Declan looked distraught at his species history with sexual reproduction whilst Ki looked disgusted.

  (Small Fry Chapter 4)

When my fifteen minutes of peace were up, I was joined by two shell-shocked males. 

Declan looked distraught at his species history with sexual reproduction whilst Ki looked disgusted.  Since Lokoti Werewolves are exceptionally protective over their mates and young, anything untoward in this area was frowned upon.  From the look on our Medicine Man’s face, his frown was so ingrained, I thought it would give him new wrinkles.

“Hot chocolate?” I offered to cheer them up.

The two looked like I had just offered to put a simple band-aid on a broken artery, gushing out.

“B, did you know this already?”  Declan asked accusatorily.  “Is that why you didn’t stick around?”

“No,” I spoke calmly, “I just had a bad feeling that’s all.”

“A bad feeling…?  A BAD FEELING?!”  His voice rose.  “When you swore to me that first morning that you’d live through this pregnancy, you LIED!!”

“No I didn’t!”  I said indignantly, as I sat up straighter.  “I did NOT lie about MY pregnancy!  I didn’t want to come here to do the search, nor watch the results with you, because I knew they wouldn’t be pretty.  I SENSED it would have been dire at best for other females, but I KNOW it’s not dangerous in my case.”

“How can you know?”  His face screwed up in pain.  “How can you know this isn’t going to happen to you?”

“Because our daughter will be the eldest, remember?”  I pointed out.  “If I don’t live through this, I can hardly give her sisters now, can I?”

Ki slowly sunk onto the couch next to mine, as he stared vacantly at the lush vegetation outside the glass wall.  He truly appeared to be suffering post traumatic stress, whereas Declan was furious.  The Medicine Man who would occasionally counsel his patients, looked like he needed to recover. 

Altogether, we watched the bright sunlight disappear, as the light green sky was darkened with oncoming storm clouds.  I thought the flashes of lightning were poetically timed with the men’s moods at the moment.  The thunder was so loud, the rumble could be heard as well as felt, through the protective dome.

Declan stood with his back turned, as he watched the lightning rip across the blackening sky.  His human blue eyes switched to his glowing green colour in anger, which made him look like he could be a native of Taurus Six.  His dissatisfied growl rumbled out just like the thunder outside. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All his long life, Declan was careful not to turn any human by bite or contaminate with his blood.

  (Small Fry Chapter 4)

Over the next fifteen minutes, I sat curled up in a corner of a couch, in one of the three Observation Lounges.  I even sipped on a hot chocolate I had one of the food synthesizers create, in the Mess Hall.  The lounges were positioned by the outer dome wall, which gave an excellent view of the alien surroundings. 

Taurus Six had perpetual storms and the dense clouds created the constant lightning, which shot across the sky.  Occasionally, the hot sunlight from the binary star system did get through, but on any given day there could be up to five hurricane-force downpours.  The nitrogen generated from the lightning, as well as the regular rainfall, coupled with the hot light from the binary stars; gave the planet thick, tropical vegetation as well as a rich, oxygen atmosphere.  However, it was impossible for humans to colonize the planet, because of the ionized atmosphere the storms created, which wouldn’t allow spacecraft to safely traverse.  Then there was also the problem of the ships flying through the unstable nebula, the planet was inside.

As I sipped on my beverage, I enjoyed the stillness of the base.  I didn’t mind the solitude, as I liked the hum of the environmental systems which maintained the comfortable temperature and light.  Right now, I preferred it to what Declan and Ki were seeing in the Viewing Room.  My ominous feelings as a Circulator were still singing songs like, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.

I knew it wouldn’t be a pretty picture, European Werewolves and sexual reproduction.  It would attribute to how Declan was created, as most European Werewolves were; by bite or the transference of blood.  When he was three years old, he was mauled by the European Werewolf which killed his father and attacked his pregnant mother.  Declan almost died, but my Lokoti Werewolf grandfather, saved his life by sharing his blood.  Then he was trained by the pack not to turn into the man-eater which nearly destroyed his family.

All his long life, Declan was careful not to turn any human by bite or contaminate with his blood.  He was adamant he should be the last of his kind.  The humans he had bitten, he tore apart, so there wasn’t anything left to change.  In these instances, the Police allocated the murders to an ‘animal attack’.

So instead of seeing the depressing statistics, I amused myself by staring out at the tropical landscape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~