Minor
I was glad my sister was able to get the stranger to cooperate without issue. As they approached, I couldn't really tell if they were male or female, but that wasn't really uncommon with physical appearance. A male had been made to breed with them, so it seemed safe to assume they were female.
What was clear, was that they were becoming fast friends with Stardust. Not surprisingly; my sister has always been very sociable and has a way of putting others at ease.
Stardust quickly pressed understanding of her new friend's language into our minds. Qualin pushed back a little. It was a lot to take in at once, but I helped brace his mind and would help control the flow of information so he could process it as needed.
"This is Vesserio. Vesserio, this is my brother, Minor, and his partner, Qualin." Stardust induced us with a smile, holding her new friend's arm. They nodded and smiled shyly. "She's gonna stay with us until I know it's safe for her to go home."
Vesserio looked a little surprised.
"Is that ok? I did promise?"
"Oh, yes, thank you... it's not that." She looked down and shifted her feet, looking embarrassed.
"Oh, sorry, do you prefer different pronouns? Do you go by they... or he... or something else?"
"Umm... well back home, I was usually referred to as male. But here, from what I could glean of the language, they've mostly referred to me in neutral terms, but no one has ever referred to me as female, without correcting themselves or expressing confusion."
"So, which are you? Male, female, both, neither..." Qualin asked.
"Well, I'm Laforion." They paused and looked between us. "I guess, you aren't familiar."
"Never heard of 'em." Qualin answered nonchalantly. I nodded. Stardust, rubbed Vesserio's arm.
"Oh." She gave Qualin an odd look, but continued. "Well, we can give or
receive seed. So we function as both, or either, I guess. But most Laforions are more masculine so we're almost always just referred to as male. I'm more feminine than usual... but I'm still Laforion, so my people still referred to me as such... they kept saying I would likely become more masculine as I came of age... or definitely by my first heat..."
"Well, what would make you feel more comfortable?" Stardust asked with a reassuring smile.
"Oh, um...I guess it doesn't really matter..." They shifted shyly. Stardust gave them a playful side bump. "Well, if you think I'm feminine enough, I'm ok with being referred to that way. Or in neutral terms. Though being referred to as male never bothered me..."
"There's no such thing as feminine enough. In some species, the females are what you'd call masculine, but that's considered feminine in that culture. So we'll call you whatever you like, and you seem to like she or they, so that's who you are." Stardust hugged her friend's arm with a bright smile and giggle. They smiled back and nodded.
'Alright, if you've gotten everyone, we need to get out of here before ships start arriving.' Galaxy's voice called in our heads.
"Come on, let's join the others and we'll all get out of here." I took Qualin's hand and gestured to the girls. That seemed natural. Stardust giggled and pulled her friend along. I was happy for her. We have a lot of sisters, but Stardust is the only girl in our litter. And while we have a lot of friends, including a few girls, Stardust doesn't get the chance to be giggly and girly very often. I sincerely hoped they'd get to be good friends, even after this mission.
A hint of amusement colored Qualin's thoughts, but he was clearly trying to keep the cause from spilling into our link. I gave him a curious look.
'Later.' He winked and pulled my hand up to kiss my fingers.
Stardust giggled, "Ooohh! Yeah, keep those thoughts to yourself. Come on, I'll introduce you to our other brothers and we'll figure out where we're gonna take everyone." she pulled her friend ahead of us and we made our way to the rest of the refugees.
***
Qualin
I was proud of myself for keeping my thoughts private. The key was to not let them form into full thoughts or language, but rather push them to the side, unarticulated. And with a little kiss as a distraction, we moved on.
It only took a minute to reach the group we'd left. Major was still in his fluffy form, about the size of the young children, but large enough that a couple toddlers kept climbing on his back and sliding off, giggling and clambering up one after the other.
Major looked like he was enjoying himself. Minor laughed to himself. I got the feeling again that he wanted to play with the kids too. "Don't stop on my account."
"That's ok, we need to get everyone organized to teleport. It's gonna be a big jump with this many people, and Shooter isn't here to help."
He had a serious expression on his face as he surveyed the group and did calculations in his head. I couldn't quite grasp the math, but he seemed to be figuring out where we would be able to go based on the number of people, how much energy his siblings and he had left, and distances from our current location.
Meanwhile, Stardust had started directing people to stand and gather at close together as possible. Major immediately began to help, directing children back to parents, if they had them.
"Come on, I know this is a lot, but we need to get out of here before more military backup shows up. I promise, we'll help each of you get to your preferred destination once we've had time to rest, but for now we're all going to stick together and go to a neutral location, that's far from here and safe for all of us." Major explained.
