15. Chapter 15
fifteen
Hue
The vehicle just outside the house is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on port.
A wide oval with dark, glimmering handrails, much like what makes up the doors.
It’s hovering; an antigravitational propulsion system is nothing new.
It's infinitely more rare to see a wheel on anything aside from some random port carts in the maintenance halls. And like most things inside Sor’en’s home, it's too tall for me to board myself. The heady dose of nerves I’m sporting, though, prevents me from verbalizing the issue.
Instead, I just stand there with my singular overworked brain cell and stare at the group of females atop it.
One from the back is the only one not content to stand and stare at me right back. She gracefully parts the group that seems a lot fuller than a group of five should be and extends a hand. “Here, human, we are not used to short species.”
I don’t miss the hushed murmurs and soft gasps as I offer her a watery smile, slapping my hand into hers. Her bare hand. Oddly enough, I hadn’t thought a thing about it at first, not until my eyes lingered on her kind skeletal face and landed on the surprised looks around us. “My name is Hue.”
“Go with balance, human Hue. I am Lyr’ael. We are going to prepare you today as the elder most females in our dome.”
I halt, losing grasp of my own words as the craft takes off, suddenly but smoothly zipping over the flat landscape. Lyr’ael reaches out to steady me. “You truly aren’t afraid of us?”
I try to glance back at her when I answer, never sure what can be considered disrespectful to other species, but I can’t take my eyes off the world around me. Can hardly choke the words past the sudden emotion clogging my throat. “Not really. I’ve seen scarier.”
One of them giggles at that. I can’t be sure which, because all around me again… there are flowers. “Did Sor’en plant all these?”
“Yes, human Hue. He is the most accomplished botanist of his age. He has done well for our dome.”
“What are they for, the flowers?”
Another voice pops up, her hair a very light shade of grayish purple. “Everything. From our food, medicine, rituals, and trade with other domes. Even some of our tech relies heavily on the Lyr’lumara flowers.”
“Lur’lumaerea…” I repeat, trying to mimic their soft, lilting voices.
Judging by their giggles, I wasn’t successful. I tense for a moment, forcing my attention back to them, ready for judgmental sneers and hateful glances, but I find none. Just five ridiculously, eerily stunning creatures staring back at me with open, pleased, milky eyes.
I take a deep breath, the florals that remind me so much of the male back at the house tickling my nose.
As if the flowers themselves are trying to offer comfort, a lightness in an otherwise very dark, foreboding cloud of emotion.
I’ve never been shy or concerned with my looks.
Can’t remember a time I ever felt the need to compare my attractiveness to another species, but there's a hint of a needle deep in my chest. Poking and prodding.
These females are the perfect matches for him; it's clear they understand and respect his position.
They would be honored, no doubt, to have been his mate.
Towering, graceful, thin, lithe bodies that knew exactly what to do with a male of their species.
Their waist-long hair freely blowing in the wind like some kind of holo ad for haircare.
The structured black dresses they wear are far more conforming to their bodies than mine.
But he got stuck with me. Human 74-B, who has done nothing but make his life harder since I got here.
A glimmering light trembles above us, making me frown as I point at it. Not thinking a thing about my actions as I shoot through them toward the back of the craft to get a better look. “What was that?”
“I am unsure, human Hue,” the one who said her name was Lyr’ael answers, staring curiously at me.
“Oh! There it is again!” I half-shout as a stronger wave-like glimmer cuts across the sky.
Another female, her voice far more sober than her friends’, answers. “The dome.”
I turn to face her on the platform, still zooming over the fields. “Oh, you mean we’re in a literal dome? Why?”
“It protects us,” she offers gravely, reaching out to touch me before thinking better of it. “You must stay within the dome at all times.”
I frown. “You don’t leave it?”
They shake their heads, and maybe I would’ve laughed at the very human gesture if the serious look on their faces didn’t send a chill down my spine. “Sor’en didn’t tell me anything here was dangerous.”
Lyr’ael seems to weigh her options before speaking. “The botanist does not always agree with our ways. He is—"
“Go with balance, Lyr’ael,” another female chastises her.
The wind picks up, splattering my wild hair across my face as I fight it away.
“But it is dangerous outside of the dome?” That bodes well for an escape plan.
I need only to cross that barrier if that’s possible, and most likely they won't follow.
They barely know me, nobody would risk themselves that way.
Even that thought seems to sour in my gut, my hand making its way to the tooth.
The sudden tension on the craft should make me wary, should have me eyeing the nearest exit. I flex my other free hand on the glimmering tech bar. I feel safe… oddly enough.
The female who cut Lyr’ael off steps up closer to me.
I get the impression she’s more of a leader of the group, the oldest maybe, although none of them look anywhere close to old at all.
It’s the air about her. Packs always have leaders.
Ours from the education pod was a Strilgid male; he was deeply unpleasant.
Hated me to all hell and ensured other children followed suit, although I never cared to ask why at the time.
