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[Author's Note]:Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last submission. In that time I have done ungodly things, such as performing activities that were not directly related to the completion of the next chapter of I am, By Honour, Bound.

People like to keep me busy and I have less free time to do what I want at the weekends than during the week (oddly). Also, this chapter was a total pain to hammer out into a coherent stream of words because it needed to be right (for reasons you shall soon see) so I've just uploaded it without any proofing because I can't stand looking at it anymore. In this belated chapter, things really start to get interesting. Hopefully I haven't upset too many people by not being able to upload until now and I'll should be able to go back to my original pace of uploading soon.

Chapter 7: The Beginning

I remember the beginning... of everything...

Many think of Callisten as the start of it all, but I believe it was the besieging of Corva IV by the League of the Kalucian Suns. The senseless slaughter of tens of thousands of enslaved Boaren for their masters' crimes was unprecedented, unforgivable... unnoticed...

On Ferros II, so far away that it may as well have been in another galaxy, it was all just flashing images on holo-screens, academic discussion about market fluctuations and off-paw comments in leisurely chat. I like to think that, between the culling of the Boaren populations throughout the Corva system and the Boaren breeding farms, people were sensible enough to know where it would end. But like so many other things in my life, it just seems like wishful thinking...

"What do you think? You think they were right to do it?" Vayren asked, putting one steady foot before another. The thirteen year old was teetering on a log we'd found across the stream just near the boundary, where the grounds of what was understood to be the Manor met the wider fields proper, his arms outstretched to either side. It was an impossible question for me to answer. There was what I thought; that things could get very bad considering every Boaren population on every world was now a veritable powder keg and, worse, those that owned them knew it. Then there was what I wasn't allowed to say, as Mr. Gatson had clearly pointed out; anything that could upset or trouble the young master. Although there was nothing currently on the social agenda to distract him from, my role was to protect him from harm, not to facilitate it.

"I'm confident everything will be fine, Master Vayren," I compromised.

"That's not an answer; I want to know what you think. And I've told you to stop calling me that. My parents aren't here to complain," he called back to me.

_Still just as adventurous and quick on the draw_I noted, watching him faultlessly traverse the only thing standing between him and a ten foot drop into the stream full of flint and pebbles. I pondered a few moments longer, wondering how best o respond to that.

"I think that Panthren more honourable than me made a decision they deemed prudent."

"Huh," was Vayren's first response, seemingly unimpressed with my attempt at an answer. "Are you still down about sword training yesterday?" he asked out of the blue.

"N-no, of course not," I lied.

"You just seem distracted is all," he replied.

In truth, the thought was buried there underneath the surface, drawn to the surface with every mention of Corva IV that day. I had been at the manor for three years now and any progress with my shooting and swordplay was made minor and hard won. More focus was put on my melee training due to Master Vayren's competency with rifles and pistols, but both instructors had little praise for my efforts. The sword instructor had even gone so far as to say to Lord and Lady Telequinn that Master Vayren would do better protecting himself than have me as his guardian.

That's why Vayren's next comment chilled me to the bone. He took a few more steps, then looked back at me over his shoulder. "I've thought of joining the military you know." I was visibly taken aback.

"Oh, you couldn't possibly-"

"Why not? Travelling to distant and unseen worlds, adventure... romance."

"But you could be killed," I protested.

"Maybe. But that's something... Danger, that's another one. But yes, that's all part and parcel of it." Gracefully, he twirled on the spot, not losing his balance for an instant. "Think of it Kyren. We'd join the 14th Sabres, the unit every Telequinn in our history until my father served in. We'd march into battle, side-by-side, carrying house Telequinn's banner. Think of the honour we'd accumulate." I paused and considered his use of the collective, letting his stab at his father's honour, whether or not it was intentional, go unnoticed.

We? Of course, I would have to follow him, as his retainer, his guardian. My mind dwelled on the thought of honour for a moment. It was certainly the Panthren way; honour through battle and chivalry, certainly more than we would ever find here on this prim and proper core world. Then the thought was purged as soon as it arose. Yes. I would follow him into battle and possibly get him killed.