It was pretty obvious everyone was looking nervous. One of the men we'd released who had combat experience spoke up. "We still don't know who, or even what, you people are. We're grateful, but perhaps we we will be better in our own... there are ships, and places we can go."
"We're not going to force you. If you'd rather do that, you may. But if you are captured again, you'll be on you're own. We took it upon ourselves to release you. That makes you our responsibility. That means we will transport you to safety. If you know a safe location, we will get you there. But right now, we can only make one jump with everyone safely, so we're gonna pick a location we're familiar with for ease, and our safety as well." Major took a breath. "Once we've had a chance to rest and recover, we'll take you wherever you want to go. Whether it's all together, or independently. And if you don't know a safe place, we know some places that take refugees."
"We're run aways, they'll send bounty hunters after us..." A woman holding two small children trembled.
"We can take you so far from this system, they'll have no idea where to look." Stardust giggled. "This isn't our first slave rebellion. And if you want, will take you somewhere we can keep in touch, so if you're people win the fight and you want to return in the future, that'll be a possibility."
"Our people have already retaken our ancestral homeworld. We should go there. Those of us who still want to fight can join the rebellion, those who don't or can't will be protected by our people." The man spoke to the crowd. Many seemed surprised and doubtful. Or maybe hopeful.
"That sounds like a good option. You can discuss amongst yourself and decide for later." Major directed a few last people to step a little closer together. "Ok, looks like we're ready to go! Last chance if you want to step away." He looked at the man who'd been speaking. He glanced at a woman who looked a bit older. Possibly his mother. Then he sighed and stepped a little closer into the circle.
Galaxy suddenly appeared on the far side of the crowd. He was at least a head taller than all the refugees so was easy to spot. "Wings out to make this easier." He outstretched the leathery wings that were on his back.
I watched as Minor transformed into a similar hybrid form. He still looked like a Beastling, but his spots were replaced by scales and his cute, furry tail was replaced by a reptilian one. His eyes were the same, except adorned with jewel like scales at the edges. He looked pretty amazing.
"Hmm. That hybridized in an interesting way." He glanced over himself. "I thought I might keep some cat features, but the dragon features took over naturally. There must be dragon-Beastlings from your world that are pretty closely related?" He looked over at me, and I realized he was also a little taller now. I shrugged. I knew there were different races from my world, but I didn't know them all, or how we were related.
He smiled and showed off a row of sharp fangs. Kissing might be a little dangerous, but I felt willing to risk it.
'Stay focused.' Galaxy chided. I brushed it off.
'Don't worry, it's not like I'm gonna jump him right here.' I gave Minor a wink and started walking to stand with the crowd.
Minor caught my hand and directed me to stand facing the crowd, then he stepped away. His siblings took similar positions, the other two also in dragon hybrid forms now. All four of them outstretched their wings and shifting to be about evenly spaced and trying to completely encircle everyone. If I reached out, I could just touch the tip of Minor's wing. Stardust's wing nearly reached me on the other side. I looked over and saw her new friend standing close in front of her, holding both her hands.
'This'll do.' Galaxy called. Then I saw the threads of energy begin to weave around us in a thick dome. I swear it might have been visible even without my vision. But if you couldn't see it, you could definitely feel it. A light, warm hum that reverberated gently to your bones. Then the dome began to slowly rise, and we all rose off the ground, encased in a semi-circled of energy. Some of the people inside were clearly nervous but remained mostly still, clinging to each other.
The the scenery outside the dome vanished too blackness. For the first time when teleporting, I didn't feel a jolt. We were completely removed from the effects. I looked around quickly, curious what the space between places looked like, but it was just black. Except for the threads of energy that looked strangely translucent and spread out in a seemingly endless, perfect, intricate web.
But it went to quickly to truly process what I was seeing. Then scenery formed around us. Or, more like, the blackness dissolved to reveal a new location.
Once we were fully out of the darkness, the semi-circle lowered to the ground and the threads began to untangle and drift away. Everyone looked around, seeming disoriented but having no idea how much smoother that was compared to usual.
"Why don't we always do it that way?" I chuckled, looking over to Minor, who looked pale.
I jumped to him and caught him in my arms. He wasn't quite falling, but close enough. "Never mind." I whispered and kissed his temple as he sighed and leaned against me. I led him away to sit down. Glancing around, his siblings looked equally tired.
"We knew we'd have to overdo it a bit, but we'll be fine after a nap and something to eat." He yawned and curled against me. "First, I just need to rest for second. Then we'll get everyone settled."
"Don't worry about that. I'll take care of you." I smiled at him and he laid his head on my shoulder. I pulled him closer. Everyone else could settle themselves. My partner had done enough.