Time. It's an interesting concept, isn't it? Only sentient beings measure it, but all matter in the universe is subject to it; all events bound within the parameters of a constant flow that always moves forward, never back. In our lives, time has control. We age because of it, and change as it speeds past. We shape our lives around it. Friendships flare and fade, loss and grief occur and are forgotten and the things that make us happiest and saddest flash and pass by as time marches ever forwards, and yet we continue to soldier on, bowing to it as we should, because although time is merely a name for the inevitable, we know that it is one of the most integral part of our lives.
I remember being a child, and wishing for time to slow or stand still. I knew that was impossible of course, being a Paladanian, a native of the planet Flauraan where we are all born with insane intuition which allowed us to understand things beyond the limits of many peoples in the universe. But despite my knowledge, that time could not plausibly stop, I was still a child and that made me irrational. Many a time I would desire for the progression of time to cease, hoping to live in a moment forever, such as when I used to play with my best friend Leila, or on those nights when I would stargaze, dreading bedtime when I would have to head indoors once again and leave the entrancing reaches of space behind. Evidently, my wishes never came true and life continued to run its course, bringing me through many events since.
One particular event where time was not kind to me was a pretty important one too. The fate of the entire Staarus System, where my planet was situated, was at stake because of a group of human beings from the planet Earth who had convinced themselves that we deserved attacking. With barely two days to work out what was going on, time was short and I almost felt like cursing it. But with the help of a human friend, an explorer named Sophie, I managed to uncover the truth; they had been coerced by an evil race known as Weraynians into attacking us so that the Weraynians could escape their imprisonment and wage war on the universe. So yes, while in that particular instance I managed to stop the battle before it begun in the small amount of time I had, time could have been more lenient.
Recently though, time had been quite nice to me. In the weeks following the conclusion of the event, Sophie decided to stay on Flauraan with me. She quickly developed into my best friend, and we were inseparable. This, of course, could not last forever, and one thing I knew to be true but refused to acknowledge was that my time with Sophie was running out...
* * * * * * *
"Rise and shine!" I was woken one morning to a pillow to the face. Blearily, I opened my eyes to see Sophie standing beside my bed, fully dressed but with her hair resembling a bird's nest. I glanced out the window, taking in the position of the sun.
"It's so early." I groaned and rolled over, dragging my blanket closer to my chest.
Sophie scoffed. "Then it's a good time to start the day! Come on, Abigail!" She urged me impatiently. "I wanna get stuff done today."
"Fine." I caved, hurling off my blanket, sliding my legs off the bed and planting my feet firmly on the floor. I dragged myself out of bed, feeling as tired as one of the legendary Slumbering Jackij's which occupied the northern forests.
Quickly pulling on clothes appropriate for the day, I followed Sophie out into the kitchen. My mother and father were both still asleep, mainly because Sophie had decided to wake me up before even birds were up and chirping, but also because, I think, after everything that had happened in recent times, we all needed a rest.
I cooked us up some healthy warm grain mixed with blat for breakfast, and placed the two steaming bowls on the table, where Sophie sat, consulting a 'digi-file', as she called it, although in reality it was a digital touch-activated glass tablet which operated similarly to a computer. She stored all her research on there, as Sophie's job was for the most part to search the universe looking for a lost science expedition, and also partly to gather information on the many places she visited. Whilst staying on Flauraan, she'd been spending a fair sum of time learning details with which to put in her report on our planetary system, though only when she wasn't doing something with me.
"Ooh!" Sophie grinned, looking up from the digi-file and taking in the scrumptious yet simple meal. Grabbing up her spoon and swirling the soft grain around, she stared at the contents. "So you do have milk on your planet!"
I sighed. This was the topic of a slight argument that Sophie and I had been having on and off. She had once mentioned a drinkable fluid called 'milk' which I'd insisted we didn't have on our planet. Now she seemed to think that blat was milk, foolishly. Though they both were white in colour and rich in calcium, in contrast blat's other mineral content was different and it came from a completely separate animal.
"No, we have blat." I told her shortly, sticking my tongue out at her in a humorous gesture, and sliding into the seat beside her. "Now eat it up and stop irritating me."
The friendship Sophie and I had managed to maintain in the past week she'd been staying on Flauraan was incredibly close, and grew closer each day. We'd had many lengthy conversations about all sorts of pointless topics, worked together on her research and my training, and explored many places around my town and sometimes further. In my opinion, life was going really well; having a best friend by my side who I could properly relate to, and who wanted to spend all her time with me, was quite possibly the most wonderful feeling in the world. Although we'd had arguments, they were all jokes, and the funniest part was when my parents became fed up and politely yelled at us to both give it up.
