Type A novus like myself tended to be very, very difficult to match – females usually had better luck, and my sisters had the fortune of having Type A intelligence but Type C compatibility, which meant they were all in the process of courting compatible sapiens and even had options. That is, each had at least two different compatible sapiens they were in the end stages of talking to. All had a whole handful of compatible sapiens that they had been introduced to, even if most were born out of our clan.

They would likely be in the end stages of planning weddings by the time they were my age.

But me?

I had never come across a sapien that I was compatible with.

Not once.

Not even distantly, where I got a whiff of them on the wind, nor were they in any database that I and my clan had access to.

It was like they simply didn’t existed, and I was starting to think that might be true.

But I had to keep putting myself out there, because stopping meant death.

And so I had to update my profile every couple months to make sure any prospective mates got a very honest and realistic take on me. Some novus believed that it was okay to use deception to secure a mate and then reveal your true self years later when they were fully mated with you and more easily to track if they left, but that wasn’t how I, nor my family, operated.

My worst nightmare was being with a sapien that decided that they didn’t love me for who I was, and would regret mating with me. Which fed into the guilt I would feel on bad days, so that was fun as a trigger for me.

I stayed with my parents in my home town for forty eight hours, and after some quality bonding time with my parents and my sisters, I took a train down to Liliport, where I was picked up by Roy in his truck, his kids all packed in the back seats in their school uniforms. They all talked very carefully with me, expect for Little Lawrence, who point blank asked if I was going to die before he got to be a peacekeeper (and that he would be really upset if I did). I laughed it off, but.

Well.

Little Lawrence was in the same boat as I was, a type A male.

I tried to be a good example for him, but I also tried to be honest, so I told him that I was going to try very, very hard to be there when he became a cadet in a couple years, which he seemed pleased with.

I lived in an apartment across the hall from Roy and his family in one of the older buildings in the peacekeepers district, so a lot of the time I just borrowed Roy’s truck to go shopping for him and his family and on rare occasion, I would borrow Mabel’s motorcycle to go to school. Roy had a motorcycle as well, but as the main caretaker for his children, he almost never got to use it and now it was in long term storage with Mabel’s out of tune harp and my boxes of childhood textbooks I wanted to keep to give to my future children (since none of my sisters nor Roy’s children expressed interest in dentistry).

The plan was for Roy to drop me off at our building after he picked me up from the station, but when Roy found out I had an appointment to update my courtship profile, we instead went straight to the matchmakers district.

Which was….

Fine.

I loved Roy with all my heart, but my brother could be….

A lot.

Especially when he was stressed out, which he understandably was. He just had a sapien baby instead of the expected novus baby, it was his wife’s month to be FAN and was back at work two weeks after giving birth, and his older brother tried to kill himself by sunlight recently.

So it was understandable.

But still very difficult to manage.

“That’s not sexy enough.” Roy said loudly as he patted Joy’s back, his daughter laying against his shoulder and screaming while Little Lawrence tried to put her pacifier back into her open mouth, Roy’s other daughters running around and playing in the prep room we were in while I was getting styled for my video.

I sighed and frowned, walking back to the corner of the room where there were a pair of full length mirrors in the corner to look myself over. I was dressed neatly in well fitted blue jeans, a belt with several buckles, and a white button down shirt that was rolled up to my elbows to show off the muscles of my forearm, my upper arms covered in self inflicted scars that were hidden by my sleeve.

“What do I need?” I asked as I looked myself over, smoothing down the front of my shirt.

“It’s the hair, Laurie – it’s not projecting sexy!” Roy stressed, scowling as he shook his head. “Why did you have to cut it so short? We had it styled before!”

Because I was having a very strong urge to yank it all out, which was harder to do when it was this short. But I wouldn’t tell that to my brother. I was sure he was one more stress away from having a meltdown, and I didn’t want to be the one to push him over. “I don’t recall why,” I lied, swallowing thickly. “I think I was told it was more flattering this way.” I turned back to him. “What else do I need?”

Roy frowned at me as his twin daughters ran behind him screaming happily, one stopping to fix her lopsided bow and the other one running over to help her before they took off again. “Unbutton your shirt, down to your navel.” He said in such a tone that I almost thought he was serious. When I laughed a little and he gave me a hard look, I stilled.

“Oh, wow, okay,” I dropped my gaze to my shirt and started to unbutton it, taking out another button-

“Dude, undershirt!” Roy said loudly, “Take off the fucking undershir-”

The door opened and Willow, my matchmaker, came into the room carrying my blue jean jacket. I was half convinced Roy purposefully had Joy throw up on me so it would force Willow, who was very sensitive to smells, to take it out to wash it.

Roy and Willow did not agree on approaches to my profile.

Roy thought I should do and say whatever it took to secure a mate. Lie, cheat, steal. He said it was better to fuck up and apologize for it later then to fail to take action.

Willow agreed that it was more important that I show my most authentic self.

And twice a week, I usually had to sit between them while they argued over it. The only peace I got was when I called my Dad and had him talk to them both separately, with some middle ground usually found. Up until last year, my Dad had been my advocate, but once Mabel got stationed in Liliport with her sisters and they started their FAN rotation, I made the big move with their family to help, and my parents had to stay behind with my sisters as they were deeply ingrained in our hometown.

So now I had Roy as my advocate.

And...and it was just a lot, sometimes.

It was just so much.

“What’s this?” Willow asked as he hung up my jacket on the rack of clothes in the corner, going over to where there was a vanity with makeup and hair products to shoo Simone, Roy’s second born child and first born daughter, away from where she was flicking on and off a hair straightener, likely to hear the cheerful chime it made powering on.

“He needs to take off his undershirt and show some skin,” Roy said firmly, watching Willow as he crossed the room to eye me. “He’s not being sexy enough!”