"I have to advise against it. I'm unsure whether I could keep you safe from harm on a battlefield."

"We'd keep each other safe, Kai," he said without missing a beat. "We'd be like the knights of old." He looked over his shoulder again. "Come on. Are you coming or what? I want to see if those Zang beetles are still around."

_Yes, still ever the adverturer._I nodded and climbed up onto the log. Holding out my arms, paws flat to the air at my left and right, tail swaying in a desperate attempt to correct my balance, I started. I wasn't very nimble at that age and, despite the intensive and rigorous training I'd been subjected to with weapons and my fists, my co-ordination was still far from perfect.

"My safety is not your concern," I replied.

"Don't be silly. Of course it is." He was almost at the other side by then, whereas I was barely half way.

I kept my eyes ahead, focused on his unwavering shape, rather than look down. Then one false step and I fell, chest crashing against the log. I felt myself slipping and prepared myself to feel the icy chill of the river at any moment, my claws scratching at the bark desperately to find purchase. Then, just as I was about to slip, a strong grip pulled me up.

"I've got ya," Vayren said, using himself as a counter weight to hoist me up. Eventually he hoisted me up and we stood facing each other, bearing each other's weight as we leaned backwards off the log, the only thing preventing either of us tumbling in being our clasped paws. "See? Safe."

"Thank you Maaaaa-Vayren," I said awkwardly, Vayren giving me a disapproving look at my attempted use of his prefix once more.

"I suppose that'll have to do. Maybe one day I'll coax you out of that rigid schooling of yours. Now how are we gonna get off of here?" he asked.

After about ten minutes of nervously shuffling sideways, hanging perilously over the edge, we'd both made it across to the far side of the river high and dry and were off along the dirt track left from years of tractor traffic along the far bank.

"Where was it, again?" I asked, walking behind the pacing Vayren as he held up his Leviathos compass.

"One hundred and thirty six paces North-North West of the big tree. Near the ferns, you remember."

"It all looks the same to me."

"We really need to work on your sense of navigation." he said. The undergrowth was starting to close in on both sides as we reached the narrow part of the track. The road stood at an angle from the river and slowly the sound of cascading water was dying away. Vayren looked up at the pale blue sky for a few moments and stopped.

"What is it?" I asked, looking up and not seeing anything untoward.

"Hmm, nothing. It's just I learned in my last lesson that the stars don't go away at night."

"Really? Then why can't I see them?" I shielded my eyes against the glare of the sun. It was another good day in Scorch, a sub-season aptly named for the hottest days of the year that it produced.

"Too bright. Ferra's light blocks out their rays. You have to wait for it to go down." He seemed to contemplate that for a moment before starting off again. "I wish mother and father would let me out at night so I could star gaze."

"You can still see them from the manor, surely?" I questioned.

"Yes, but it's not the same," Vayren sighed. "I'm talking about true stargazing, y'know? Lying on your back in a field, mapping out the sky, not an artificial light to be seen. Or finding your way home from a long, far away journey with nothing but a telescope and your memory of the constellations."

"I suppose it would give you a better opportunity to use your telescope," I said.

"It's about more than that. It's about discovery. About getting away from the stuffy old manor or being shipped off to a hotel room in Ushelin for some conference." I could tell this subject was infuriating Vayren and decided to avoid further discussion about it."

"How far are we?" Vayren looked down at his paws. He'd been keeping an independent count of steps whilst we'd been talking.

"About another ten yards or so," he said. We walked on and then, when Vayren had determined we'd reached the right spot, we spun ninety degrees to our rights and waded into the thick brambles and ferns surrounding the row of Jelg trees lining the path. The thick undergrowth snagged at our clothes. My indifference to dirt and grime was understandable, considering the years I'd spent knee deep in much and toiling in dirt, wearing little more than ragged strips of cloth. But I could never understand Vayren's desire to go down into the earth and get stuck in with the rest of us. Eventually we came across a small tree trunk that I recognised. We crept over slowly, careful of what we may or may not be treading on. Then we crouched per Vayren's order. He outstretched his index finger and gestured across a plain between two trees.

