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Astray is a science-fiction drama about leonine-like kethirr working through the trauma that threatens to rend them apart. These guardians and aid-givers must find solace among themselves, least their hearts grow as bitter cold as the long nights of their world, Thirrik.

Chapter synopsis: As the vah sets out to meet with Sairra in Rraqil, Nevrra shares difficult words with Kedarr and Haruna, but that may not be the worst complication they face.

Content warnings: Violent descriptions, trauma

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Last revision: June 1, 2025 - Changed a word that could have been unintentionally insensitive, added a missing comma, and removed a stray space and "anyway." Added a missing comma and corrected two very minor bits of weird phrasing. These are the only changes since the recent major update.

Chapter 9

Delayed

It was a short walk from Qrreia’s cabin to the flight deck. The Wandering Horizon was a sizable craft—it had to be, as it accommodated so many living spaces—but as a vahik, it was compact. Personal rooms and public spaces were small. So were the hallways that connected them. It was a sacrifice compared to a stationary home, but they were Errant Blades. They needed to be mobile, and Nevrra did not miss life before the aircraft. Going from karik to karik while living out of a bag was certainly traditional, but it was difficult and limited their range.

Despite the brief walk, it felt far longer. Nevrra’s mind was stuck in the moment before the announcement. She should have been concerned about whatever was bothering Haruna, but she couldn’t move past her realization. She couldn’t help but wonder if Larrin had already felt that connection—and if she’d just been ignorant of it. She couldn’t help but wonder if Larrin had felt it even before Nakril. Larrin was, after all, who’d gotten through to her. Despite failure after failure, she had continued reaching out. Nevrra hadn’t ever thought of Larrin as stubborn before, but on that she had been. Even when everyone else had all but given up and accepted how Nevrra had become.

She felt three, distinct, pangs of guilt. One was for repeatedly rejecting Larrin’s attempts to reach her. Another was for missing just how much the other woman cared for her. Even if Larrin had often hid it, like so much, behind an excessive layer of snark, she should have seen it. She should have known.

The final pang was more insidious, but felt no less true to her. It was not an unfamiliar guilt. It was lodged into her soul, and had been ever since the events in Nakril-sa’ik. Ever since she walked past Durrnok. Ever since she locked herself away. Even if Harriq, Surrha, and Zarnik truly forgave her, it was a guilt that their forgiveness alone could not absolve.

Nevrra knew she was not alone in her pain. Her whole vah felt it. They had ever since their collective loss. She should have been there for them.

She wasn’t completely disconnected. She still occasionally sat with the vah, but she rarely said anything. She still practiced and drilled with everyone, but that was an obligation. She still guided Kedarr so that he could gain recognition as a full Errant Blade, but Durrnok had to unfairly take over the majority of that effort. It was too painful for her. Surrha could no longer earn the honor with Kedarr, despite how much she’d deserved it, and Zarnik was no longer there to help. She doubted it was any less painful for Durrnok.

There was little else she had once done with her vah that she still did. She offered no quiet confessions or listened to any. She showed no affection or accepted any. She offered no comfort or allowed any to be shown to her. She had no consoling words or offerings of needed wisdom. She was no longer intimate with any of them, physically or emotionally.

She was too mired in loss to do any of it. She missed Harriq’s calm intelligence and thoughtful advice. She longed for Zarnik’s strength of will and steadfast support. She needed Surrha’s passionate affection and her constant companionship.

It had been Zarnik’s idea for Durrnok and her to become Errant Blades along with him. It was not a goal either of them would have set on their own, or one they would have seen to fruition without his motivating presence. However, it was in Nevrra that Sarriq saw his personal successor. Not one of the most gifted athletes on Thirrik, as Zarnik was, but rather someone who could bind a vah of Errant Blades together. Someone who could be there for them through all the hardships they would endure.

There was a time when Sarriq finally convinced her to believe he was right.

Kethirr were not a people concerned with rigid order and hierarchy. They had customs, not laws. They had cultures and networks of bonds, not governments or organizations. They had guides, not rulers. Yet, within a vah, each kethirr found their own niche. They were not assigned, set in stone, or even unique to each member. Rather, they were something kethirr naturally fell into. Haruna was their pilot because she loved to fly as much as she loved physics—she’d even piloted spacecraft prior to joining the vah. Marrika was their doctor because she wanted to heal others. Durrnok was their engineer because he loved to tinker and learn how things worked. The affable Grakul was a good at keeping people calm and his upbringing made him an exceptional survivalist—and a surprisingly good chef. Varrina was, in many ways, Zarnik’s successor. She kept them all as safe as possible. Kedarr was brilliant with software and systems, and Larrin could find anyone, anywhere, and learn a lot along the way. Even Qrreia found a niche as a general helper—who also had an uncanny ability to get just about anywhere.

