Alloran surprised me the next morning by picking me up with his fighter and taking me to my classes. I was at my garibah when I heard the sounds of a fighter landing and felt my hearts leap a little. I huffed at my reaction. Was I really looking forward to his presence? Well, it was a good sign.
I stepped out of the woods just as my father called for me.
"Ah, there you are," he smiled. Alloran was already standing there, waiting with him, one of his back legs jiggling almost impatiently.
We both smiled at each other and my father grinned.
"See? I knew you'd like him," he whispered privately. "Eventually."
"Be quiet," I told him lightly and greeted Alloran by taking his hand in mine. He smiled more deeply, and began to lead me to the fighter.
"Wait, I need to get my consoles," I told him and hurried over to the scoop, taking them off my shelf. I headed back to him and he reclaimed my hand.
"See you later," my father grinned and waved. My mother, standing next to him, smiled at us. "I hope she skips her classes and spends some time with him," he said to my mother. Alloran chuckled and I glared at both of them.
On our way to the university Alloran was quiet. He seemed to have something on his mind but was oddly shy about mentioning it.
"Thank you for taking me to class," I said.
He smiled. "It is fine. If you ever want me to take you, you need only call."
I tilted my head. "It isn't really necessary. It is not so far a run."
"I hoped we might spend the afternoon together again," he blurted. I smiled.
"Not with your brother I hope," I joked. He sneered.
"Ha! No not with that idiot..."
Our silence was almost comfortable. Alloran seemed quite pleased that I didn't want to be in his brother's company again. When we arrived, he landed, much more gently than he usually did, and I waited for him to open the door and walk down the ramp before I did.
There were only a few people out in front of the great glass dome, with smaller domes attached to this one where the computers were housed and classes were scheduled. They looked curiously and smiled, perhaps some of them recognizing me. I felt sort of like a celebrity or a princess, walking down the ramp, Alloran holding one of my hands. We stood facing each other for a moment, my arm full of slim consoles.
"Jahar," he touched my face with his fingertips and I tilted my head, shivering a little because his fingers were a little chilly. "I already miss you when we're not together."
I smiled, flattered and amused. "What will you do when you must go off into space?"
"Think of you all the time and be absolutely pitiful I suppose," he chuckled. I reached a hand up and kissed him too. His palm flattened against my cheek and I closed my main eyes, enjoying the kiss.
It wasn't traditionally proper to kiss in public, but our generation wasn't very traditional and it was people my age passing by. Two females giggled in thought speech and teased me. I and Alloran smiled a little deeper and blinked rapidly, our hands slipping away from each other's faces.
"I must get to class," I said. "I will see you later...what time will you come for me?"
"Three hundred," he said. "I have to go to the base and get some things ready. Mostly checking in with my warriors."
I kept forgetting he was a Prince. It was strange, knowing I was going to marry someone who was already established in their career and I wasn't even finished with training for mine. It made me feel far younger than him even though we were only a few years apart. I realized I didn't even remember his exact age and there were so many other things I hadn't asked him about yet. Well, I would make a mental list and ask him later.
"I will see you then," I smiled and turned, heading to the scoops. I watched with an eyestalk as he stood for a moment and waved with a few fingers, then headed into his fighter. It rose from the ground, curved to the side, then blasted off with a puff of steam and vapor. His really was one of the newer, more environmentally sound ones. (Civilians regularly complained about the military's 'toys,' and the amount of pollution they made, sound pollution and otherwise.) It made a FSSSHEW! as he left, and the wind from it blew the stalk eyes of a female forward. She glared back at the fighter and I smiled a little, then hurried to my first lecture of the day.
I found it a little difficult to concentrate at first because I kept remembering Alloran's smile and the warmth of his hand on my cheek, but I was absorbed into the lecture as our instructor brought out a small artificial habitat with two strange creatures from a distant planet's moon in it.
"These are what the natives of the planet Keppura call foomaki. They glow on the moon and at night, and in large crowds become visible to the natives on the planet below."
