Beta Sunjata Nchama didn't have many dislikes. And he much rather would prefer listing his likes and loves. He loved his wife. He loved his daughters. He loved his son. He loved his home. And he loved living this life.
He slid next to his wife's floor seating where the snakes still hung from the rafters in boredom--twisting and curling like big worms. Although he loved many things, snakes were not one of them. He inched closer to the other side of the seating where the snakes were out of sight.
She poured him some tea, his favorite imported from down east with that sharp sweetness, and he inhaled it like air.
"Akuhetenan reached out," his wife, the Demoness Zamora, said. Her graceful fingers grazed the teapot and she poured herself some tea. "He wants Hua Lin to travel with them."
"I thought the old man was dead. Why are we still speaking with them?"
She sipped from her teacup, but a light smile peered over it as she said, "Yes, that old man is dead, but now his grandson is knocking on our door wanting to acknowledge their relative. It'd be cruel to ignore it."
"What does Hua think about it?"
"The Empress--"
He picked up the teapot and poured more in her cup as she paused. The relationship between the two relatives hadn't been well since her first marriage with the foreigner fell out. At the time, the man, Maximus French, was a big deal in the military, and the Empress' reign was unstable when the Western and Eastern foreigners deigned to team up to steal their exports and mangle their trade routes. He was the commander speaking directly to the Western King. Had they known their Empire would fall to plague, well, there's nothing to be done about it now. The Eastern Empire sped forward and devoured the carcass as much as they could, while their own Empire had to lick their wounds in the efforts to recover from the two centuries of war.
Now, they had almost regained complete control of their Empire.
"--is greedy."
He sighed. "She wants to hit the Eastern Empire and then control the Eastern through them."
"Yes," the Demoness Zamora scoffed. "Do you think it's doable?"
"Of course," he answered. Their tactics had been hidden. They've hit their main exports and wrangled control of strangle points. In a battle, a third of their enemy's trade and resources are already gone. "But, should we?"
"We will never have peace without balance."
"The Empress may be right, in this case," he said carefully as his wife's eyes beaded down on his. "We've feigned weakness for so long both they and us are unaware of what we're capable of. We just have to remind ourselves to stop from going too far."
"That's what I'm afraid of," the Demoness Zamora finished. "Of not knowing when too far is too far."
They both went quiet as their teas' steam cooled.
"Mum! Da!" the boy ran into the room, shouting. He looked barely twelve years old, with his hair still shorn short and a near-mirror image of Sunjata. "Goshiyya and Hua are leaving me."
The boy was red and entirely in tears.
Demoness Zamora shushed the poor boy as he bawled into her chest--crying. She told him, in a low voice, "This is what happens when you get older. You grow up. You get married."
"N-n-n-not me," he hiccupped.
The young alpha was inconsolable.
"I'll send Asa to bed," Sunjata outstretched his arms and the young boy jumped in. "We'll have Hua and Goshiyya tell you bedtime stories every night until the wedding."
The young boy sniffled at the word wedding but was no longer crying loudly.
Sunjata could hear his wife's heavy sigh as he left the foyer of the greeting room. She would likely be in there for the next few weeks as she wrote missives and spoke with politicians and scribes in preparation for what could very well be war. And if everything goes wrong, even civil war isn't off the table.
He tsked as he thought about those rogues, Clan Sarakh. Their mischievous youths and the uncaring attitude of their elders were a thin façade covering mounds of ambition. It didn't appear to be greed to his eyes but whatever they wanted and however it pulled them was just as powerful.
Akuhetenan leaned back as Ochoa's plush lips circled around his cock. His hands yanked and tangled in his long dark hair, laying plush against the bottom of his thighs. Ochoa's pretty brown eyes winked at him as he twisted his tongue and led his release along. He sighed and then waited until Ochoa finished licking him clean. The omega hopped into his lap and wrapped his arm around him, perched underneath his chin. The captain's fingers drew shapes on his naked back.
"When are you coming back?" Ochoa said with a pout sitting heavy on his lips. "I might shove Berman off a cliff if you stay away too long."
The military grounds had a three-level building where sleeping arrangements were shoved together. Indentured servants and slaves slept tucked in the back corners of the grounds with barely a roof and some makeshift stone walls for coverage. Their only use was for cleaning and "relieving the soldiers". This is where the two currently huddled together by the cover of a bush's foliage. No one would bother them in looking for them.
He brushed a heavy hand against his scalp and admitted, "A few years, at least."
"Berman, he isn't going to leave me be," Ochoa said to him. "I won't be able to say no."
The Captain pressed his hands against Ochoa's face, his thumbs brushing up against his cheek, and smiled. "I don't own you, but when I come back, you're going to be only mine."
"And--if he knocks me up."
"Nothing you make could be worth giving up," Akhutenan said as his mouth met his and opened up as he tasted him on his tongue. He could feel the warmth of the morning as it was almost time for him to leave. "Just stay safe and well so when that when I return--"
"I'll be here waiting," Ochoa said, grasping the Captain's hand and kissing his wrist. "Don't forget about me."
The Captain rose from the bench and tucked his robe in as he twisted around the foliage.
He was gone.
