Chapter 25

Esalen Abbey
Little Sister
Then

Emily

They ate for a few minutes in comfortable silence. Emily found the food so rich and filling that she didn't miss the meat at all. The cloudy liquid turned out to be something like honeyed lemonade, cool and refreshing. As she looked around the room the different groups starts shaking out. Everyone wore a headscarf of some kind, the guys all wore simple ones, as did the women who were obviously on a break from work, but the women who were off for the evening tended to wear more ornate head dresses, sometimes two layers, with beads and tassels and ornate embroidery. Women preen, she thought, some things really are universal. They did show bangs, or some kind of hair around the face, and let it hang down the back; some of the younger woman had little braids and beads around their face, which was probably considered kind of flirty. The guys all seemed to wear it long enough to brush their collars, the women all the way down the back. I'm glad I didn't get mine cut last week, Emily thought. Hers was down around her shoulders, short for here. A bob would have really stood out.

The Healers, all of whom wore at least something in indigo blue, seemed to wear simple, short sleeve smocks in indigo and natural colored canvass trousers as a work uniform, much the way she would expect nurses in a hospital to wear scrubs. Off duty the men wore high neck, long sleeve shirts and vests, some ornate, and the women wore longer, ornate tunics that she likened to the salwar kameez of southern and central Asia, either over darker trousers or long skirts. The Guardians wore snugger fitting knitted shirts under protective leather gear with darker trousers for work, with some sort of crimson somewhere. Off duty the men dressed the same as the Healer men, only with the different colors, and the women tended to wear the snug, knit tops with long, ornate flowing vests and long skirts or flowing trousers. The people who worked there seemed to wear variations of all of the above, but in natural colors or in what looked like colors of natural dyes, lichen, moss, mulberry, yellows.

But as she looked some people started to stand out. It wasn't just that they were the only ones wearing plain headdresses; it was how they were acting as well, shy, nervous, kind of wary of the crowd. She was about to ask Andrew but then the round cheeked woman who brought her the basket of clothing bustled up to the table. "Andrew, we've all heard about Kira. I am so sorry. All of my people will have her in their thoughts."

"Thank you."

"The girls want to make her some long skal-va for when she gets back, for work and all. Any idea what kind of designs she might like?"

"Um, anything for archery? Horses, she loves to ride…um…I know she liked golden threads and beads, and the ones with the rainbow sparkle."

"Done! And you, dear…" The woman turned to Emily. "What would your Healer like?"

"Ahhhh…." It would help if I knew what we were talking about, Emily thought.

"Think about it, we have time. Stay strong dears." The woman patted Andrew on the shoulder than hustled off to another table.

"That was Hilde." Andrew told her. "She runs the laundry and clothing shop."

"Ah." Emily watched her go. "Okay, I'm confused. I know she was just offering to do something nice but what are…skal-va?" That was how it sounded at least.

"Um, skal-va?" Andrew reached up and tugged lightly on his head scarf. "You don't have them where you're from?"

"Ah. Not commonly, no."

Andrew looked confused at that one. "Remind me to ask you another question later."

"Right. I noticed that the only women wearing really long ones appear to be patients. Do I have that right?"

He nodded and leaned in to talk quietly. "When they're taken to the cages the torturers chop their hair short." He said it like it was something horrific. "So they wear longer ones."

"Ohhh." He said it like it was something horrific, a violation of a deeply held taboo.

Dave Rossi's house
Alexandria, VA
Day #11

"You know, he never did ask me whatever he was thinking." Emily said, shaking out of the light trance of the cognitive. "I wonder why he wanted to wait until later."

"Because it was more than likely a very personal question." Spencer replied. He'd crept back at some point, was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, probably so he could beat a retreat to the light and warmth and comfort of Rossi's company if he needed to. "They've evolved a third major erogenous zone that encompassed the back of the neck and in women extended down between the shoulder blades. He was probably curious to see if you had one and if so how you covered it."

"Really?" Emily asked.

Spencer nodded. They called it a nock-ken. I have no clue how that's spelled."

"So cutting your hair was bad?" Penelope asked.

"According to Kira it was like being forced to remain topless for five or six years." Spencer replied. "Even when you went home you'd be topless in front of your friends and family. It was deeply humiliating."

"That is Unsub behavior." Morgan agreed.

"Did they cut hers off?" Penelope asked.

Spencer nodded again and made a gesture right under his ears to show how closely they had cropped it. "She was extremely upset by it."

"Ouch. Poor kid."

"I wonder what that would make me." The very bald Morgan mused.

"Popular for all the wrong reasons." Spencer replied.

"Oh hell no." Morgan grumbled.

"You just said 'evolved'". Dave pointed out as he came out of the kitchen with something in his hands. "Did you actually see one of these?"

"Well, uhh…"

"So we're not talking human?"

Spencer blinked and got that distant look he got when he was re-evaluating. "Humanoid, but not….Damn it!"

"What?" Morgan asked.

"We were on another planet and I got stuck in a fucking box!"

"Insult to injury." Dave agreed as they all smothered grins. "Eat this. Emily, do you concur?" He asked as he pushed something into Spencer's hands.

Emily thought about it for a long moment. "Yes. I thought I was dreaming….there was a gas giant in the sky, they called it Big Sister, it was the most beautiful thing…and the horses were not…."

"Oh my god." Penelope breathed.

It was true, Emily suddenly realized. It was true. "We weren't on Earth."

.

Note: Entries # 4 & 5 are going up at he LiveJournal site connected with this story, to include the other POV on this chapter. The link is on my profile. Be warned, they are extremely graphic.