My fellow classmates gazed with all four eyes and I felt a general sense of wonder wave through the crowd and smiled. The creatures were pretty amazing. Small and reptilian, they glittered in the light of our suns and when the instructor took one out using his hands, we abandoned our console platforms and gathered closer to see and hopefully touch the creatures.
I got to pet the tail of one and admire the smooth, shiny scales. We all laughed when one female shrieked as a long, slimy wet tongue slapped out and touched her hand. She looked embarrassed, but then laughed too.
The creatures, despite being removed from their artificial habitat, had atmosphere preserving force field bubbles around them and I noticed that when I slipped my hand past the bubble to pet them, the air around it became several degrees colder.
"As you can probably tell," my instructor said the force fields contain the atmosphere they are used to. "They would not be able to survive as an element of what they breathe is not in our atmosphere."
We pondered this a while, looking at one another. He smiled at us. He was waiting for one of us to guess, of course. I spoke up.
"Mixocyth, sir?"
He smiled at me. "Correct! Very good."
The others smiled at me and I glowed with pride for a moment. Perhaps it was silly, but it was nice to feel like I was in fact a good analytical thinker. Lately I hadn't felt like a very good student and with all the preparation behind getting married I hadn't even felt much like a student or a scientist.
The little reptiles were returned to their habitat and tucked away. For the rest of the lecture our instructor explained to us how the reptiles had evolved scales that harvested energy from the sun and how our military scientists were even able to learn from this design and increase the productiveness of our own solar panels by twelve percent by copying it. I smiled, thinking 'Ha! That's how biology is useful!' to my father. He always put so much pride in military rank. Wait until he heard about this...
That was when it occurred to me that I could do something like that - work as a military scientist. Why not? It beat teaching and trying to get backing for research. You had to be qualified and you didn't get the rank privileges associated with military but it was likely you did get some military privileges. I smiled at the thought and decided to look into it later.
I was surprised when I realized I was considering talking to Alloran about it. Well, he was my future husband. But I realized I did actually care to an extent what he would think about it. I couldn't see why he wouldn't like it. He might actually be delighted.
Hours later, I was proved wrong.
"What?" Alloran sputtered. "You want to work for the military?"
We were standing in a field that he owned. He had brought me to his scoop and had given me a tour of the land around it. He said that he planned on relocating his scoop to the land closer to the edge of Arbat's, off the chunk that he had outlined for my father.
"I don't see why you are so...opposed to the idea..." I felt a little disappointed. I'd thought he would like it.
"Well...I'm just surprised, is all. And I cannot see why you would want to be around a bunch of males-"
"They are not just a bunch of males. There are females in the military too."
"Most of the military are male, Jahar."
"Yes, but not military scientists. The concentration of females in the military is in the sciences area...obviously, since they cannot be warriors..." I added.
"Actually, the concentration of females in the military are technicians," he said, smugly.
"And you would know this how?" I raised an eyestalk, slightly amused.
"Eh...ah," he blinked rapidly. "Well...males share this kind of information..."
"Naturally," I rolled my eye stalks, then returned to the point. "But I don't see why you're opposed to me...oh, I huffed. I see why."
"Why?" he narrowed his main eyes. "What are you thinking?"
"You don't want me around other males."
"What! That's ridiculous! You're around other males at school!"
"But you don't want me around other military males because you're afraid I'll get interested in someone else!" I crowed.
He sagged. "That's not true." he raised his chin. "Why would you be interested in anyone else anyway?" he flexed his arm and back muscles, flicked out his tail with a loud CRACK, smiling a little. I snorted. He scowled.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because you are silly," I said, then turned serious. "Alloran, you're failing to see the positive things about this idea."
"Such as?"
"If I work in the military, you can keep tabs on me better," I smiled.
"Ah," he snorted. "And I need to keep tabs on you, do I?"
"No," I laughed. "But you're a Prince and you could also request that I work under you, or if you become a Captain, on your ship."
He blinked. "I don't want you on a ship," his eyes turned dark and I stared, surprised.
