When Hermione Granger wakes up on a strange ice planet, she imagines nothing could shock her more... and then, there's a parasite placed into her body, meant to keep her warm and alive. She accepts it, accepts her fate, accepts life in the tribe...
Hermione knows she isn't like the other humans, and she's fine with that - but sometimes, she wishes that she had what they have - a mate, someone to care for them, and a resonance. The part about children she's not so certain about, but someone... someone that needs her, that understands her...
The Elders appreciate her. They appreciate her work. She's not a farmer, nor a cook, nor a mechanic.
She's a research assistant, or she was, with hopes and dreams...
There's no great library here, but there are traditions and skills, passed down, that are slowly becoming lost.
And so she learns them all.
The elders appreciate it. The other humans tease her for it. Chief Vektal values it.
But she isn't wanted. Not like a mate would want her. Not like a partner.
And so, she's alone, with no resonance, and that's fine, and she understands, because she's not like other humans, and she's fine with being alone, but-
But then he arrives, and she...
She knows immediately what he is.
And it terrifies her.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Waking up on an Ice Planet after having just gone to bed is beyond horrifying. One moment, she had been warm, snuggled up underneath her comforter with a stack of books beside her head and Crooks curled up on the pillow beside her, and the next, she was opening her eyes to see metal and women she had never met before. Her body had frozen almost instantly, and then she had been wrapped up in furs and brought to others, all like her.
All young women. All looking around scared. All just... terrified.
At first, Hermione had feared what had happened to her while she was hibernating, as they put it. All of them plucked from their beds, some placed into lockers where they were essentially asleep, and others just... awake. The haunted looks on the faces of those that had been awake tells her that she was much better off having been in hibernation.
She had been so full of questions from the start, wanting to know who had taken them and why, but at the mention of slaves, at the mention of their bodies... of...
The giant blue aliens that have come to rescue them terrify her, but she's too cold to think, too cold to speak, too cold to even breathe. If the options were to stay in the ship that she had been held captive in or go with the giant blue aliens that could build a fire and promise a parasite that could keep her warm... well, some things in life were a request, and others a requirement. Keeping her body temperature at a normal human level was a requirement.
The walk had been hard, some of the other girls had cried, some had tried to run, but Hermione... She had always been a practical girl. First was warmth, then food, then sleep, and then she could evaluate her circumstances. If she's going to die in a few days without some parasite in her body, the parasite that will keep her warm... well, she won't be going first, but given the way that the giant blue alien they call Chief looks at one of the humans...
