13. Cyreus
Cyreus
THIRTEEN
T he transformation flows through me like coming home, my human form dissolving into the shape I was born to wear. The relief is immediate and profound—muscles relaxing into their natural configuration, skin shifting to its true color, appendages emerging to move freely through the warm water.
Meri watches from the dive platform with the same fascination she showed the first time, her eyes tracking each change without fear or revulsion. When the shift is complete, I float before her in my true form, dark red flesh rippling with burgundy undertones in the afternoon light.
"Better?" she asks, settling more comfortably on the platform's edge.
"Much." My voice carries its natural harmonics now, no longer constrained by human vocal cords. "Thank you for understanding."
"You don't need to thank me for basic consideration." She dips her feet in the water, and I curl a smaller tentacle gently around her ankle. "It was hurting you, wasn't it? Staying in that shape?"
"Yes. More than I wanted to admit." I move closer, bringing myself within easy reach. "I wanted to talk to you properly, but maintaining human form for extended periods is... taxing."
"Don't do that again." There's genuine concern in her voice. "I mean it, Cyreus. I don't need you to hurt yourself just to have a conversation."
The care in her words still amazes me. After decades of hiding, of carefully managing every interaction to avoid detection, having someone worry about my comfort feels revolutionary.
"In my culture, enduring discomfort to please a potential mate is considered... romantic. A demonstration of devotion." I trace lazy patterns along her calf with my tentacle. "I'm still learning that human courtship works differently."
"Human courtship varies widely, but most of us prefer our partners to be healthy and comfortable." She leans forward, studying my face. "Tell me about your culture. About where you come from."
The request sends an unexpected pang through my chest. It's been so long since anyone asked about Agual V, about the world I can never return to.
"My home world is called Agual V. It's mostly ocean—perhaps ninety-nine percent water, with scattered ice formations and small landmasses.
" I let my mind drift back to memories I usually keep buried.
"The seas are deeper than Earth's, and colder.
Dark turquoise in the shallows, nearly black in the deep trenches where my people originated. "
"Is it beautiful?"
"Yes." The word comes out rougher than intended. "Beautiful in ways that have no comparison here. The water itself seems alive, charged with minerals that create luminescence in the depths. And the silence... not empty silence, but the kind that feels full of possibility."
Meri's expression softens with sympathy. "You miss it."
"Every day." I've never admitted that aloud before, not even to myself. "But missing it and being able to return are different things entirely."
"Tell me what happened. How did you end up here?"
I float quietly for a moment, deciding how much truth to share. But her eyes hold nothing but genuine interest and compassion, and I find myself wanting to give her everything.
"I was part of a contact mission. My people had been observing Earth for decades, studying your development, waiting for the right moment to make peaceful first contact.
" A bitter laugh escapes me. "I was chosen because I showed aptitude for understanding alien psychology.
Ironic, considering how poorly I understand humans even now. "
"What went wrong?"
"Everything." The memories are sharp even after all these decades.
"We approached during what your people call the early 1900s, when your technology was advancing rapidly but before you'd achieved spaceflight.
The plan was to observe from the oceans, study your coastal populations, then make contact with your governments. "
I pause, watching clouds build overhead. The weather is turning, but slowly enough that we have time for this conversation.
"Our ship was designed for deep space and water landing, but we underestimated your planet's atmospheric conditions. A massive storm system—what you'd call a nor'easter—caught us during descent. The ship broke apart before we could reach a safe landing zone."
"How many of you were there?"
"Twelve. A small contact team, but we were the best our people had trained for this kind of mission." The old pain resurfaces, sharp as ever. "I was the only survivor."
Meri's grip tightens on the platform edge. "What happened to the others?"
"The crash scattered us across hundreds of miles of ocean.
I found three of my crewmates in the wreckage, but they were already dead.
The others..." I shake my head. "I searched for months, but the ocean is vast, and our people don't survive well in Earth's warmer, saltier waters without technological support. "
"You've been alone all this time?"
"Nearly a century, yes." The magnitude of it hits me again, the way it does sometimes when I'm forced to say it aloud. "Your planet orbited your sun ninety-seven times while I learned to survive here. "
She's quiet for a long moment, processing what I've told her. When she speaks again, her voice is soft with understanding.
