9. CHAPTER NINE #2
“I know,” she said. “But the feelings were just… there. Not built. Not earned. Just there.”
She pressed her palm lightly over her dual-pulse.
“I do not know how to separate that from what I feel for you now, after all of this. It is a bit tangled.”
“I get that,” I said. “Kind of. I just… I spent most of my life being told what I should want. What a good job looked like. What a good daughter did. Who I should date. Destiny is just another voice in that choir. I need to know that if you choose me, it’s because you like the actual person.
Not just because your biology rang a little bell. ”
“I do like the actual person,” she said, reaching out to my thigh. “I like all of you. If there were no aura, I would still—”
She cut herself off, her jaw working.
“Still what?” I asked.
“Still want you. Still want to sit with you and eat terrible food and listen to you talk about your cat-brother and your mother and the way your city smells after rain.”
She paused.
“The bond did not make that. It only… pointed me in your direction faster. I know you are worried, and I am trying to understand. If the universe is saying this is your person, why would one wait?”
“I understand. I want that too,” I said quietly.
“I just want you to want me because I’m me.
I just… I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I said yes to something I can’t ever step back from because it felt good in the moment and the universe was yelling, ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss!’ in the background. ”
She was silent for a moment before nodding and taking my hands.
“Then here is what I can promise,” she said. “We will not complete the bond without you being completely sure. Not your body on autopilot. Not your panic. You. Clear. Awake. Not because the universe is yelling. Because you are.”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you for being so patient. I know I overthink. This is just extremely life-changing.”
She nodded, squeezing my hands tightly.
“And in the meantime,” she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up again, “I still get to take you to the market, feed you fungi, and show you gravity charms. That does not require forever.”
“Fungi? Well, joke’s on you because I love mushrooms.”
She threw another pillow at me. I dodged it, laughing, and finally went to get dressed.
***
From the viewport near the docking bay, Orin looked like a painted backdrop hung just beyond the glass. We’d all drifted toward the exit door—me, Zhari, Lyn, Yuki, and the rest of the crew who wanted to get out and explore.
The doors slid open with a hiss, and we walked down the short ramp together into thin, bright air. The path ran along a slope where the not-grass ferns brushed our boots and flashed when we disturbed them, sending little ripples of light across the hill.
A herd of those color-shifting creatures I’d seen from the bus moved in a loose line along a drainage ditch, their backs flickering from silver to rust to black as they crossed shadow and sun. One of them lifted its head, blinked sideways at us, then went back to nosing through the plants.
Overhead, something with four wings spiraled lazily above the loading cranes, as if it were surfing the heat coming off the machinery.
My stomach picked that moment to let out a long, furious growl.
“Whoa,” Lyn said. “Was that you, or did the bus just blow a speaker?”
“Sorry,” I muttered, grabbing my stomach. “I guess the protein bar didn’t cut it.”
“That was some serious gut static,” Lyn said.
Zhari bumped her shoulder against mine.
“Don’t worry. The market has the best food vendors on Orin’s moons. We will fix the gut static.”
She winked and slipped her fingers around mine as we walked.
Yuki grinned, flashing his sharp canines.
“Good. I was about two minutes away from chewing on Vada’s arm. She looks like she’d taste like sweet dew-drop cake.”
Yuki licked his bottom lip.
“You know, the ancient Velans used to roast humans over open flames during festivals. So watch out for Zhari!” Yuki smirked.
I spun on my heel.
“I’m sorry. You were about to what my arm?” I blinked at him, then glanced from Yuki to Zhari. “Um… do Velans really eat people?”
All three of them burst out laughing.
“You’ll never know,” Yuki said, baring his teeth at me in an exaggerated mock bite.
Lyn rolled her eyes and moved to my other side. She caught my gaze and mouthed a clear no, jerking her thumb toward Yuki as if to say, He’s full of it.
My shoulders dropped slightly as the spike of panic faded, my heartbeat settling back into something almost normal. The breeze picked up, cool against my face, and my focus slid back to the landscape ahead.
“Those are harmless, right?” I pointed to the small heard of coloring-changing creatures that were still in the grass.
“Mostly,” Zhari said. “As long as there is not a Ridgeback with them.”
“Which is the murder one, right?” I asked.