And it was Nevrra who should have made sure they were okay, despite everything they had gone through.

“I’m just saying she has a point, and—” Haruna cut off as soon as she registered the flight deck’s door had opened. She was seated in the pilot’s seat. It was located before the center of the control console, which ran along the front of the flight deck in a semi-circle. Her ears and her tail, the latter of which dangled between the seat and back of her chair, shot upward, but her surprise faded as quickly as it came.

The floor, walls and ceiling of the flight deck looked like most of the rest of the aircraft. However, the front was dominated by the massive viewscreen. Had the Wandering Horizon been a normal atmospheric craft, it would have likely been a window. However, because it had been designed to fly into dangerous environments and conditions, the front of the aircraft was fully armored. Thus, the viewscreen was just that: a large screen that projected images from the aircraft’s external cameras and sensors. At a glance, it looked no different than a window. Except, it could adjust zoom levels and display sensor readouts and other information. It could also display images created from environmental data, including light from outside of the visual spectrum for kethirr.

Kedarr was sitting to Haruna’s left in one of the flight deck’s two other stations. Nevrra didn’t miss the angle of his ears when she entered. His naturally ruly mane hadn’t hidden them from her view, and they conveyed an obvious irritation that almost certainly lingered from before she entered. “Oh. Huh,” he uttered after looking over his shoulder to see her.

“What?” Nevrra asked.

“Nothing. I didn’t think takeoff warranted a visit from you,” Kedarr replied with a shrug. He looked back down at the console before him, then added, “By the way, it’s day. You’ll overheat.”

Nevrra glanced down at herself. She was still wearing the outfit she’d met Sarriq in the night before. “I will change before disembarking,” she said. “As for what’s warranted, I wouldn’t think Haruna would require a co-pilot, either.”

“Never hurts to have a one,” Haruna said. She was looking over a display built into the console even though its contents were also displayed on the viewscreen—a preflight checklist, from what Nevrra could tell. “Not that I really need one, no. It’ll pretty much fly itself, but I don’t say no to company unlike some people.”

Nevrra’s tail lashed behind her, but she couldn’t argue the point. However, as her fur began to settle back down, she noted Kedarr’s had also bristled. A low growl sounded in the back of his throat. “Drop it. Seriously. You don’t need to argue her point.”

“Sure.” Haruna lifted her hands up, fingers extended in an expression of mock surrender. “I need to get us going, anyway.”

“Larrin, I presume.” Nevrra took the seat on Haruna’s right, and she didn’t miss the cautiously surprised looks the others gave her. It wasn’t atypical for her to be on the flight deck, but ever since Nakril, she hadn’t bothered much.

“She was just in here,” Kedarr replied, “being herself.”

Nevrra’s ear flicked, but she stared ahead at the viewscreen. “I spoke with her. She was concerned about you.”

“What? About me?” Kedarr scoffed. “While talking to you?”

Her fur bristled again, but Nevrra allowed the comment to pass by. Even though that one had actually been aimed at her, she still had no defense. “I noted I understood why you would prioritize a diagnostic.”

In her periphery, she saw Kedarr relax back into his seat. He gave a single, satisfied nod, and then focused on the console before him. Nevrra wasn’t entirely sure what he was checking on. He may have been monitoring traffic, but Haruna could do that herself. He may have just been trying to keep himself occupied.

“We had plenty of time to run it.” Haruna began to enter commands into the aircraft’s console. Nevrra assumed she was inputting their course. Haruna was an excellent pilot, but she wasn’t wrong. For such a routine flight, the aircraft would mostly fly itself. “Plus, we were delayed when Durrnok took off to help someone, anyway.”

“And this trip might have been delayed if we found something wrong,” Kedarr said.

“If we found something wrong, we’d be delayed fixing it.” Haruna gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“That’s my point. All the better to get a head start, so it’s less of one.”

“If we were in a big rush to get to Rraqil, we wouldn’t have come here first.”

Slowly, Nevrra raised a hand and gently rubbed at the bridge of her nose. A faint, but very present, pain began to throb at her forehead. “Neither of you are wrong. It is a responsible concern, but not too serious of one, either.”

Kedarr let out a low rumble in acceptance and Haruna dipped her head to the side in acknowledgement of Nevrra’s point.

Haruna flicked a switch and the aircraft’s engines came to life. The Wandering Horizon rumbled like a kethirr who’d just dined on a fine, vasrril-marinated steak.

“However, I believe Larrin was worried about a pattern of behavior.” Nevrra kept watching the viewscreen. Outside, the desert sands seemed to shimmer and warp as they baked under Zha’s relentless radiance. The Wandering Horizon faced away from the main walkway, but several other craft, including a large transport, were settled onto landing pads in view. “Even if an excuse can be presented as logical, that does not mean it originates in logic. She is not wrong to raise her concern.”

