From her spot on the bed, Nikki watched her mother pace up and down the floorboards, picking up stray pop bottles and candy wrappers that had fallen short of the garbage. She rolled her eyes. Normal people coped with stress by chewing their nails or pulling their hair. When something weighed on her mother's mind, the poor woman started cleaning.

"I hope you found the quiche we left yesterday," her mother hinted while frowning at the microwave meal containers in the trash can. "There was no one home when we stopped by yesterday. I didn't realize you were out entertaining a ... friend."

From beyond the closed door Nikki could hear the shuffling of plastic chairs as the pair barred from this mother-daughter conference shifted awkwardly. At least she wasn't the only one suffering – her conservative, church-going father forced to make conversation with a tall, athletic lesbian who could bench press him as a warm-up.

"So … Celes, was it? You're from out of town?"

"Indeed. My homeland is a cold and desolate wasteland, but I still treasure it."

Her father nodded back. "Huh… so you're Canadian, eh?"

The bedsprings sagged under her mother's added weight, breaking Nikki's concentration. She scooted as far away as she could, not that a few inches would spare her from what was to come. Nikki knew the warning signs: isolate the target, put on a friendly guise and then strike. Yup, her mother was going to give her a talk.

"So … how did you meet your little friend?"

"Her name is Celeste, mom. And she's gay, so you can go ahead and hate her too."

A weary exhale. "Sweet bean, when I said that wasn't a conversation for the phone -" Nikki jumped as her mother's arms flew around her, "- that was because I can't hug my baby over the airwaves."

Nikki squirmed like a burrowing grub, mortified that the door might fall open. That was just what she needed – Celeste sniggering at a grown human being coddled like a baby. "Maa!"

"Nikki, your father and I will always be proud of you, but we worry. You're not going to school, you're not planning a career –"

"I've budgeted, Ma. I don't need a big house or fancy stuff; I'm living within my means." Well, except that renting a vespa and buying food for two was putting a dent into her delicate savings. Not that her mother cared; all she worried about was nagging. Holding up a measuring tape of perfection and noting how far her little girl fell from the mark.

"- and you've always had a hard time getting out of your shell. Nikki, when you told us you were …" she hunted for a polite phrase, "that way, your father and I were terrified for you. You know how some people feel about ... Well, that's not important. If this is who you are, then we'll support you. We love you so much, sweet bean."

Her mother was … okay with this? Nikki's muscles loosened a bit and she allowed herself to sink into her mother's embrace, but cautiously. It can't be that easy. There's gotta be –

"It's just that …"

I knew it!

Her mother looked around, maybe seeking an invisible angel for strength. "Nikki, what are you doing with this woman? She's twice your age and you've known her for … a weekend? You might as well be from two different worlds!"

Hit the nail right on the head there, Ma.

"We're not dating, Ma. We talked about it; she doesn't like me that way."

A smirk; a condescending smirk from her know-it-all mother. "Your mouth says 'no', but your lips say … well, I don't think my baby started putting on lipstick for herself, did she?"

"What do you care?" Nikki reached for her tissue box and started scrubbing the colour from her mouth. If her mom wanted her back to regular old ugly, she'd show her.

"Sweet bean, this isn't going to end well, and I don't want to see my little girl hurt. You've been through enough, haven't you?" She scooted forward, licking a thumb to help remove a smudge from Nikki's cheek.

"Nikki, let her go. Tell this woman she needs to leave."

A scowl of teenage fury hardened Nikki's face. "So, what? I can be gay so long as it's on your terms? You have to chaperone and vet all my dates?"

"Sweet bean, she's going to hurt y-"

"Celeste!" Nikki snapped. "Her name is Celeste, and she's been a whole lot nicer to me than you or dad or anyone else ever has." She pushed off the bed and wrenched the door open. "You and dad need to leave."

The elder Ann Marie sighed and rose from the bed, knowing when she was up against a brick wall. In the main room, Nikki found Celeste in rapt attention as her father waved his arms in an animated speech.

"So these frat boys, they had every toilet in the entire house completely backed up! They threw up and shat so much the whole system was clogged! I tell ya, I earned my overtime on that job!"

