I never hit the ground.

The alien’s claws shot out, grasping the front of my tank top. But the fabric was too thin, and its claws too sharp. With a horrifying sound, the garment tore as the weight of my body pulled backwards against it. The alien’s wings curved forward, curling around both of us, creating a strange sort of hammock of flesh that I fell into with an oof. The alien cradled me – it seemed such a strange word to use for a creature so huge and brutal, but cradling truly is what it did – before it slowly lowered to its knees, adjusted the position of its wings, then deposited me on the ground.

It stared down at the ruined tank top in its claws then looked back at me. Instinctively I slapped my arms over myself. I still had my bra at least, but that didn’t feel like nearly enough under the one-eyed gaze of the hulking creature before me. There was an exacting sort of intensity in the single golden orb of its eye. A hard and burning question in the gaze. Like it was looking at me, into me, and wordlessly asking who I was and what I was doing there even though it had been the one who’d brought me in the first place.

“What do you want?” I rasped through chattering teeth. The creature towered over me, unblinking as it stared. Its wings were still mostly around me, like a verdant canopy, blocking out the river and stars and sky until all that was left was that hard, alien body and strange, dragonish face. Something flickered in the eye, in the expression, and it opened its fanged mouth, once again stringing together sounds that really did seem like words. Whatever it said was ended, once again, with the uttering of aerra bai.

It had to be language. Especially considering the repetition of aerra bai. Whatever its motives, it seemed to be an intelligent creature.

Intelligent and powerful beyond belief.

It didn’t say anything else, instead once again looking down at my shredded tank top. Its scaly brows lowered, and it turned its attention to my torso. I shrieked when, in an instant, both my wrists had been grasped in its one huge hand and torn upwards and away from my body. The alien held my hands over my head with one hand and, after dropping my tank top, used the other to poke and prod along my neck and shoulders, as if testing the solidity of my skin.

Fear pooled in my belly, and I stopped breathing when it brushed a knuckled between my breasts and down to my abdomen. It said something then, some sort of a deep grunt that I had no way of interpreting, before letting my hands go. I hugged myself and tried to scoot backwards and away from it, only for my back to hit the wings that still cocooned me.

“What do you want?” I asked again, this time in a whisper. It cocked its head. As it did so, its long black hair shifted, framing its strange, snouted face and tumbling in tangles over its broad shoulders and hardened pectoral muscles.

Once again, it spoke, and once again I had no idea what the fuck it was saying.

More and more, though, it felt wrong to think of the alien as an it. It had language. It walked upright like a human. And there was a deep, wild, inescapable intelligence in the harsh probing of its single golden eye. I sucked in a shaky breath, my gaze trailing over the brutal angles of its snout and thick neck, down over the scale-covered pectorals and rippling abdominal muscles. The alien wore no clothing, and there were no discernable genitalia between its bulging thighs. Maybe it was stupid to try to categorize this creature. Maybe it was foolish of my frantic human brain to search for a scrap of familiar context where none existed. But even so, I couldn’t help the sudden and instinctive conclusion resounding through my body like a gong.

Male.

He felt distinctly male to me. And until proven otherwise, that’s how I’d think of him.

It was so, so warm in the folded shelter of his wings. Heat poured off of him, sweet and disarming, like dark syrup. It rolled over my shivering form as I hugged myself tightly. When he didn’t say or do anything else, I let my eyes drift over the glowing points of light twinkling all over his body, lighting up his scales like golden constellations. His scales were gem-like and so reflective that they multiplied the effect of the lights in the growing darkness, turning his body, from neck to tail, into a multi-faceted wonder.

If he hadn’t been so terrifying, I would have almost called him beautiful.

He had none of the lights on his face, but there was a distinct and solitary glow in his remaining eye—a fiery amber that got brighter, nearly white in the middle, instead of darker like a human’s pupil. I gaped when I realized that he had a thick fringe of sooty eyelashes above that eye, dusted gold with light from below. The lashes and the long black hair felt so non-reptilian, so at odds with his scales and wings and tail. Even the scales along his brow bone were darker, simulating eyebrows.

The sum of all the parts was... utter confusion.

I had no idea what to make of him or what to do about him besides the instinct bleating at the back of my head to get as far away from him as possible. But that instinct was at odds with my body’s need to remain coiled inside the walls of heat his wings and chest had created. I tried to reconcile the two panicking messages – the messages telling me to stay warm and to run – and soothed myself, telling myself that I would figure out how to get away the moment fleeing from him was safer than being warmed by him.

I almost wanted to laugh bitterly. I wanted to punch him, or maybe the ground. Wanted to rage against the fact that this was what my life had become – that I’d been reduced to stacking my physical needs upon each other in order of importance, hoping the entire tower didn’t crumble. That I’d become so calculating in regards to my own survival, prioritizing one bodily instinct over another. Staying warm came out on top. For the moment. But that would shift the second I needed it to.

The Scilla madeirensis can grow among hostile volcanic rock. The Sideroxylon spinosum has roots that go deep enough to find water in the driest climates, producing rich argan oil. The Cyrtanthus ventricosus only flowers after wildfire, bright blooms against ash, earning its name the fire lily...

The survival instinct was everywhere. Even in plants.

It was in me, too.

And wasn’t that what Elvi had told me at the end? When she’d been in the hospital? She’d made me promise not to miss her. She’d made me promise to be brave and to live. Because that was the most important thing.

I’d thought that warmth, for the moment, was taken care of. But I’d presumed wrong, because before long, the alien was withdrawing his wings from around me. My bum settled on the ground, and I tensed and bit back a hiss at the sudden inward rush of cool air on my bare skin. I almost wanted to beg him to put his wings back how they’d been, even though I knew he wouldn’t understand.

Maybe I can get away and make a fire...

Find a safer way to stay warm.

The alien suddenly straightened, staring down the river. Night was fully upon us now, stars creating a glittering canopy behind what appeared to be two moons, one much larger than the other. His attention, for the moment, was not on me. Mouth going dry, I began to tentatively scoot backwards and away from him.

But the soft rustle of my backside against the sand made his golden eye snap to me like a slingshot finding its target. A huge, scaly hand clasped my upper arm, dragging me to my feet. It didn’t hurt, but the shock of the movement made me gasp. He eyed me sharply, scaly brow lowering as he peered downwards.

“What?” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. I still had one free arm, and I used it to hug myself, slapping my forearm against my breasts. The alien wasn’t wearing any clothing at all, so maybe it was silly of me to adhere to any human forms of modesty, but it made me feel the tiniest bit better to be somewhat covered under his strange scrutiny.