I had Sofaxi, and that was all that mattered.
Even if I had cared at one point, with his six powerful legs, multifaceted eyes, and sharp mandibles, I was content enough to let him hate me from afar.
Mom told me once that humans had something similar to his kind on Earth, long before it fell. It was called a spider. I also remember the color bleaching from my face before she reassured me ours were far smaller.
“The dome protects all of us, but particularly the females. Do the wider galaxies truly not know what they do to us?”
My breath halts in my lungs as I shake my head.
This makes one of the quieter females in the back clasp her hands together in excitement, as if seeing a famous pet do a special trick in person.
I take a step back from the group. They must’ve looked up human gestures.
It was common enough for educators to do in the pod.
They’d learn a few for each species and adapt them. The human ones always stuck.
“They’re poachers,” the leader lady answers, her tone icy.
Lyr’ael makes what I assume is the Xyrelith equivalent of a scoff at that, a strange, curt, breathy sound. “It has been xentics since the last attack.”
It occurs to me only then that they’re all speaking in perfect universal. Strange for such an isolated species. My thoughts draw up short once her words actually sink in. “What do you mean, attack? Is that what poaching means? Hard to believe anyone taking one of you down.”
“That’s why they do it,” the leader lady offers.
“A female's toxins are more potent than a male’s. They poach to bleed us for drugs and weapons. They patrol constantly, waiting for one of us to step out. Nobody but us is allowed within the dome for that reason. Even dignitaries, when they bothered to visit ages ago, would stay outside.”
Something very close to indignation fills my chest. Not at them, strangely enough, but for them. “So wait, that’s just it? Why not kill them? Fight instead of hiding?”
The leader laughs at that. Her hair nearly the same shade as Sor’en’s.
“A Class D species taking on an alien aircraft that has done nothing to us at that point? Yes, let’s give the Intergalactic Alliance more of a reason to despise us.
Okay, so then let's show them proof of what's been done. We’ve tried. We’re too advanced to need help, too dangerous for anyone to volunteer any. ”
That irritation spreads, the all too familiar feeling of the bitter unfairness of this world is a constant across all boards.
“That’s fucked up,” I offer unhelpfully because what the fuck am I going to offer them?
I’ve got no wisdom and I’m terrible with words.
More so, I’m a human. No foot to stand on.
It just sucks. Shit sucks until you’re too old to give a shit and you make life suck even harder for everyone else around you instead.
The quiet female from the back of the group pokes her head in at that. “You have a question about mating?”
“Huh?”
Oh shit.
“No.” I laugh. “Fuck to humans means a lot of things… like, you know, that. It can also denote frustration or excitement.”
“Fuck,” Lyr’ael offers with the utmost support, her hand fisted in unity.
I almost laugh but only manage a smile and nod instead. What will they think of me when I leave? Will they understand? Will they hate me for the state I leave him in?
“Go with balance, Lyr’ael,” another scolds.
It only now crosses my mind that I asked zero helpful questions on the journey regarding what to expect tonight.
Before I can rectify that, my eyes widen, my mind blanking at the sprawling city center that opens before us.
Like a hidden city nestled in the middle of a sprawling garden.
As we enter, I’m not sure what I had expected, but the sheer quietness of the bustling center wasn’t it.
Several open stalls are shutting down for the day, their owners' long arms filled with goods, as one of the females helps me from the cart.
I barely have my footing before a large male, perhaps even larger than Sor’en, all but appears in front of us.
The females almost in unison nod in greeting. “Go with balance, Balla’mar.”
“Go with balance,” he responds, but his eyes are on me. More so on the space above my head.
I glance at the females surrounding me to find their gazes locked on the space above his head as well. Seeing something I clearly—
Oh, the death sight.
Goosebumps spread across my flesh, my chest shrinking its cage until it feels like little more than a vice around the sudden pounding of my heart.
“It is an honor to meet you, human. I hope that you find our dome welcoming.”
I sputter over my words. “I-ugh, y-yes, thank you.”
He smiles. “It has been a great many orbits we have wondered who the goddesses would send to balance our botanist. Not even the most fantastical amongst us could’ve imagined it would be a human from the stars.”
Shame colors my face as I nod, my eyes falling to my feet.
“Go with balance all. Everyone is eager to host such an event for an outsider. It is seldom that we get to show who we truly are, and not who we have been painted to be. You will surely find it welcoming here as your new home.”
I peek up at that oddly performative and grand statement as he turns to walk away, his robes swishing around his tall frame as he approaches another lanky Xyrelith with their arms filled with stuff.
I almost think he means to help them but just nods his approval and swishes away.
This is the most tranquil eagerness I’ve ever seen.
The most balanced, I suppose. Which I’m gathering is just at least outwardly suppressing any desire to emote.
I search for something cynical in me, something angry and judgmental.
Something familiar to cling to, in hopes of burning away the strange, wistful guilt in my chest.
I come up empty.