"Can you see them?" he asked quietly.

"What? Where?" I whispered.

"There." I looked down his arm to where he was pointing and saw something flicker between the blades of long grass, something that caught the light of the sun. Slowly, we crept closer, towards the rotting stump we'd seen only fortnight before and were amazed by what we found.

"You see. I told you they'd survive," Vayren announced gleefully. What had been here the last time we had visited was what remained of a small colony of Zang beetles, creatures with hard carapaces coloured in decorative swirls and shades of brown and beiges about the size of one's balled fist. Their tree had been blow down in a storm two nights previously and most had been crushed as the trunk they had hollowed out collapsed on them. But what we saw before us was not one, but two thriving colonies of Zang beetles; one with decorative red, earthy shells and the other with bodies comprised of twisting shades of green. Vayren had taken off his shoes and was trotting between the two trees that now housed the beetle colonies, careful not to tread on any for both their sake and his own.

"You see. One of the females must have migrated to this tree," he said eagerly, pointing to a green barked Ishi tree "And another potential queen must have made her furrow up through this Zelum," he continued, pointing to a tree with bark similar in colour to red clay. Both trees' bark had been stripped away for about two feet at the bottom and I watched as beetles clambered up the notches worn into the wood as they gnawed and pulled away further pieces to bring back into their hovels.

"So that's why they're different colours now? Because they live in different areas?" I asked.

"Yes. They eat the bark and drink the sap and this affects the pigmentations in their shell casings," Vayren explained gleefully. His schooling in the living world was far more extensive than mine and what he wasn't taught, I surmised, he endeavoured to discover himself. I knelt down in the grass and looked at the two distinct sets of creature as they swarmed around the vicinities of their trees. I watched as some of the green beetles even went back into the ruins of their former home and continued to extract the remains of the wrecked colony's stockpile.

"How long is their life cycle?" I asked, leaning forwards to pick up and examine a red beetle that had strayed from its brethren.

"Only have a season or so. About fifteen- Hey, whoa, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Vayren replied, noticing just in time that I was going to handle one. "They have a really sharp bite. Adult Zangs can take off a finger." I quickly withdrew.

"So, how long does it take them to get that big?" I asked, backing away slowly. I noticed that the smaller beetles had more pronounced colours than their larger kin.

"About ten days. Well, thirteen including the larvae stages. They're incredibly fast to mature and a scientific wonder." Vayren skipped over the swarm of creatures to stand closer to me. "Did you know they're called the invincible beetle?" he asked. I looked at him and shook my head in wonder. "Yeah. They can't be burned because their carapace is flame resistant. It's hard to drown them because they can float on their feet and can store enough air in their trachea to breathe for thirty-two hours. They can regenerate limbs and even have two distinct nervous and circulatory systems. If you cut one in half lengthwise, both halves will regenerate and you'll get two beetles!" I was impressed, both with the beetles themselves and Vayren's working knowledge of them.

"What about poison? Or cutting them width ways?" I asked, enthralled.

"They're resistant to most poisons and can only die cutting them width ways if it's above the second pair of legs. Most of their trachea and organs are in the abdomen."

"Then how do you kill them?"

"Well they die of old age, obviously. But there's only way to kill them for sure. You squash 'em!" Vayren was beaming from cheek-to-cheek. I almost thought he was going to demonstrate from how he was bounding around but I knew that wasn't his style of examining something.

From time-to-time, I remember how odd those days were. The closest I ever came to resembling something that could have been defined as a person was when I was in the company of the one person around whom I should have conducted myself professionally in order to serve and protect. After my many disasters in the first two years at Telequinn manor I had stifled my emotions and opinions before everyone. I was an automaton, soulless, impossible to warm to even if people had wanted to. I did and said whatever was required of me. But Vayren always seemed to want me to emerge from that state. He didn't want a subordinate, a servant or a bodyguard. He seemed to want an equal, an intellectual colleague, a friend, something I felt I could never quite be.

"Has anyone ever tried to figure out why?" I asked excitedly. "Can you imagine if they found out how to regrow arms and legs and organs in People?"

