Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance (7 page)

“Thank you,” Naeesha said. “It’s very pretty.”

“I made it myself!” Kiran said.

Naeesha looked the child over. The figure was breathtaking - as good as anything that the greatest artists in the capital would have made. And this child didn’t look older than ten.

“Kiran is a very talented woodcarver,” Marko said. “I keep asking them to teach me.”

“I tried!” Kiran said. “You just have clumsy Watcher hands!”

Marko held his hands out in front of him, turning them over and inspecting them with great concern.

“I guess you’re right,” he said gravely. “What will I ever do with these ponderous paws?”

“Well you’re good at stickball,” Kiran suggested. “At least, you’re good at hitting.”

“Aw, thank you Kiran,” Marko said, quite genuinely.

Their interaction was so easy and effortless. She’d never seen Marko be effortless with
anyone
before. He’d always been sort of cold and rigid, and look at him now.

Naeesha started to wonder if maybe the Halians had changed him for the better.

“How’d you like dinner?” Marko asked as they walked through the streets. The sun was going down and the Halians were slowly making their way back to their tents. Naeesha seemed more at ease than when she’d first arrived at the city. It was hard to be nervous and suspicious when you were surrounded by so much peace and contentedness.

“I had no idea that food could taste like that,” she said. “That was incredible.”

“I told you,” Marko said. “The Halians are amazing cooks. Even Watchers like their food.”

“Other Watchers have been here?”

“Not here, but I’m not the first to break ranks and join with them. That’s how I learned their language. One of the elders had been with another clan who’d taken in a hermit.”

“How do they do it?”

“I don’t know. It’s something about the way they do
everything
. They don’t think. The just do. Kiran’s skills as a woodcarver? They’re not atypical by any means. The Halians are a precocious people.”

Naeesha looked around, looking a little confused.

“Then how come they live so primitively?”

Marko turned his head and took in the teeming city. He’d never really thought of it as primitive, but now that he looked at it another way, he could see what Naeesha meant. Nearly everything that the Halians did was done by hand. Even when they had machines, they rarely chose to use them.

“That’s a tricky question,” he said. “For one thing, these people are refugees. They’ve been moving around every few months since they got to this world. The things you see, they’re what’s essential to their way of life. They simply can’t afford to bring anything else with them.”

“Oh.”

“For another - they’re perfectly happy to live simply. They tend to each others’ needs, and spend the rest of their lives enjoying the communities that they’ve built.”

“That makes sense. They all seem so happy in spite of everything.”

That was a sort of dangerous half-truth. The Halians were masters of their own emotions. They could find happiness in anything - and they did. But it didn’t change the fact that they were standing on the brink of destruction, trapped between the Alderoccans and the echoes of hate that still chased them.

“So what do we do now?” Naeesha asked.

“Well,” Marko said, we’re moving the camp tomorrow morning. Everyone is settling down, getting some rest, and packing their things.”

“I’m already packed, and I don’t think I could sleep if I wanted.”

“I feel the same way,” Marko said.

“So?”

Marko looked into Naeesha’s eyes. She was already regaining some of her spark. The crippling withdrawal was working its way out, and he could sense her spirits lifting. It was hard not to feel better when you were with the Halians. You couldn’t help but feel what they felt, to see the world as beautiful and hopeful as they did.

“I know,” Marko said. “I want to show you something.”

“Well, lead the way.”

The streets were nearly clear except for a handful of Halians lingering at the tents of their friends and families, talking excitedly about the impending move. Marko had noticed a shift in the feelings around camp. There was a sense of loss and longing when word got around that it was finally time to leave, but it was nothing compared to the excitement to make something new.

The Halians had gotten so accustomed to packing and moving and rebuilding that they accepted it as a part of life, and cherished every new opportunity to do things a little better than he had the time before. He admired it, and wished that he could have had the same mindset every time that he’d moved following Naeesha around Alderoc.

