Chapter 17 #2
The thought made my stomach squirm, but something caught my eye, out of place among the finery.
I stepped next to him and pulled down a brown shirt with a kitten on it.
I’d been wearing it when I was taken from Earth, but now the fabric was perfectly clean.
I knew Kex had brought my clothes with us, but when I’d left them in a heap on the flyer floor, I hadn’t really expected to see them again.
“I asked them to save and clean your things. I wasn’t sure if they had sentimental value for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. My throat felt a little tight.
Kex ran a hand across my cheek, his eyes growing dark. “We should dress,” he said, but didn’t step away.
I snorted. “We really should.”
Kex sighed and crossed the room. Laid out on a long bench were a number of garments made of a light, pale, purply fabric.
Kex riffled through the pile and handed me a tunic in my size.
It was lightweight but a little rough. He handed me pants in the same color and pulled a matching one over his own head.
Looks like I was going braless. Maybe we could do something about that eventually. My chest was too big to be comfortable swinging free.
“I love this color, but is it a uniform of some kind?”
“No, that is the natural color of the fiber. Anything we bring with us into Monai must be natural to this planet and made by hand, with only tools fashioned by hand.”
“So, why were you only in leaves when we met if you had access to clothes? Mind, I’m not complaining. I quite liked the view.” I glanced over to where he was doing up his pants. No underwear, I noticed.
“Eyes on your own, woman, or we’ll never get out of this city,” he growled, his voice heavy with lust. I snorted and turned back to my own clothes.
“I was on a sojourn to decide what choices I should make next. I could have brought supplies, but I wanted to truly purge my spirit, rely on my own two hands, so I entered the forest naked like I used to with my grandfather. He taught me to hunt, and most of my skills. The hut was one he built for my grandmother.”
“He was a politician, right? Did he have time to go camping often?” The pants were loose-fitting and tied at the waist. They were comfortable, sort of like something a drug lord would wear as he walked along a beach, but in purple.
“He made time. He said it was important for him to keep himself grounded, to keep things in perspective.” Kex pulled on a leather vest over his tunic. It pulled the fabric tight against his chest.
“He sounds like he was a wise man,” I said softly. Kex didn’t respond, so I changed the subject. “Why are the rules around the forest so strict?”
“History, politics, greed, and elitism.”
I stopped and looked at him. “That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.”
He grinned. “Did you expect it to be faith and devotion to the goddess?”
“Well, yeah, kind of.”
He knelt next to me and lifted one of my feet, putting on my boot and tucking in the pant leg before lacing it.
“That might be the reason spoken aloud, but things can have many reasons. I find most often the reasons spoken aloud are the smallest motivations behind big actions.” He finished lacing my boots, then sat on the edge of the bench while he did his own.
“I could tell you the land is protected in respect to the goddess, as tribute for the way our ancestors treated the planet in the centuries before we discovered spaceflight. A putting to rights the land back to its natural state after being brought to the brink of destruction and overpopulation. But in reality, the ormonai discovered spaceflight and spent the next millennia abandoning their home world to spread across the galaxies until one day a rich asshole I might be related to decided occupying our home world would be fashionable.”
I snorted. “That sounds like something humans would do.” I sat next to him and leaned against him.
“I used to think ormonai were some superior species, that we thought and lived this elite life separate from the rest of the galaxies because we treated nature with such reverence.” He gestured to the window, the city spread out in the distance.
It was a stunning blend of giant indigo trees and even taller skyscrapers.
And here we sat, at the top of one of the tallest buildings, overlooking it all.
“You don’t believe that anymore?”
“No.” His arm came around me and pulled me onto his lap.
“It was what my father raised me to believe, but I’ve seen other worlds with my own eyes, set foot on their land, and spilled blood into their dirt.
I’ve fought against and with dozens of other species.
We may all be different, but fundamentally, people are people.
The beats of our lives and the histories of our species frequently follow similar paths. ”
“That’s kind of a beautiful way to think about it.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Come, let’s eat so we can be on our way.”
He led me into a sitting room where too much food was laid out. He began filling a plate. “Eat up while you can. We’ll be on travel rations when we reach Monai, and while our packs will be heavy, we’ll be bringing extra supplies for your friends.”
