The Beauty of the Night

Beautiful Meet

The girl's name was something unpronounceable to Morgan, but sounded closest to Ersai. She was young, no older than twenty years. She was of a different species than the scientist, she told Morgan. She was a Kazor female, excited to go to the blood dens and learn her fate. Her face was broad and welcoming. Her nose was wide and flat, with slits instead of nostrils that flared when she spoke. Her lips were full, and whispered over teeth that were razor sharp. Her ears were pointed on both ends, and peeked through hair that was silvery blonde and tied tightly at the nape of her neck where it was braided into what looked like a dragon's tail. She was muscular and tall, though not as tall as Morgan. Her forearms were thick with muscle, her thighs peeked between slits of a dress she had crafted and hinted at her strength. Ersai was a butcher, she told Morgan, though she hoped that when she emerged from the blood dens, she would be worthy of a new position, one higher than what she'd left behind.

"What about you?" Ersai asked, turning those sharp blue pupils which were rimmed in black and held silver irises.

"I don't know," Morgan admitted. "I...I'm not from here. I'm from planet Earth. I don't even know what the blood dens are."

"Earth?" Ersai asked, stroking her chin and making a pensive face. "I don't place it. Is it a war planet? Were you a warrior there?"

"No, it's not a war planet," Morgan started, before reflecting on the politics of the nation she had left. "Or if it is, I wasn't a warrior there. I was a scientist. I studied languages."

"A scientist?" Ersai laughed. "Then I fear to know what your warriors look like. You are so tall! And strong too, I can tell," she said, grasping Morgan around the forearms. "And only a female of your species!"

Morgan laughed uncomfortably and pulled her arms away gently.

"No," Morgan answered, feeling suddenly tired. "I was only a scientist. We have soldiers on my planet, but I was not one of them."

Ersai nodded, finally sensing Morgan's discomfort.

"What are the blood dens?" Morgan asked, finally addressing the topic she'd been worried about as their vehicle lumbered towards their destination. A strange look crossed Ersai's face, an emotion that was somewhere between excitement and fear.

"It is where the Kazor are born. It is where we learn what our path will be, whether warrior, hunter, butcher, or scout. It is the hope of every Kazor to be tested and emerge from the dens with a purpose."

"What about the other members of society?" Morgan asked, rubbing her arms absentmindedly. "Politicians, scientists, teachers? Do they emerge from the dens too?"

Ersai waved her hand dismissively. "That work is for the Xoix, the Kazor have no desire to those roles. No aspiration. We are a fighting people, we leave the rest to the Xoix."

Morgan's head was swimming.

"The scientist I met, she told me she was a Xoix."

"They are Xoix, yes," Ersai corrected. "This is their planet. They have no gender, they have no sexual desire. Their strength is in their brains, their skill is in their ability to look beyond the sky. They are a weak peopole," Ersai said with a little smirk that revealed her clear sense of superiority. "Were it not for the Kazor, they would have been hunted to dust. It is the Kazor who make them able to hide in their cities and classrooms and labs. We leave that work to them."

"What other species live on this planet?" Morgan asked, suddenly struck by the thought that if two species lived here, then there must surely be more.

"Many," Ersai answered. "There are the Skeme, great horned beasts who live among the mountains. The Zaroth live in the wooded areas. There are many. But they are of no consequence, the Kazor rule over them all."

Morgan nodded. The vehicle came to an abrupt halt. From outside, came the muted sounds of many voices speaking.

"I am not a Kazor," she said to Ersai, panic suddenly rushing into her voice as she heard the heavy bolts of the trailer being undone. "I don't belong in the blood den."

"Then you will emerge Kazor," Ersai said in a joyous roar as the great trailer door was opened to reveal the wide, gaping mouth of a cavern. "And you will be lucky you have!"

Before Morgan could say anything else, Ersai along with a couple of other women were racing towards the opening of the cavern, letting out whoops and hollers that echoed ominously into the dark. Morgan couldn't make herself move. Fear paralyzed her and made her legs heavy. She swallowed hard. Maybe these people could be reasoned with. Maybe they would bring her back to the Xoix, and she could convince them to send her back home, back to earth. She had to try.

An alien head peeked into the trailer, four glassy eyes blinking in sequence as two tall, slimy protrusions bent this way and that, almost as if tasting the air. It gargled at her. She stared. It gargled again.

"I-I don't belong here," she said to it. "I am not a Kazor. I don't belong in the blood dens."

It gargled. She stared. Then it disappeared, and she heard it gargle once more. Someone - rather, something - answered with a deep rumble. Then long silence. Morgan's heart thudded hopefully in her ears. A tiny man appeared at the door, with long white hair that trailed the ground and a long beared that crested over his rotund belly to reach his knees. He had large round ears that emerged on either side, giving him a cartoonish appearance His cheeks were round and pink, and Morgan noticed with startle that he had only one eye. There was no nose beneath it, and where his mouth should have been, there were three fleshy knobs that bounced when he said:

"Morgana of Earth! We welcome you to the blood dens. Please, emerge, so that we might explain to you your purpose."

"I-I'd really rather not, if you don't mind," Morgan called back. "And my name is Morgan!"