Willow blew out a long breath, frowning as he looked at where I had unbuttoned my shirt to the middle of my ribs. “I mean, we could give it a try.” He said with a twist of his lips, not looking as confident as Roy was, reaching out to tug on my shirt, straightening it. “We haven’t tried that style before.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, but nodded.

Willow helped me out of my button down outer shirt and held it for me so I could strip out of the sleeveless white shirt I had underneath, switching with Willow to put back on my button down shirt. Roy loudly told me to keep it open all the way like ‘the male romance leads on the romance posters’ as I buttoned it up, but I buttoned it back to the middle of my ribs before I tucked it in, Willow mumbling low enough for just the two of us to hear that if we didn’t like the final look, we could come back in a few days and tape again once Roy wasn’t around.

Which was something we did pretty frequently, Mabel purposefully making sure to drop Roy off for a sapien father-novus daughter art class with all his girls once a week so I could sneak off.

I looked myself over and decided that it wasn’t awful, and after a short chat with Willow, I went into the private recording room attached to the preparation room.

Recording rooms were staged by matchmakers to target specific types of mates, but in my case, I was going after pretty much anyone I was compatible with, and so the room Willow had prepared for me was very standard and made up to look like a living room.

I sat on the couch and pulled the cards out of my back pocket to read over my notes – seeing that Roy added in red ink some off colored jokes - before I set them aside and out of view of where the camera was on the wall opposite me. After a minute, I cleared my throat.

“Oracle, start recording.” I said, loud enough for the system to pick up.

“Starting to record, in three...two….one. Recording.” The system said back in a dull tone.

I smiled a little at where there was a dot on the wall above the camera.

“Hello, my name is Laurie. I’m eighteen, and I guess one of my defining characteristics is that I’m a student at Liliport University and I’m studying to become a novus oral and maxillofacial surgeon. That means that I will preform surgery on mouths and jaws. I love kids, so I will be specializing in juvenile novus, though I an open to specializing in adults after I work for a few years. I am currently in my last year of school, but I haven’t signed on to any hospital yet to do my mandatory post graduate apprenticeship, so I am open to signing on to where ever you might want to live for the next two years. I would prefer to stay in North America as my family is here and I am close to them, but I wouldn’t object to living and working else where for a few years if that is what you would like to do.

Long term wise, I would like to be living in North America due to my family.

That said, as a citizen of Victoria, I do have citizenship for Claymoore, but as an active member of the Deatherage Clan, moving to Claymoore would require me to have several interviews as well as an advocate, which I am sure I would be able to secure if you really want to move there.

Speaking of my family, I have several younger sisters that are all Type A, but I do have a sapien brother that was Type A compatible, so if you are female and wish to have biological kids, expect there to be a strong likelihood that our children might be novus, specifically Type A. I would not object to raising novus or sapien, boys or girls, but I do wish to have children – at least two. Whether it is in the near future or distant future, blood or adopted, I’m not picky or in any rush, but that is something I would very must want to be fulfilled in a relationship. If you have children already, I would be more than happy to be a father now, or be whatever it is your child needs.

I’m a Christian and like the rest of my family and the majority of my clan – the Deatherage Clan – we really don’t follow any specific church and so I would be comfortable with raising our kids in any christian church. If you are not Christian, than we can explore raising our children in both churches, and I’m really not against marry outside my religion, though I am very firm in my own.

I can live in a city or a small village and be happy as long as I have you and our future children with me. Work wise, I will be able to open my own practice in roughly three years once I complete my apprenticeship, so I will be able to provide a stable income for wherever you like to live and raise a family with me, but I might have to commute, depending on how small the village is if you would prefer a smaller town. I was raised in a small town, and would honestly prefer settling in one, and if I have my way, we’ll move back to my hometown in northern Victoria, where it’s only a three hour train ride to both Greater Lakes and a four hour ride to Liliport.

I like animals, but prefer dogs to cats. I’m don’t follow any particular sport but can learn to enjoy one if you do, and my goal is to ensure you and our family live our happiest lives that we can all he fulfilled in.

Thank you for your time.

Love, Laurie.”

I smiled for a beat longer before there was a beat, the system trained to stop recording five seconds after I used the end words of my choosing, which were ‘Love, Laurie.’

My smile fell and I stared at the wall.

And that was me – my most authentic self. Stiff, but...authentic.

If I was especially lucky, someone that was compatible would see that and want to meet me, we’d court, and then explore what spending the next hundred years as partners would look like. Once we started courting, the point where I was in destabilization would pause and even start to reverse depending on how well we were courting, but I’d need to start seriously courting and working toward mating within the next couple months.

If I wasn’t lucky, then there was a compatible sapien out there that saw my video and mostly liked me, but might not want kids, or might not what to ever settle in once place, and so they wouldn’t reach out to me.

Or reach out, and I’d have to turn them down because I wouldn’t compromise.

And If I was very, very unlucky?

Then there would be no sapien that was compatible with me.

I stood, letting out a long breath. I left the recording room to see Roy and Willow deep in conversation about my hair – Willow knowing my reasoning behind cutting it short but playing ignorant like I asked him to if Roy talked about it.

I sat with them and watched the recording play back, and though Roy said he wished I ‘sat in a more provocative pose’, we all agreed it was a good video. Willow tweaked the lighting and sound before he attached it to my profile, saving it. We took a few pictures then, retaking them after Roy verbally and loudly complained that I wasn’t smiling big enough, and then…

That was it.

We sent it out into the matchmaking network, and we all did a prayer that it would work.

I treated Willow and Roy’s family to a midnight meal before Roy took me and his kids home so I could rest.

It was short lasting, however, because I was awoken to Roy screaming at the top of his lungs that I got a message that I was matched.