TLIC

TLIC

"T'Gatoi whipped her three meters of body off her couch, toward the door, and out at full speed. She had bones—ribs, a long spine, a skull, four sets of limb bones per segment. But when she moved that way, twisting, hurling herself into controlled falls, landing running, she seemed not only boneless, but aquatic—something swimming through the air as though it were water. I loved watching her move."

"Except for the final few, all her limbs were dextrous."

"Ignoring the knife I offered her, she extended claws from several of her limbs and slit the achti from throat to anus. She looked at me, her yellow yes intent."

"I stared at her, outlined in the moonlight—coiled, graceful body."

"I felt the familiar sting, narcotic, mildly pleasant. Then the blind probing of her ovipositor."

Octavia Butler, Bloodchild
This is one I've wanted to draw for a while but I've been intimidated by the sheer perfection of the story. In researching this, I've found that there are surprisingly few illustrations of tlic and the ones that do exist, imho, fail to capture the elegance and human qualities of the creatures. It's one of the main things that stood out to me in the story. Despite how cruel or brutal the tlic are, they're described with such loving detail.

I do, however, think Wayne Barlowe's illustration is amazing. It was the cover of  Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1984 where the story was first published.

The accompanying interior illustration Nicholas Jainschigg is cool but it looks more like a Halloween mask than a graceful, lithe creature.