He handed me the plate and waited until I started eating before filling his own.
The door chimed, and Rainair entered, wearing similar clothes, the light purple bringing out warm tones in his fur.
“This is way too fucking early, Kex.” He crossed the room in a few long strides and dropped into a chair across from us. He picked up something that looked like a chicken nugget and popped it into his mouth before pouring a mug of tea.
“Good morning to you too,” Kex said, then added a few things to my plate. Rainair focused on shoveling as much food as he could into his oddly shaped mouth and ignored Kex and me.
I scooted my plate a little farther from Kex and picked up my own tea. It was strong, with a nutty flavor, and not at all bitter. “Are we going to another village before we enter Monai?”
“No, we’ll fly to a spot as close to the border and your friends as we can. There isn’t a village nearby,” Kex said.
“Who lives in the villages? I can’t imagine them being full of the elite,” I said, and popped a piece of green fruit into my mouth. It was sweet, a little like banana.
“When the ormonai returned to occupy this planet again, they designated the sacred lands to satisfy the goddess, then built their cities tall and imposing to provide for their greed and need for luxury. Over time, the villages began to develop along the border. The people there choose to live traditionally, but they are not uncompromising. They have proper medical resources and some have varying levels of tech in their homes. Some are wealthy, others are not.”
“Where would you prefer to live?” I asked him. Kex seemed reluctant to return to the city, and I didn’t think he had made a decision about his grandfather’s legacy.
“I enjoy my time in the forest, but I prefer modern plumbing.”
Rainair snorted, and I grinned.
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“Shall we be off then?” Kex said a short time later when we had eaten our fill.
“Let’s get on with it,” Rainair said, standing. I still didn’t quite get why he was coming when he didn’t seem particularly interested in the journey, but it felt like maybe Rainair just needed company.
I stood, planning to use the modern plumbing before we left, but Kex called out, “Wait.”
I stopped, but Rainair did not.
“Rainair, just a moment,” Kex said, and the cat-man came to a stop.
“No offense, but if you and your mate need a quick interlude before we leave, I’d rather wait at the flyer,” Rainair said.
“You did listen to the part about no tech in the forest, didn’t you?” Kex asked.
“Of course. I left my things in my room,” Rainair said, continuing to the door.
“Rainair, I said all tech,” Kex said, his voice deep and firm.
“Fuck off, Kex.”
“Don’t make me turn out your pockets,” Kex said, taking a step toward his friend.
Rainair pulled a small, flat device from his pocket and tossed it across the room, where it landed perfectly on the couch. “Happy, you fucking bastard?” Rainair snarled.
“You have absolutely no respect,” Kex started. “If you can’t go a few days without your stories, you can stay here.”
“Respect for the trees? Please, it’s just a fucking reader. If your goddess is so offended by a tiny device, she must be pissed over your mate’s fucking escape pod.”
“Don’t you fucking dare speak about my mate,” Kex snarled, and a moment later, he was across the room and had Rainair in a headlock.
“Fuck, I missed you, brother,” Rainair said in a cheery voice, then he twisted, his tail coming up to wrap around Kex’s neck, and he flipped Kex over his shoulder. Kex pulled him down with him and they grappled, laughing amid the thudding punches.
I shook my head and went to use the bathroom.
When I came back, they were lying side by side on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. “Remember that time you pissed in Lorp’s boots and he didn’t notice until dinner?”
Rainair chuckled. “Noseblind fucker deserved it.”
I stood over the two men and peered down at them. “Are you two done?” I asked.
Kex smiled and rolled to his feet. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me.
“Ew, if you’re still hungry, we can take crackers with us or something. Stop eating your mate,” Rainair said, getting to his feet.
Laughing, I broke away from Kex. “It’s called a kiss,” I told him, stepping away from Kex’s grabby hands. He’d pressed himself against me, and I could tell a moment longer in his arms and Kex would be dragging me back to our room. We really did need to go.
“I don’t need the details of your mating,” Rainair said with a grimace and opened the door.
I giggled but followed him.
Kex led us back to the landing pad we arrived on, or at least I assumed it was the same one. The flyer waiting for us was larger than the one we’d arrived in. When I asked, Kex said it was so we would have enough room for the other women if needed.