Kanti 2 (Patreon)

Hey guys, I know that I said I was gonna write two scenes and then open this up for brainstorming, but I'll be honest here, I'm having a lot of fun writing these.

What say I write a third one before we start brainstorming?

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Kanti laid on his back, silently stroking Rahua’s head. The cub slept on his chest, making a tiny snoring sound with each breath. Tish laid beside them with an elbow to the foam mat, palm propping up her chin.

“I just don’t understand why you’re being so negative about this, hon,” she whispered.

Kanti gritted his teeth and stared at the darkened ceiling.

“She’s hurting, Kanti. She’s lost everyone, and you have a chance to help.” She reached over and touched his arm. “Isn’t that what you’re always looking for—a way to help, a way to make life better?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to help, Tish,” he sighed. “I know she’s hurting, but I have feelings too. She held me captive for over a year. She used me. She manipulated me by threatening to hurt others. And then when she got fed up with me, she sold me off.”

“She also saved your life,” said Tish. “She’s not devoid of decentness.”

“She did,” he agreed, “so that she could enslave me. It’s not like she did it out of the kindness of her heart.”

“Well, I think you should,” Tish whispered. “I can’t even imagine losing Rahua. Losing you nearly destroyed me. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew I was carrying your cub, I don’t think I’d have made it. I can’t imagine losing both.” She sighed, curling up beside him. She pressed her forehead against his arm. “And we were the root of that pain! I’d want to give her something back, if for nothing else, just to ease my conscience.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “But that was the same sort of argument she used on me to keep me from running away. She used my own regret to control me.”

“And so now you want to hurt her back?”

Kanti frowned. He shook his head. “No, it’s not that.”

“You seemed so happy to see her,” reminded Tish. “I thought maybe you had put this behind you.”

“I’m trying Tish. I really am.” He bent forward slightly, taking a moment to kiss the top of his daughter’s head. “I’m trying to be a better person. My mind says I should help her, but my feelings are reeling. It’s not like she saw the evil in her ways and has reformed, like she made an effort to do the right thing.”

“But you said her slaves get to go visit their families now.”

“They do, but only because it doesn’t cost her anything,” he said. “I’m sure if it made them less productive, she’d forbid it. She’s still a slave owner, Tish. She owns Mila, for crying out loud.”

“Giving her Mila was your idea, hon,” reminded Tish.

“I know,” he groaned, “but what else could I have done? Should I have executed him and Girish? Whipped them? Made them do community service? What would that even mean in a one-room barracks? It’s not like we could fine them or take away some of their years. And at least they were trying to reform. They turned against Saquel when they realized what they’d become. That’s more than I can say for Tikkatikkachitter.”

Tish sighed. “Well, we can tell her ‘no’, if you want. It’s not like you were her only male slave. All the males have been given her former mate’s DNA, right? She could just sleep with Mila.”

Kanti shook his head. “She’d never do that,” he explained. “In their culture, there’s nothing more vulgar than mating with a slave. It would destroy her. I guess she sees me as ‘safe’ since I’m no longer a slave, but she can’t even agree to free one of them if they’ll do her that favor afterwards. By sourang logic, he’d still be enslaved since they treat all obligations as non-negotiable.”

Tish looked up with puzzlement on her ears.

“I know, it’s weird, but I lived with them a long time,” he said. “I do understand how they think.

“When I see her, I try to be nice. I try to treat her professionally, but there’s something about this request that’s really grating on me. It’s bothering me a lot more than I would have thought it should.” The shaggy geroo groaned. “It wasn’t even a request, was it? It was a ‘trade’. And she didn’t even ask me! She only wanted to talk to you about it, like it was normal for you to sell off a night with me.”

“Oh, come on, Shaggy,” his mate chuckled. “She’s probably just embarrassed to discuss it with a guy. And most guys are excited about any chance to have sex. It probably didn’t even dawn on her that you might have reservations about it.”

“Well, I do,” he grunted. He wished he could turn away, but with Rahua on his chest, he couldn’t. She’d have to get up eventually and sleep on her own section of the mat, but he didn’t want to rouse her any sooner than needed.

Tish snuggled closer, pressed her lips against his ear. “It could be fun you know … sex with an alien gal. And you can’t tell me you don’t like big, strong gals.”