"Fine. But then you could use your influence to see to it that I work on the home world or on a base near you-"
"If you are not military then you would work on the home world anyway," he said.
"Not so," I said. "Non military scientists work on other planets," I remembered the reptiles I'd seen in class that day. "That is how we learn about other planets, Alloran."
"I know," he huffed. "But you are not going to another planet anyway Jahar. You're staying here."
We stared at each other for a few minutes, hurt sinking into my chest.
"Is that it then?" I said. "You tell me to stay put and I stay?"
He just looked at me, then looked at the ground and sighed. His main eyes closed and he rubbed his forehead with a hand.
"Am I a wife, Alloran, or a pet?"
He glared at me.
"Don't act like this. You're being childish."
"I am not being childish!" I snapped. "I... " I forced myself to take a breath and relax. "Alloran, I have dreams and wishes too, you realize this do you not?"
"Yes, I do," he snapped. "You wanted to study and you got what you wanted-"
"What's the akasik point of studying science if I never actually do anything with it?" I shouted, losing my patience.
I rose a hand to my face, mortified. I had never spoken to anyone like that before, except perhaps my father when we got deeply into an argument.
Alloran almost cracked a smile, but he was too angry. We just stared at each other again for a few moments.
"Yes, what is the point, Jahar?" he said finally.
I cringed. "So that's it? You want me to quit then, Alloran?"
"You said it yourself," he waved his stalk eyes, looking uncomfortable. "You are never really going to use it, so-"
"Fine!" I shouted. "I'll just be brain dead and stand around in a field all day with a foal until I go insane from boredom - is that what you want?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he snorted. "You make raising children sound like torture!"
I let the sentence fall flat into the silence, sneering at him.
"It's not torture for someone who gets to go off and do their own thing for months at a time and pretend those children don't exist."
"I wouldn't pretend they don't exist," he stepped closer to me until his face was inches from mine. "You act as if I'm just going to mount you and then run off."
"That's the plan isn't it?" I snapped. "You go off and play Captain War Prince hero and I get to stay home and do what? Alloran. Play hide and go seek in the woods? Frolic through the flowers? Is that what you think being a mother is? All perfection and bliss, all fun?"
He huffed and kicked the ground. I mimicked him.
"Who's being childish now?" I snapped. He huffed again and stormed away.
"You are being absolutely unreasonable," he said. "I only expect that you take care of our children. Someone has to take care of them, Jahar."
This was insane. We were talking about rhetorical children in a future that might not happen. I covered my main eyes with my hands and took a deep breath.
"It's as if you think being a warrior is all perfection and bliss," he added. "Do you know how many people suffer before they actually die in this war, Jahar?" he glared at me. "Do you know what it is to see someone dead when you were only talking to them hours before-"
"I didn't enlist you in the military, Alloran!" I shouted.
"There wasn't a war when I was enlisted!" he roared back, stepping forward to shove his face close to mine again. "Then that idiotic Prince of mine decided to ruin everything by being a soft, friendly little scientist! Everything is all friendship and trust to you people! You go traipsing off around the universe and let everyone else deal with the consequences! You're blind and you don't know it because you think you know everything!"
I stepped back, just looking at him.
"If I am to be some kind of scape goat for your issues with science," I said. "Then I cannot commit to a marriage with you," I turned my back on him and began to walk away, ignoring the growing hurt inside.
My stalk eye glanced back. He was still standing there, looking puzzled now.
"You're leaving me?" he said. "Already?"
"Yes, Alloran," I stopped, turning to look back at him, the pain almost crippling me. "I cannot...I refuse to stay with someone who forces me to choose between what I love the most and..." I stopped instantly, realizing my mistake as soon as I said it.
"So that's it," he said, his eyes cold. "Maybe I'm not the only one with issues then," he turned and stormed back to his scoop or wherever he was going.
"I was studying when you first met me!" I shouted, drawing my arms into my chest and forcing myself to turn toward my home...my parents scoop...and begin walking there. I stopped and gasped at the pain inside, covering my eyes with my hands.
