Gomesh employees had already cleared of animals and debris.

“Which river are we travelling to?” Yao asked, “three rivers cut through this section of the wilds.”

“Tayang,” Mother called over her shoulder, “Showlt is that way,” when mother pointed, El directed his attention towards the river in question. Showlt was the river the Ishteshtin had claimed the entire length of. No one was allowed in or out of the Showlt area without express permission or in case of high classed emergencies, “Louw is that way,” she pointed in the opposite direction, “the Tayang is the river that Gomesh does most of its work on. Louw belongs to the Toleran family and Showlt to the Ishteshtin.”

He cocked his head and caught an echo off a tree.

Like a gasp.

Shaking his head, El followed his mother for some ways, trying to ignore the annoying grinding sound he seemed to be hearing. No matter which way he turned his head, he still heard it.

Then he heard the whimper.

El stopped dead in his tracks and turned this way and that until he heard the whining sound. Young male in pain. He did a quick review of creatures in this area of the wilds before he realised that none of them could imitate the sounds people made.

He bolted towards the sound, towards Showlt river. Behind him the women called out, wondering what was going on, wondering why he bolted. He felt the breeze of something past him and heard the thump.

Yao really needed to work on her aim.

Breaking through the forest and bushes, El stopped at the edge of the tame land and looked down towards the river. At the edge was a person, washed up on the shore with blood all around them and bones sticking out of their chest. Bare on top, deer hide pants on bottom. Male, El decided quickly, about the moment that he decided the male was still alive.

“MOTHER,” he bellowed behind him before he rushed to the male’s side.

Dropping to his knees, he laid a hand on the male’s shoulder, not certain that the poor thing was still alive. The stranger had taken quite a beating. Face black and blue, a tear in the side of his mouth and scratches, bruises and abrasions down his sides. Bone stuck out at odd angles, rib bones that shouldn’t have been shaped like that. Blood oozed from the male’s mouth.

The heart beat once, twice, then fluttered away.

“MOTHER!” he could hear her running towards him but she wasn’t moving fast enough. The stranger was pushing his hand against El’s leg as if pushing him away. El ignored it, but noted the odd ring there, on the middle finger of the right hand. Six pointed stars, he didn’t have to count to know that there would be six of them.

The mark of the Ishteshtin tenth generation.

“Why are you yelling-” Yao broke through the forest first and skidded to a halt, her entire face went white and she instinctually raised her communication device.

Mother came out of the forest a moment later, “I’m right, here, what made you run off so… dear God in heaven,” she brought up her communication device and hit the button, running on more than instinct and adrenaline, she knew what to do, “airlift, south, south-west five clicks. Immediate medical aid needed. Wilds male of unknown origins.” shutting off the device, mother glared at him, “what are you doing just standing there, issue the needle.”

“But-”

“Do it.” she came to stand over the little male and pulled her own needle off her arm, “he’s suffering and you’re afraid to administer a needle. If you weren’t my own son, I’d call you daft.”

Mother slammed the needle cartridge into the male’s shoulder, causing him to spasm. With a weak little groan, the male’s head fell to the beach. El was furious with mother, gave him trouble for allowing pain to happen when she went and did that. She flicked the cartridge at him and it hit the beach and rolled, stopping at his knee.

Nanotechnology, a new invention, something mother had created, that could be applied to near death causalities to keep them alive long enough to get them to a hospital. Getting the little creatures/robots to do anything besides put the body in a type of stasis was difficult. Such experiments often ended with something being splattered or turned to goo.

“Roll him,” mother said calmly, taking a hold of the male’s head, a hand on either side.

El rolled the body and tried not to think about the dead sort of way that the arms flopped about. Arms bruised and scratched up but the torso had been the goal of whoever had done this to him. Which meant that this was not an animal attack, animals didn’t care what part of the body they caught. A person did this to him. A more dominant male? Were there random acts of crime in the wilds?

El took the male’s right hand in his own and kept a hold of it. He knew that if he had been beaten and found by strange people, he would want comfort and so he offered what he could. The male didn’t respond to him, his eyes flickered back and forth as if he were dreaming, completely in another world. Maybe he wasn’t in another world though, maybe the male could feel his hand and could understand what it meant. So El tightened his grip on that little hand.

The medi-vac landed and out milled trained Gomesh Genetics workers with a stretcher. One of them looked surprised but immediately masked his surprise with cold professionalism as he and his companions lifted the male and set him gently onto the stretcher. All the while growling at El because he still refused to let the little male’s hand go.

