He'dtaalh and Ma'stbaut shared a look with each other as Ariel continued to speak. They had never heard a female whisper words like that.
They were important?
It didn't matter where they came from or their status?
When had that very concept ever been part of their lives? The two males might have been from different species, but there were some universal truths.
And the first one was that all males were expendable.
It was the females that brought forth the next line, and for that reason alone, men were expected to be subservient to them. In He'dtaalh's case, there were no more Nycteromyian females left in existence. That made it even more important to impress outside females to bear their young.
And in the five thousand solar revolutions since they had woken up to discover all their females dead, not a single female had been born.