“A grave,” Mina said solemnly.
“Not a grave,” Voso said. “It is… a custom. To allow the bodies of the dead to be taken away by the wind. Below there would be a fire.”
Mina, to his surprise, seemed to understand. “Ah,” she said, after a moment of solemnity. “So the ashes would go up into the sky.” She looked at the birds on the monument. “These are your comrades,” she said. “You fought here?”
Voso nodded.
“And Mozok?”
“Mozok is not a soldier,” Voso said. “He is… a creator of ideas. He makes great things.” Voso waved a hand toward the expanse of roof above them.
“But he was… I don’t understand, you know. Your relationship. Weren’t you mortal enemies once?”
Voso looked at her in confusion. “Only in war. But the war ended.”
Mina looked around. “It’s… still very strange to me,” she said. “Are you… I don’t know, like some kind of indentured servant, or slave or something?”
“I do not know these words,” Voso said.
“A, um… servant. Something like that.”
Voso tipped his head again. “I am a soldier,” he said plainly.
Mina smiled and turned to him, putting her hand on his chest in a playful gesture. “But I mean now. You live here with Mozok. What are you now?”
“I am a soldier,” Voso said again.
Mina threw her head back. She seemed amused, which made Voso happy. “I mean, but what’s your deal with Mozok? Why do you live here, why are you… you know, in this Trothplight, do you have to be here or can you leave, are you guys friends or lovers or enemies or what? I don’t understand it.”
Voso nodded, finally understanding. “You have no equivalent relationship among Humans.”
“No,” Mina agreed. “We don’t. Not really. I mean, maybe in some ancient society. But not now.”
Voso nodded. “The Herstrakaa and Draquun are distinct but similar species. We have joined ourselves in a project to create a planetary peace. Our traditions are very compatible with each other. At the end of the war, a component of the treaty was to mix the races of each traditional marriage arrangement.”
“And so, you ended up with Mozok… or there is a reason? That it’s you?”
Voso turned toward the monument, a sudden disturbance of emotion coursing through him. “I saved Mozok’s life,” he said. “He never forgot this.”
“Why did you save his life?” Mina asked. “You mean, during the war, right?”
“It was during the war,” Voso said.
“And… why?”
Voso looked down at Mina. “He was a non-combatant,” he said. “I do no harm except to those who wish to harm those I protect.”
He saw that his words affected Mina, though he was still unable to fully understand the range of her emotions. Her eyes were growing wet, but not from the usual circumstances that provoked such a response. She looked down, and then reached for his hand, which she squeezed.
“I knew it,” she said quietly.
But she didn’t say anything more, and Voso had no idea what to say. He was unsure of what had transpired between them, but he was glad that Mina was holding his hand, and she seemed to have been relieved of her fear, which he no longer sensed in her. He could not explain the wet eyes, but they did not seem to be a result of pain or pleasure.
And he didn’t care, because they went away, and she walked next to him, unafraid to get close to him. When they sat on a bench to look out over the garden’s edge and what would have been a view of the beach and Old Celox, she stared at the fading storm and gripped his arm.
“It’s terrifying,” she said, looking at the storm.
Voso swelled with pride as he put his arm around her and she leaned into him.