"The Captain's gone already?" One of the "relieving" servants, Isaiah, a mousy brown-haired Western young man, poked through the foliage and then pushed through at the lack of a soldier there. "Didn't tell him, I gather."
"That Berman already knocked me up. No, thank you."
"If the herbs weren't so rare this side of the desert, it wouldn't need to be a problem," another voice from the foliage said. Platinum blonde hair and tan skin slid out, leaving none other than Johannes looking both ways before entering the little cove. He plucked one of the flowers off the bush. "I have to make my boots from scratch just to show off my thighs. It's rough out here."
A much taller, muscular figure appeared out from the foliage but dressed no differently than the other "relieving" servants did. This man, Dorian, pointed out, "Ochoa looks like a fertile omega. Unfortunately for him, he's telling everyone he's open for relief."
"Rather I look like a fertile omega than a laboring oaf of an alpha," Ochoa retorted.
Johannes had to push between the two omegas as their glares turned to almost visible spears. His hands broke the two up before his hands could snatch at each other's heads. "Cut it out, you two.
"Besides, some alphas like that," Isaiah pointed out. "Especially in a place like this."
"The point is to find a soldier willing to pull us out of this battlefield," Ochoa said pointedly before twisting his long, curly locks around his fingers. "Some just want heirs, and it isn't the worst option."
"Ah, so now we find the real reason. Stuck between a Commander and a Captain. What would I choose?" Johannes said thoughtfully.
Isaiah stuttered out, "I-I don't know if there is one, you know? One choice. Any choice, actually."
"That's because you've been listening to the mud Santino spits out," Dorian sighed. "He was the smallest, petite omega before you arrived. It's his jealousy talking."
Isaiah frowned when Dorian shook his head with a laugh.
With arms crossed, a frown splayed across Ochoa's face too as he stared in the direction Captain Akuhetenan disappeared through. The ships at the port were still bobbing in the distance. He hadn't left yet but that had never mattered.
He was never there in the alcove with him to begin with.
Ochoa said quietly, "The Captain has a wife back on the mainland. She has a title or was from noble stock. And a kid too if my sources are right. Young. A newborn while he's away fighting for his empire."
The other three omegas go quiet.
"Hope your kid's an alpha then," Johannes added.
Dorian sighed. "The kid will just be stuck here like the rest of us otherwise, like Isaiah here."
"Hey," Isaiah stuttered out again, "I-I made it out fine. And-and a relieving servant has to be sixteen first. They waited until I was seventeen! It could've-it could've been worse."
"Yeah," Johannes tsked. "I bet there's more shitty places out there than this place. I thought I hit the gold mine here when I saw it all."
"From the Cordero brothel, right?" Dorian grinned. "I've heard some things of that place."
"Well, stuff all that where it don't shine," Johannes huffed. He dug his boots on the bench and dusted off the clay sand that stuck to it. "It looked like crystal on the outside but mud all the way on the inside. Nothing good and nothing gained."
Isaiah twisted around searchingly and then said, "Where did Ochoa go?"
The front end of the military grounds were gardens meticulously planted by the Empress' gardeners. Even in this desert, the grounds were flush with plant life common to all corners of the world. Ochoa had always been interested in the plant life of the south, and now that he was here, it was no less beautiful than he had imagined. Colors of gold, amber, and ebony wrap around like calligraphy on the flower petals. He had heard there were forests of green outside of their cities and capitals to the far, far south, but their walls were thick barricades. No one was seen in or out of those lands.
The training grounds lied nearest with the kitchens and common area right after. For a relieving servant, these areas were where they often avoided. They were the most dangerous but Ochoa was no ordinary relieving servant. He followed the paths lead through the garden to the Commanders' common area. There were only two Commanders, four captains, eight generals, and the rest were soldiers.
Ochoa rapped his knuckles against Commander Berman's door and waited until the door squealed open. The elder man with black hair graying white at the edges and a grizzled beard appeared. He appeared in the form of a man who was nearly at the end of his roguish years.
"You said your goodbyes then?" The Commander gave him a once-over. "The pearl filigree[1] is over there in your side of the drawer. I want you to greet me each morning and every evening wearing this. I have work to do this evening, but I expect you to still be here when I return."
Ochoa bowed in affirmation as the Commander slid past.
Each Commander represented the powers presiding over sovereignty in the southern Empire of Sonhrai—Beckett Berman represented the Western Empire of Carolingian, and Srinivas Saavedra represented the Eastern Empire of Jiaozhi. But Commander Saavedra had long since passed, and his only heir, an omega, was set to marry the alpha, Castillo Reviere.
Ochoa wasn't sure how an albeit popular textile weaver but still a weaver and one without a title was able to marry so high above his station but knew that alphas had that privilege.
Omegas were not so lucky.
He dressed in the pearl filigree well aware that just a few years prior he would've been ecstatic at the thought of wearing such precious stones. Instead, he cradled his legs underneath his form as the cold pearl weighed against his skin in the lonely room as he heard the Commander and his soldiers laughing.
And waited.
[1] https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tFMAAOSwtvtiHzv8/s-l1600.webp
A filigree is a crochet jewelry-type pattern. So it's like if a crocheted outfit was made of pearls.