"It's called regenerating, not regrowing," Vayren corrected, not in a scolding way but in more the manner of a teacher, as though he'd made the same mistake once before. "But you're right. I never thought of that. We should try to discover how it works. You and me, we could revolutionise science, medicine, war."

"Wouldn't being invincible make war obsolete?" I asked. How could anyone win or lose a war if no one could be maimed or killed?

Then Vayren stopped and pointed. "Whoa! Look at that." I turned and looked at the stump of the brown tree. A group of green Zangs were just coming out with small goblets of hardened sap and bark where they were being set upon by red Zangs. The larger reds were snipping at limbs and crushing carapaces with their mandibles whilst the smaller beetles carried off the food scavenged by the greens.

"Can you hear that?" I asked, listening to a quiet, but high-pitched squeal resonating from the fight. As it grew, more beetles seemed to drop what they were doing and home-in on the battle.

"Are they fighting over resources?" I suggested. We watched for a minute or so more as things escalated, a mound of dead or dying beetles building as the workers and warriors clashed over territory and control.

Vayren's voice broke the quiet. "They remind me of us. They were the same colony two weeks ago. Now they're bitter enemies. Over what?"

I decided against the answer that was swarming around angrily in my head; because they look different to each other. I looked up and considered Vayren and I for a moment with a heavy heart. Then how are we united? I asked myself. We are the most unlikely pair in the galaxy.

"Well they've still found need of it," Vayren said suddenly, looking up and awakening me from my trance.

"What?"

"War," he said, nodding at the feuding tribes. "They're almost impossible to kill and yet they still find means and motives to do it."

I looked down at them again. Yes, two branches of a single community had found reason to kill each other over the slightest dissimilarities and meekest opportunity. In that moment I realises that we Panthren are much the same. The Empire had splintered because of our instinct to look for our differences, our desire to possess more than anyone else... and how easy we find these to be reasons to kill.

Vayren and I continued on not long after that. We made it back to the dirt path and decided to follow it all the way to the end, where it looped onto the dirt road from the fields that crossed the stone bridge leading south and back to the manor. On the way the dirt path went up a hill and from it we could see across dozens of fields that stretched off to the north and, in some of them, Boaren were tilling patches of unused soil with dragged ploughs and hoes or spreading chemical pesticides and fertiliser pellets by hand from buckets they carried. Vayren debated going into the fields to say hello as, despite numerous warnings about the danger, we had approached unattended Boaren and talked with them. From doing so we'd found that, contrary to popular belief, they were not the mindless beasts they were purported to be. We'd even befriended a few from some of the 'work herds' as the handlers called them. But that day we didn't venture in, as we could clearly see numerous men and women in bright blue all-in-ones walking around with their whips in one paw and shock sticks in the other, their glowing tips crackling and flashing even from that distance. The Boaren surrounding them, some over twice their handlers sizes, simply continued with their backbreaking work with their backs bent and shoulders hunched.

I had long wondered how and why things came to be this way. Of course, I knew the history; The Boaren and Panthren were both interstellar species that had once vied for control of the habitable worlds of the known galaxy. We had fought for hundreds of years before the armies of the Panthren Empire had finally conquered every Boaren planet and hold-out. The histories say that it was Panthren mercy and generosity that prevented us from exacting extinction on the people who had shed so much of our blood. They say that we 'humbled' them. Well it certainly seemed that way when you saw an entire herd of walking battering rams cow-towing to masters with neither the numbers nor the will to truly keep them in check should they wish to leave. But despite what anyone else said, we knew the Boaren weren't stupid. We'd learned that much from talking to them. They understood their situation perfectly well. Their species was kept forever teetering on the brink of extinction. By euthanizing the majority of their females and heavily controlling and manipulating the birth-rate from the birthing centres spread around Panthren space, we had them by the throat. They cause trouble, we ended their race. Simple. Effective.

It sickens me now to think just how this wasn't just unopposed, but heartily celebrated by Panthren society as an ingenious form of industry. If Vayren and Kyren had truly understood back then...

About half way there, Vayren decided to take a detour into the woodland and find the pond that the stream flowed in and out of on its way from the manor.