Celeste shook her head in disapproval. "Absolutely irresponsible. It saddens me how such people could squander their water supply."

Her mother coughed, and the party was over.

"Leaving already?" her father inquired. "Eh, well, good talkin' with ya, Cel. See you around, Nik!" Nikki squirmed as her father tussled her hair, slapped her on the back and added, "You sure can pick 'em, kiddo."

"Daaad!"

"Emmet, we're leaving."

Freshly chastised, her father plodded outside, while her mother gave the home-wrecking Celeste a final, disapproving look-over. Falling on Nikki, her eyes went soft and pleading.

"Call us, sweet bean. I feel like I barely know you anymore."

Again, Nikki slammed the door on another unwelcome guest. Behind her, Celeste's mouth was a wall-to-wall grin of amazement.

"You never informed me that your father was responsible for your settlement's water management!"

"He's a plumber, it's not like he's a god-damn superhero!"

The alien drew back. "Nicole, are you -?"

"I'm not okay," she snapped. First Audrey, then Celeste's rejection; now her parents had the gall to humiliate her in front of a real-life alien! "Humans are horrible, disgusting creatures! They wreck everything they get near, they only care about themselves and they don't care who they hurt so long as they get their way. I hate them!"

Celeste tilted her head and touched her earpiece. Nikki realized her words were probably coming too fast and wild.

"Look, I just wanna be alone for a while. There's um, food and water in the fridge. The white cabinet thingy," she clarified.

"Very well. I have work to attend to."

That was how Nikki found herself in her bedroom, mashing away at her controller and letting the flashes and booms of a Touhou bullet-hell shooter wash over her like a soothing bubble bath.

Then an unknown roar blared up from the bathroom.

Nikki paused her game. It sounded like the whine of a buzz saw, and – she gagged – the stench of rotting meat? Her legs pounced to the floor and she pounded outside. "Celeste, what the heck are you doing?"

The alien looked up from her work in the bathroom. She'd removed her make-up and was kneeling outside the shower with a laser wand in hand, a plastic apron covering her clothes and a surgical mask over her face. The garduk lay belly up in the stall with its organs and ribcage on full display. Celeste tilted her head, not quite picking up on the faux pas of butchering a dead animal in your host's bathroom.

"An autopsy," she stated matter-of-factly. "By examining its stomach contents we can determine where the creature traveled."

Nikki looked from the Norai to the corpse to the green blood sopping into her shower tiles. "That is so awesome! Can I watch?"

Smiling, Celeste pushed aside her toolkit and motioned for Nikki to join. She powered up her laser pen once more and continued cutting until she could shove her gloved hand into the jellied insides of this alien piñata. It became Nikki's job to hand trays for retrieval, and to try help puzzle out the half-digested contents. More jellyfish slime, foil potato chip bags, a dead frog, and a whole pile of gravel. They were getting into a happy rhythm when Celeste spoke up.

"Your parents care for you very much. You're fortunate to have them."

"They're a pain in the ass," Nikki grunted.

"I envy you," Celeste went on. "When my parents learned of my sexual preferences, I became … distasteful in their eyes. They were never unkind or abusive," she clarified, "but they became distant; never speaking to me, never calling on my assistance. Like being served a plate of kofield mould, I was something they tolerated, but never enjoyed."

Great, thanks for making me feel like a piece of shit with my first-world problems. "I guess my parents are okay," she conceded. "My dad's all about building stuff and sports so I'm never athletic enough; my mom's a librarian at a Catholic school so I'm never well-read enough, and don't get me started about church. It's like they're always disappointed with me."

"They challenge you because they wish to see you grow," Celeste pointed out.

Nikki only shook her head. "You always manage to look on the bright side, don't you?"

"I prefer dimly lit environments, actually."

That unintended joke earned Celeste a playful shove. "Never mind. Non-literal expressions."

They smiled, and the moment felt so good. In a way, Nikki reasoned, there were some perks to being rejected. If they were just friends, then she didn't have to walk on pins and needles around Celeste; she could ask the alien any manner of question and not worry about sending mixed signals.

