AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is part of a longer series -- not sure how long, but there's more soon where this came from.

TITLE: "Chosen"

AUTHOR: Aiobheann

PAIRING: John/D'Argo, John/Chiana

RATING: NC-17 Harsh language, implied m/m sexual activity, het sex play, fetish/kink (discipline, Dominance/submission).

SUMMARY: Pre-slash, Angst, Dominance/submission. Playing a role leads to unexpected revelations and desires. Set during mid-second season, before D'Argo and Chiana became lovers.

SERIES/SEQUEL: Part one of the "Chosen One" series.

NOTES: No, I'm not dead. I haven't posted a story in almost three months, so I could understand if you thought I was. This one is for Rob, and my very own Big Guy, Sean. Thanks goes to Sabrina Cross for being patient while I played hooky, and to Nessa for listening while I thought out loud.

/ = italics
// = thought

DISCLAIMER: The boys belong to Henson and Rockne; I just take them out and play with them every once in a while. No copyright infringement is intended and I'm only in this for the love of a sexy, smart-assed human and a big, gruff Luxan. No money has changed hands, dammit. Only the words are mine, and those are copyright 2000, Aiobheann.

ARCHIVE: FSA & WWOMB; all others please ask.

by Aiobheann

In the seconds after his eyes adjusted to the dim light, John realized that they were going to have a hell of a time fitting in with the crowd in this particular bar. The four of them had ducked into the first place they had come to, hoping to stay out of sight of the squad of Peacekeepers they had seen in the market square. John wasn't sure if they had been made or not -- they hadn't stayed around long enough to be able to tell -- but it was safer to not take that chance.

The plan was to stay hidden for the next few arns and then meet up with Zhaan and Rygel at the transport. Now it looked as if that plan would have be altered slightly if they intended to spend the next few arns /here/.

/Here/ was dark and smoky, with a raised bar commanding the center of the room, tables and booths scattered along risers of varying heights along the walls. There was no dance floor. The people sitting in the booths and at the tables were not interested in dancing.

In the farthest corner, a young Sykaran woman stood at rigid attention, her hands clasped behind her back and sheathed in a single glove that bound her arms together from palm to elbow. She was otherwise nude. Her clear white eyes were trained fixedly on the opposite wall, and a slender chain trailed from the collar round her throat to the hand of a Sebacean male sitting beside her, deep in conversation with his companions. He spared not a glance for the girl at his side, as if supremely confident she would stand as instructed for as long as he wished.

The same kind of tableau was presented by various other species and combinations of sexes all over the room, but it was very apparent that the patrons were divided into two separate categories: Sebacean dominants and alien submissives. Whatever Peacekeeper High Command might have to say about irreversible contamination, in this place it apparently did not extend to playthings and slaves.

John turned from his perusal of the crowd to catch Chiana looking at him speculatively. She saw him looking and grinned, her grin widening when he cocked an eyebrow at her. She made as if to move to his side and he shook his head. She cut her eyes at Aeryn, then back to him, opening her mouth to laugh, showing a flash of clever pink tongue and even white teeth, the sound lost in the pounding music filtering down from overhead. As John watched, she turned to Aeryn, lifting up on tiptoes to speak into Aeryn's ear, gesturing to the crowd at large in answer to Aeryn's questioning, angry glare.

John turned to D'Argo, having to go up onto /his/ toes to speak directly into the Luxan's ear. "D'Argo, you're gonna have to pretend to be my -- " He faltered, seeking the right word, one that would both convey the right concept to D'Argo and yet not infuriate him. The term he settled on wasn't the best, perhaps, but better, more free of negative connotations, than slave. However, given D'Argo's need to be the alpha male, it probably wasn't much better. " -- my submissive. Everybody in this place is either a submissive or a dominant, and most of the dominants look Sebacean. Can you play along?"

* * *

D'Argo glanced at him, face clouding up with anger, and then at Aeryn and Chiana. Chiana was standing meekly at Aeryn's side, head down, and Aeryn had placed a heavy, possessive hand on her shoulder, although her pinched statement of aggravation showed she wasn't too pleased about it.

"C'mon, D'Argo. It's either play-act in here for a while, or face the Peacekeepers outside. It's just for a little while. It's okay, I've done this before," John said, his warm breath tickling the cup of D'Argo's ear.

