Everyone experiences moments like that in life. Where sometimes your go-to move is flat-out avoidance.
But, on top of the conversation I amboundto have with her at some point -hey, remember that girl who approached you when you were a teenager that you told to ‘fuck off’ because you didn’t believe what she was saying about your dad? Ta-daa! It’s me!On top ofall of that… I hadn’t liked the way my stomach had swooped nauseously low when I’d seen her touching Aloryk.
So, I think I can forgive myself a little for wanting to retreat and get my head back on straight.
“What were you saying to Delphi?” I ask Aloryk while we sit here in our hut, cross-legged on the ground with the food between us. As much as I want to avoid Delphi, I can’t seem to stop myself from asking about her.
His brow creases as he pushes a piece of purple fruit toward me to eat. “Who?”
I do not take the fruit.
“That woman you were talking to. The one who was touching your wing.”
Aloryk clears his throat. “Daffy?” he says, swallowing. “What about her?”
“I-” I’m momentarily thrown off course. “I’m sorry, what did you call her?”
“Daffy. It is the female’s name, no?”
He’s looking at me with such open, earnest eyes that I start to wonder why it matters so much to me that I saw her touch him? Do I feel possessive? Sure. Do I actually think that Aloryk would step out on me like that?
No. No I don’t.
But then again, my mom thought the same about Dad at some point.
I take the purple piece of fruit and pop it into my mouth. Swallowing, I tell him, “Delphi. Her name is Delphi, not Daffy.”
“It sounds the same to me,” he shrugs, and I let out a long breath as I watch him tearing some meat up for me into more manageable pieces. Aloryk is not like my dad. He’s not like any human man. If I can’t trust him and his dream about us being mates, then what is even the point in all this?
With my pointer finger, I write the two names in the sandy ground. “See, D-E-L-P-H-I and D-A-F-F-Y. They’re different. And she might not appreciate you getting her name wrong.”
Aloryk frowns at the words written in the dirt. His tail then comes along and swooshes the letters away. “Etch your name for me to see,” he tells me. “EtchPolly.”
I do as he asks and we both spend longer staring at my name than is necessary. Aloryk reaches out and traces the letters with his big, thick finger, his skin-stars zooming up and down his digit as he follows the lines and curves of each letter carefully. I look at my name scrawled in the dirt with renewed eyes. He doesn’t know any of the letters - or any alphabet of Earth origin for that matter. It must just look like scribble to him.
“Etch it on me,” he asks.
“What?”
“Your name,” he says, blinking at me. He reaches for the pots with the thick stain inside. “I should like to wear my mate’s name on my skin.”
I stare at the pot that looks dwarfed by Aloryk’s big hand. These new ones have glowing chips of the opal-like stones in them, just like the others that we ended up smashing on the ground last night. They make the little crude clay vessel look almost magical, like its contents is the elixir of life or something.
My eyes hone in on Aloryk’s tanned, veiny forearm, watching the skin-stars twinkle in a rainbow of colors as they race and whirl all around his limb. And it strikes me thathelooks kind of magical, too.
Here he is, a huge, seven foot God of a man, with wings, a tail, skin that lights up and prophetic dreams that lead him to me.
I take a deep breath.
I will have to tell him about who Delphi is to me. I will have to remind her, too and I have no idea which way that conversation is going to go.
But just for now, I’d like to stay in this magical moment and not think about any of that.
I crawl toward him, my hands and knees scuffing up my name written in the dirt. Aloryk watches me and can’t seem to stop his purr from starting up as I’m climbing into his lap. Taking the little pot of stain from his hand, I lift the small clay stopper and set it aside on the ground. Aloryk’s tail wraps around my waist, the fluffy, tufted end slowly swishing back and forth against my thigh.
“Here,” he says, reaching for his better wing and plucking out a flight feather. Taking a dagger he has sheathed at his hip, Aloryk then whittles the feather’s quill into a sharper point. “Use this.”
I take the feather and wet my lips. “You’re sure? I know this won’t last forever on your skin but it will last a long time and what if I mess it up?”