Seriously though, it was just like a really extended sleepover, and each night we would swap sleeping positions; sometimes I was on the mat and she was on my bed, and sometimes it was the other way round. Sophie woke me up early most mornings, which I'm sure I would never become used to, and we'd spend our days doing whatever we needed to do, and, after that, whatever took our fancy.
Once we'd devoured our breakfast of grain and blat, we did just that and went for a walk.
Conversing casually as we traversed the path to the town square, we both felt content at the sight of the field, beyond the sparse forest, and, after a week and a half of being covered in a spaceship and bustling people, peacefully empty. Two days before had seen the departure of the Eridanus II, the exploration bound space vessel manned by a group of human scientists and maintenance crew which had fallen, blazing, out of the sky to deliver its load of angry humans intent on invading our Capitol City and stopping our apparent crimes, all of which had been lies courtesy of the Weraynians, and we'd been there to bid them farewell. Sophie had talked briefly with the captain about her report for the Science Institution on Earth, shaken hands with many of the passengers as did I, and then stood back with me as we watched them board the spacecraft and blast off into the wider universe to continue their travels. The crowd of Paladanians, who were my people, had cheered in awe as the gleaming silver ship had finally disappeared. The repair work was finished, and now our humble little town could get back to our usual business.
Once in town we hung around for a bit, greeting passers-by and shortly chatting with them. We didn't really have anything to do until mum turned up for work, as we'd promised to help her in the markets today, so we just idly chased some of the local colour. Well, it was mainly Sophie who was doing that, and I noticed by her conduct and questions that she was thinking of her report, the one she was writing about Flauraan to take back to her home planet of Earth. That was what she did; searched for her father's lost expedition, and gathered information on all the planets she visited to further the research of the Science Institution which she represented. Besides those two duties, she was pretty much a freelancer; they didn't track her trips, how long she was away, what she did, just her results. She was lucky, most people didn't get space travel as easy as she did, without a load of tiresome rules and regulations. I guess that's why she focused on the responsibility she did have. So, as we talked to people, her report was priority and then, after a good deal of conversation for one day, we went and sat down by the pond near the marketplace. She pulled out her digi-file and noted her findings down, before folding it up and tucking it in her pocket once more. We sat there contently.
It was one of my favourite spots in town, the pond, for it was a beautiful little water source, where birds always flocked to, and nature grew round it. I skimmed my hands over the water, my senses rejoicing in the feeling of cool fluid movement of water beneath my fingertips. The birds that alighted the water, with dark, dappled feathers and long bodies and beaks, honked at me mildly, and I grinned. Oh, how I loved my planet and all its wonder.
I turned to see Sophie watching the bird, a kelna, curiously, and I raised an eyebrow at her questioningly. She pointed at the kelna with wide eyes.
"That's a duck!" she exclaimed, and I sighed again. The translation convection argument wore on.
"No, it's not." I retorted calmly, consulting the facts in my mind. "That is a creature of fowl species, originating from the planet Flauraan, which migrates in winter from the Messala region to the Isle of Terran, before scattering across the continent. It's not a 'duck' from planet Earth, for it is of different internal structure no matter how alike the too seem, and we call it a kelna, after its unique feather colouring."
Sophie huffed, crossing her arms. "It is quite clearly a duck, and though I can't tell you anything about migration patterns and colouring tabs I can tell you that we have the same animal on Earth."
"No, a similar animal." She pouted and I laughed, the sound ringing loud and clear through the air. She smiled and I nudged her with my shoulder. "Come on, Sophie. Surely by now you know that planets with similar size, shape and atmosphere are naturally going to have similar patterns for its life forms as well! I mean, look at us, paladanians and humans look the same, but we're not."
I held up my hand, as did she, and I pressed my palm flat against hers.
"The same, but different." she said with a smile, surveying my body, and I surveyed hers.
Paladanians and humans were different in only a few respects. They had the same bodily structure, basic palette colourings, internal organs and lifespan, but our eyes, minds and blood was different. My mind, evidently, was more advanced than a humans, and my irises occasionally took on an almost cloudy look to them, due to the particles that made them up vibrating as I concentrated. This was true of all paladanians. Our blood took on a more purplish tint, because of the distinct chemicals that made up our air and water.
Sophie however was human, and the small traits that I'd taken for granted all my life were not present in her at all. The veins visible beneath her skin were blue, her stunning irises remained stagnant, and her mind, well, she was pretty smart but it was clear it didn't move at paladanian speed.
Yeah, this is the kind of tangent that I would go on, as my mind jumped from one idea to the next and analysed practically everything I observed. Sophie, on the other hand, was just looking in my eyes and probably thinking how weird it was that they looked cloudy right now.
"Your eyes are cloudy." she noted a moment later, eyebrows furrowed, and we dropped our hands. See, I'd known what she was thinking, as usual, just by observation. It was quite a useful skill.