"So, Celeste, you've been to a lot of planets, right? Are there other species that are, um, sleiba?"

Celeste let her laser saw wind down. "It is not an isolated phenomenon," she assured her. "Most cultures I've encountered display some variety to their couplings. The Mabar and the Shen-to are both known to form pairs among same sexes. The Chu'rai are a hive culture centered on a matriarch. Only this dominant female is fertile, but among the 'drone' population the impulse to mate remains … quite potent. The worker females will lay with each other; some even with outsiders."

There seemed to be a story behind that but Nikki pushed onward.

"Was … being sleiba something you had to figure out?"

Celeste chuckled. "Growing up in my village, I was oblivious that a coupling between females was possible. It was never discussed by my elders. As I matured, I found I had little interest in the males of my tribe. My friends dismissed this as pure aloofness; that I was too exacting in my standards.

"Then once, while I was exploring the ruins - I would have been … twelve by Earth years - I found a functioning data tablet in an ancient library. It was a tale of passionate and physical romance between two Norai females. I couldn't comprehend the words, of course – the dialect was ancient – but the holographic illustrations made the contents quite … explicit."

They shared a smirk. "So wait, you figured out you were gay after reading ancient alien bodice rippers?"

"Afterwards, it was as though I'd been gifted the missing component to activate a view-screen; I could see everything, and I fully understood my behavior. My distaste for males, why my body reacted while disrobing among my female peers; why I delighted in being near her."

Nikki swallowed a cold lump in her throat. "Her?" she inquired.

"The friend I spoke of previously? The one who explored the ruins with me? Her name was Celara, and I was enamored with her."

Celara. That name sounded familiar.

Celeste smirked, her eyes drifting into cherished memories. "Celara was a sickly thing. There were errors in her genetic modifications and she was born snort and frail; defective in every sense. Her eyesight was so feeble that the engineers had to replace them with prosthetic camera orbs." Celeste chuckled. "She was so self-conscious of her eyes; always glancing away when someone looked at her, and when she became startled her implants would make this whirring noise; it was simply precious!"

"So you two were close, huh?"

"I always kept her by my side. Our peers tormented Celara for her frailties and I took it upon myself to defend her. I wouldn't let her be scorned for her appearance. They mocked her small stature but she could still climb though the deepest ruins with me. One night, we became trapped in the old citadels during a storm. We were forced to hide underground. Unable to build a fire, we held each other to keep warm."

Celeste's smile faded. "I confessed to her. I told her how much I adored her and how I would care for her regardless of what our tribe saw as 'pure' or 'ideal'. I was fourteen."

The Norai rubbed her cheek as though soothing a phantom sting. "Celara … did not share my personal defect. Afterward, she began avoiding my company. When we passed, she would duck her head as though terrified. She must have revealed my nature to other females because soon the entire tribe knew what I was and shunned me." Celeste hissed. "My peers barred me from their rituals, called me Cel-aiba in mockery."

She's had it a hundred times worse than me. Every girl Celeste had known had been bad as Audrey. Nikki wondered if she should offer some comforting words, but a darker part of her wanted to move off the topic of Celara altogether.

"So how did you get off planet?"

"Idyl worlds such as Tendricide are garrisoned by Confederacy ships. It's meant to discourage outlaws and poachers who would once again take advantage of the more primitive civilizations. The warships are meant to patrol from orbit, but the work is unimaginably dull. The soldiers would come groundside, to hunt game or trade with the villages. Celara and I, we used to scavenge artifacts from the old cities to trade for the soldiers' food rations."

Nikki vaguely thought back to history class and the European fur trade.

"When I could endure no more intolerance from my village, I ran away to the nearest landed ship. I asked the soldiers to recruit me."

Joining the galactic army. That must have been where she'd picked up her combat skills. "So why'd you leave to be a bounty hunter?" I mean, besides it being completely awesome?

"I was dishonorably discharged from the academy," Celeste smiled proudly, "for fraternizing."

"Frater… huh?" Nikki had to look up that term on her phone. To associate closely with - "Oh," she exclaimed. "Oh!"