"I'm boiling and I'm thirsty," he said. Not that I needed much convincing. Days in scorch were so hot and I couldn't even imagine how much worse they must have been for him, with all his jet black fur. I followed in quick step behind him as he pushed his way through the chest and head-high knots of branches and leaves until the small clearing opened before us. What we called a 'pond' was more like a wide, oval shaped knot in the stream, where earth and stone had fallen away and been shifted over centuries until it created a well where the water collected. We skidded down the steep decline of the banking, Vayren far more gracefully than I as he didn't end up doing a dozen or so forward rolls near the bottom. While I nursed my head, Vayren took off his shirt and waded into the water, drinking from it and washing his head.

Eventually we both settled down to sitting on a log near the edge of the water and nestled in the shade of the canopy of trees above, dipping our feet in as we skipped stones and pebbles across the water.

"Mine bounced five times," I said triumphantly.

"Aww, mine only bounced four," he replied. I leaned forwards and picked up another handful of stone, holding the best one out in my spare paw to him.

"Again? Winner takes all?" I asked.

"No. I think we've established you're better at throwing than me." Vayren always used to complain when I let him win at things. He wanted a fair fight. But for a moment I thought I'd hurt his feelings by beating him and felt a twinge of regret. Then he turned to me and smiled. "What's wrong?"

"Uh, nothing Ma- Vayren. Sorry," I stammered, nearly slipping up again. Vayren pursed his lips in a half-disapproving look. The pang of regret came back for an instant, my compulsion to serve and please scolding me over such a trivial mistake. But then Vayren simply put his paws down on the log behind him and leaned back, looking up at the leaves of the trees rustling in the tiniest of breezes and the cloudless blue sky.

"I like sitting here, under the trees. It's lovely and clam here." I looked up too, putting down the stones cradled in my arm carefully. "What was your home like, Kai?" he asked. "Before coming to Ferros I mean." The question gave me pause. It wasn't so much for the horror of remembering as simply having to try hard to actually remember what it was like. I remembered the back of a paw, dampness, hunger. Then I remembered a dishevelled street full of shanty huts and empty bins.

"Dusty and dry," I replied eventually. "I don't remember much else. No trees, no grass." Vayren slapped the bottom of one of his hind paws against the surface of the water.

"You don't miss it then?"

"No." My response to that question was much quicker.

"Not even your parents?" I looked at Vayren, who looked back at me with an innocent enough smile. If I hadn't known him better, I would have assumed he was working some sort of angle. He'd asked similar questions before but never so quickly, or so many. I thought about the faceless figure with the moneybag. I thought about sitting, crying in the cold and the mud. I thought about the last words he ever spoke about me and a woman I had never known... whom I had killed.

How do I explain that to him? I wondered, knowing the family he had and the life they provided for him. Then I remembered what instructions I'd been given on this exact matter.

"I didn't have any, remember?" I told him.

"No family at all?"

"No." Vayren turned and looked back at the sky.

Well I'm glad you ended up here. You're the best guardian ever!" he said, throwing his arms up for the last word and sending a nesting pair of birds flying away in fright. But before i could dwell on how hollow I thought those words were, he spoke again.

"Oh, hey, you wanna know a secret?" My ears perked up.

"What secret?"

Well, it's not really a secret. It's just something Mother told me the other day." I was both a little nervous and excited. Vayren very rarely relayed private conversations between his parents and him to me and I could only imagine how badly I would be punished for not refusing to listen. Vayren must have spotted the anxiety in my face. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad. It's actually something I thought we could try." He then shuffled closer to me on the log and did a dramatic sweep of his head as though looking for eavesdroppers. "Do you know what a kiss is?" I tilted my head and looked down at the water lapping near our feet.

"Isn't it a type of fish? Or a fish-eating bird?" I asked. Vayren giggled.

"A fish? No, it's a thing you do. An action, not an animal." I felt a little stupid. "I saw two servants doing it back at the manor and I didn't know what it was, so Mother explained it to me. She said it's something two people do when they like each other." I had to stop and ponder that for a moment. It couldn't be related to what I had seen in Lord Theredin Telequinn's study more than a year ago. No, Mr. Gatson had said all that had been explained to Vayren. He would have known what it was and not have needed to ask. A momentary shiver ran through me as disjointed images flashed back from my memory.

