Askance (7 page)

“Of course. Would you like to see the family gallery?”

Seehai put her cup down silently and when Silari agreed, they both got to their feet.

Silari silently thanked the deportment lessons that she had received in basic training. Without those lessons, she would never have been able to get back on her feet without using her hands.

At the side of the elder, they walked through the house until they reached the inner atrium.

“The gallery of ancestors lines the walls. I will show you the image of Ukani and her family.” Seehai took her directly to the heart of the building where a sombre woman with Maksuan’s dark eyes looked out at her.

In the painting, Ukani was wearing the family-crested robe and matching sash. In the next image, she stood next to a man with Maksuan’s serious brow and gold-black hair.

“That is Wexuan.” Silari smiled. “He looks so serious.”

“He is. Was. He had to fight his clan to take Ukani as his bride. Her family was long dead and she came to him with only the dowry that Niiko provided.”

“That was unusual?”

“For a warrior and defender of the clan, the next clan leader in fact, it was very unusual. He wanted her and he would have her and Niiko wanted it to happen, so it happened. But outside their union, many of the family were not pleased with their connection. It was well known to both of them that they stood against the community.” Seehai had the attitude of a woman who had informed her children and grandchildren of this fact.

After she stared into the eyes of the woman who had given her life for Maksuan’s, Silari walked down the row to see the gathering of Ukani’s children.

“Wow, she may not have been what the family wanted, but she was a good breeder.” Silari pressed her hand to her lips when it slipped out. There were fourteen children in the picture with Ukani and Wexuan. She had a light in her eyes that had been absent in the first picture.

“Having a family completed her.” Silari smiled.

“It did. So did the community accepting her at last. She had one child every twenty-four months for twenty-eight years, forty-three grandchildren in her lifetime and twenty-six after she passed. She and Wexuan had seventy-five years together and her last five years were lived for her grandchildren.”

Images of the children and their families lined the wall and Silari paced until she saw the one she was interested in. Maksuan, his siblings and his parents were staring out at her with the same serious eyes.

“They all look like her.”

Seehai smiled. “Yes, except for his mother, Maki. She had bright blue eyes that only made it to one of her children. My father, Hako Nikan. His blue eyes popped up randomly in my children and grandchildren. It was said that Maki had blood from the stars in her veins and that is why she took to the son of Ukani.”

Maksuan was in a solitary picture, his eyes burning with the light of Niiko. It was the face that had greeted her when she had first arrived. He was wary and bruised, but a survivor and she supposed that that was what the family was all about, surviving after and during the touch of the Planet itself.

“He did not think he would be welcome here, you know.” Silari’s voice was quiet.

“I suspected as much. Wexor is long gone, off to the city and from there to the stars. He repented his disrespect, but it cost him his place within our family. We are here in the service of the Planet and nothing we can do will change it. The only option is to move to a lifeless world and that is something that we would not do.”

“Why is that?”

“Niiko gives us life, a purpose and through our work, we have touched thousands of lives and if the Planet is willing, we will touch millions more before our line dies out.”

Silari felt a peculiar sensation and then her hand was on Seehai’s shoulder. “Do not worry, daughter. Your line will stretch into infinity the way you breed. I will continue to give you prosperity for what you have given to me.”

Silari was amazed as she watched the woman next to her look up at her face with hope.

“Thank you for your blessings, Niiko. Our family has been blessed with your choice of our bloodline as your Avatars.”

The green light coming out of Silari’s face was visible on the cast of Seehai’s cheeks. “It is you who have blessed me. Ukani was the best Avatar I have had and I miss her daily. Maksuan feels the separation between love and family most keenly and I wish for you to make an effort to connect with him. Silari will temper my reaction to any disrespect given both intentionally and accidentally. She is good that way. She is good in many ways.”

“She seems like a sensible woman. You chose well.” Seehai bowed.

“It was your great uncle who did the choosing. I merely gave my authorization when I realised that she was a suitable match for me. The rest was all him and though his courtship was stunted at first, he managed to find the point of commonality that won her heart.”

She blinked. “Shy, timid, Maksuan did the courtship?”

“He did.” Niiko slid her sleeve back and showed the scars. “There is a point of commonality with all men and women, he was simply smart enough to find it.”

Seehai recoiled slightly at the marks. “Are you telling me that this woman is marked from head to toe like that?”

Niiko frowned and inside her own head, Silari winced. “She survived weeks of torture in the line of duty and came out of it sane and alive with a good heart.”

Seehai must have seen the anger in Niiko’s face, because she immediately bowed low. “Please excuse me. I was not thinking.”

Silari fought her way to control of her own face again. “Do not worry about it. I am not a fan of them either.”

Seehai looked nervous. “I was not trying to be insulting. Where did the Planet go?”

“I pushed him back. He is having what we call on my world a
time out.
When he agrees to be calm and friendly again, I will let him out. Now, show me which of Ukani’s grandchildren you are descended from.”

Silari kept a close rein on Niiko and when Maksuan joined them for dinner, it was like any other family meal.

When he took her hand after the meal, Niiko seeped into their bodies. The Planet joined the conversation and together, they had the first Nikan family gathering in decades.

Silari looked out through the green haze of Niiko’s gaze and smiled up at Maksuan. They had been invited to return any time they wished and Silari had offered to host a gathering at the Avatar’s residence any moment it was convenient. They parted ways with hugs and promises for a quick visit at least once a month.

In their bed back at the residence, Silari stroked her thigh up over Maksuan’s hip. “So that went well.”

“With the exception of my great niece insulting you. Niiko almost had me through the greenhouse and into the air.”

She winced. “I thought he had kept that between us.”

Maksuan stroked his hand down her back. “He did not. The moment that you throttled him back, I thought he was going to blow a volcano in the northern continent.”

She chuckled. “I was having a perfectly good conversation and I can take care of myself. So, do you want to have a picture taken with me to hang in the Nikan gallery?”

He smiled and rubbed his jaw along her hair. “I thought we would wait until we have a few children. Niiko wants to try for at least two.”

While she spluttered in surprise, he rolled her to her back and thrust into her, the slickness of their previous coupling easing his way.

As they moved together, she thought of a baby with Niiko’s eyes. The way things were going, any child she bore would be part Yeruan, part Terran and part energy creature hosted within a planet.

What kind of toy could you give a child who could move mountains?
When her body began the familiar tightening that signalled impending release, she decided to think about it later. She had thousands of years after all.

No sense rushing things.

About the Author

Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.

Viola’s fetishes include boots and corsetry, and her greatest weakness is her uncontrollable blush. Her writing actively pursues the Happily Ever After that so rarely occurs in nature. It is an admirable thing and something that we should all strive for. To find one that we truly like, as well as love.