The hunter giggled at her slow uptake. "You must pardon my use of non-literal expressions." Celeste was inspecting her directly with those half-lidded eyes that still got her stomach fluttering. Was she waiting for a comment?

"So I guess you've um … been with other off-planet Norai?"

The light dimmed from Celeste's golden eyes. "Tendricide was pillaged for decades, Nicole, and the more criminally-inclined star systems still find Norai useful as laborers and slaves. The ones I've encountered beyond our home world are either clones bred for docility or the offspring of slave families. They are sad and broken creatures; a shadow of what a Norai warrior should be. They cannot comprehend life without a master's orders – living and deciding for themselves. Though we may be of the same species, to them, I am as alien as a Slovarian or a Chu'rai."

She sat back on her haunches. "I am a Norai living off-world of her own accord, without a master or owner. In a way, I am the only one of my kind."

Shit. "I'm sorry; we can talk about something else."

"No, please do not concern yourself. It is rare that I'm able to share such stories. It is … comforting."

The moment felt so pleasant and warm; Nikki hated to break it but, "Celeste, do garduk usually have flashing lights inside their bodies?"

Celeste turned and saw the rhythmic, red pulse from behind the monster's organs. It wasn't coming from inside but flashing through the see-through flesh on its back. Celeste flipped over the corpse and started cutting and ripping at something silver on its back, until a furious yank sent a clunk of metal against the linoleum.

Nikki knelt over the dissection. It looked like a metal scorpion - four silver legs that clamped around the ribcage in an X-cross, and a metal tail running down the back.

"What is that?"

"A slave bracer," Celeste stated. "A device used to control hostile animals."

Nikki looked at the long tail meant to fit along a spinal cord. "You mean mind control?"

"No, nothing so sophisticated. A slave bracer administers electric shocks if the wearer steps outside boundary areas or fails to move in a designated direction."

A shock collar, then. "So what's the problem?"

Celeste showed her the device's underside and the blinking light at its center.

"It's been activated."

The drip of water, the hum of air conditioning. Niki tried to make her voice speak over the ambient noises, to offer an explanation far less horrid than what she realized. "I mean, maybe it's a glitch or –"

"Impossible. They would have been deactivated when the garduk were frozen for transport. The bracers only respond to a master control device carried by the captor." Celeste looked her square in the eye and whispered out the horrible truth.

"Rondarr. He's still alive."

That was when Nikki's Twitter feed exploded.

"Like, what's got you snickering?"

Rondarr turned away from his ashen-skinned companion lest she notice that Anton's fingers were pressing through his skin to the wrist-mounted slave remote beneath. "None of your concern," he stated. "Simply envisioning how miserable a certain colleague will be today."

"Ah, firing off some hate tweets; I gotcha. Can you believe my high school actually suspended me for sending those? I mean, I was just being ironic when I told that fat bitch to 'go kill yourself', but like, some people can't take a joke or whatever."

Sensing another long rant, Rondarr butted in. "Where are we proceeding?" He'd spent hours with this hairless ape on her daily routines: purchasing black garments and shoes, listening to her horrid 'screamer' music and flipping through convenience mart magazines to criticize their attractive female models. He felt ready to gouge out his eardrums just to save himself from her insufferable drawl!

"You said you had something to show me. I trust we are proceeding closer?"

It wasn't just his guide's mannerisms that put him on edge. Rondarr was painfully aware that they were being monitored. Several blocks ago, a blue-uniformed security officer had begun trailing them. She was a tiny thing – female, barely five cha tall and built slim like a dancer – but her visor-clad eyes followed them with robotic persistence. The last thing he needed was to be halted by local security for identification, not when he was so close!

"If this takes any longer I may have to depart."

Threatening to leave - that put the fear back into her eyes. "Y-yeah, almost." Again, Lillian stole a glance at her spike-studded communicator. "We're almost there. I've just gotta talk to a friend like, super quick. Can you wait here a sec?"

Without even waiting for his reply she jogged up the block and turned into an alleyway. Rondarr leaned against the building, tensing as the pursuing officer came close and clicked her tongue at him – "Eyy, homie," – and then followed Lillian down the alley.