"Yeah." I smirked. "They do that."
She laughed. "Well, you're certainly right that we're not the same."
"Correct." I replied lightly, and then we laughed together, jumping up and walking off, heading to the marketplace.
As we arrived in the wide street used predominantly for trade, we passed shops and stalls, went underneath the simple string that banners and decorations hung from, making the place just a little more cosy, and made our way to the storage shed, where all the stalls were placed while they weren't being used.
"Hi Joe!" Sophie grinned at the man on the door. His name was Jorian, but she had a thing for nicknames and always called him that.
He looked down at her fondly. "Good morning Sophie." he greeted, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Then he looked at me, smile still there. "And Miss Abigail. Fancy seeing you two together!"
We both giggled. Jorian had quite a sense of humour, and was a lovely man. He led us through and directed us to my mother's packaged stall, though we didn't need directions.
Using a transporter module for the heavy box, we moved it out to the its allotted place in the market, and easily set it up. The stalls were designed to fold up as small as possible, and be put up as simply as possible. That's just the wonders of paladanian technology.
Soon my mother arrived, leading a cart laden with fresh produce, all sorts of vegetables and fruits, and with her friend Siobhan, who was her work partner. Their friendship was alike to how Leila and I had used to be.
"Ready for the day's work?" mum asked, glad to have two enthusiastic teenagers to help her. Sophie and I grinned at each other.
"Yes!"
So we spent the rest of the morning helping mum and Siobhan with the stall, arranging all the fruit in baskets and the vegetables on the shelves, running messages, talking to customers, running back home to collect herbs for a special order, packaging produce for sale, and even testing some of the fruit, possibly our favourite job. We had a lunch break an hour after noon, and afterwards mum decided we could have the rest of the day off for working so hard, while she headed out to the farming fields on the other side of town.
That's when we went to visit dad, in the warehouse where he worked, checking and packing machines and devices from and for the Capitol's spaceport, so that they could be sent off assuredly safe. Sophie loved it there, because of her attraction to all kinds of technology and could've spent all day examining all the gadgets they had on offer. Dad was wary of her though, remembering the way she'd dismantled a holographic scanner on her first full day on Flauraan, and he kept her away from anything of particular importance. One time we'd gone into the city with him for a delivery, and I'd gotten to show Sophie our astounding Capitol city, as well as the bustling space port.
Today we helped dad out for about an hour before he told us to go and have fun, saying we deserved a break. I would have explained that Sophie had been having fun, but I wanted to get out of there. Though I didn't dislike technology, unlike Sophia and my dear father I preferred to be outdoors, doing other things.
I dragged Sophie home, where she began to compile her report, while I read a message from Leila, newly arrived direct from Halapatov. It seemed she was doing well.
Afterwards we played a board game, a strategy one as those were the ones I enjoyed most, in which the aim was to get your pieces across to a certain square of the board without losing another square and also any of your 'special' pieces, because then you were likely to lose the game.
"This is like a way over-complex version of chess." Sophie muttered as she lost yet another piece to one of mine. I smiled, but realized that maybe it was a bit unfair of us to play a game that I was guaranteed to win.
"Do you want to play something else?" I suggested but she shook her head stubbornly.
"There is no way I'm quitting!"
We finished the game, which I won, and by then it was beginning to get dark and Sophie announced that she was going to make dinner. Mother had come home half an hour before but was currently spreading fertilizer in our garden.
I followed Sophie into our kitchen area, and watched, amused, as she started pulling ingredients out of our cupboard.
"Perhaps not." I told her, knowing that she had little experience with cooking from scratch. For humans, pretty much all their food was processed before they acquired it, and it needed little preparation except to be 'zapped' in a micro-oven that used low-level radiation to combine ingredients and cook whatever dish was placed inside it. I knew that it was similar to a method they'd only used occasionally back in what they called 'the twenty-first century' but now it was apparently more efficient and achieved delicious results. This was according to Sophie. Anyway, my point was she didn't know how to cook anything except the most basic of basics.
"Pish posh. I can do this." Sophie countered, and I sighed. This was not a good idea. Regardless I stood back and let her mix ingredients and create strange flavours, and only stepped in when she almost set her creation on fire.
Soon dinner was served, and mum, dad, Sophie and I sat around the table, digging into the questionable meal.
"So," dad began, wiping his mouth and pushing his meal away from him discreetly. "Niles called me today."
"Really?" mum inquired, looking excited.
"Who's Niles?" Sophie whispered to me.
"My brother." I replied. She nodded, understanding, and got back to eating.
"Yes, really." my dad said, glancing warily at me as if ready to deliver bad news. "He said that he and Mari are coming to stay, in two days."
"What?" I burst out in shock. Everyone stared at me as I sat there, horror slowly spreading through me. This visit was not going to go down well.