The Sub-King of the Grey-Wing tribe, entirely unaware that he had been "set up" by his companions, remained on the home planet when his next day of rest arrived.
The connection of the River of Time ports had shortened the endless journey across the sea of stars into a mere instant. They no longer needed to prepare six months in advance for their next or subsequent encounters. A reunion had been simplified into the distance of a single step.
Carrying his luggage for a short vacation, the young man stepped into the River of Time and saw the silver-grey female Zerg waiting for him on the other side of the port.
"Clark!"
If humans had tails, Arthur’s would surely be wagging right now. Even though they saw each other every day via deep-space communication, the warm touch of an embrace and the familiar scent were things that cold light particles could never replicate.
The adult human was slightly shorter than the Zerg, just enough that he had to tilt his head back slightly when requesting a kiss, holding the other in his arms with a beaming smile.
The Sub-King froze instantly.
There were other tribe members busy at the port. To this day, most of the Grey-Wings had resigned themselves to the situation. The fact that their Sub-King’s relationship with a human was "too good" had been laid bare under the sun at the cost of the entire old Royal Nest’s dismantling. As long as he remained their "ceiling"—their ultimate protector—they didn't care if he wanted to open a window to whisper sweet nothings.
At least the ceiling was still there. This was perhaps the greatest consolation in every Zerg’s heart.
However, the moral embankments of the elder party were more solid. Such a passionate embrace, exposed to the eyes of all the Zerg, left the Sub-King at a loss.
Once, when Arthur was a child and would embrace him in the same way when he returned to the nest after a battle, Clark could easily catch the pouncing human. He could overthrow Krisha on the throne and suppress all voices of opposition. If anyone dared to bare their fangs at his beloved ward, he, who feared no rumors, would surely repay the malicious soul by tearing them apart.
But now that the situation had changed, the female Zerg found himself unsure of how to respond.
When the youth looked up with a smile, Clark thought for a moment that the other wanted a kiss in broad daylight. The silver-grey Zerg, his limbs feeling rusted, wanted to retreat but forced himself to endure it, just as he had every time for the past two Great Cycles. His scent glands easily perceived the young man’s warmth and scent—carrying the wind of Camlann and the haste of crossing the star sea, it was a fragrance that brought him joy and longing.
The human noticed his former guardian sniffing him slightly with an expressionless face. This action, performed by a high-tier Zerg who was usually serious, gentle, and strictly adhered to reserved etiquette, seemed somewhat adorable, so he laughed.
He did not recklessly lean in for a kiss. Instead, he quietly took Clark’s hand, holding it at a hidden angle.
"I missed you. I missed you every day."
"Mm."
The Sub-King responded in a low voice, his tongue seemingly failing him. His drooping insect wings twitched, shielding the youth clinging to his chest.
Even after so much time, the elder still couldn't handle honorifics. Every time Arthur deliberately used them, an electric current seemed to run wild along his silver-grey whip-tail, leaving half of the Sub-King's body slightly numb.
But he had learned to remain composed.
"I missed you too," Clark finally answered.
After settling his luggage, Arthur took a stroll through the habitable zones of the home planet.
The Grey-Wing territory had changed significantly, as had the newly incorporated planets; they were transforming at a speed that felt like a daily renovation. They now had public transit tracks and a plan for communal nest clusters for the next ten Great Cycles.
Since the establishment of the Alliance, Sakti had forced all the core genetic tribes to cooperate, gradually open-sourcing knowledge that did not involve core encryption keys. More than half of the Zerg larvae had been sent to receive education in the Universal Language and basic common sense.
This led to some hilarious scenes.
Most of the female larvae from direct lineages wailed and screamed. Their combat strength had been outstanding since they were small, and they had loved trying to bite exotic beasts since their infancy. Going to school was no different from grinding down their patience and wild nature. Thus, this group of Zerg rolled on the ground and howled, wanting to escape the terrifying studies and the endless "involution" of academic competition.
In contrast, the low-tier female Zerg and the quiet male larvae showed a frantic joy. Someone had pulled down the path to the heavens and thrown it at their feet.
The knowledge system once monopolized by the Ten Great Lineages was broken at this moment. The stagnant water, once tightly protected in a glass dome, began to flow, penetrating the barriers of the hierarchy from high to low, leading them toward an unknown direction. This future would not be worse than the past; it would only be better and more hopeful.
Perhaps the atmosphere of intense competition infected the high-tier Zerg. Those of core rank who had initially turned up their noses gradually began to take this change seriously, starting to beat their own larvae who only wanted to dig in the dirt and didn't want to go to school. Their sense of smell was sharper; they had realized that the arrival of peace and trade would spawn more and more new positions, and these positions often required a vast amount of knowledge beyond combat skills.
Liber had also been sent to study. The larva would stay with Clark for two days and then run to Gela’s side for another two. Every male in the habitat sector was his kin; the young male Zerg could receive a hundred "snuggles" a day.
After greeting Gela and Sakti in turn, Arthur saw a frazzled armored-type Zerg on his way back to the residence. Four wailing larvae were hanging off him as he dragged the whole family toward the place where the Universal Language was taught. The little larvae, who had not yet mastered good mimicry, crawled with their four legs going in different directions, each one death-gripping their cold relative, howling loudly with "all thunder and no rain."
"..."
At this moment, the human who had been raised by Clark and received a "happy education" felt a piece of his missing life weirdly filled in. He had never gone to school, but he was seeing other Zerg go to school.
Unable to hold back a low chuckle, Arthur watched the scene and whispered to his guardian.