Scowling, Rondarr marched to the lip of the tunnel and listened.

"So, what, you're a cop now?"

"Meh, call it cosplay. How ya holdin' up, Oreo? How's my favorite little client?"

"In literal fuckin' hell, Kyu! Like, where've you been these past two days? You said you'd help me pick up a guy and then you don't even answer my texts! Like, congrats, you just beat my shitty-ass mom for BPH - biggest phony ever!"

"Yeah, about that… I kinda had to deal with a pair of T-2021s, hostile extra-planetary intruders. Sooo, I had to prioritize between getting you laid and, oh, I dunno - saving the entire fucking planet!" The conversation paused while the officer panted out her frustration. "You got any candy? I really need some candy right about now."

There was a crinkling of wrapping paper and the officer gave a delighted sigh. "You are a gem, Oreo. My boss has got us all running major overtime trying to clean up this mess."

"That bad, huh?"

"Hella bad. This weekend some 'out of towners' decided to crash the party you guys call planet Earth. The girls and I had to scramble on damage control. I haven't seen a case this bad since that crap in Roswell…"

"Anyway, enough about me! I'm on break, so let's talk about that tall, chocolate beefcake you're cozying up with!" A girlish squeal. "I can't believe my little Oreo's picked up her first stud! Neptune's nutsack, you blink and they're all grown up!"

The annoyance on Lillian's voice was palpable. "His name's Anton, and I don't know what the hell to do! He like, just came up to me at the mall and said he wanted to hang."

"No sweat; I've seen this guy before. Anton's what we in the love business call a chique geek. Even though he cleans up nice and knows how to talk to people, deep down he's obsessed with dorky video games and nerd crap. And get this: the last girl he dated? A closet lesbian! We're talking kaiju-levels of devastation on his heart!"

"Oh my gawd, Kyu, do you see how many shits I give about his sob story? Just tell me how to get with him! I mean, do you realize how pissed my parents would be if I brought home a black guy? Like, volcano meltdown!"

"Yeah, because when I'm ogling my next lover you know what pops into my head? My wrinkly-ass parents, that's what!"

"Ky-uu, I'm serious!"

A sad sigh. "Okay, you want this playa for a date? You're gonna have to go all the way with this."

Lillian sounded puzzled. "Is this the part where I show him my boobs?"

"Hmm, I like your thinking, Oreo, buuut a guy like Anton calls for something more subtle."

"So… just one boob, then?"

Rondarr could hear this 'Kyu' sigh and shake her head. "Get out there and tell him how you feel. Don't gush," she added, "but tell him you had a nice time. Get his number and ask if he wants to meet up at the fireworks festival next weekend."

Lillian continued to squirm. "What if he says no? Can you like, come with me? Hold my hand?"

This was his chance. Making a show of coughing loudly, Rondarr stepped into the alley. "Lillian, is everything all right? Who were you speaking with?"

"No one," she blurted, a hint of red colouring her bleached cheeks. True to her word, the alleyway was empty, the officer vanished. "Just had to answer a call," she explained, raising her spike-studded phone. Her remaining hand fell stiff at her side, fingers curled as though clutching an imaginary pole.

Or a hand.

"Hey, Anton, I wanna ask you -"

"So beautiful."

"HUH?"

"Beautiful," Anton's voice restated, wiping a tear from his eye. "You've done such an amazing job, Lillian."

He advanced slowly, arms outstretched as though framing a masterpiece canvas. "Lillian, until I met you this world made no sense to me." Primitive and isolated – all signs of an Idyl World, and yet the species ran unchecked in numbers.

"I'd lost everything, and wandering through your city only filled me with questions." Why had the Confederacy allowed these hyu-mons to reproduce so rampantly? And where were the monitors? Even an ice block like Tendricide warranted a warship garrison, and yet this fertile Urth lacked a mere observation satellite.

"Then I discovered you," and your scent, "and I understood: there was a higher power at work here. A species that could avoid detection by the Confederacy; a race that would profit from such populous and primitive livestock."

Lillian's face scrunched in confusion. Anton smiled at the empty air next to her. "Isn't that right, Cupidaemon?"

