Children of the Universe

Chapter VIII

From the very beginning, Othiel felt that he was not welcomed by everyone. Despite the seemingly nice and calm atmosphere, he sensed a lot of fear and hatred around him. (Y/n) obviously couldn't know it with her limited senses, and maybe she was too fixated on him that evening to notice anything else... He was flattered and he wasn't going to ruin her mood by sharing his observations. Her people, while putting on a happy face, were sending him great amounts of overwhelming emotion. Especially the males. Not everyone, of course. Mainly the younger ones wanted to kill him on the spot.

He didn't blame them. He knew that they still needed a long time to get rid of their prejudices and understand that they were safe in his presence... At least as long as they were under (y/n's) protection. She had a decisive voice for him in every matter. He couldn't hurt them even if he wanted to, he just couldn't, for her sake.

When he left the hiding place, he already knew that several young males, who considered themselves warriors, had ambushed him at the edge of the forest with the intention of taking his life.

The satellite, that Earthlings called the Moon, arose, giving enough light for him to see perfectly and at the same time not so much as to hurt his eyes.

In any other case, he would have killed the attackers in a blink of an eye, but this was an exception. This time it had to be done differently. Though there was one Othiel intended to kill anyway... The male who had treated (y/n) in a way that deserved only a brutal and painful death. But he couldn't do that. Not yet... He would lose everything with this because humans would know that was his doing and they certainly would not forgive him... (Y/n) wouldn't forgive him.

So when the male attacked, jumping out of the bushes with a wild scream, Othiel grabbed him by his clothes and threw him against a tree trunk. Not hard enough to break bones, but just enough to take his breath away and put him out of the game for a while. Well, it might hurt a bit.

'You bastard!' shouted the second one, and together with the third and fourth youngsters they rushed at him in a coordinated attack.

'I don't want to hurt you.' The Roughskin said calmly, deftly parrying each of the blows. 'Stop it, please.'

Suddenly he felt something cold behind him, on his back. The barrel of a weapon, is similar to those sometimes used by the Roughskins.

He was getting too gentle. You had to throw the first male harder against the tree.

'You don't want to hurt us, huh? The rest of your kin were not so kind...Do you know what they did to my father?!' The male pressing the weapon against Othiel's body almost screamed. His henchmen stood around, as if to cut off the Roughskin's escape, and glared at him hatefully.

'I can guess...'

The weapon holder stepped forward so that Othiel could see him. His hand was trembling. He couldn't have had more than eighteen earth turns. None of them were certainly over twenty. They've probably never held a gun in their hands before. Not to kill.

'They ripped him in half!' The young man almost wept in response. 'And then they began to eat his insides... He was still alive...'

Othiel didn't want to hear it. He didn't feel guilty about what his brothers were doing, but he did feel a little disgusted, few Roughskins did things like eating still-living prey, that was a fact.

'You know killing me won't bring him back. It can only harm you...'

'We'll be fine without you! (Y/n) may think you're an oversized cuddly toy, but we won't be fooled! You just trying to get laid, or better yet, make little monsters with her, huh? You all want to possess our women, populate the Earth and wipe us out completely...'