He was glowing faintly now, and I couldn’t tell if he was irritated by being questioned or if he just loved a good historical debate. While he was talking, I got the impression my mate was a huge history nerd. I guess if my ancestor had been a galaxy saving hero, I’d be pretty into history too.
“Perhaps the survivors were only civilians and not soldiers. Maybe they simply wanted peace after years of war, to fade into the background and live their lives. I do not know. I know you are the same as the Rijitera pictured in the archival databases. My family has kept most of the records of the wars, including paintings and video recordings. There are thousands of hours of records. I have studied them extensively. You are the same. I knew the moment I observed you through the glass of my prison. I thought it was a trick of my mind. My nightmares come to life.”
Oh geez, thanks a lot. That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I pulled my arm from his grasp and put my hands on my hips.
“I’m in my human form right now! You said you’ve never seen a human before. Did the Rijitera in your histories have a human form? Bet they freaking didn’t! So I’m not the same,” I said, and I crossed my arms. Queen Denial, your name is mine.
He shook his head, amusement making his eyes glow brighter. He was faintly pulsing his lights, and he mimicked my stance with his arms crossed over his chest.
“They had genetically engineered themselves to take the best genes from any they mated with. They would birth a Rijitera no matter the species of the mate, with attributes from the mate that would strengthen them. What do you suppose would happen when they mated with humans repeatedly? Or perhaps they learned to shift their forms to blend in and hide. Maybe they brought enough technology with them to make the change possible. I would enjoy going to your planet and finding out. The Rijitera loved to make monuments and leave behind records of their deeds. I am positive there will be something that tells the history of their landing on Earth,” he said, and the excitement in his voice was adorable.
My mate was a huge nerd. The big scary war General wanted to go on an archaeological dig. There were a lot of archaeological sites on Earth that scientists couldn’t explain. He might be right. My stomach dropped.
Crap.
I was an alien.
Just roll with it.
I frowned and went back to pacing. “Why wouldn’t we remember, though? We kept the name of our race, but nothing else? You said they were really into recording about themselves, but none of us know anything about who we are or where we come from.”
I mean, we’d been egotistical maniacs that liked to war across space, so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Maybe they didn’t want to remember. Start over fresh, ya know? I mean, it worked. No one even knows your people are real. Your kind blended in and faded into myth. You’re probably descended from some poor farmers or something that just wanted to be left alone,” Patty said from her seat next to the rock. She was watching us with a look of intense fascination on her face. She looked hard at Ohem. “You mentioned breaking their planet and a purge? What does that mean, exactly?”
His lights dimmed and went out. They’d been getting brighter and brighter the more we talked and the more excited he got about the subject. Now he dropped his hands down by his side and his entire demeanor changed to one of shame.
He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We had been fighting them for years. They would conquer a planet with ease. Their soldiers were savage and very hard to kill. They had weapons and warships that were far beyond us. We, as individual planets, were being slaughtered and conquered one by one.” His tails flicked back and forth with his agitation and his tentacles rose behind him. He didn’t like this part of his history. That much was clear.
“Six planets came together and formed an alliance we called The Unity. We pooled our military and resources and pushed them back. It was the bloodiest, longest war in known history. Of the six original Unity planets, only two still survive today. The Rijitera destroyed the others.”
My people had been genocidal tyrants. Great. My stomach was tied in knots at hearing all this. I stepped closer to him and took his hand. He held on tight enough to make my bones creak.
“We kept pushing and fighting despite our terrible losses. The rage of the Unity was great. We wanted revenge for our dead and destroyed worlds. For our lost people. The Rijitera showed no mercy, so we gave them none in return. When my ancestor At’ens led the armies into their home world, he razed it to ashes. The Rijiteran Imperial family were slaughtered in the streets of their capital. At’ens then had their planet torn apart. Their outer colonies burned and their fleeing people hunted down and killed. We left none alive.”
Patty gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Damn, that’s brutal.”
He sighed and nodded. “The history available to the public speaks of our Unity and victory over a greater foe. It does not shed light on the atrocities committed after we won. Atrocities committed by my own House. We are lauded as royalty for At’ens valiant charge against the Rijiteran’s home planet. For his victory. It speaks nothing of his actions after the war was over. My house was the ones who hunted down fleeing Rijiteran people. Be they warriors or farmers. Rich or poor. They all fell to the claws of my kin. We hunted them for many years until none were left. We destroyed any of their records we found, until their history was destroyed. We wanted them to be wiped from existence, with nothing left but our one-sided account of who they were. Our records of triumph. My family is the only ones to keep truer accounts of the war crimes committed. By the end, we had become our enemy. Surpassed them in cruelty.”
He pulled me into his embrace and held me. I was confused about what to feel.
They were my people, but it was a little like being related to Genghis Khan. You knew you were descended from an asshole and a conquer, but it was so far in the past that it didn’t really affect you. He obviously carried a lot of shame for the actions of his ancestors. I was sad and a little angry that my people had been destroyed. Our history anyway. There were a lot of us on Earth. It sucked to know I wouldn’t ever fully understand who we really were. All the stories and culture were gone. I’d never know my people’s language or religion.
They’d been conquerors and tyrants, but that couldn’t have been all they were. They mated and had children. They’d had lives outside of war.
We lived on, though. That counted for something. We’d come to Earth and hadn’t repeated the same mistakes. We hadn’t rebuilt our empire and struck back. We’d just lived. We were a volatile and violent group, but we were also pranksters and fun loving. We loved our family and friends fiercely. We were loyal and steadfast. We never backed down from a fight or preyed on the weak. We were good people.
That was our culture.
I rubbed my nose into his skin, breathing him in. I kissed him in the center of his chest and looked up at him. “Hey. You’re not your ancestors and neither am I. They both did some fucked up shit and that shouldn’t be forgotten, but we don’t have to feel guilt for things that happened thousands of years ago. We’re living right now. How we act now is what matters. Are you going to go to Earth and eradicate my people there?” I asked him.
He jerked. “Of course not!” he said, offended.
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “And I’m not going to go conquering planets. I’m going to survive this one and get to know my mate.”
He got really still. His lights glowed brighter and brighter until he was lit up like a glow stick.
“Your mate?” he breathed, his voice deepening even more.