With lightning swiftness his tail ripped free from the hologram, thrusting at the air like a rapier. He felt his stun baton impact against a soft, vulnerable stomach and a young girl exploded into sight, writhing under an electric current.

Anton's teeth glistened under the rod's crackling sparks. "Mistress Kyu, I presume?"

Lillian screamed. The uniformed girl collapsed on her backside, sizzling with pain but still functioning. A purple vial flipped into her hand. His tail whipped the glass against the alley wall. Quickly, before she could phase-shift, Rondarr jammed the stun baton under her ribs again, digging the electrodes in for the count of ten.

When he released and stepped away from the black smoke, her body was scrambled – hair half white, half pink; her clothing a patchwork fusion of blue security uniform and pink undergarments. Anton bent over and breathed in the candy fragrance at its splendid source.

"A real live cupidaemon," he purred, loosening his translation collar to release his guttural growl. One of these so-called 'fairies of love'. Lifting her blackened shirt, he confirmed the half-formed icicle wings along her back. Just as the stories said.

"A little … kinky … for the first date … bub…"

Did she think her taunts would distract him from the message she was typing into her pink communicator? Rondarr stood and stamped down on her wrist, relishing the shriek as he ground her palm into the glass shards.

"You're going to make me rich, monster."

A bloody glob of saliva crackled against Anton's holographic face. "Fuck you, shithead." Craning her neck, the fairy locked eyes with the trembling girl behind them. "Lilly? Sweetheart, you need to run. Run and don't st-AAAAH!"

This time, Rondarr dug in the baton until her eyes lolled back and her body went limp.

Victory. Rondarr scooped the creature into his arms, bridal style, while his thoughts cackled with fantasies of galactic riches. The collectors who would kill to add this legend to their zoos; the scientists who would murder for the chance to dissect this beast! He would have the galaxy eating from the palm of his hand!

A whimper. Ah yes. Rondarr paused and turned to his black-haired 'date', huddling amid a pile of garbage cans. Such a precious thing, guiding him to the source of the pheromones she'd accumulated. Didn't every good tracking dog deserved a reward?

Anton's head distorted like elastic taffy as he tugged at his holo-cloak, stretching further and further until it finally popped. His scaly, crested head bent to meet her pinprick pupils.

"Thank you," he purred.

Lillian screamed and ran.

Standing straight and fixing his mask, Rondarr adjusted the fairy to hang off his shoulder, as though intoxicated. He wanted to tear off his disguise and sprint for his ship, but the construction site was at least a thousand t'chas distance and he refused to be caught at this critical moment. A leisurely stroll through the town, he grinned. I trust you're enjoying the playmates I've left for you, Night Wraith.

GingerSnaps /at/SassafrasG
Another of those dog monsters showed up. Dawnwood Park. #MonsterDog #Alert #FuckMyLegStillHurts

TheTrixieOne /at/D-BellsT

Stay out of Dawnwood Park. Rabid dog on the loose! #MonsterDog #Alert #GoCalltheWaahmbulanceYouBaby

Police guarded the park entrances but Celeste simply vaulted over the perimeter fence. Nikki scrabbled up after her. The garduk was easy to spot at the end of a trail of seagull feathers and squirrel guts. It heard their feet pad across the grass and managed to glance backwards before Celeste's rifle burst its head into green jelly.

"I thought you needed the head for your reward," Nikki pointed out.

"We are beyond the time for trophies," Celeste snapped, mopping the sweat from her forehead. "We move or your people die!"

A leather strap was caught in the garduk's paws and Celeste tossed it at her. A dog collar.

"The next sighting?"

Nikki shook herself from her stupor. "Um… the supermarket on Third Avenue." Wait, "that's all the way across the city!"

Celeste tore open a plastic packet with her teeth and shook a purple powder over the corpse. Another blast from her rifle lit the compound and blue flames ate the body down to ash, bones and all.

"Then move!"

Nikki squeaked as Celeste scooped her into her arms, supply pack and all, and sprinted them to the vespa and their next target. Nikki grabbed the hunter's sweater and held tight, hoping they weren't too late.