44. True Submission and Beginnings
FORTY-FOUR
TRUE SUBMISSION AND BEGINNINGS
Elena
“We’ll see each other again, I promise,” Jenna cries, wiping her eyes on her red, patterned sleeve. “We’ll come back to Earth in a couple of years. Sooner if you change your mind. Please change your mind,” Jenna wails, gripping me.
I give her one last, quick squeeze, trying not to prolong our separation any longer than necessary. She’s been here for several days trying to convince me to go with them.
“Jenna, I’m sorry.”
Earth is our home world, and surprisingly enough, it feels like home to me.
I also don’t want to say goodbye to my ship, my bed, or, especially, Lukys.
I’m not ready to upend everything when it’s already been upended enough.
I’m starting to feel good here… I rarely, if ever, felt good on a spaceship.
“He can come with us!” she begs Mateo. “Right? Lukys can come with us if it means Elena comes too?”
Mateo opens and closes his mouth. His shock of dark hair is perfectly coiffed back.
I shake my head, holding back a chuckle. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible. I’ve told you. He eats a lot of raw meat. A lot. He wouldn’t be able to survive, at least not well, on a ship.”
Jenna’s face scrunches. “He eats raw meat? I didn’t know that.”
“Yes. And unless you have a giant freezer we can fill with said meat, I don’t think you’re equipped to take him. Lukys has already refilled as much of your stores as he could.” He’s been hunting and gathering, offering his findings to my sister and Mateo for their journey.
“We don’t,” Mateo pipes in when Jenna looks at him.
“I mean, my freezer is big but not big enough to… be… full of wild animal carcasses. The meat and fruit we’ve got now is already filling it.
” He winces. “Jenna, darling, if we can’t convince her, and it’s not like you haven’t tried, we should start making our way to the colony pods.
I have a lot of appointments I need to keep, and a lot of people I still need to get in touch with, the business needs me—”
“Do something, Mateo! Make her stay!”
He sighs audibly and turns to me. “I’m glad we found you and I wish you would come with us. Is there anything else we can do to convince you, other than offering passage to your male friend outside?”
“No. Like I told Jenna earlier,” I say, peering back at my sister as she runs her fingers through her hair jerkily.
“I love her very much, but my life is here right now. And I want to see where that life leads me.” I think of Lukys and my teas, of the people in the encampment I can bring comfort to.
I’m not like my sister, and that’s okay. Maybe it was a good thing always being on the outside, watching those within… It led me to Lukys. I rub my chest, aching, missing him.
“Elena, please,” Jenna tries again. “I can’t delay Mateo much longer.”
Mateo sighs again.
“Then don’t.” I take a step back towards the open hatch, glancing over my shoulder for Lukys and… not seeing him. He told me he would wait for me outside, however long talking to my sister today takes.
He’s always waiting for me.
At the threshold of Mateo’s ship, I embrace my sister tightly, wrapping her in my arms. Though I’ve hugged her many times already, this will be the final time.
Mateo is eager to leave, and while I want my sister to stay, I know I can’t keep them here when their life leads them elsewhere.
Jenna hates the wilderness, and I understand why—she’s used to people, many people, adoring her.
I hug her tighter. “I love you. I adore you. Even when you’re a pain, I love you. Thank you for looking for me, for trying to save me. For finding me.”
She presses her chin to my shoulder. “Thank you for searching for me too. You’re the best sister I could have ever asked for. I just wish…”
“That our parents listened to us?”
“Yeah…”
“Yeah, me too.” I let go and face her.
She reaches up and wipes her eyes. “I’ll be sending you a comm every day, so you better answer them.”
“I wouldn’t ignore them for the world.” I take a step off the ship and into what’s left of the meadow. I maneuver around a bush when I don’t see Lukys. I turn back and smile at my sister. “You’ll do great on The Sovereign.”
Jenna leans out and peers around at the landscape, sticking out her tongue. “You’ll… do great here… I think.”
“Here,” Mateo says, walking out with a large box in his hands. He carries it to the open hatch of my ship and sets it down. “Three months’ worth of replicator meals. The good stuff. Lukys gave us fresh meat, the least I can do is give you variety.”
He walks back into his ship and stops next to Jenna within the hatch. He turns and waves. “Goodbye, Elena.”
I wave back. “Bye, Mateo. Bye, Jenna.”
“Bye Elena…” Jenna whispers, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“Until next time.” I smile sadly, my stomach curling, taking them in. They’re a beautiful couple. Jenna’s red engagement ring flashes in the light. She’ll be happy again. She’ll thrive. I know she’s mourning like me but my sister has always bounced back.
“Clear the ship okay? We’ll be taking off shortly,” Mateo says, taking Jenna’s hand and drawing her inside. “I command the AI to close the hatch,” I hear him call out before the door to his ship shuts.
I turn from Mateo’s ship to search for Lukys, seeing a shadow shift within the dome’s reflection at the front of my vessel. A humming sounds behind me, and as I wipe my tears on my sleeve, I walk toward the front of my ship to get a better look inside.
I find Lukys behind the glass, looking up at his mountain where I often do myself behind the console. His tail fills the space, spread out in a wide arch like he’s claiming it as his own.
I walk into his line of sight. His gaze lowers to me when I move into the periphery of his view. The glass glints with color as Mateo’s ship flashes. As the noise of his ship’s thrusters build, I stare back at Lukys.
He moves forward when I lift my hand to the glass.
Wind blasts me as Mateo’s ship rises into the air and Lukys reaches out.
I hold Lukys’s gaze, taking comfort in his hand against mine. I press my other hand to the glass and he does the same. As my sister and Mateo fly away, I close my eyes. When the ship is gone and birdsong returns to my ears, I release a deep breath, open my eyes, and smile up at Lukys.
He tilts his head when I pull my hands away and return to my ship’s opening.
He meets me inside at the threshold of my room. He takes Mateo’s box from me and places it on the table in the lounge. When he returns, he threads his fingers with mine. “Are you okay?”
“I am now.” I pull him through the door of my room and push him onto my bed. “I made a vow that you would submit to me, and now you will, Lukys of the Black Mamba clan.” I climb on top of him, straddling his tail. I run my hands up his chest.
“I submit to you, Elena of the Black Mamba clan.”
My smile grows. “Now, make me forget everything until there’s nothing left but you. Us.”
He clasps the bottom of my shirt and lifts it over my head. “I can do that.”
I lean down and press my lips to his, kissing him softly. The future is uncertain, but when it comes to him, nothing is uncertain.
And as the first day of the rest of our lives drifts to twilight, and we’re still in my bed, I know I’ve claimed something for me and me alone.
Him.