They reached the edge of the camp, where the tents met the forest. It was almost dark out, and even Marko felt a sense of ominous dread as he looked into the blackened forest.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?” Marko teased.

“No,” Naeesha said. “I’m afraid of having my arms and legs torn off by a treegar or a tuskwhale.”

“Well tuskwhales are diurnal, so they’ll all be sleeping. And the treegars haven’t bothered us at all. I think they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”

“I’m serious, it’s dangerous.”

“Naeesha, life is dangerous. Now more than ever. I don’t know where you’ve been for the last three years, but this world has been killing itself for a long time now. The damage is done - all that’s left is to wait to bleed out. You can stay behind if you like, but I’m going to enjoy every minute that I have left.”

He hadn’t meant to come on so strong, but it was something that he felt powerfully about. All the time he’d spent thinking that he could keep Naeesha safe, he hadn’t realized how dangerous the world had gotten. He’d started to think that “safety” was something he could make. Now he knew the truth. Safety was just something that happened to you. It was entirely out of your control, no matter how uncomfortable a truth that was to realize.

“Fine,” Naeesha said. “But if we get eaten, know that I’m blaming you.”

“I can handle that responsibility,” Marko said. “Now follow me.”

He stepped into the darkened wood, following a narrow but well worn path through the underbrush. It lead around ancient trees, over trickling streams, and up soft and shallow hills. The sky above them was grey-green and ever shifting. Shreds of moonlight filtered in through the trees and lit the forest floor in a soft silver glow. Every now and again, the canopy would part and they could see into the sky. The stars out here were so brilliant that they always made him cry.

They doubled back up a steep hill that rose up in the other direction, tapering to a cliff face that jutted out just above the trees. Many residents of the Halian camp had found this place and come by themselves, or with lovers, but tonight, they were all back in the city, together.

He and Naeesha climbed the steep final stretch of the hill, drifting above the canopy and stepping out under a sky of brilliant stars. The Halian tent-city was just below them, and the twinkling of camp fires was like another bit of sky, stretched out over the meadow.

“It’s beautiful,” Naeesha said.

“It is.”

“Thank you for bringing me.”

Naeesha’s voice was soft and distant. Her eyes were fixed on the sky, and Marko saw a side of her that he hadn’t seen since they were both practically children.

It was a part of her that hadn’t been hardened by pointless destruction. A part that looked for beauty and purpose. A part that he’d hoped was still alive somewhere in her heart. The starlight breathed new life into her eyes, and every breath she took seemed to restore her, bit by bit.

“I’m glad you came,” Marko said. “I missed you.”

Naeesha kept staring at the sky, breaking her gaze after a moment and turning towards him, the stars still trapped in her eyes.

“I missed you too,” she said. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“I… I thought the same,” Marko said, sadness filling his heart.

He’d never put that idea into words. It had never occurred to him that he actually believed that Naeesha might be gone.

Leaving was a mistake. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. The weight of his mistakes clouded his mind and he’d left for the forests, hoping that he could do something to heal the damage that he’d done as a soldier. In some ways, he had managed to make amends, and he was happier for it. But no amount of good could replace Naeesha, and every day apart from her had hurt like death.

That she might forever remain a part of his past, always cut-off from who he was and would be. He’d never allowed himself to think it, because that might make it true.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For leaving. For not saying goodbye.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“For letting you go.”

She put her and over his, and looked back up into the sky. Marko couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“I used to sit up here and think about you,” he said. “I wondered if you were somewhere else on this world, looking at the same stars, thinking about me.”

The silence that followed was nearly unbearable.

“I did for a while,” Naeesha said. “But then it hurt too much, and I stopped.”

Marko looked out over the glittering city and the twinkling sky and shivered.

“Why’d you come looking for me?” he asked.

Naeesha slid herself closer, her warmth pushing away the cold. She put her arm around Marko’s shoulder, pulled him close, and kissed him.

“So that I could do that.”

Naeesha swung her leg over Marko and grabbed the front of his tunic, pulling herself against him. His hands found her cheeks and he held her tenderly as they kissed under the stars.