Zhari smiled.
“Yes. You will know it if you see it. It has too many teeth.”
A chill tiptoed down my spine. I scanned the herd again, suddenly convinced one of them was going to launch itself at me, fangs-first.
“Relax,” Zhari added, a little laugh slipping out. “There are no Ridgebacks this close to the loading zones. They do not like noise or metal so you are safe.”
I nodded, still looking in the direction the herd was running. My shoulders eased, tension bleeding away by degrees. I dragged my attention from their shifting backs and focused on the path ahead, following the others toward the market.
The road down to the city ran beside a transport lane carved straight through the rock, cargo haulers humming past every few minutes. By the time we reached the lower level, the air carried a mix of engine heat, cooking smoke, and something sharp and mineral-like.
The market was carved into the moon itself—a long, low tunnel bored through the rock, with stalls cut into the walls on both sides. Light panels ran along the ceiling in a warm amber strip.
The air was thick with steam and spice. Vendors called out in overlapping languages that my translator turned into a layered mess of competing pitches.
There were handmade gravity filters, crystal jewelry, and knockoff tour shirts for bands I’d never heard of, like Little Star and Shimmering Nebula. Zhari had to translate the names for me in English, and the Orinian language sounded just as pretty.
There were bolts of fabric that shifted whenever you walked past them, changing color in the light. Some stalls had holographic price tags hovering above the goods; others used handwritten signs on scrap metal, numbers etched in with something sharp.
A kid with bioluminescent freckles wove through the crowd, selling skewers of something on sticks that hissed faintly in the air.
“Get your fire-fried Gwoni! They are crispy and full of flavor!” the kid shouted.
My eyes wandered in every direction, trying to take it all in.
“This place is amazing,” I gasped.
“I know,” Zhari giggled. “It’s one of my favorite markets. I think the overall ambiance here is incredible. It’s filled with such humble creatures and the most unique things.”
She squeezed my hand tighter.
The food stalls were scattered everywhere, but the one Zhari wanted to visit was at the far end.
Steam billowed into the walkway in thick clouds. Shiny tables were bolted to the ground, their surfaces carved with symbols and words I couldn’t read.
I sat down on a bench that pulsed faintly from whatever ran through the rock beneath us. The vendor was a stocky alien with ten fingers on each hand and no translator chip, so Zhari ordered for us.
She walked over to the table and sat beside me. A minute later, two wide, shallow bowls were placed in front of us.
The food inside was unlike anything I had a reference for. Thin strips of something dark and slightly translucent were layered over a bed of pale grain that puffed and crackled faintly when the hot broth hit it.
The broth itself was the color of burnished copper and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
On top of a dried bed of greens, scattered like broken glass, were thin, translucent shards that dissolved the second they touched my tongue.
They left behind a sharp, salty sweetness that made my whole mouth wake up.
“What is this?” I asked, already going in for a second bite.
“It does not translate well,” she said. “The closest human-language description would be something like slow-cooked mineral stew. It is kind of like the one we have on the bus, but this is traditional food here on Orin. The strips are a type of dried fungus, and the grain is local. It only grows on this moon.”
“It’s incredible,” I said, because it was. The grain had a weird, satisfying pop when I chewed it, the broth was warm and rich, and the fungus strips were chewy in a way that made me want to eat the whole bowl and order another one immediately.
“Better than Nebs?” she asked, watching my face with open amusement.
“Don’t make me choose,” I said. “That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child.”
“You don’t have children,” she said, then paused. “Do you?”
Her face turned serious as she stopped eating.
“No, I don’t. I definitely would have mentioned that.”
I pulled the stew close to my mouth and smiled.
“Nebs and this stew are my children now. I am raising them with equal love.”
She laughed and stole one of my fungus strips. I let her because I was in a generous mood, and also because watching her eat with her fingers instead of utensils was cute.
She looked like a little feral goblin.
We ate while the noise of the market drifted around us. Somewhere along the way, we’d started leaning into each other without even noticing—our shoulders brushing softly together. Beneath the table, her knee pressed against mine, and neither of us moved away.
“What did you imagine,” she asked after a while, “when you were back on Earth and thought about this?”
She waved her utensil between us, nearly flicking a piece of grain at me.