He had stopped too and was sagging, partly looking back at me, partly looking forward, hesitant, his expression miserable.
"You were to be my wife Jahar. Aren't wives supposed to...obey their husbands?" he sighed. He was quiet for a moment. "What will you do about... about me having custody of you Jahar?"
"I guess I'll just... go to the Civilian Ministry and be emancipated," I sniffled. "I'll just find some piece of land to live on and..." I was rooted to the spot. I could do it. It wouldn't be so horrible living alone and pursuing my studies. Really it was all I'd ever wanted. For once I'd be free to do as I wished. But the pain was rooting me there.
The bastard. The stupid, selfish bastard! How dare he! How dare he show up into my life and make me care for him then hurt me like this?
"Jahar," he said, causing me to jump slightly. He was standing right behind me, hand reaching out.
"I'm sorry," his eyes expressed true repentance but I glared, turning to face him.
"Go away!" I shouted. "You hurt me. You...you don't really care about me and all you want is your scoop with your pretty little wife and ten children and you -"
He laughed. "Ten children? Really Jahar, do you think I'm mad?" He gently put his hands on my upper arms. "Please, let's go to my scoop and talk about this, like adults."
"I am talking like an adult!" I snapped, then forced myself to breathe and calm down again. "I am talking like an adult Alloran. I am just tired of people treating me like a child as if I don't deserve any say in what happens in my life."
He huffed. "I don't treat you that way."
"You just did," I said, backing out of his touch. "That was why I was walking away Alloran. Because you seem to think I'm incapable of making my own decisions or as if I'm obligated to drop everything and serve your every whim-"
"I don't think that," he snapped
"Then show me."
"I do! Jahar, have I not taken you to your classes, encouraged you in your studies?"
"Yes, but encourage me more. Let my studies lead to a career, Alloran."
"I never said you couldn't have a career," he grumbled. "I merely said I did not think you should work in the military. Or on another planet."
"You seemed to hint that as soon as our first child was born I would have to drop everything and spend the rest of my life being a mother."
"It's not as if children go away, Jahar."
"I know they don't. But they do grow up". I argued. "To the point where they start going off to school themselves and then what am I to do with my time? Socialize?" I sneered.
"It might do you some good," he grumbled. I glared at him. Then I turned and began to walk off again.
"Oh, come back!" he groused.
"No!" I stopped, glaring at him.
"So you're leaving me?"
"I don't want to." I met his eyes, letting my hurt show.
He sighed.
"I'm sorry Jahar. Today was supposed to be good," he muttered. "Better than yesterday."
I smiled a little. "It was. I wasn't molested."
He scowled. "Don't laugh about that," his eyes were hurt and he stepped forward, hands reaching out to me. "Did...did he really...Do you feel molested Jahar?"
"No," I rolled my eye stalks, taking his hands in mine. "Alloran, it's over now and I don't-"
"If you do, I will do something about it," he promised. "I can go over there and-"
"Alloran," I sighed. "Please, it's...it wasn't that big of a deal and-"
"It is!" he cried, looking shocked. "He put his...dirty hands all over you." his nose wrinkled up with disgust.
"Not all over me," I snorted. "He just...kissed me and..." I waved a hand.
Alloran was scowling. I laughed.
"It's not funny," he grumbled. "I don't like the idea of him around you."
"So let me work as a military scientist," I smiled. "And he won't be around me. Arbat hates the military, doesn't he?"
He narrowed his eyes at me and I laughed. He smiled a little and raised his hands up my arms and to my back, pulling my torso close to his.
"Would you...would you really leave me?" his eyes were hurt. "If I didn't let you...work as a military scientist?"
I sighed. My automatic response would be "No, of course not." I wasn't even sure if I wanted to work as a military scientist. It was just an idea after all. But I knew in my hearts that I wanted to pursue some kind of career one day.
"I don't know about military scientist, but..." I locked eyes with him. "Alloran, I want to have a career one day. I don't want to stay around a scoop all day, with nothing to do-"
"But children are a scoopful, aren't they?" he said. "Won't you be busy?"