Once inside the medi-vac the medical crew went to work. Mother left, stating that she had to collect Yao and cousin and that she would follow them along shortly. As the craft lifted off the ground the male gurgled blood up, hadn’t the energy to cough or turn his head. El had to point it out to the crew before they grabbed a suction tool.

There in the little space, the crew began setting bones and washing the male’s wounds. This was not the first time they had found someone in such a terrible condition and they knew what to do. The male’s chest was covered with a plexi-cast, a spray on thing that would prevent the male from moving while applying enough pressure that the bones would set and heal properly. Ankle wrapped, left hand scanned for broken bones. Had chipped a bone, they found but there was little they could do for that without opening up the hand.

“Looks like he hit a rock with a closed fist,” one of them muttered.

“What, a soft rock? There’s no abrasions on his knuckles and if he struck an actual rock, his hand would be shattered,” another retorted as they all settled back, having done all they could on the medi-vac.

“Elsya,” the male sighed out, head rolling back and eyes closing finally.

El instinctually looked up at the heart monitor, but it kept beeping away at regular intervals. The little male was simply unconscious. The medical assistant who was sitting under the heart rate monitor, however, was awake and well and thought El was looking at him.

“It means bright eyes,” the medical officer said.

“What?”

“What he said, it means bright eyes. Your eyes have gone from the deep forest to new leaf again, sir.”

El blinked. Like cousin’s glowing, his eyes changed in times of stress and high emotion. Most of the time no one could tell the difference but then, most of Gomesh Genetics had known him as a child and knew about the changes that his body could make.

He directed his attention to the little male and tried to focus on what he knew.

The male was six feet even with dark brown hair and blue eyes the colour of the sky. He had been apparently beaten around the torso. When El asked, he was told the type of force that would be needed to do that kind of damage. Either someone had beat him with something, or someone larger than him had decided to use him as a punching bag. Given the fist shaped bruising on his arms, El decided that it had been a larger male.

This wasn’t a show of dominance. This was attempted murder. Never had El wanted to beat someone into the ground. Beat something, throw a tantrum, certainly, but he had never wanted to direct that kind of rage towards a living being. And he, at least he considered, had serious mood problems.

Murder for what?

El turned the male’s hand over in his own and his eyes fell to the ring on the right, middle finger. Six, six pointed stars. When he pulled on the ring it didn’t budge, wouldn’t even turn on the male’s finger. For this, the male was attacked, but it wasn’t moving as it was, how had the attacker planned on taking it from the male?

The medi-vac settled to the ground and the door popped open. Off the medical crew went, leaving him behind in the medi-vac. He knew better than to try to follow the male and the medical crew into the infirmary of the Gomesh Genetics Company. Mother would have a field day if he tried that.

But he still wanted to.

As he stood outside the infirmary entrance, the medi-vac lifted and flew off and the airlift landed. His mother and Yao stepped off immediately, followed a moment later by a glaring cousin. Mother and Yao stopped in front of him, both looking to the infirmary door before turning to him for information.

“He is alive but unconscious. Shattered ribs and bruising up and down him. He was beaten with fist and hand, hard enough to break ribs and skin. Whoever did it avoided head blows and didn’t bother with kicking. This wasn’t about dominance, this was the satisfaction of feeling flesh break under you,” El paused as Yao went a funny colour, “male, his heart was beating, amazingly. Breathing. They put him a plexi-cast in the medi-vac.

“Mother, I. I think he’s Ishteshtin. He had a ring on his finger, six, six pointed stars. The ring wouldn’t budge on his finger.”

Mother’s eyes went wide, “wouldn’t budge,” she quickly got control of herself, “poor thing probably swelled up.”

“It fits him perfectly, but wouldn’t move, not even to turn on his finger.”

El watched as his mother’s jaw clenched the woman was silent a long moment, “Yao, go in and order a genetic make up.”

“But if he’s Ishteshtin-”

“Go.”

Mother waited until Yao was gone before she cleared her throat and waited patiently for El to ask, “what’s going on?”

“If you are correct, then the male is of the dog tribe, who reside on Ishteshtin land. This tribe had a young man…” she sighed, “not young, he was the same age as myself. He had a ring and this ring was magical, made of star metal.”

“That ring?” everyone learned about the ring, about how some courier ‘lost’ it down a storm drain and it hadn’t been found since. The government always investigated every claim of the ring’s presence while the Ishteshtin always protested that there was no sense in looking for something that fell down a drain a hundred years previous.

“Yes, this one stole the ring at the urging of a powerful user. Both thief and user went into the wilds, escaped as the government attacked and the civil up rising began. Power users are now shot on sight, pure breeds were destroyed and the Ishteshtin line went nearly bankrupt.”

