Seven

No air...
      He couldn't breathe. Instinctively extending viciously sharp claws, he ripped through the tough flexible thing that covered and smothered and kept him contained, forcing the edges apart and hauling himself out
                   to flop bonelessly and gasping onto something hot and gritty and most unpleasant
             but at least he could breathe...

The air was hot, felt strange in his lungs. He lay on his side for a long while, heat soaking into him, through his skin and deep into his body. Trying to remember what he should do next.
      His mind was blank. He knew he should do something, but what? Rolling onto his front and pushing himself up a little, he opened long large eyes and surveyed the surrounding area.
      Not that he could see very much. His field of view was obscured in most directions by lumpy white... things... Very similar to the one he'd been in.
      Then...
      Hunger. Overwhelming hunger that drove all other thought from him...
      Instinct kicked in. He moved to one of the white things, clawing through the tough leathery substance, ripping it open and hauling out the weakly squirming thing inside, biting into its throat and drinking the hot rich liquid that spurted from the torn flesh.
      By the time he had finished the creature was a half-eaten husk, and he was sated, sprawled in blindingly-bright sunlight feeling strength seeping into his body. He stretched, analysing the sensation, feeling the way muscle moved on muscle, intently aware of the strong, flexible interior framework that supported his body's organs and processes. He frowned at his hand, flexing long slender fingers, exerting pressure on the flexor muscle and tendon that extended sharp claws into long, lethal weapons.
      It was an efficient body. It would serve him well.
      It would have to - it was a long way to the cities.

He travelled steadily, stopping only when he found another clutch of... eggs, they were called eggs, he recollected... and then only to split open two and eat the feebly struggling contents. When he was tired he shut down his higher functions, leaving his lower brain to keep his body moving slowly across a shimmering sandscape only slightly darker than his own smooth pale pearlescent skin. Once he came across an empty clutch, one of the eggscases split raggedly lengthwise, the rest clawed open, pieces of chewed bodies beside them. He was wary for a time after that discovery, not wishing to face another of his kind: out here, in the wilderness, it would mean death for one of them.
      He had no idea of how long he'd travelled across the featureless desert - it had no relevance anyway. Only survival mattered. And survival depended on his reaching the cities.
      And finally there was a shimmer on the horizon, a brightness that tantalised, that raised a feeling of uncertainty, almost of dread. Yet that was where he had to go...
      Something hit him from behind, knocking him to the ground. He struggled, but it was stronger, holding him pinned down.
      The voice that hissed in his ear held a mixture of humour and scorn.
      "How will you survive in the city if you cannot even hold your own out here?"
      He froze, unblinking slit-pupilled eyes wide, feeling... feeling fear.
      "What do you want of me?"
      A long hot tongue licked the back of his neck.
      "Your body, as host for my brood. In exchange for your life."
      It wasn't until later, on entering the city, that he realised had he not been brooding he would have been killed as soon as he crossed the threshold. At the time, he assumed it simply meant that the other would kill and eat him if he did not acquiesce.
      He did not want to die.
      Penetration was quick and very painful, the other's barbed hemipenes sparking his own ovulation - and releasing a flood of knowledge along with the hormones necessary for successful breeding. He lay prone and motionless, hardly breathing, the other lying over his back, coupling silently on the hard sand. When it was over, the other withdrew sharply and rose fluidly upright.
      "Make your way to the city."
      He twisted to look over his shoulder.
      "You must name me."
      The other's lips quirked, an expression of amusement.
      "You learn quickly. You might even survive. Very well. You are Sse'hess'ren." He reached down and hauled Sse'hess'ren upright, nodding as the youngster's eyes slowly changed from smooth clear blue to the vivid, gold-splashed green that indicated fertilisation had occurred. "Go now."
      Sse'hess'ren turned to continue the trek to the city, glancing back once, but the other had vanished. There was a remote chance they'd meet again, when he came back out into the desert to lay the eggs now forming inside him, but he understood, from his new-found knowledge, that it was unlikely.

Three sunrises later he stood before the gates of the seventh of the seven cities of his homeworld, awaiting entrance, not entirely sure of what would happen to him inside but resigned to it.
      There was, after all, nowhere else he could go.