"H-how does it work?" Vayren shuffled closer.

"It's easy. You just sit there," he said, putting his paws on my shoulders. "And I sit here. Then we're supposed to close our eyes." I did so. "And because you don't know, you just sit still and I'll do it." I sat there for a few moments, feeling kind of silly, but enjoying the cold water lapping over my hind paws and seeing the red flickers of light on my eyelids as the light from the sun peaked through the trees. But that all faded in an instant when I felt a familiar, unsettling sensation. I felt a paw touch me on the back of my head, which seemed innocent and painless enough, until it was combined with the sensation of Vayren's warm breath on my face and something soft pressed against my mouth. My eyes snapped open and I was shocked to see exactly what I expected, Vayren's face pressed close to mine with his eyes closed. His lips didn't move for the two or three seconds they were against mine, but the burning, the rising nausea and the fear made me push him away. I shuffled away so quickly that I almost fell backwards off the log. Vayren wasn't looking at me when he first opened his eyes. He was looking at the ground.

"That was weird. It made my lips tingle," he said before looking up and seeing the expression on my face. I could feel tears begging to well in my eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked. I barely had the capacity to speak.

"Have I upset you? Have I done something wrong?" I asked. Vayren smiled and shook his head.

"No, it just felt funny, that's all. It's not like a pawshake or a hug." But I was still confused. I could feel icy paws on me again and the sensation of being pinned down, like a faint echo.

"But-But," I muttered. "That was a kiss?" I asked, finding it hard to believe that was what Vayren had been describing. Vayren nodded and, with one leg either side of the log, shimmied closer.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine... just... I-" I didn't even know where to begin or what to say. I didn't want to say. I didn't want to remember. "It's just that someone did that to me once before, someone not very nice. And I thought... I thought it was something not nice people did." Vayren tilted his head again.

"I'm really sorry," he said sympathetically. "Mother told me it was something people did who were nice. I didn't want you to think I'm not nice." He leaned forwards with his arms wide to hug me. I withdrew, shaking my head. The last thing I wanted was to be touched. I couldn't process what was happening.

"No. I mean, no thanks. I'm fine. And I don't think you're not nice. I mean I think you are a nice. I mean you are..." I trailed off. I didn't know how to finish. Vayren dropped his arms.

"I'm sorry Kyren," he said again. "Maybe Mother's wrong. Maybe it's not a friendly thing to do. I'll ask her when-"

"No, it's fine," I stammered suddenly. Whatever had just happened was something else I knew would get filed away in the ever growing list of customs and interactions I would never understand. But I could now always see as plain as day was an incident looming on the horizon that would affect Master Vayren's well-being and get me berated again. "I'm just confused. I'm sure she's right. Please don't say anything."

"But I only want to-"

"Please," I begged, leaning forwards. "Please, promise me you won't ask."

"Okay, okay," he said quickly. "Whatever you want. Let's forget about it. It was just a silly experiment," he said. It was only then, when I nodded and leaned away, that I realised I had been clasping him by the arms. I hadn't felt a thing. I looked at my paws before using them to rub down my face and then wash it with water from the stream.

We didn't speak of the incident again. I didn't understand why all these things that other Panthren celebrated were so horrifying to me, or rather, why these painful experiences were welcomed by other Panthren. I retreated back into myself after that and was even weary around Vayren for a time. It seemed easier to simply serve him as a subordinate and shut everything else out. I did care about because trying to understand what was happening to me seemed like a far more complicated and painful alternative.

We never spoke of the incident again, but things were never quite the same after that. I didn't understand what had happened at the time, or what it meant, and neither did Vayren I think. Whether my secrets frightened him or my dismissal offended him I don't know, but Vayren and I weren't as close as we had been after that. How could we be? Not only had I dishonoured myself before him, but the one person in Calael I trusted had done unto me the same horrid thing as the woman who, even now, still haunts me every night in my dreams...