"When they're young, but what about when they get older and start going to school? Alloran I'll be alone with nothing to do!"
He sighed. "I suppose you're right. I'm sorry Jahar. I mean for you to have a career of your own, really," he looked into my eyes. "I've always thought, ever since I met you, maybe it could be possible that you could do both."
I smiled a little, amused and flattered. "Really? You thought that from the time you met me?"
"Well," he snorted. "Not specifically about you but I hoped maybe a wife could do both. Since females now seem to want both," he sagged.
"Oh," I felt a little disappointed. "Not about me specifically," I pouted and he narrowed his eyes at me. I snorted.
"Jahar, I didn't know if you were going to even talk to me at the time," he pointed out.
"I know," I smiled. "I'm honestly glad I did." I surprised myself with how easily I said it.
We lifted our hands to each other's faces and kissed.
"I love you," he whispered. I blinked and looked away.
"What is it?" he said.
"I don't know if I can say that back yet."
He looked a little hurt. "Ah. Well, I suppose it is pretty soon." he blinked rapidly. "Sorry. I just...feel that way."
"I know," I smiled.
"You will love me eventually won't you?" he smiled a little. I snorted.
"What kind of question is that?" I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well...of course I'm going to love you...eventually...I mean..." I felt awkward. He looked slightly upset. So I was relying, like he was, that I would eventually return his feelings?
"I care for you," I looked at him. "I just don't know how exactly...I feel."
He looked placated and smiled a little. He rose his hand and stroked my cheek again. His other hand rested on my lower back
"I suppose I understand. It is very early after all."
"It is," I said, raising a hand to kiss him back. We drew closer together and were silent for a while, my head resting on his shoulder.
He pouted "You said I act as if you are obligated to drop everything and serve my every whim."
I smiled a little.
"I'm sorry. You do not act that way."
"I know I don't," he said.
"So why did it upset you that I said that?" I slipped my head from his shoulder and looked up at him.
"Because you seemed to think that was true."
I waved my stalk eyes in understanding.
"Well I know you're not like that," I said. "You're usually not anyway."
"I am not like that at all!" he scowled.
"You were a little today."
He sighed. "I suppose I was. You do know me a little by now...though you still do not know me all that well," he said, almost reflectively.
"I don't," I agreed. "I realized there are some things I wanted to ask you about earlier today."
He looked curious. What things?
"How old are you?"
He laughed.
"Didn't your father tell you?"
"He did but I forgot."
He looked embarrassed and sighed. "Thirty."
I smiled. "That's not so bad. You make it sound as if you are old. Thirty is...a sensible marrying age."
"I'm older than most people are when they marry these days."
"True." I myself was twenty three, the average marrying age of females of my generation. Traditionally, females had married at age eighteen which is when our society considers females to be legally adults. This law is primarily with regard to marriage however. Parents cannot marry their daughter off earlier than eighteen years of age. (Though my father probably would have if he had been able to)
"What else did you want to know?"
"How was your day?"
He sighed and rolled his stalk eyes. I laughed.
"Oh, Jahar, you cannot even imagine the chaos on a base before deployment."
"Tell me about it then."
We chatted for a while, strolling along. I learned about his daily duties, some of the new technologies the military was going through thanks to research - I smiled smugly while we talked about this and Alloran snorted - and Alloran even got around to telling me about some of the missions he'd been on in the past.
"What was it like?" I spoke up when he mentioned his time on the Yeerk home world.
"What?" he frowned. "The Yeerk planet? Ugly slug holes everywhere and this air that burns your lungs-"
"No," I chuckled. "Serving under Prince Seerow."
He scowled, looking down at the ground as he walked.
"I'm sorry," I said. "You don't have to talk about him-"
"It is fine..." he huffed and kicked at the ground. "I just do not enjoy remembering him."
"Where is he now?" I asked.
"I haven't any clue and don't want to know."
