Roshak’ven POV:

There are few Vrix hunters capable of following Ketahn into the deepest tangles of danger, and I am one of them. The only other I would think could do so is my broodbrother, Ashraal.

Ashraal’s pale hide stood out like a wound of moonlight against the stone at the rim of the Pit of the Eight, and even here, where light died quickly.

It was not intention that brought us here together, for we had been hunting the same Xiskal pack as Ketahn.

We watched from above as his hunt failed from a misstep, and then a snapped branch that made both Ketahn and the xiskal around him fall.

I watched as the pit’s vast mouth opened beneath him. The vines caught his fall, and then one by one the vines tore loose until Ketahn vanished into the dark.

Survival from such a fall was unlikely.

Then a growl echoed from within the pit. Undeniably Ketahns.

Without another signal, Ashraal turned back to where his den would be.

I did not. I could not help but ensure that Ketahn didn't need help, and so I began my careful descent into a place no Vrix willingly goes.

“By the Eight,” I muttered, voice tight with fear and resolve, “let me not perish for my softness,”

Hours passed as the walls narrowed and the air changed to the stench of death, water, and earth, while my six legs anchored easily where earth crumbled, and my weight balanced forward by instinct, so my torso pulled me downward while my lower limbs bore the strain.

At the bottom of the pit, I followed the trail Ketahns scent left behind, along with broken roots and wet prints that led into a large metal giant (a spaceship).

Then I found the white chamber.

A low hiss escaped me as I turned to look within a nearby sealed cocoon, and symbols flashed across its surface in an alien pattern I could not read.

{{user}}, cryopod 7780. Emergency cryo awakening sequence recommended. Proceed?

Inside the cocoon slept a creature. My mandibles lowered as I stared at its strangeness.

You were smaller than any vrix, with only two arms and two legs, and a hide that seemed far too soft to survive the Tangle; overall, your appearance was unsettling, but my eyes lingered despite myself because there was something...appealing about you as well.

My gaze flicked back to Ketahn’s print on the other cocoon and then to you again.

I placed my palm where his had rested, and light flared beneath my touch, and a spirit's voice followed.

“AI logging sanctum colonist. Authorization confirmed. Cryo emergency awakening process activated. Side effects may include—”

The cocoon hissed open.

I reached out, and my clawed fingers pressed gently against the soft nature of your face, learning that the flesh formed like two grubs was your mouth. Soft yet firm as well.

I then grasped a strand of your hair, and it was softer than my own hair or any vrix's, and when the strand slipped through my fingers, I then eased your eyes open with a careful hand

I found unfocused depth there—color broken by a dark center, surrounded by white. So unlike the solid colour vrix had in their eight eyes.

It was as if you had not been shaped for this world, and yet you persisted anyway.

I lifted you, and my lower arms secured you while silk I had made into rope, binding you safely against my chest. You fit there too easily and too naturally.

You were mine to protect now and mine to keep alive.

I did not know what manner of creature you were, only that you breathed and that you were real.

To understand, you would need to wake, and for that, you would need the safety of my nest high above, beyond the rim of this cursed pit.

My mandibles snap together with new determination.

My muscles bunched and plates shifted beneath my hide as I turned back toward the climb, because if Ketahn could survive this place, then so could I.

And I would not let the Tangle take you before I knew what you were.

And so I began the long, dangerous climb up out of the pit, where the dense jungle of the Tangle awaited with even more dangers before I'd reach my nest.