“I missed this,” Marko said

She pushed him back onto the mossy ground and threw herself against him. He held her tight, not letting a single inch slip between them.

“Gods I thought we’d never do this again,” she said. “I thought I’d already had the best sex of my life and that it was never going to get any better.”

Marko’s hand slipped down her side and settled on the small of her back, pushing her against him.

“Is that what we’re doing?” he whispered into her ear.

“Only if you beg for it,” she said, kissing him just behind the ear and winning a needy gasp for her efforts.

“Never,” he sighed.

It wasn’t the first time that he’d made such a stubborn statement of resolve. It
would
be the first time that he’d ever actually followed through with one.

Her kisses meandered across his neck, crept up his jaw, and settled back onto his lips as she thrust her hips forward. A low groan slipped from Marko’s mouth as she slid along his full length

“I can do this all night,” she teased.

“You wouldn’t.”

“You think I’ve changed
that
much?” she asked, pushing up his tunic and running her fingers over his bare stomach and chest. He was so much smaller than the last time she’d done this. Leaner, mostly. It was a good look for him. It reminded her of when he was younger, before he’d put on an almost comical coat of battle-won muscle. She knew that he was covered in scars, but they were soft and faded now, and she could only find them by memory.

She slid back down Marko’s body and kissed his chest. He was writhing beneath her. For a moment, she entertained the notion of taking it easy on him. In the end, she thought better of it.

“You can make this stop any time you want,” she said, kissing him softly, sucking gently on his skin, grazing him with her teeth before moving on to the next tender place on his body. Her fingers slipped into the waistband of his pants, but she had no intention of doing anything more than teasing him, not until he gave her what she wanted.

He twitched and shook under her as she ran her nails down his sides and blew gently over the still-wet kisses on his stomach, and she grinned with devilish satisfaction.

She slid even further down, pulling his linen pants down inch by inch, spilling her hot breath over each newly bared bit of skin. A needy moan slipped out of his chest as a patch of dark hair appeared before her.

“Come on,” she cooed. “Don’t you want me?”

Marko smiled.

She didn’t have any time to react as he wrapped one leg over her shoulder and threw his weight into her, rolling her onto her back and leaving him sitting squarely on her chest, each of her wrists in his hands.

“I was hoping you might do that,” she said, licking her lips.

She pushed up against him, but he held her down tight, a wicked smile coming over his face.

“What else are you hoping I might do?” he asked.

“Mmm. Come here and I’ll tell you.”

Marko started to lean in, but stopped and doubled over. She felt it too. A stab in her stomach. Terror.

“The city,” Marko said, scrambling to his feet. Naeesha sat up and looked down. Fire was spreading through the tents. A steady roar drowned out all but the most terrible screams.

“Gods,” Makro said, holding his head in his hands. “What are they doing?”

Naeesha didn’t need to ask ‘who’. She could tell by the way that the chaos was spreading through the city. Alderoccan shock troops. The fear in her gut soured and turned to rage.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” Marko started to babble. “Nononono they’re going to kill us all.”

Naeesha couldn’t remember ever feeling so angry in all her life. It wasn’t her anger though, it was the Halians. It was rank and poisonous and it utterly consumed her. The fires below continued to spread towards the bazaar. She could see darkened shapes fleeing in crowds. Some of them fell and never got back up. And then, that old, familiar smell. Death. It had returned again.

A fireball erupted in the center of the bazaar. All of the military forces converged, their weapons fire rang out, tracers of plasma all focused on one small space. She didn’t need Marko to tell her what had happened.

Tents flew up in the air. Screams pierced the night. The ground shook beneath her feet and she thought that the rage inside her might ignite at any second.

The military forces retreated, and a new evil spread through the city headed outwards, destroying everything in its path.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Marko just shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do. The best way for us to help is to stay hidden and safe.”

They sat on the edge of the cliff, hiding, and watched the city burn.