“There isn’t a name for it in Universal,” the other female mused. “We call it y’yeli. It’s the flower of the same plant used to make p’feri.” S’kasia gestured to the drink in front of her, and Eleri leaned forward to smell similar peppery notes.
“Thank you. I’ll try it.”
“You need to sleep, human. S’samph is concerned about you.”
“I hope I can.”
“Try the y’yeli and let me know if you sleep. I will ask you when you come visit me next.”
Eleri smiled. Her relationship with S’samph was one thing, but she was forever grateful that S’kasia had decided to offer her friendship. She’d had enough loneliness on Gaia to last a lifetime.
CHAPTER 17
S’samph
He’d only been recovering for twelve standard days, but he was going to pull his scales out from boredom if he couldn’t find something more interesting to do with his time. The last time he’d dealt with such boredom had been during the repetitive briefings he’d attended as a cadet on Latilla. However, unlike a meeting, this boredom had no clear end time. There were only so many hours he could spend scanning through the vast archives of human media to try and get a better grasp on human culture and mannerisms. Watching holovids of some of the more popular content creators helped him understand their facial expressions with a bit more accuracy, but the frustrating thing was every human seemed to have slight variations in the way they expressed their emotions.
He also watched some feeds from Gaia, Eleri’s home. What struck him most was the darkness. Although there was a central star not too distant from Gaia, the air seemed choked with a dark fog. The buildings were made of a non-reflective metallic material, and their roads were all paved with black asphalt. Lurid tourism videos promised glimpses of pleasure districts while others gave warnings about air quality and gang violence in earnest. There were some other vids with more upbeat music and lighting, but many of those were from intelestars hoping to win the visa lottery to relocate to Earth. Generously, he might refer to it as the embodiment of the Maw of Fire, but he couldn’t judge only from the content produced for shock value.
One day, he would ask Eleri what her home had really been like and perhaps share about Latilla in turn. However, in all his mindless exploration, he found himself continually returning to the messages she had sent while on her voyage to Cassiaq-IV. The messages he had foolishly ignored. He tried to envision a version of the present where they’d struck up a correspondence before she arrived in Laurus. How different things would be if he had welcomed her as his mate. If he had listened to the cadence of her soft voice expressing her hopes and fearsof coming to a new planet and shared his thoughts in turn. But it was impossible to turn back the suns.
For now, he endeavored to make the most of the time he spent with her as part of his medical care. Eleri’s visits were the only thing breaking up the monotony of his day, but as she’d explained, she didn’t have much time to linger with him since Aglao had gone into hibernation. However, he’d cajoled K’kaen to ask her about the clinic’s new schedule and was aware of their early closing on the last day of the week. Perhaps today was the day he could convince her to let him purchase some things for her. After K’kaen had told him about her abysmal lack of credits, it had taken every last drop of restraint he possessed to stop himself from marching down to the clinic to force her to accept a credit deposit.
She would never accept such a blatant transaction anyhow. It was much to his chagrin when he learned she’d used the blue dress as temporary bandages for his wound. No, Eleri wouldn’t accept charity. She had far too much pride and stubbornness for that, although she hid it well behind her kind deflections. Despite her wishes to survive on crumbs, he fully intended to offer her more, but he would have to be clever with his strategy. Eleri would not accept anything outright, so he would have to get her in a situation where his purchasing power made sense. To do that, he would first identify the things she wanted.
S'samph had ignored her tapes for this long, but the only way to learn more about her in an authentic way was to listen to her original messages to him. He had a vague recollection of the questions when S’kasia had badgered him into responding to create what he had considered an inert profile. A small kernel of himself had always hoped someone might stumble upon his profile and propose a mating union, but it was always a laughable idea. Until it wasn’t and he’d stuck his tail in it like the miserable ravik he was.
Today, she was late. He paced around his nest and considered walking to the clinic himself. It was well past sun-high when she finally arrived with a bright smile that did not quite reach her tired eyes. He’d been studying human facial expressions again in his boredom. They grew dark rings under their eyes when they were exhausted.
“How are you feeling today?” Eleri called her greeting from the doorway of his nest. She settled her heavy medkit by the door. They made models with wheels, but they would never manage the uneven paving of Laurus’ roads. S’samph disliked how she had to lug the thing with her while walking around all day in the brutal suns, but hewas going to pick his battles wisely.
“I’m in fine health. But you look tired. What has made your face fill with gray?”
Eleri tilted her head, sending her tail of long fur sliding over her shoulders. “Is there something wrong with my face?”
S’samph reached out and traced the space beneath her eyes, careful not to let his claws too close to her fragile skin. “You are gray here.”
Eleri changed color again, this time pink instead of gray. “Oh! Those are just under-eye bags. I’ve been running around like crazy since Aglao went into hibernation. Not as much time for sleeping, unfortunately.”
“Don’t make yourself ill.” S’samph removed his hand from her face, although he wouldn’t have minded lingering longer. Her skin was smooth, and she had a floral scent that tickled the back of his scent glands.
“I’ll be okay. It’s just until Aglao comes out of their hibernation.” She didn’t move away from him like she might have at previous attempts at physical contact. Eventually, with great reluctance, S’samph removed his hand from her face of his own volition.
“Am I cleared to start doing activity yet?”
“Probably not, but let’s take a look.” She unwound the bandages and sucked in a surprised breath. “I forget how quickly latil’e heal. That blast would have killed most other species.”
“Then I can be active again.” S’samph didn’t ask. He was itching to leave his nest and do something, anything to keep his mind occupied. Eleri considered with one of her clawless digits pressed against the bottom of her face.
“I think yes, if we, I mean you, do something not too taxing, I see no reason why you can’t be up and about for a bit.”
“Should we do something together then, so you can monitor my health?” It was a bold question, but he wanted to gauge her reaction to his insistence. He wanted evidence of the success of his apology. If it was a successful tactic, he would employ it again as useful.
Eleri’s skin flared to a startling shade of pink. “I have some errands to run this afternoon. I also promised S’kasia I would come visit her for a bit before I need to get back to the clinic to study.”
“What errands?” She hadn’t said no.
“I need to buy some ingredients.” Eleri cleansed his wound, although the open amount of flesh was minimal. It would be completely closed in no more than another moonrise or two.