Another low growl came from Kedarr as he gave her a sidelong look. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, based on what she said,” Nevrra replied. She could hear how flat her voice sounded, but there was a familiarity in broaching such a subject. She just hadn’t in far too long. Despite the shame she felt for not being there for Kedarr before, there was a comfort in being there for him now. Her ears lifted. Within herself, it was as if a small flicker of light, one she long thought had been snuffed out, grew a little more bright.

“No, are you serious?” Kedarr asked. The growl remained. It colored his words and sharpened them to a hard edge.

Nevrra turned her head to fully look at him, though she remained sitting straight-backed in her seat. “Yes.”

Kedarr’s palms pressed down on the console, but with Haruna preparing for takeoff, he stopped himself from standing. Instead, he spun his seat toward Nevrra. His ears were back and his fangs threatened to appear. “You are going to lecture me on this?” he snapped at her. “You? After you chased me out of your fucking quarters time and time again? For having the fucking audacity to try and talk to you? To help you?”

That light within her, for all its newfound strength, diminished in an instant. “I—” Nevrra started, but Kedarr didn’t let her finish.

“No, Nevrra.” His claws started to extend. They pressed into the arms of his chair—a reaction all too familiar to her. “No. You don’t get to lecture me. Not on this. Everyone else might be overreacting, but you don’t even get to act.”

Nevrra fought against a growl of her own. She felt it rising in her throat, but she didn’t want to escalate. It was hard not to. The jolt that ran through her spine and sent her fur standing on end demanded she snap back. Her hands ached as she restrained her claws. Her jaw worked as she forced her fangs from bearing back at him. Nevrra’s vision narrowed as the darkness crept back in. It consumed not just her periphery, but the hope growing within her. “Kedarr.” Her voice was no longer flat. It was firm. Despite her efforts and her intent, it had an edge as sharp as his. “Settle. I am trying to—”

“What?” he snapped again. “Be a hypocrite?”

“Hey,” Haruna cut in sharply. “I’m trying to get us into the air. If you want to claw at each other, take it to the gym after takeoff.”

Kedarr relented. He turned his chair forward and stared out the viewscreen. His fur still bristled and his tail still lashed behind him, but while each breath came out sharp through his nose, they were held deep and long first. Nevrra recognized the familiar attempt to calm himself.

It had been some time since she’d seen that white-hot anger of his come to the surface. It was rare when it did, but when Surrha fell, it nearly killed him. It had killed two of Tavrret’s vah. But, in his rage, he had rushed out of cover. They’d nearly lost Grakul as he pushed Kedarr out of the line of fire.

Nevrra had been no more calm. That memory was burrowed into her mind like a vrrith nest and could never fully leave. Not the sight of Surrha falling. Not the weight of her body in Nevrra’s arms. Not the moment when her breathing ceased and her eyes grew distant. Not everything that followed. Nevrra still saw the twisted horror upon Tavrret’s face as her coilblade rammed through his body. Her claws had extended as the armor over her fingertips retracted back. He may have denied her screams, but she’d drank in the blood-scent of his death while her claws rended his body. Varrina had to pull her away from what was left of him. Nevrra hadn’t made it easy.

An Errant Blade should never enjoy killing. It was anathema. No one should enjoy snuffing out a life—regardless if that life was kethirr or not, and even if that life had been lived wickedly. It was to be held as a last resort. When it was necessary, it was a solemn action that weighed forever upon one’s soul. It was one of the many burdens that Sarriq had told her that she would need bear; Errant Blades existed to save lives, but not every disaster was a natural one. Before that moment, she had never taken joy in it. But in that moment, she had reveled in the fire of fury and blind hate that had burned within her. She was rendered feral in the frenzy of loss. From its depths, she never truly returned.

“I’m sorry.”

The distance between Kedarr’s softly spoken words and Nevrra’s recognition of them was unknown to her. She only knew that it was not instant, nor was it quick. She wasn’t even certain if Kedarr had offered them before or after the Wandering Horizon lifted from the landing pad. She just knew that she had heard them and that they were now above the Thadkrri’ik. Ahead were the mountains separating it from the Vasik, and they were closer than they had been.

“You are not the one who needs to apologize,” Nevrra said. There was now a great weight within her chest. It pulled her down and back into her seat. It was no physical thing, and yet it felt no less real. She did not look over to Kedarr, but simply stared ahead, toward the peaks that towered before their destination. “You have every right to be angry with me.”