D'Argo glanced around them again, seeing now exactly what John was talking about -- all of the people holding the leashes or chains or stroking the heads of the beings kneeling at their feet were Sebacean. To do anything else but blend in would draw attention, and possibly expose them to the notice of the Peacekeeper patrol that might be looking for them even now. Here, they had a chance at staying hidden for long enough to let the patrol pass them by and let them slip back to the transport unnoticed -- outside, they would be vulnerable, visible, and outnumbered. The soldier in him realized the wisdom of John's plan even as most of his nature -- the part of him that sought always to be the dominant male -- howled in furious protest. Another part of him was curiously silent at this affront, and that made him even more uncomfortable than the threat to his dignity did.

John was still leaning in close, and he caught D'Argo's eye again before turning his head to speak into D'Argo's ear, seeming to read D'Argo's reluctant agreement in his statement. "Okay. Walk ahead of me, with your head down, and when we get to a table, sit down on the floor by my feet."

John took hold of his arm then, gently propelling him forward, and as D'Argo walked ahead of him, he felt possessiveness, command, and a strange gentleness in John's grip on him. When they reached a table in a darkened and secluded corner, John squeezed his arm firmly, stopping him, and sat down, looking from D'Argo to the floor sharply when D'Argo lagged and stood beside his seat indecisively.

Feeling stupid and horribly conspicuous, D'Argo knelt clumsily by John's feet, seeing Chiana gracefully doing the same at Aeryn's feet out of the corner of his downcast eyes. In contrast to his own embarrassment, Chiana seemed to preen and flirt from her position, holding her back straight, eyes flickering up to light on Aeryn's face and then back down at her own hands, clasped neatly in her lap. Unconsciously, he straightened his own back -- he kept his face turned down to the floor, however. Confusion and a simmering anger at being pressed into this situation made him uncertain about meeting John's eyes right now.

His height put his face almost even with John's when he knelt by John's chair, and John took advantage of it by leaning in close again, one hand reaching out to toy idly with the end of a braid as if he were conferring praise or giving instruction to a favored pet. "Just relax, D'Argo. We'll be here for two arns, tops, and then we can go. Until then, be good and do what I tell you to -- I don't know the rules here. If you misbehave, any one of these dominants might have the right to discipline you, and I don't want to risk it."

D'Argo nodded furtively, and John smiled, the hand toying with the braid coming up to caress his cheek in approval before resting on his shoulder, possessive and warm. The hand moved away for a microt as John leaned to his other side to speak quietly to Aeryn. D'Argo heard him tell her to follow his lead and treat Chiana the way he was treating D'Argo. Just inside the range of his peripheral vision, he saw Aeryn nod tersely and then begin to stroke Chiana's hair, clumsily and uncertainly. Chiana all but purred under the touch, and D'Argo was startled out of his consideration of this when John's hand came to rest again on his shoulder, caressing and soothing.

* * *

Sitting there, hand on the Luxan's warm shoulder, John was surprised to find how easy it was to slip back into the role. No matter how many times he had to remind himself it was just for show, that it was a necessary subterfuge, he couldn't help enjoying it. He could sense Aeryn's discomfiture, sitting next to him and trying to match his casual attitude by jerkily stroking Chiana's hair and presenting a smooth, unbothered face to any onlookers. Only John could tell how unnatural and strange she found the whole charade.

Chiana, for her part, seemed born to sit where she did, seemed made to be petted and played with, and John allowed a twist of desire to run through him before his attention turned back to D'Argo -- desire more occasioned by her attitude of perfect and practiced submissiveness, rather than by her femaleness or beauty.

D'Argo, though...D'Argo was the kind of pet he had always favored, the kind of playmate he had sought out during the years when his private life had been carried out mostly in the kind of bars you had to know someone to be allowed into, at parties held in nice homes in quiet suburban neighborhoods where the entertainment was anything but suburban. Or nice.

In college he had been introduced to it by a girlfriend, one who knew everything there was to know about John, and some things /he/ hadn't even known about himself. The first time he had kissed a man, she had been there. The first time he had walked into a bar and allowed a cool confidence he hadn't really felt announce who he was and what he was looking for, she had been there. Eventually, they had parted company, but not until she had transformed a young man who was sensitive and caring in bed, one with a few kinky fantasies, into a polished, accomplished top.