"That's why you've been watching humans from a distance. You were still trying to complete your mission."
"At first, yes. I thought if I could learn enough about your people, understand your societies and cultures, I might eventually make the contact my crew died trying to achieve.
" I drift closer, bringing myself within touching distance.
"But as the decades passed, it became less about duty and more about. .. curiosity. Then loneliness."
"What was it like? Watching our world change for so long?"
I consider how to explain nearly a century of observation, of watching a species evolve before my eyes.
"Fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. I was here when your people fought their first global war, when they learned to fly, when they split the atom. I watched ships I recognized from early observations become museum pieces, then scrap metal, then forgotten history."
"You saw the Halifax Explosion."
The memory hits like a physical blow. "Yes.
I was exploring the northern waters when it happened.
The sound carried for hundreds of miles underwater—a roar like the world ending.
When I reached the harbor..." I pause, remembering the devastation.
"I pulled seventeen people from the water that day. Bodies, mostly, but a few survivors."
Her eyes widen. "You've been saving people all this time? "
"When I could. When I happened to be in the right place.
" I wrap a tentacle gently around her wrist, needing the contact.
"But there were always more ships, more storms, more people who went into the water and never came up.
I learned to limit my interventions, to stay hidden rather than risk exposure. "
"Until me."
"Until you." I meet her eyes directly. "You were different from the beginning. The way you moved in the water, the respect you showed for the ocean, the fact that you kept returning to dangerous areas alone. You reminded me why I came to this world in the first place."
"To study humans?"
"To understand what makes a species worth knowing." I bring her hand to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "My people sent me here because they believed yours had potential. That despite your violence and chaos, there was something in humanity worth connecting with."
"And what did you decide?"
"That they were right. That watching you risk everything for independence, for discovery, for the simple freedom to work where you choose..." I trace my thumb along her palm. "You embody everything my people hoped to find in yours."
Tears glisten in her eyes, though she doesn't let them fall. "Cyreus..."
"I know it sounds impossible. I know the practical barriers, the difference in our worlds, the limitations we both face.
" I drift closer, bringing myself level with her platform.
"But for the first time in ninety-seven years, I don't feel alone.
For the first time since the crash, I remember what it felt like to have hope. "
She slides down from the platform into the water with me, her clothes creating small currents as she moves. "You're not alone anymore."
“I want to be with you. More than I've ever wanted anything. But wanting and deserving are different things entirely."
"Why wouldn't you deserve it?"
"Because I'm stranded here, unable to offer you the life you deserve.
Because loving me means accepting limitations that could trap you as surely as they've trapped me.
" I cup her face in my human hands, memorizing every detail.
"Because I've been alone so long I might not remember how to be part of something bigger than myself. "
She covers my hands with hers, her touch warm and steady. "What if I don't want the life I'm supposed to deserve? What if I want the life I choose?"
"Even if that life involves secrets, isolation, living between worlds?"
"Even then." She moves closer in the water, close enough that I can feel her breath against my skin.
"Cyreus, I've been living between worlds my entire life.
Land never felt like home. The surface world never quite fits.
But this..." She gestures to the space between us, the water that holds us both.
"This feels right in ways I've never experienced before. "
The words unlock something in my chest that's been locked away since the crash. Hope, yes, but more than that. The possibility that I might not be broken after all. That nearly a century of isolation might have been leading to this moment, this woman, this choice.
"Meri," I whisper, her name carrying harmonics that make the water around us shimmer.
"Yes?"
"I think I'm falling in love with you."
"I think I fell in love with you the moment you called me magnificent."
"You are magnificent."
"So are you." She moves even closer, close enough that our bodies are nearly touching. "All of you. Every impossible, wonderful part."
The sincerity in her voice breaks down the last of my emotional barriers. This extraordinary human sees me and chooses connection over safety, adventure over certainty, love over logic.
I wrap my tentacles around her more securely, pulling her against my chest while my human hands frame her face. "What are you doing to me?"
"Loving you," she says simply. "Is that all right?"
Instead of answering with words, I lower my mouth to hers, tasting salt and possibility and the promise of finally, finally not being alone.