Safe - EBV3 Excerpt

This one's especially for you Rachel! I've been at a loss lately for finding pieces that I can post on here, because I'm past the sequences where I can really post things for a lot of the characters, but here's a part early in Ki's living with the Everska Sxyarne that is a bit of a very small turning point concerning how he views his new world. Also, this is the first time in a long time that I get to post a scene in its entirety! Hopefully you enjoy.

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It felt like his stomach was boiling, the walls of his stomach oozing with almost painful discomfort. Ki’s feeling of being healthy had evaporated the moment he had fainted and woken up to the smell of blood still heavy on the air. Limp in the mound of blankets with Kelveniska standing over him, Ki had felt well enough at first, considering he had just fainted, only really feeling confused, but as he had remembered why he smelled blood, he had started feeling sick again. The door to the room had clattered open then with such brusqueness that he had jumped, his heart almost stopping and in through the doors had come Sukra and Alkane, covered in scarlet. They had turned to look expectantly at Ki, blood smeared on their bodies so liberally it was as if they had rolled in it, their hands gripping the hilts of swords wet with fresh greasy redness.


Ki had been transfixed. Not even the butcher had ever had that much blood on himself. He certainly hadn’t had it around his mouth, painted on theirs like gross icing. They could have been eating something messy, like stew, but Ki knew, staring at them, that they hadn’t been, the arterial stench of them making them look even more like murderers. He had never seen anything so grotesque or terror-inducing. Thick in his mind like the smell of the blood was the thought that the two drakoon had just killed somebody and from their slight smiles, they had liked it.

He had been unable to stop staring at them, his body beginning to shake, the world seeming to move around him more slowly than usual and in silence. He had a vague idea that Kelveniska had started yelling at the guard pair, that he was telling them off for something, but he could not hear anything, his ears ringing. Sukra and Alkane had looked startled, then almost insulted and they had walked off into the privy, miffed but they had moved slowly, so slowly that they almost stood still. Their departure had not helped Ki. He was still frozen, the blood smell bitter on his tongue. He could taste the blood. Instinctually he recognized the wretched smell of demise. Kelveniska had crouched down to watch him, blocking Ki’s view, but the sight of the two men covered in blood had already been embroidered into his memories. Shivering, Ki had scrambled up to Kelveniska like a terrified baby puppy and the drakoon had let him, holding him close until the blood smell had started to go away. Feeling weak, Ki had leaned up against the man until he had fallen asleep and he had awoken with the drakoon still watching over him.

Almost, he had been okay, huddled under several blankets and a mat like he was still five but something had felt wrong with his stomach. Kelveniska, noticing that he was awake had made to touch him and Ki had abruptly found himself facing the personal reality that he was not human. Hunter probably would have felt okay after a bit of sleep after smelling and seeing what Ki had seen, because Hunter just adapted to those sorts of things. Hunter had always been easygoing and positive. He would have tried to figure out the reason why the drakoon had been killed in the night and wouldn’t agonized like Ki on the point that it was dead, that Sukra and Alkane had killed it. Hunter would have agreed that it was bad that it had been killed, but maybe it had been done for a reason, maybe in defence?

Ki didn’t think like that, though for a long time he had been trained to. Now Ki was afraid, in a place where strangers who were killers lived and he was trapped with them as his cavalier neighbours. As Kelveniska reached for him, Ki shrank back, becoming as-dragon without even electing it and hissed, curling under a ball in his den of blankets. He forgot reason. The scared little animal that had always been inside of him was instructing him to hide away from the predators of his world. Other drakoon, specifically older ones were his mortal enemies. His panicked mind told him that he was in grave danger.


Hours passed, then two days and Ki remained perpetually terrified. Every move, sound and smell made his heart race. Kelveniska kept whispering to him, trying to reassure him, but Ki had not been rational enough to believe him even when he had been sane. Ki trembled constantly in his blanket den, eyes wide, heart hammering against his ribs. His stomach felt like it was twisting inside of him he was so sick with fear. Kelveniska offered Ki food again and again, but the smell of it was too alike to blood and Ki was too nauseous let alone mistrusting to take it. He growled at it and flicked his tail, seeing the meat not as food, but as a predator. He had no interest in food or water, even though his belly was empty and his throat was parched, his body weak. Ki’s muscles ached from being poised so long and at some point his injured hindleg had started bleeding for a while, but he ignored it. His bodily discomfort mattered not when he was so afraid. Everything was a predator, poised to kill him. Ki would not have trusted his own shadow if he had been able to see it. His entire being was focused on avoiding being killed by a predator and in his mind he was cornered. If he moved, if he broke cover, he would die…

Kelveniska laid down on his stomach in front of him and watched him worriedly. The emperor was not doing his paperwork today nor had he done it yesterday, not that Ki remembered what paperwork was. He watched Kelveniska with extreme suspicion, his muscle twitching half into a growl.

