EPTLike Devouring One, I was born without a mate. I had much greater strength and skill than my kind. In practice I could chase down a Mutalisk and tag it before it had time to turn around. They were proud of me then and showered me with praise. Then they sent me to the battlefield.
Scourge are not like Zerglings. When Devouring One had found itself in a bad situation it could burrow and live to fight another day. For my kind it was considered the ideal situation to fight only once, numbers on our side on not. All that mattered to the Overmind was that we hurt something. There are no graves for Scourge. There are no retirement homes. There is only the battle.
That's why I flew away. On my very first patrol they'd sent me to the side of the base alone to watch for any Dropships and to make sure they don't get in under any circumstance. I don't know what happened to that base. Maybe they shouldn't have sent me alone.
I flew to the corner of the planet, the one place I thought I would be sure live alone and into old age undisturbed, but what I saw was another more like myself.
It was a beautiful Overlord. It said it had been told to scout the enemy base, but it had learned from rumours and hearsay what actually happens to scouting Overlords. They get shot down by Marines, it had told me. They die to Corsair and Dragoon fire. They're the first to go against an enemy Zerg. That's why, it told me, it did not scout the enemy base. That's why it went to this corner, so that it could live alone and into old age undisturbed.
But that was all it knew, except for one more thing: that it had never seen a more beautiful creature than myself. That it had never found someone who it could openly tell its feelings and existence to. In short, it knew that it loved me and it knew that it didn't want to leave. I was almost the same.
I knew both those things but I also knew that we could not be together despite our love. Could we? As I said I am a strong Scourge. With a single kiss I could kill a Mutalisk, and indeed I would probably kill this Overlord as well. I nearly turned away without explaining.
Don't go, it had said to me. I eyed it with concern. Don't you know what will happen? I'd asked. I don't care what will happen, it told me. It embraced me with its tendrils and we exploded.
Illustration by Moktira below.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/La3vK.png)
