CHAPTER 15
S’Samph
Even for latil’e the days were becoming unbearably hot.
The suns always flared hottest right before flooding, and it seemed like it would only be a matter of standard days until the storm clouds started seeding overhead.
S’samph crossed the canal, riding over the bridge between the commercial and residential areas of Laurus.
He was about to accelerate when he noticed a scrap of familiar white woven fabric half fused to the magtracks below.
S’samph slowed and dismounted from his levibike.
Eleri’s hat. He peeled it carefully off the track and a quick assessment found it to be slightly burnt, but still usable.
Now the better question was, how had it gotten onto the magtracks when Eleri had no levibike? Had someone put it there on purpose?
S'samph remounted and rode closer to the canal residences, where he spotted Eleri bent over her medkit, clearly searching for something. He parked his levibike a few paces away and strode up to her, but she was completely oblivious to his presence.
“Are you looking for this?” S’samph asked as he presented her rumpled hat.
Eleri startled so hard she sent a handful of hydropods skidding into the dust where they promptly burst like ripe berries.
“I didn’t even hear you come up.” She paused to squint up at him, lifting her hand to shield her eyes further from the glaring sunlight. “But yes, I was looking for that. Where did you find it?”
“Do you have additional hydropods?” S’samph asked, handing her the hat. If she didn’t, he’d give her a ride back to town to pick up more.
“I have plenty,” Eleri assured him, opening up a cooler box inside the medkit. Even with her reassurances, he still disliked her being out in the heat. She wasn’t burning yet, but her skin was a notable shade of pink from being in the heat without her hat.
“Good. I found the hat on the magtracks.”
“On the magtracks?” she repeated.
“Yes. Did you drop it there?”
“No.” Eleri ran a hand over the fabric. “I didn’t.” She shook her head.
S’samph was about to inquire further when another levibike rumbled in the distance, and K’kaen pulled up. “Are you coming or not? We’re already late to meet up with Arz and Dynzol.”
“I’ll follow you soon,” S’samph replied.
“We’re supposed to be patrolling.” K’kaen made a rude gesture.
“Then link up with some of the others near the border,” S’samph’s tail flicked with annoyance. “I am speaking with Eleri.”
“Some help you are.” K’kaen revved his engine and then sped off, leaving a ribbon of dust in his wake. “I’ll be sure to tell everyone else you were eaten by a klatch of raviks, and I let them have you.”
S’samph lifted his healing arm and waved off his friend.
He knew K’kaen was supportive of him trying to spend more time with Eleri, despite his protests.
S’samph approached Eleri and crouched beside her, holding out a hand to offer his assistance with her organizational efforts.
“Let me help,” he said. “You can tell me what happened to your hat.”
Eleri’s lips turned downward. “I’m almost finished. Someone took my hat from my last appointment.” She tucked a stack of bandages into a pocket of the medkit and then closed the lid, pressing a button to seal the supplies off from the heat and dust of the day.
“Someone at the appointment?” S’samph asked, not recognizing the home they were in front of.
Eleri’s frown deepened. “Not Glia, but I have a guess who.”
S’samph also had a guess, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions without more information.
If it was Myla who had taken the hat, it would be ill-advised to confront her directly.
He didn’t want to make things more difficult for Eleri by escalating the conflict, but he wouldn’t let the harassment continue.
Perhaps S’kasia would have some ideas for how to intervene.
“Do you need a new one?” S’samph asked instead. “This one was damaged.”
“It still works.” Eleri clapped a hand on her head and then wiped water away from her forehead.
He was going to get her a new hat anyway.
She would never buy one for herself. Besides, letting her wear that damaged one around would let Myla think she had won the skirmish.
The damage bothered him more than the theft.
Whoever had taken it, Myla or not, was trying to send a violent message to his mate.
“It’s too hot for you to be outside without a proper hat,” S’samph observed as he tilted his head toward the overhead suns at the peak of their daytime strength.
Even with the hat mostly covering the delicate skin of her face, a flick of his tongue in the air around her tasted of salt and human water.
“Well, this is where I live now, and it’s really not so bad. I’d rather deal with the heat than the smog on Gaia.” She took in a loud breath. “I never realized how hard it was to breathe for the first part of my life until I came here.”
“Your planet did not have adequate environmental regulations?”
“My planet didn’t have adequate regulations for most things, at least not where I lived.” Eleri stood up from her crouch and dusted off her uniform pants. “But I’m not there anymore.”
“You are not,” S’samph agreed. It was a mundane conversation.
He wanted to learn more about her, about the things she cared about.
He struggled with the idea of courtship.
On Latilla, it would have been simple. He and the other eligible males would have presented themselves to the interested females and waited for a pheromone scent match.
Then the mating and egg laying. If they were agreeable to each other, they could agree to prolong their mating into a true coupling like S’kasia and her mate had, but there was no shame in going separate ways to search again in the next cycle.
He understood this procedure. He did not understand flirtation and tokens of emotion required for human mating. But he wanted to.
