Rasc sighed contentedly. He thought he must be half asleep or the prickly man would never have allowed him to hear it. “Good,” he whispered softly. “That is, I’m glad you’re not…tied to someone already, that is.”
“I’ve simply never had the time so far, though it would make my omak happy. He’d love to have a grandchild to play with.”
“Would you adopt children? Like your parents did, or would you have your own?”
“If I found someone who agreed to body alteration, I might. A Jayronian, perhaps…or maybe a human. Tygerian and Lycan males—like my omak—won’t allow it. I like the idea of having my own child one day though. Either through a surrogate or with my mate. But for now—I’m in no big rush.”
Rasc didn’t answer at first, and as the minutes passed, he started breathing deeply, once giving a soft snore that woke him up. He was fighting sleep, Kylon thought, and stayed quiet so he could drop off. Rasc spoke up softly again, though, his voice lower and sleepier sounding.
“I never found anyone I wanted to spend my whole life with either.”
“No?” Kylon answered, rubbing the side of his face against Rasc’s hair.
“No. Lal-lo was my mate for a while, but they were too argumentative and didn’t have the right body parts to have children anyway.”
“They had a male organ?”
“Yes.” His face burrowed deeper into the little hollow he seemed to like. “Gatifreyans are non-binary but not intersex. No more or less than any other people, anyway, though biological gender is a lot more complex than our chromosomes. In all species, I think. Lal-lo was biologically male, but they didn’t identify as just male, of course. Or just female either. Still, having children was nothing they ever wanted.”
“What was Lal-lo like?”
“Beautiful. Long, dark hair, high cheekbones. Tall and with a nice ass. Also moody and emotional but fiercely loyal. Lal-lo was a soldier assigned to my unit when I was first stationed on Gatifrey. We went through a lot together. A good person to have beside you in a fight, but not so much for everyday living.”
“You loved them.” Kylon didn’t phrase it as a question, but more as a statement of fact. He was surprised at how little he liked that idea. But Rasc shook his head again.
“No, not exactly. Not enough, anyway. And they felt the same about me. We argued a lot. The Gatifreyans are an odd people. For most of them, their goal is to blend in, not stand out, the exact opposite of what I always wanted. We used to have arguments about it. Lal-lo hated my need to be somebody one day, to rise above the crowd and be something special. They used to say, ‘The harder you strive to be individual, the more you look just like everyone else.’ I remember glaring across the dining table at them and sneering at their long gray robe and saying, ‘Is that why you’re wearing the ugly uniform? So you won’t look like everyone else? Makes no sense, babe.’” He sighed.
“That was usually how our arguments went—around and around until we finally just got tired of it all. We were just too fundamentally different to ever make it as a couple, I think. I wonder sometimes if we didn’t just drift together out of familiarity. Or maybe proximity.”
“Was Lal-lo different from the other Gatifreyans? I must admit I don’t have a good impression of them so far.”
“They’re not so bad. You can’t judge by these guards here. Most of them are just people, like on any planet. Some good, some not. They’re hard for us to figure out sometimes because their culture is so different from ours. But they’re okay.”
“What about the commandant? What do you know about them?”
“Not much. The word around the yard is that they’re pretty ruthless. Sadistic.”
“Sadistic? How’s that?”
“Just stories. May or may not be true, but some of them are persistent. There was a prison uprising a while back. The prisoners got hold of a disruptor, overpowered a guard, and killed a few of the Gatifreyans and some of the other prisoners, who were just trying to hide and stay out of it all. When it was over, the commandant didn’t wait for any trials or tribunals. He whipped them half to death in the yard and then hung them, breaking their necks in full view of the prisoners. They say he seemed to enjoy it and laughed at their screams. Then left them hanging there in the yard