She had accepted him, seen through him, and been brutally honest with him about everything she saw in him, about him. By the time they had parted, as friends, he knew exactly what he wanted.

And what he wanted, then /and/ now, was D'Argo.

Not /him/, specificially -- at least, not until he had ended up here -- but more precisely the kind of man he /represented/. John's favorites had always been the ones who were larger than him, their bigger frames gilded with muscle and sinew, the ones who were so obviously the alpha male that bringing them to heel, making them /his/, was almost better than the sex could have ever been. Bears, sometimes, although that hadn't been a real requirement -- the roughness and maleness and /untamed-ness/ was all that had really been necessary.

All of that had faded from his life when he was accepted into the Space Program -- astronauts who wanted to become Mission Specialists and be favored with the best assignments didn't allow themselves to be seen as anything but good, All-American boys...and that, of necessity, meant /straight/ All-American boys. His relationship with Alex hadn't necessarily been cover, or dishonest on his part. Women were not totally out of the range of possibilty -- but not where his true interests now lay. However, he had accepted that his life had to narrow its focus if he meant to do the things he wanted to, and she was enough -- smart enough, kind enough, ambitious enough -- to keep him mostly happy and allow him to push away the hunger that sometimes crept up on him like a slow-rising fever.

The hunger was something that he had mostly forgotten by the time he had ended up lost out here -- he no longer really remembered how it had felt to lie beside her in her bed, smelling the clean sheets and her perfume and watching her smooth, untroubled face as she slept and wishing fiercely for something that was fierce, that was dangerous and wild and as far from her gentle femaleness as possible. By the time he had ended up on Moya, there hadn't been much time left for such things, and he was so used to channeling his energies away from what he had forgotten that he really wanted -- /needed/ -- that it was Aeryn that caught his eye and piqued his curiosity, not D'Argo.

By the time he realized it, the time for such a thing was long past. D'Argo had formed an image of him, and it wouldn't be possible, really, to break that image and remake it, even if the Luxan did happen to want the same thing John did.

And now...here he sat with this big, not-quite-tame warrior at his feet, and it was irresistible to pretend just a little, wasn't it? The fact that it was necessary for his safety -- for everyones' safety -- made it okay enough to justify enjoying himself a bit, to fall back into the role for just a little while, as long as he remembered how and why to turn it off again when this was over.

He could do that.

He /hoped/ he could do that.

* * *

A server came by, offering drinks, and John ordered only for himself and Aeryn. When the drinks were brought to them, John took a sip of his drink, jostling Aeryn's elbow to make sure she was watching him. He leaned over and offered the drink to D'Argo, murmuring a low negative when D'Argo reached up for it with his hands. Embarrassed and angry, D'Argo relented and allowed John to hold the cup to his lips, his face burning with shame.

Aeryn took the hint and offered Chiana a sip from her glass. Chiana needed no instruction, and turned her face up when Aeryn touched her shoulder, drinking deeply and licking her lips when the cup was pulled away. As D'Argo watched her, fascinated in spite of himself and forgetting to lower his gaze obediently to the floor, John snaked a hand into the long hair hanging down D'Argo's back and tightened it into a fist, drawing the Luxan's face around to his.

"I told you to /behave/," John said quietly, intently. "People are watching. I know you don't like this, but if you don't start acting the part I'm going to have to hit you, and you'll like that even less." The hand in his hair gentled, and withdrew. "Just do what I say. I promise I won't have to hurt you if you just play along and /do what I say/."

Knowing that there were no other options, D'Argo looked down at the floor, nodding. Some time -- he wasn't sure how much -- passed, in which the steady pulse of the music and John's nearby warmth lulled him, in some strange way, and he was distantly aware of John and Aeryn holding a quiet, argumentative conversation above his and Chiana's bowed heads. He was trying to puzzle out, reluctantly, just why this was not bothering him as much as he wished it was, when he became aware of a tension in John's posture and of a pair of booted feet in his range of vision, in front of him.

"I'm impressed," the owner of the booted feet was saying -- a man, by the sound of the voice -- and John's hand came down heavily on D'Argo's shoulder before he replied, evenly and in an icily reserved tone, "Thanks."

"I've never seen a Luxan /jax'tai/ before -- heard it was impossible to train one, actually. They're quite willful, you know."

