Beware the Reef 15

I was out in the deeper waters of the reef, keeping an eye on Trei and Deiz as they hunted the smaller fish that their siblings ate. Meir and Tiela were doing their best to help, but they were slower than my first children were. Jemin was guiding and teaching the children since he was better at open water hunting than I was. I was there mostly to protect them all from danger.

“Jemin…” I said, pulling his attention from the kids. They could handle hunting for a little bit without too much help from him. “Can… I talk to you for a moment?” He looked over at me for a moment before nodding. He gave a few last minute instructions before swimming over to where I was.

“What is it?” he asked, coming to a stop just in front of me.

“It’s… about the other night,” I murmured, suddenly feeling slightly awkward myself. “I wanted to make sure that I didn’t hurt you… I took a bit of advantage of your situation and if I hurt you, I really want to know…” He looked away at that.

“Ah, well, you didn’t hurt me… actually it didn’t hurt really at all which is a first. I’m… still kind of surprised that you did it though,” he admitted.

“Ah… well… I’ve never really thought about it before,” I said. “I didn’t think I could with males which was why I only went after females… But I’ve… never really looked at them differently… If that makes sense…” He shrugged.

“I can’t really say it does but then… I’ve never really looked at females that way. The reason I left my other pod was because I got caught kissing another male. They said I had to leave so I wouldn’t poison anybody else. I was hoping when I became mature it’d go away and I’d find females attractive like I was supposed to but… it never really happened,” he explained. “If anything I wanted males more…”

“I have an offer for you,” I said, giving him a small smile. “And you can accept it or not and it won’t change anything for you. I want to extend the offer to allow you to be one of my mates or to at least come to me for relief instead of going to the mating grounds.” He hesitated for a minute as he thought over my over.

“I… don’t like the mating grounds,” he murmured. “They always yell at me after… if they hang around at all. Like I forced them to mate with me or something. I don’t know about being your mate… but I won’t turn you away if you need me. I know it’s hard on the others sometimes and I did like what you did…” I nodded a little and put my hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“I will do that then,” I said. “And… you may want to look for a Squillian mate. We’re the only ones capable of using the oil that helped you not bleed. When you find a mate, we’ll figure out if they’ll mesh with the pod or if you’ll have to join his. So don’t stress yourself. This is your home until you decide otherwise.” He nodded some in understanding before turning his attention back to teaching the kids how to better catch the fish they were hunting.

I was glad that was settled. Now the only trick was going to be finding him a Squillian mate who would respect that my mates weren’t open to them. The best bet would be to find a younger Squillian male either near his maturity or just passed it. They would understand best the merits of having a male mate and would be more likely convinced to not touch my mates.

It took a little longer than usual to get enough food for the pod, but it was mostly because we were letting the older kids do most of the hunting. They had to learn sometime after all. I did know one more fact about Squillians that I hadn’t told any of my mates. It was actually why I hadn’t known my own father. I only had about six more years before my life cycle would end. I’d probably only get to see Deiz and Trei molt before I passed. They had to be able to take over for the loss of me.