“What do you like?” He found himself asking. Eleri made a gesture he hadn’t seen before. It was also one he didn’t recognize from his crash course in human body language. She tilted her head to one side, and the ridges of hair above her eyes pinched the skin above the bridge of her nose.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what things bring you positive emotions? My understanding of human courtship is that I bring you things, and if you accept them then we proceed to physical contact with romantic intention. So far, you have not accepted any of my gifts, which means I have failed to select something you like.”
Eleri let out a single burst of laughter. “I guess you’re not completely wrong. Let me think.”
S’samph paused at her laughter, unsure if as a latil’e female she would be flicking her tail from side to side or rippling her frill.
From his experience her laughter was usually positive.
Eleri was not a derisive female. S’samph glanced skyward noting the position of the suns.
For him the temperature was barely comfortable, but he still hadn’t managed to shake the guilt of allowing Eleri to get ill from sun exposure when he failed to retrieve her from the luxportal.
“While you are thinking, we should leave the sun. There’s a covered fishing spot down by the canal where we can sit.
” He found himself putting his hand on her shoulder and wasn’t sure if it was wrong how pleased he felt that she didn’t resist his physical contact.
Instead, she leaned toward him, increasing the amount of pressure between his hand and her body.
He took this as a sign to move forward with the physical contact and wrapped the tip of his tail around her ankle. Once again, she accepted his advances.
“Lead the way then.” She started to lift her medkit before S’samph took it from her hands.
“I’ll carry this,” he said. “Don’t forget my first question while we’re walking.”
Eleri made another strange expression, this one also beyond his comprehension, but she opened her mouth to respond.
“When I was younger, I always wanted a universal instrument. When my da was still alive, we joked that I’d be a songwriter one day.
” Her face turned a bright shade of pink, one even deeper than the color she already wore from the heat.
“You like music.” S’samph’s frill lifted in a gesture of surprise. “I didn’t know this. I haven’t heard of a universal instrument, but if it exists somewhere in this sector, I will find one for you.”
“Oh, no. No, you don’t need to do that!” Eleri exclaimed. “It was a silly childhood dream. I haven’t played or sang anything in years outside of a cleansing unit.”
“But I asked you what you like, and this was your answer.” S’samph regarded her down the length of his face. “Is this not how human courtships work?”
“I’m probably not the right person to ask about that.” She shook her head. “I’ve never really been in a romantic relationship. People from the Quay, where I lived on Gaia, don’t usually marry or do romance. That was for the gaters.”
“What are ‘gaters’?”
“People who lived in the fancy gated communities in Sector Five. We called them gaters.” Eleri turned to look up into his eyes. “I was too busy with studying and working to have time for relationships anyway.” Her tone fell flat as she left his eyes to stare out into the canal.
“Something about this upsets you?” S’samph towed her toward a pair of overturned shipping crates and offered her the one with less water damage.
Seated, they were close enough for their legs to touch, and despite the heat, this warmth wasn’t unpleasant.
Undeterred, he kept his tail wrapped around her ankle where it would remain until she told him to stop or they parted ways.
“I mean, I never really had time to think about anything other than work. We needed the credits. Once my da passed, I had to step up.” Her eyes remained fixed on the flowing water.
“It wasn’t too bad. I mostly liked my job.
Being at the hospital was better than being at home anyway.
” Her voice dropped at the end of the statement.
This expression he recognized from the creases in her brow and the sheen in her eyes and immediately hated. She was worried. She was sad.
“Something happened in your home.” His frill rose as he tried to keep himself calm. Obviously, she hadn’t told him as much, but his instincts insisted that something, someone had harmed her.
“My brother made things difficult.”
“Your brother harmed you.” He stated it as a fact rather than a question.
Eleri turned further away from him, and it took all of his self-control not to move closer to her still. “It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t seem complicated.”
“My brother wasn’t in his right mind.” Eleri fiddled with the end of her braid, twisting and untwisting the hair there. “Iridescence changes people beyond reason. It’s not their fault.”
“But he hurt you.” S’samph pressed the point, refusing to let her ignore the harm that had been done to her. Brother by blood or not, no brother should ever lay a violent finger on his sister. That violated every code of honor or conduct he knew across all species.
“He did,” she acknowledged. Her hands dropped to her lap. “Deeply. But he can’t hurt me anymore.”
S’samph thought better of commenting about what he would like to do to this human male if he ever so much as breathed the same air as Eleri again.
It wasn’t helpful, only a reflection of his fury.
And if he pried further, she would pull away further.
Of this he felt certain. “Your life was not an easy one on your home planet. I understand why you left.”
“Thank you, S’samph,” she said as her eyes started swimming with water. It was an adaptation he would never be able to understand. Completely inefficient use of resources. He lifted a finger to her face to wipe away some of the wetness.
“I am glad you left.”
“I’m glad too. If I hadn’t left, I would never have met you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so grateful for that.” His tail twitched with wry amusement.
“I am all the same.” She made a small laugh and a sound like a cough before wiping away the rest of her water with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “I’m glad I met you. Hopefully you’re also glad to have met me.”
Emboldened by her statement, he leaned forward and gathered her toward him. Her skin was hot against his scales as he pressed his face against hers. “More than you could ever know,” he murmured into her forehead.