D'Argo's translator microbes interpreted the alien term as Chosen One, with a very sexual connotation. Before he could begin to feel anger at the percieved insult, John's hand was tightening warningly on his shoulder and John was saying smoothly, "It all depends on the ability of the trainer." John shifted slightly in his seat, allowing the tail of his coat to fall away from his pulse pistol, and D'Argo turned a little, enough to see John's face without raising his head -- John was staring up at the man, threat implicit in the set of his jaw and the icyness of usually warm-looking blue eyes turned flat and deadly.

The other man seemed either to not notice, or not care. "Is he exclusive?"

"What?"

"Is he exclusively trained to respond to you, or could he be... borrowed? I was just wondering about him, since he is a Luxan."

Seething inwardly over being spoken of as if he were a deaf and dumb animal, not trusting himself to look anywhere but at the floor, D'Argo almost missed the undercurrent of humor in John's voice, discernible even though John was clearly angry. "Keep wondering. I'm the only one who even has a chance of controlling him." A pause, and D'Argo could almost hear John's lazy grin spreading across his face. "He's quite willful, you know."

D'Argo flicked his eyes up again, and saw Aeryn shifting in her seat as well, laying the hand that wasn't toying with Chiana's fluff of white hair on the pulse pistol strapped to her thigh, adding silent reinforcement to John's words. The man finally seemed to understand, but also couldn't seem to resist getting in the final say.

"Will I at least get to watch you with him this evening? A pet so exotic and lovely ought to be showed off to the best advantage," the man said, and John sat forward suddenly -- D'Argo realized he was half a twitch away from some kind of violence, and also realized that there was more than play-acting going on, at least on John's part.

"No," John said firmly. "I don't know what your local customs are, but I think you're getting out of line. /He's mine/. Get out of here."

John relaxed by slow degrees, after the man walked away, and D'Argo was aware that he kept scanning the area around them, watching the other patrons closely, one hand always on D'Argo somewhere -- touching his cheek, playing idly with his hair, once pulling one of his tentacles over his shoulder and stroking it contemplatively.

John was surely not aware of what he was doing, D'Argo tried to assure himself, he was surely not aware that for D'Argo this was as personal and intimate as reaching into his breeches and stroking his cock. Helplessly hard and confused, he caught Chiana staring at him, her eyes tracking from John's stroking fingers to D'Argo's flushed face and back again, a grin blooming on her lips. If John didn't know, she certainly did.

More time passed. John let go of his tentacle and moved his hand to the back of D'Argo's neck, kneading and rubbing. The soft/rough touch relaxed him, and he almost drowsed, finally leaning against John's knee like a sleepy child, letting the music and the ebbing, flowing movement of the crowd in front of them lull him and pull his thoughts away from troubling questions like why he was allowing himself to enjoy being treated this way and exactly what John had meant by /I've done this before/.

When John stood up and said, "It's been long enough. Let's head for the transport," D'Argo had to shake off the pleasant torpor and follow the others out into the planet's double-moon-lit night, struggling to reassert his warrior-self and leaving behind the self who had enjoyed sitting at John's feet and being his /Chosen One/ for a few arns.

They met Zhaan and Rygel at the transport pod without encountering any Peacekeepers along the way -- Rygel blustered about wanting to have left them all behind arns ago, and D'argo gratefully snapped at him, happy to leave this planet, that bar, that self-that-was-not-him and fall back into being D'Argo. It was familiar and expected, and had nothing to do with John or how it had felt to have his hand possessively laid on him.

When they all emerged from the transport, he waited for Chiana to make some kind of remark, but she merely smiled at Aeryn and spared a warmer, more knowing smile for John, a considering, assessing look for D'Argo, and wisely kept her own council. They starburst away, eager to put more distance between them and any system so thoroughly garrisoned by the Peacekeepers, and life went on again.

It did not go on as usual, precisely.

John seemed not to behave any differently, and this distressed D'Argo, somehow, as if the depth of the affect those few arns had wrought on him ought to be somehow reflected in John's attitude. He waited for John to say something to him, somehow seemed to expect -- to crave, a feeling which shamed him deeply -- the feel of John's hand heavy on his shoulder when the human happened to walk up behind him, stopped at his side to talk to him.

He tried to talk himself out of these feelings, especially during dark, endless-seeming nights after he woke up feeling John's hand stroking the end of his tentacle, or from dreams in which his sleeping mind placed his and John's faces on the shadowy figures he had glimpsed in other corners of the club -- Chosen Ones kneeling between their owner's spread legs, hands clasped behind their backs as they used their mouths, or had their mouths used.