Kanti chuckled. He certainly liked Tish, and she had height and muscles to spare. “She’s … really big though. I do like gals with muscle, babe, but we’re talking about a … scale difference. I don’t even know if I could … get excited enough … or if my bits would…”

Tish giggled and kissed his ear. “You’re so adorable,” she whispered. She rolled onto her back. “But I was teasing mostly. I mean, you said they have amazing scientific technology, right? Surely she wouldn’t expect you to actually mate with her.”

Kanti perked up, surprised but a little confused. He turned toward her. “She wouldn’t? But then how would…” His voice failed him.

“Well, I’m not an expert on this or anything,” said Tish, “but back when we lived on the White Flower II, there were some friends of my cousin who had problems conceiving.” She turned back toward him and used a fingertip to play with the fur on his arm. “They had won a birth token in the lottery, but even though she got her fertility enabled, she wasn’t getting pregnant. The doctor said that she was able to, but that her mate’s sperm were not viable.”

Kanti winced. “Did the administrators make them give the token back?”

Tish shook her head. “They decided to use his brother’s sperm instead.”

Kanti’s eyes popped open wide. “They did?” he whispered.

“Uh-huh,” said Tish. “But it’s not like she slept with his brother. That would have been weird. The doctor just extracted one of her eggs and put it in a petri dish with a semen sample the brother provided. Then when it started to ‘take’, they put it back in her womb.”

“Really?” he asked with a little awe in his voice.

“Yup,” said Tish. “They made it sound like it was no big deal. And I figure if geroo can do that just to spare a little awkwardness between brothers, then surely the sourang can do that too.”

“Huh,” said Kanti, finally relaxing a bit. “I guess that wouldn’t be a big deal. I had to give the doctors a sample once, back on the ship. It was a little weird, but they just gave me a cup and some privacy.”

“There ya go, hon,” said Tish. “Surely, she can do the same.”

“Yeah,” said Kanti, sighing a breath of relief.

Tish was silent awhile, laying there, staring at the side of her mate’s face. “That was really bugging you, wasn’t it, Kanti? I don’t just mean your history with her, but with the sex, specifically.”

Kanti covered his eyes with his arm and laid in silence before finally nodding. “I guess it does. I still hate myself for cheating on you. The thought of doing it again—even with your permission stresses me out.”

“You didn’t cheat on me,” she sighed. “We’ve been through this. I don’t blame you.”

“I know,” he whispered, “but I guess deep down, I still blame myself.”

Tish kissed the side of Kanti’s face. She put her arm carefully around him to snug both him and the cub closer. “Have you thought about what you want from her? I mean since she’s offering?”

Kanti rolled his eyes. “She obviously doesn’t care about what I want. She asked what you wanted, Tish.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” She hugged them a little tighter. “But I already have everything I could ever want right here. So, if there was something you wanted, I’d ask her for it. Is there?”

He took so long to respond that Tish had opened her muzzle to pose the question a second time. Instead, he said, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Well,” said Kanti, “Tikkatikkachitter once told me that her people weren’t native to Krakuntec—that they came here and changed their DNA to adapt to the atmosphere. If there’s some sort of serum that let them do that, then I’d really like to know how to make it.”

“You want to replace all of our DNA with sourang DNA?”

Kanti shook his head. “No, Tish, we can’t do that or there’d be no more geroo. No one could have cubs, and when we died off, that would be the end of us.” He held a deep breath for a moment, then let it out slowly. “But if we modified our DNA to be resilient to sulfur, then everyone could leave the barracks without an environment suit, just like I can.”

Tish smiled. “I hate those things. We all do. Everyone would love you if we could work without wearing a suit!”

“No, I don’t think you understand, Tish,” said Kanti. He turned his head and pressed his lips to hers. “The suits are how the krakun keep us enslaved. If we could breathe the air, we’d be able to leave the apartment and never come back. We could live in the walls like the sourang do, or maybe go find a field somewhere and dig a burrow, grow crops where the krakun wouldn’t notice and live our lives free, right here on Krakuntec.”

Tish gasped and pushed herself up with a palm. “Could we do that?”

But Kanti barely heard her, he was still imagining the possibilities. “And not just us, Tish, the geroo back on the White Flower II and maybe those on the other ships as well.”

His ears grinned wide. “I can just imagine Commissioner Sarsuk’s scaly face when he shows up for work and finds the ships … empty.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18zwFgxzRIHX0SJowoxVtS-Ixq_9AhAF9NmzqEukhk3I/edit?usp=sharing

Oh yeah! Now Kanti's playing for keeps. Thoughts?