“I’m not—” Kedarr started, but he cut off. It had taken him a moment to even begin speaking, which Nevrra took for confirmation that her response had been long delayed. The former karinv, now fellow karvah, let out a long, heavy breath. “No, I am. I shouldn’t be, though. We just talked about how you were doing yesterday.”

“My pain does not justify causing pain,” Nevrra replied. Her attention remained ahead. With her periphery gone, the viewscreen was all she saw. But she did not even truly see it, either. “It does not change how you feel, or make it less real.”

“You were trying to help,” Kedarr murmured. “And Nevrra, I don’t want you to have to be in pain.”

“Nor do I,” Nevrra replied. “I also do not want you to be, either. But we are, and we cannot change how we feel.”

Kedarr replied with no more than a gentle rumble of agreement. Haruna, however, interjected, “I’ve never known you two to be defeatist, but here we are, I guess.” Nevrra turned her head to see the vah’s lone Zhirrilkarvah lace her fingers together and place her hands behind her head. Haruna closed her eyes, but pivoted her ears forward so she could pick up any sounds from the consoles. “We weren’t getting along, but leaving my old vah was painful. You both, along with everyone else, helped me move on and settle in. Helped keep me together, even after our losses.”

Nevrra let out a rumble of acknowledgement, but she still hurt. The vah may have helped Haruna after Nakril, but Nevrra hadn’t. She’d offered solace to no one, and she rejected any offered to her. There was a bitterness in her acknowledgement that she could blame on no one but herself.

“We should actually talk, you and I.” Kedarr looked over to Nevrra, and although she did not quite meet his eyes, she could tell there was the faintest glimmer in them. “Maybe... I don’t know. Maybe Larrin’s right. Maybe we’re both—”

The three kethirr’s attention snapped in unison toward the consoles. The one Nevrra sat before let out a series of three rapid beeps, repeated again and again. A distress signal. Haruna started to reach toward the console’s main panel, but Nevrra’s hand had already reflexively shot out to bring up the signal’s information. The console’s display showed an image of the surrounding geography. A small triangle indicated the Wandering Horizon’s current location, while a circle with a dot in the center showed the location of the signal.

“Just past the mountains in the Vasik,” Nevrra said. She placed her fingers onto the screen and flicked them up. The motion caused the panel’s display to mirror onto part of the viewscreen so the other two could more easily see it.

“Rraqil’s the closest sa’ik, but it’s a good way out,” Kedarr mused. “Are there any smaller settlements there?”

“No,” Nevrra replied. “No known ones, at least.” It was possible there was an unknown one in the area. If a group of kethirr wanted to build vahik somewhere, they would—barring any contention from locals. It was hard to get materials and equipment without going through a sa’ik or karik, though, so few were unknown. Karinv, however, usually made due with what they could scrounge up. The Vastrirrilik housed plenty of small karinv encampments that few, if anyone, knew of.

Haruna was already setting a new course toward the signal’s origin. “Could be hikers or something; maybe ran afoul of the local wildlife?”

It was possible. Thirrik’s diverse fauna included no shortage of deadly creatures, from small to massive. The Vasik may have been the “euphoric land,” but it was named that because vasrril natively grew there. It was no more safe than the barren depths of the Thadkrri’ik.

However, Nevrra was certain of one thing: the signal came from karinv. It was a generic signal that lacked any details. It was almost certainly from a crude, automated beacon. No identities were included, nor affiliations with any kar. It could even be bait, but bait that would too easily draw Errant Blades. It was a poor trap that left one caged with a dangerous predator, but a desperate enough vah might take the risk.

Despite Haruna already altering their course, Nevrra opened the aircraft’s internal comms. “We’ve picked up a generic distress signal. You have thirty seconds to protest intercepting.”

No one would. They never did. It didn’t matter that they were en route to meet someone. They were Errant Blades, so a distress signal needed to take priority over nearly everything. However, it was not Haruna’s call alone to make, nor was it Nevrra’s, but as the seconds ticked by, no responses came.

“I have something from a satellite.” Kedarr moved the image onto the main viewscreen like Nevrra had. The satellite’s cameras showed a near real-time view of the Vasik, and high-resolution enough that Kedarr was able to zoom into the area the signal originated from. Not far from the foot of the mountains, a plume of smoke rose above the dense canopy of the Vastrirrilik rainforest. It was visible only through a break in the cloud cover, and a moment later it was hidden from view. But it was enough.

Nevrra opened a channel to the rest of the aircraft again. “It’s a lone, isolated building fire in the Vastrirrilik.” Then, she pushed herself up from the seat. There was no need to say anything further. Everyone would know exactly what to do. For all their pain and for all the neglect she’d shown her vah, of that Nevrra had no doubt.

She stalked out of the flight deck. She’d encase herself in her armor and, despite the depth of loss’s wounds, she’d do everything in her power to save whoever she could.