He noticed that John seemed, if anything, more careful to keep space between he and D'Argo, as if even the casual closeness that had been the result of the friendship they had developed was too much, could be misunderstood. In response, he himself drew farther away, put up walls, retreated into the bullying, blustering ways he had behaved when John was simply a rival for the position of dominant male, and not a friend.

His /best/ friend, really.

He had mostly succeeded in putting up enough walls to keep things static between them -- he no longer felt the need to watch John and store up images to feed off of in the night when he couldn't stop himself from wanting to go and ask John what I've done this before meant and he satisfied himself instead with solitary orgasms in an empty bed. John seemed to sense that things were all right -- or as all right as not talking about it at all could make it -- and relaxed his guard around D'Argo.

Just when things were mostly all right -- but not perfect, perfect would be to not have to talk about it /and/ to have John putting his hands on him the way D'Argo wanted, but that wasn't possible, not at all -- D'Argo heard Chiana's voice, a few turns of the corridor ahead of him, and she was saying, "I knew it, I knew just from looking at you then, John. You weren't pretending, you knew what you were doing."

//It's okay, I've done this before, D'Argo.//

D'Argo stopped, right where he was, whatever errand he had set off down the corridor intent on accomplishing totally forgotten.

"So?" John answered her.

"So, how come you never told me?"

"It's not like I want to /advertise/ it, Chi. I stopped doing all of that a long time ago. There was no reason for me to mention it."

"You could have mentioned it to /me/," Chiana cooed, and D'Argo had a sudden, irrational desire to choke her around her pretty neck until she turned black and her eyes bulged from her head. "If you were looking for a playmate, I could be available."

"I'm not looking, Chi. Besides, you're not my type." A little irritation showed in John's voice, and it made D'Argo unreasonably glad. If John wasn't going to be -- /playing/ -- with him, at least he wouldn't be doing it with Chiana, either.

"I can be any /type/ you want me to be," Chiana said, and John laughed.

"Look, Pip -- I'm just not interested right now."

"I think you are. I think you miss it. I think you got a taste of it again while we were down planetside, and you liked it." Chiana said, her voice breathy and soft. "I could see it in your eyes -- this stuff is easy for you as breathing. You liked having a Chosen One kneeling at your feet, there at your command...why push it aside? Accept it."

* * *

"You ought to rethink this advice-giving shit. You aren't much good at it," John said, thankful in a strange way for having rediscovered what Brianne, his old girlfriend, would have called his "inner top" -- it allowed him to maintain a calm, imperious statement under the scrutiny of Chiana's depthless black stare.

"Says you, old man. /I/ say you want it." She stood legs akimbo, in that odd posture she always seemed to adopt in confrontations: head cocked to the side, hips cocked forward, elbows out, looking tarty and contrary and as if she were just begging him to take her down a peg.

Which, he supposed, she was, in a way.

"Don't try to make me play your game, Chiana." He was suddenly tired, so tired -- tired of her smart-assed comments and of thinking about this, of watching D'Argo want him and want not to want him. "I don't play that game anymore."

"Think about it," Chiana breathed. "You could finally make me /behave/." The breathy coo became a squeaky giggle, and she stepped right into John's personal space, rubbing her small, pert breasts down the front of his body as she dropped to her knees and looked up at him from the floor, daring him to do something about it.

Something about it -- the /I dare you/ look she was giving him, the situation, the weeks of dancing around D'Argo like two dogs sniffing out the pecking order, just as if they had never gotten past that before and become friends -- finally tripped some final relay, and he had his hand in her hair and was pulling her closer, almost rubbing her face against the crotch of his leather pants before she could blink, pulling just hard enough to let her know he wasn't letting go until he was damn well ready to let go.

"Is this what you wanted?" he asked. He didn't raise his voice -- didn't need to. Her eyes, always round and deep black, were even wider now, her nostrils flaring. She wasn't really frightened of him yet, just excited by the possiblity of being afraid, by the /idea/ of it.

"Is it?" John asked again.

She didn't answer him, just stared up with her mouth shaped into a perfect little O, and he saw that she was hanging between wanting to push him even more, see where this would go, and playfully playing the part of a submissive waiting to be given permission to speak. He felt anger flare up at that, and shoved it back down. If she wanted to play, he'd play -- but not while he was angry. He made the anger go away, through sheer force of will, and let something else take its place.