"If this had happened when I was little, you would have had to endure similar painful occasions."
"No," the Sub-King replied seriously after a moment's thought. "Since you were small, you loved learning all sorts of novel things. Whether it was knowledge or combat, once you delved into it, you spontaneously strove to be the best."
"When you weren't even as tall as a rifle, you wanted to hold one and go to the battlefield with me. After being refused, you practiced using thermal weapons for ten consecutive Great Cycles. Every time I thought you would give up or couldn't stomach the hardship of training, you always managed to persevere."
He added at the end, "You are the best. Those things were never painful for me."
"I meant... having to be separated from you every day. I definitely would have cried."
Filled with warm and soft emotions, the human quietly spoke words of slight mischief, candidly admitting his attachment and weakness to tease the silver-grey Zerg.
They walked all the way back and stood at the entrance of the residential nest. The Sub-King’s dwelling was safe and quiet; no other Zerg would pass by.
"I would have definitely cried myself to sleep, cried when I woke up, and then held onto your leg tightly, refusing to let you leave."
These words made Clark see images of the past.
As a high-ranking direct descendant, it was inevitable that he had to travel and go to distant war zones. Even though the Grey-Wings were controlled by Krisha at the time, he still needed to fight for the tribe, driving away all the hyena packs that approached the core star systems.
Every departure was a heart-pounding moment. He couldn't take the human with him. To avoid uninvited calamities, he could only constantly change locations to hide him. He had also pondered countless times in the deep of night whether he should send his young beloved ward back to the human settlements.
He was afraid to open that door when he returned to the nest.
The "Butcher of the Northern Battlefield," who had decapitated two Sub-Kings and slaughtered the Hard-Wing tribe to exhaustion, found himself unable to take the steps back to his nest. The moments of joy for every other Zerg in the swarm turned into eternal curses and nightmares for him.
He was afraid to see new blood seeping from old marks.
But the human had grown up.
The very clever human was cautious and patient. He did not wail as he had joked; instead, he waited quietly time after time, and then pounced on him when he appeared, hugging him tightly.
In fact, except for their initial encounter and the "abandonment" misunderstanding, Arthur rarely cried. The displaced human child was too precocious, desperately learning every survival skill and piece of knowledge at every moment to ease the worries of the one who had to leave home.
Thus, the bloodstains in his memory gradually faded.
"Clark."
The youth, sensing the other's emotions ahead of time, tightly gripped the Sub-King’s hand hanging at his side.
"I was joking."
A serious look appeared in his blue eyes. Arthur embraced the elder Zerg, and this time, he gently kissed him. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad. Please allow me to take those words back."
The Zerg, having paused for a moment, did not move, but he eventually reached out his arms to pull the human into his embrace.
"Don't take them back," Clark interrupted in a low voice.
"You will never make me sad, and you don't need to apologize for such things. Knowing the fact that you love me makes me incredibly happy."
He said, "It once covered my bleeding heart in the past, smoothed over those unhealable scars, and has brought me endless hope in the distant future."
"You have always been my pride."
Arthur fumbled to hold his hand tightly. The Sub-King lowered his head, responding to the kiss with some lack of experience.
He hid the human in the dark nest, like hiding a green sapling, or a sparkling gemstone. After passing through long years, the silver-grey Zerg finally realized, somewhat belatedly, that he was at a fork in the road of emotions. Unlike the past where he was pushed along in a muddle, he wanted to tuck this warm gemstone away into his own nest.
The youth let out a blurred laugh. Arthur’s fingers were still stroking those drooping wings.
"I can smell your pheromones," the human whispered.
These words were like a thunderclap to both of them.
An uncontrollable joy wrapped tightly around the young man’s beating heart, bringing a sensation that was almost painful. This was a primal instinct more explicit than any language or action; the other’s body had given an unhidable answer first.
"They're like... a little bit of mint with ice."
Before the Sub-King could frantically try to restrain them, Arthur had already touched the base of the sharp wings.
"Please don't suppress it. Inhaling a little bit won't hurt me; it's far from combat-level concentration."
His lake-blue eyes rippled with a soft light in the dimness. The youth’s warm lips pressed against those closed grey eyes.
"Can I kiss your scales?"
The "wicked" human, pushing his luck, asked in a low voice. The favored one, acting with total confidence, held his love and the stars in his arms, not letting the other escape out of shame.
"I think your silver scales are very beautiful. Like fragments of stardust—they look distant and cold. If I could touch them carefully, I would be very happy."
"You clearly did it every day when you were little..." Before the word "touched" could be finished, the whip-tail with its flattened spikes was gently held in a palm. The following warmth made the powerful Zerg tremble.
The human was kissing that savage and powerful long tail, as if kissing a branch with hidden thorns. He wove those thorns into a crown of love, held it in his arms, and stroked every inch of the scales that were so nervous they didn't know whether to flatten or flare out, with the tenderness of a lover.
"This is the eight hundred and twenty-first time."
Two Great Cycles and three days had passed in a flash. Since they reunited in Camlann, the youth had persisted in one thing without interruption. He had promised to say it a thousand times, ten thousand times, and he truly had not forgotten, day after day.
"In the face of time, we are all equal and tiny existences. Ten years, twenty years, or thirty years—to this universe, it is but a brief moment."
"So I am not afraid. And in the future, I will still repeat these words thousands of times, until my soul and yours sleep together in the depths of the star sea."
Arthur whispered. He felt the other's heartbeat.
"I love you, more than anything in this world."
***