“I know what happened.” the Toleran line attacked the government back as viciously as the government attacked the innocents and were thusly fined to the point where they had informed the government that if the money was so desired, the government should come remove it from their cold dead fingers.

Power users killed any of their own who turned to helping the government and the government killed all power users found, on sight. No one worked for the government any more and the governing body had ruled for ninety years. Their newest generation wasn’t genetically altered even, because the government didn’t trust their children to the genetic companies.

In the defence of the government, the genetic companies would fuck those kids up. It was one of the few times that the genetic companies, the people and the genetics themselves were on the same team. No one wanted the government to rule, not really, not with their expanding numbers. In a generation or so the government would have enough of a population to have a large standing army and word was, they were planning something big.

The genetics chose not to remove the government because they didn’t want to rule. The tweakers were about the same, though they were all for destroying the governing body, if only they had someone else to run all the bureaucratic stuff. The commoners couldn’t run the government by themselves. And the genetic companies…

… they made too much money off the war to officially take a side besides to state that the government was full of douche bags.

“He doesn’t know, we don’t know what he knows, or if he is supposed to have the ring, he could have stolen it. According to what we got out of Erpof, before the government murdered him and his family and then burned his home to the ground, the ring cannot be taken until the previous wearer dies. The thief would be an old man by now. He was not a whole alteration, he needed the amniotic age defiers, the same as the rest of the tenth generation. Most of the tenth generation, and some few like myself, received an odd sequence of genes, taken from what was thought, at the time, to be a plant.

“Turns out it was from a behemoth. The genes weren’t supposed to make it to the genetics, just to the tweakers. These genes, mixed with a specific amniotic fluid can prolong life nearly indefinitely. From that discovery we found the amniotic fluid of the behemoth, recreated from the original genes, can prolong the life of commoners.

“Our lives will be nearly endless but there was one,” she held up her finger, “who did not get the gene amongst the Ishteshtin line. The Maknan Genetics tweaker, using the genes of two volunteers from the Ishteshtin line, they combined the genetic material and created a child given biological standards that were projected for the tenth generation commoners.”

Cold settled into El’s very bones, “I thought that experiment was a complete failure. The subject-”

“Withdrew from society, couldn’t communicate properly and then vanished into the wilds. He was a failure because of the upheaval of society. He was the cause of the upheaval of society and the holder of the ring. He was the one who brought down the Meita family and brought up the Tolerans.

“They call him a failure like they would call you a failure. Shin was not a failure, he showed us what would happen if we simply allow the commoners to become as they would become. The genetics learned a valuable lesson and have laid plans out but Maknan Genetics refuses to admit that their tweaker meant anything.”

“Who is Meknan? Shalashta-”

“Meknan became Shalashta when the Meknan family sold their research. That’s what happens when you reach my age. I keep calling everyone by old names and terms. I still look at the Ishteshtin head of household sometimes and call him Joral.” mother shook her head slowly, “take the genetic sample they’ve processed and analyse it. I want no one else looking at it. He looks like someone I once knew. I have a suspicion. Route out his maternal and paternal genetic material. And his immunity. Flash through any allergies. After the allergies, comb through.

“What you can read about him will be in his genes. When he meets you, he will very likely read your body language and know it all. Learn him inside and out. Treat him the way you would want to be treated. The way you feel are your instincts, he has very likely been brought up in a world where his instincts were catered to.”

They were quiet for a moment before he piped up, “don’t leave him alone.”

“What?” mother murmured, looking confused.

“Don’t leave him alone. Ever. And don’t let cousin near him.”

Mother smiled just slightly, “of course. I should have known that you would say that. I will lease Yao out for a bit of experimental work, her father will be quite pleased with that. Her or I will be at the male’s side at all times.

“Is there anything else that I should know about him?”

“He called me Elsya.”

“Hmm, an ancient language. Like Ishteshtin, which means anaconda in the ancient language. Just as Toleran means hawk and Gomesh means black death. I don’t quite recall how to translate that, but it could be-”

“Bright eyes.”

“Or a cutsie term about how handsome you are. Something like, sent from God, this one is. Ancient languages are very difficult to translate because of the various meanings. We have read, read and reed, there, their and they’re. Ancient languages had massive amounts of these terms.”

“Since when do you study ancient?”

“Ayah uhayasyo oohwuiou.” she murmured, “those are the words that are said to be inscribed on the inside of the ring, yet no one has so far been successful in translating it.”

.