"You may speak," he said softly, and she swallowed, staring up at him. He had an idea of what she was seeing -- he'd seen it before, reflected in the eyes of his partners the first time he played with them. She was seeing him change.

* * *

From his vantage point, peering around the curving joint of the corridor like a spy, D'Argo watched with disbelief. The angle was wrong for him to see more than their profiles, but the change in Chiana's statement, the change in John's body language, was striking.

"You may speak," John was saying softly, almost caressingly, and all traces of willfulness in Chiana's stance vanished. It was like watching a predator enrapture its prey -- where before she had been pulling back against the hand wrapped in her hair, wearing a cheerfully rebellious statement, now she was swaying on her knees in front of him, arching toward the restraining hand, her face softened into dreamy shock.

"yes," she breathed, and John tightened the hand in her hair.

"Yes, what?" he asked gently, for all the world like a mother seeking the proper and polite response from a child.

"Yes, sir," Chiana answered, louder, and her eyes were trained, without a trace of her earlier self-conscious defiance, on John's face, on whatever she was seeing on his face and in his eyes that held her spellbound.

"Good girl." John let go of her hair then, and she swayed again toward him, as if seeking the touch that was withdrawing from her.

John squatted down suddenly, close, closer, face to face with her and cocking his head slightly as if scenting her, his face angled in as if to kiss her, and when he spoke, D'Argo knew the breath from his mouth was ghosting across her lips like a phantom caress -- John was that close to her. v "Do you want me to make you behave?"

Chiana nodded mutely.

"You didn't answer me."

"Yes, sir."

"Chiana?"

"Yes, sir?" she asked, staring wide-eyed at him, so close to her.

"I /could/ make you behave. Do you believe I could?"

"Yes, sir."

"I could make you beg to do anything I wanted you to. I could train you, just the way I like, make you mine, body and soul. Do you believe I could do that?" He turned his head this way, and then that way, and smiled -- she turned her head too, mouth open and wet, trying to match his angle and seeking the kiss of his breath on her lips like a plant turning toward the heat of a sun.

"Yes, sir."

"I could do that." He stood up fast dizzying her, and stayed where he was for a moment, watching with a critical eye as she leaned as close as she dared -- dared without his order -- to the slick black leather sheathing his lower body. "But I won't."

"Wh--what?" Chiana asked, confused and lost.

"Don't push me about this again, Chiana. You've played with me now, and that's all you'll get. Let it go." He turned and walked away, and to D'Argo's eyes -- and possibly to Chiana's as well -- he walked differently from the John Crichton that smiled at his shipmates across the galley table and made incomprehensible jokes and had been, until that moment, the only John Crichton that D'Argo had ever suspected existed. There was no way of describing it, this difference -- it just was, as if the skin and flesh over John's frame had been laid over the bones of someone who had a voice like cold, slick silk and gave orders with the deeply held, almost nonchalant expectation that such orders would be followed without question.

John -- the new John, the one he was half-afraid of and wanted so badly it was like a fever deep in his skull, baking his brain and dulling his thoughts -- turned the corner of the corridor and strode out of sight, and D'Argo looked back at Chiana.

She was turned away, looking after John, still on her knees in the corridor with her hands in her lap and her shoulders slumped. She looked as if she wasn't really sure if she should -- or /could/ -- get up without John there to tell her to.

She looked bereft.

After a microt or two of staring after John, she turned back, her gaze flicking up and locking with D'Argo's. She opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it without speaking. As D'Argo stared at her, searching his brain for words to say, she got uncertainly to her feet, and wandered off in the same direction John had gone -- not as if she had any pressing need to go there, but for lack of any better direction to take.

When D'Argo was sure she was gone, he slipped fully around the corner and stood for a moment where she had been. He glanced both ways; his hearing and sense of smell told him that no one was approaching. After another moments' hesitation, he slipped to his knees in the corridor.

He could feel warmth, fast slipping away into the air and probably undetectable to anyone else who lacked the sharp senses of a Luxan, imprinted on the floor where Chiana's knees had rested; smelled her scent, and John's. He stayed there for a while, imagining that he hadn't yet been given permission to rise, and then rose anyway, and walked away.

-- "Chosen"=--