Oh, Honestly I couldn't see why Alloran hated Seerow so much. Granted, he had unleashed the Yeerks but he had made a mistake of trust and kindness. Seerow had only wanted to make friends with the Yeerks, an idea that now seemed ludicrous. After all, they wanted to enslave us...
Though I reprimanded myself mentally for judging the Yeerks as a species. Surely there were some who realized there might be a better way than enslaving others? I prided myself on being fairly objective, as a scientific thinker.
"I wish him no ill fate," Alloran muttered a moment later. "I just...I wish something could be done that it is now too late for, I suppose."
"I see what you mean," I said. "What was he like?"
"As a person?" Alloran laughed. "Was? He is not dead Jahar."
"Well, of course not," I smiled. "But you don't speak to him anymore."
"No, I don't." he smiled. "I have no intention of doing so either. As for what he was like? Childish. Immature."
"Really?"
"Well, he was for the most part rational, but he was too trusting, too naive. Remember, it is all his fault the Yeerks know as much as they do now. He gave them knowledge, Jahar. He willingly revealed secrets about space travel, secrets of our technology, to an inferior race."
"Inferior?" I stopped and tilted my head. I had to disagree, at least debate, even if I secretly agreed with him to a point. "How are they inferior?"
He snorted. "Oh please Jahar! They're slugs. One need only look at the sludge holes they crawl out of and their own little slimy bodies - blind, deaf, weak-"
"So they are, on their own, weak," I admitted. "But we were once slimy, small organisms-"
He huffed and waved a hand. I laughed.
"Don't tell me you believe those fairy tales of Andalites created by some benevolent higher power?"
"No!" he snorted. "Of course not. I do not believe in any gods, Jahar, nor do I believe in Ellimists or any of those other superstitious things. Those are all stories for dark and windy nights to scare foals. I simply do not think where we came from has any relevance to what we are today. Look at us," he draped his blade over his shoulder. "We have a full range of vision, can defend ourselves, can run, can even send thoughts and images mentally to one another with links up to miles away depending on the relationship between any two of us."
"True," I said. "We evolved with higher capabilities. But so did the Yeerks."
He frowned and his eyes darkened. "You consider that a higher capability?"
He looked honestly disgusted. I shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, they can take control over another's body by taking control of the brain, Alloran. That's extraordinary. Never in any of the systems closest to our home world have we found any species like the Yeerks before."
"Thank the stars," he sneered. "I can't believe you can talk about them so..."
"So what?" I said. "Positively?" I huffed and flicked out my tail. "They cannot all be monsters Alloran."
He stared at me with those eyes dark with thoughts for a few moments and I wondered what he was thinking of. I suddenly received an image in mind that shocked me - there and back in an instant - probably a byproduct of maintained eye contact and Alloran's intensity of thought, of a crumpled, bloody body. The body was an Andalite warrior with head partially decapitated, and limbs dismembered. I shuddered and broke eye contact.
Alloran blinked a few times and shook himself.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I did not mean for you to see that."
I felt cold inside. I had never seen anything so grotesque in my life.
"That is what they did," Alloran said after a moment, glaring at the ground. "Not only to that warrior, but to nearly thirty others."
I shivered. "H-how?"
"They were told not to use their weapons," he sneered. "Andalite soldiers follow their orders."
"But...but when attacked, surely-"
"No one thought they would have the courage to attack us." His eyes met mine. "Like you, everyone thought that surely they were mostly peaceful."
I looked down, embarrassed.
"How...how did they attack?"
"With their host bodies," he laughed mirthlessly. "And with blades. They cut some warriors apart and others they used Shredders on that they stole from the first bodies."
I shivered.
"So you see," he looked bitterly satisfied. "We are in a war and whether or not any of them have inclinations for peace is irrelevant. They are all, as you said, evolved with, how was it you put it? "Higher capabilities.""
I cringed at the mocking tone in his voice and glared at him. He blinked but maintained eye contact.
"It is in their nature to enslave, Jahar. That's all they know."