“Vininiska. Vininiska qytqe yz.” said the drakoon, but his attempt at easing Ki’s mind was again lost. ‘Qytqe yz - it’s okay’ just sounded like a nonsensical rival noise to Ki and he curled back his lip, voicing a livid threat.

The door opened and Ki smelled Sukra come in, but he did not look. He and Alkane had been banished by Kelveniska for scaring him and he could smell that they were annoyed, which only made him more petrified.

“Kelveniska.” said Sukra in a short voice. “Kelveniska qoai hensimk…”

“Na.” growled Kelveniska, disagreeing with whatever Sukra was saying without looking at him.

“Kelveniska.” snapped Sukra, arguing something. Ki heard his name and the word ‘kinton’ a lot, then Medyq mentioned several times, but he did not register the meaning. Sukra came into his view, a syringe cocked in the drakoon’s hand, its lethal point glistening and Ki remembered Medyq drugging him to transform. That had hurt… Ki slowly and unsteadily got to his paws, shaking off the blankets to free himself, twitching out his lethal tail, watching the syringe from under the bone ridges that scuted out over his eyes. He raised his wings, trying to make himself look bigger and stretched his legs, ignoring the twinge in his sore quarter. He would not be hurt by a syringe again. He would attack first and destroy it. The drakoon stopped arguing and Sukra muttered a pensive warning, pulling from a pouch on his sword belt a coil of leather and chain that Ki’s sharpening brain knew as a lead. Kelveniska got up slowly, staring at Ki.

“Vininiska, hana…” said Sukra, the words sounding like a challenge. Ki bared his teeth and growled louder, his voice a menacing rattle. Sukra’s expression hardened and he seemed to ready himself, the clip of the brutal braided lead in one hand, the end of it and the deadly looking syringe in the other. Sukra might as well of been holding a knife, for how Ki took the sight of it. Kelveniska backed out of the way, back behind Sukra, looking alarmed.

“Qoai Vininiska.” muttered Sukra dankly. Ki shifted his weight, almost kneading the blankets beneath his paws like a cat and then went still. All he could see now was his enemy. Sukra smirked, baring his teeth. “Qoai…”

Ki jumped, snarling as he leapt towards the syringe, jaws wide open, reaching paws hitting Sukra’s arm. Ki swung his head, distracted as he felt Sukra wrap his other arm with the lead around his neck, the adult drakoon growling something in his ear, then he felt the needle point pierce his hide and he thrashed, trying to get away, but he had miscalculated. Ki’s animal mind reeled. He had not thought Sukra would be so fast, faster than him and as his hurt hindquarter gave under his weight, he realized drearily that he had not counted on that either. He should have been panicking, trying to rip into Sukra’s face with his teeth, but the shaft of the syringe’s point was being pushed deeper under his skin and suddenly he was only nervous, the blind panic pushed away then conquered by the new sedative in his blood. Sukra gently put him down on the floor and Ki stood shakily by his leg, staring dazedly at a random crate along the wall, shivering. Sukra held the needle in his neck for a moment longer then pulled it out of Ki’s flesh, putting it away then calling to Kelveniska, who came and hugged Ki tightly about his shoulders.

Overcome, Ki started to whimper as the painful knot in his stomach came undone and unbidden he tried to get as close to Kelveniska as he could, huddling against him. The fear trickled away, the scared animal becoming less scared until it was calm enough to smell the creature holding it and relax. He leaned against Kelveniska until Sukra muttered a suggestion that Kelveniska transform, then the drakoon did, but Ki was not afraid. Kelveniska smelled no different as-dragon or as-elf. He was the same creature. Instinct, strong and undeniable made him scramble close, holding still as the drakoon turned and roughly licked his face. Ki was hardly aware of Sukra bending over his injured leg to look after it. Pinned under one of Kelveniska’s front paws and his wing against the drakoon’s side, Ki started to feel what the drakoon had been insisting that he was.

Safe.