I pretty much knew what to expect from the scenery because of the interior of his ship, but-
"Wow…"
Ah, I just couldn't hold in a tourist's voice.
An artificial planetoid from afar, a futuristic cityscape from within. Like some kind of backwards hollow earth, all of the structures rose from the 'underside' of the vast shell. I want to remind myself to ask how gravity would work here.
It's even hard to label some of the buildings… well *buildings*. Not quite 'New York meets Coruscant', but it is a metal jungle all its own - and here I am staring 'down' at the nearby bits from the 'jungle canopy' that is a hovering landing pad. One of thousands floating nearby in the uh… 'sky'… center…
What is with this culture ignoring my human-limited concept of physics?!
Ah, that over there looks like the Gateway Arch on steroids.
"Prince Soren. Your magnanimous sister sends her most loving regards."
My looky loo time was cut short in only seconds. Two human...oid, that one is *blue*! Ahem, some people exited from another small ship that was on the platform and approached us.
The one that spoke had a husky voice and a shaggy lion's mane, literally, of hair around his whole head. No cat ears, fortunately. I'm a dog girl anyway.
Soren in a dog ear headband…
No, no. Be serious. Make a good impression.
"You do us honor with your service as always, Coco."
Coco, he said.
A very popular dog's name. Four of our neighbors' pets used it, even. Including a Pomeranian I always played with whose fuzzy mane was the *exact* same color.
I squeezed the living daylights out of my fiancee's arm. He had to have not warned me on purpose. The bully. If this is a test to make me laugh-
"Prince, the earthling holding onto you for dear life wouldn't be frightened by my presence? She has not looked at me twice…"
The blue one, that I could tell now might have been completely *scaled*, like a serpent, asked - and the questioned one smirked down at me. He expected me to answer!
"Not. The. Case."
I managed to growl out and seemed to have accidentally flipped the tables. She now cowed behind… Coco.
"Zera, there is no need for that. We've both been to her planet. It is why our benefactor sent us to greet them."
"I… I know but this one is making a royal wince in pain. She must be incredibly strong and fearless! Would that not mean we would be treated *far worse*?"
"If an earthling could harm our Sagittarian prince with their bare hands, never would he have been permitted a study leave on a planet that dangerous. Nowhere that dangerous even exists. It is more likely that he is… how was it… 'pulling a fast one'."
Soren squeezed my hand back lightly and I let go. But I will not forget this, you!
"Oh, it was dangerous indeed, Coco. Zera. With their tumultuous expression of ideas and with their primal, irrational desires. Even I did not come away from that place unaffected. To that regard, there's something rather important you have to do for us after we're escorted…"
He had approached them as he talked and turned to whisper. They blanched, glanced back at his ship, at me, the ship, nodded, and wobbled back to their own craft on clearly unsteady feet.
From that interaction I can tell Presio really is far more of a problem to these people than I will be. Or - am I the true problem since I still want it, even knowing that?
- - - - -
~Back Some Time: Soren POV~
"Ah, that's an old photo of my father."
She called out to me as I held it up questioningly. It had fallen out of some of the things of hers that she had me packing into boxes for moving. After four months of dating it was decided that there was no point in wasting her money on an apartment she didn't spend much time in anymore.
Rather practical of her.
"Does that mean there were old photos of you in the boxes somewhere?"
"Hahah, no way, no way… I burnt those things years ago. He only escaped the 'Night of Fire' because I didn't own the picture at the time. My uncle sent it mixed into a couple others from a trip with my cousin's kids they took to Alaska."
She didn't talk about her family often, so I generally respected that… even if it left me curious. I knew by now that, biologically, she was an only child. Practically, she had been raised along with two cousins younger than her by an aunt and uncle since she was the age of seven.
Interestingly, she never got particularly upset if pressed with questions but, instead, calmly smiled with zero intent to answer once I had crossed the imaginary line she sat at any given time over information on the subject.
An interesting approach of gradual declassification, which I may someday adopt the use of for my own secrets. Both for its practicality and for… a teasing revenge. Something I find myself appreciating the nuances of more and more with my time with her.
"What about you? Any baby photos for me to fawn over at your place?"
I chuckled while placing the photo I found back into the box. The man had only a few possible, but small similarities in facial structure with my mate. Most of her looks must have come from the mother she never speaks of… or perhaps *his* mother.
The aunt who raised her for whatever reason, while the direct sister of her mother, looked nothing at all like Kiria. However, the dark hair she had matched her father's, at least.
Human gene dominance and recession leads to rather fascinating patterns of ordered chaos. Perhaps, I only find them so fascinating because of how she connects me to their species.
"I am afraid we are… 'in the same boat', more or less. Nothing like this exists in my possessions for me to show you."
Truth mixed with omission. Physical photography is such ancient technology to my people and I have not had the thought to scour the InfoSea for any holographic recordings that may still exist of the time before…
A flash from the smartphone in her hand came as I turned back around again, breaking me away from thoughts of a time humans would label as 'best forgotten'.
If only Zodiacs had that luxury.
"Well, at least nowadays there are things like this for future kids to look forward to. Cloud-backed up data that's just a *little* bit harder to destroy with fire in a first time drunken stupor. And a little bit easier to take and make on a whim over lugging around a heavy old camera."
"Future kids?"
She looked moderately embarrassed at my questioning gaze. Her face reddened and she rubbed her neck; likely not thinking *consciously*, as I am now, how it was the very same spot that I've noticed my recent tendency to caress. I find myself smiling at that.
"I was speaking *generally*~!"
...Of course you were.