"Maybe...maybe they wouldn't have to enslave if people were...willing to..." I couldn't make myself say it. It was just a thought but it did sound stupid, even to myself.
"To what?" Alloran sneered.
"Share their bodies?" Alloran stared at me, his amusement dissipating. "A sort of...symbiosis?"
"Jahar," he said, his voice very soft. "There is nothing. Nothing at all. Symbiotic. About the Yeerks."
"They're not directly parasitic either," I said. "From what I've read all they-"
"From what you've read!" he laughed. "From what you've read, Jahar? What about from what I have seen?"
I sighed and closed my main eyes. "Thus, why it's important for biologists to travel to other planets and see things with their own eyes," I opened my eyes and smiled at him.
He glared at me, raising an eye stalk.
"I told you you could have a career, Jahar," he muttered. "I thought we already discussed that."
I smiled deeper. "I know. I'm just enjoying arguing with you."
He huffed, but amusement filtered its way back into his eyes. Then he reached out and settled his hands on my waist. I smiled and slipped my hands up to his shoulders again. He touched his forehead to mine, main eyes still locked on my face. I closed my own main eyes.
"Jahar, I really am starting to fall for you."
I chuckled. "I thought you already had." I marveled at how soothed the hurt from earlier was now. I felt happy here, so close to Alloran.
"Oh I was attracted. But now I am obsessed."
I raised a stalk eye and stared at him. "Obsessed?"
"Yes," he smiled and brushed his knuckles against my cheek. "I keep thinking of you that day I first saw you, just relaxing there with your consoles. If I could go back in time to any day in my life, to do things better, I would pick that one."
I found myself speechless. I smiled after a moment.
"How would you do things better?"
"I would act less arrogant and annoying," he grinned and I laughed.
"You can just keep that in mind for the future," I teased. It was his turn to laugh.
It was afternoon, bending toward evening on the home world. The greater sun was slipping away on our horizon and the second, the smaller, was high in the sky. Soon it would be darker, dusky. I imagined spending a night with Alloran at his scoop and my breath caught. What would it be like? Just us, alone, the warmth of his presence beside me, one of his arms resting around my waist maybe. I could see myself feeling safe beside his strong form as I slept.
But he wouldn't let me sleep at first, would he?
"What are you thinking about?" he murmured, stroking my cheek.
"Just...nothing, really." I blinked rapidly. "It's going to be darker soon."
"Yes," he did not notice my embarrassment. His main eyes looked up with almost fascination at the sky. "It gets darker on the Yeerk home world."
"Does it?" I looked curiously at him.
"Well, they only have one sun,"
"Right," I blinked rapidly again. "I knew that. We have studied it before at the university..."
"Yes," he smiled. "But facts never tell us what it's like to be on a planet. We keep these facts in our minds but then when we go there," his smile faded. "It's not quite the same."
"True." I felt suddenly conscious of how we looked even though there was no one else around, standing there, embracing. We'd spent an hour together, just walking and alternately kissing each other.
"How dark does it get?" I asked him. I'd seen holos of the Yeerk's home world sky before but I had learned that the memories of others are much more intimate and somehow more vivid. He traced down my face, beside my eye, with a finger. My mind flashed with an image - a greenish sky lit only with bolts of lightening.
"So dark that if there were not perpetual lightening, you would not see your own tail."
"It's beautiful," I gazed off into space, holding the image of the Yeerk sky lit with lightening in my mind. I looked into Alloran's eyes after he was silent for a moment. He was gazing at me.
"It pales in comparison to some things," he raised both of his hands to kiss me again. I allowed myself to be sucked into the passion of his kiss, closing my main eyes and lifting my own hands to kiss him back.
"One more day," he sighed. "And we will be married." He looked into my eyes when I opened them again.
"Do you really want this?" he whispered.
I smiled. "I think I do."
He smiled too. "I hope I can convince you."
Author's Note: Oooohooooh! They're all romaaaantiiiiiiic!
Yeah, sorry I haven't updated this as promptly as I'd like to. Since it's summer now I should be able to update more often :)