I am used to inhabiting this hill at night, sitting under the stars in the cool air, but tonight it is illuminated by the strings of light Jayken has rigged up around the tables and decorations. We have feasted on a plethora of mostly human and paladanian delicacies, and have watched a dance performance to Earth music arranged by Mickey and Zara. It was a pretty wonderful experience. More music was played in the background afterwards and Sophie and I twirled around briefly surrounded by our friends and community and now I am completely, pleasantly exhausted.
Sophie is continuing to dance, currently showing off moves with Mickey while Zara and the girls try to copy along, but I have sat down for a break with Lexie. She has remained pretty vigilant throughout the day, helping Robyn run interference with the press and haranguing Greg and Max Jones, as well as putting out fires for Jayken’s and our sake. I’m glad to see her sitting down for now, but she is still upright, arms crossed, scanning the crowd.
I nudge her shoulder. “I appreciate you being on bodyguard duty, but you can relax now, you know. Everything’s okay.” She glances at me. I watch her expression flicker and I frown, heart sinking. “Alright… what have you seen?”
She hesitates. “I’m really not sure. I know something goes wrong, but you know how my visions are.”
I nod, thinking of the Weraynian war - and Lexie’s sporadic glimpses of things within - against my will. “You should’ve told me, Lex.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Abigail, you have been so stressed. You did not need an extra source of things to worry about. But you’re feeling better now, right? You talked to Sophie?”
I smile at her. “I did.” She smirks back, and I punch her lightly on the arm.
We sit in silence for a moment and then the music changes to another human song, one by the band Baab, I believe. I know it vaguely, but am immediately amused to see Lexie absentmindedly tapping her foot and humming along to the music.
She catches me watching her and realises what she is doing. She shakes her head and sighs.
“Damn it, Jayken’s been playing all this wedding music so much I’ve learnt it by accident.”
“It’s not that bad.” I laugh and she scowls at me.
“It’s not my type of music, okay?” I laugh more and start singing along to the song, causing her to scowl more. I nudge her and she rolls her eyes and sings along with me. We are singing and giggling and it’s immeasurably nice.
I close my eyes and hear Lexie trail off suddenly. When I open them she is staring, eyes wide, and I whip my head around and take in the sight of Robyn, absolutely plastered, dancing erratically and staring intently at Alexa. I should have seen this coming; Robyn has been drinking a lot of paladanian substances which inebriate other species far more potently than us. She gestures at Lexie, demanding for her to get up and dance with her. Lexie is blushing furiously and I am laughing desperately, bent over and fighting to catch my breath.
“Damn it.” Lexie mutters again. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Off you go, you’ve been summoned.”
“Come with me.” She begs. “I don’t know her that well.”
I cross my arms. “Nah, I’m okay.”
Robyn is calling her by name now, and people are turning and looking at us in bemusement. I lean back and gesture for her to go over.
“I hate you.” Lexie says, and she pushes back her seat. I watch, feeling lighthearted, as she crosses to Robyn and is immediately grabbed by the hands for a ridiculous drunk dance session. She gives it a good go, to her credit. I keep my eyes on them for a glorious minute before letting my gaze wander back over to Sophie, who is nowhere near as inebriated as Robyn but dancing just as crazily, right now in some sort of routine with Kris. They complete a wild but coordinated movement, and then spin around by the elbows and each move on to a new partner, Kris with Beth and Sophie with []. I breathe in this moment of joy and light and movement, content, now, and then I get back up and rejoin the fray.
Day Three of the Wedding
I have already visited Sierra and Jason since the birth of their son, but Sophie obviously had forgotten Sierra was ever pregnant, and she is very excited to see a baby. She reaches out to play with Aether’s hands, and looks up all smiles at Jason and says simply, “Wow! Jason, you’re a DILF now!”
Sierra and Jason both look to me as if for translation, but I am as bewildered as they are. I’ve seen the word before - on Mickey’s fishbank profile - so I make the educated guess that Sophie has learnt the word from Beth and does not know what it means. I turn quickly to her, hoping to dispel the confusion, but Zara is pulling at her arm, looking incredibly embarrassed and smiling in a way that tells me the word is far worse than I had been thinking.
“Come on, ammi, Jayken wants to ask you something.” She lies deftly, and Sophie cheerfully excuses herself, oblivious to the bemused atmosphere she leaves in her wake.
“What did she mean by that?” Jason asks curiously.
“My analysis is that it’s a joke descriptor, though I think she meant it sincerely.” Sierra smirks goodnaturedly.
“It’s not worth analysing everything Sophie says, she says a lot of things that have a nonsensical basis behind it.” I say fondly, and smile widely back at Sierra.
“And this is the person you’re marrying?” Sierra teases me, and I raise an eyebrow at her. She winks back.
It’s nice to have someone I know as well as Sierra here to talk to, to ground me a bit, after the overwhelming amount of Alliance people I’ve been greeting. My talk with Steve earlier helped a little, but the opportunity to slip back into the Paladanian banter I was brought up with is helpful. I feel like a normal person, I convince myself. The three of us talk for a few minutes more on work updates and baby things, and then with the weight of social expectations and all the other wedding things needing my attention, I move on.
Flauraan, Sophie is 23
On my way home from the spaceport I am enjoying the walk and the air so much that I decide to detour to the hill near Abi's house, take my time ambling around it. Even though it has been years since I have arrived here via teleport watch, it is as if I can feel the electricity in the air, weaving round me, heralding my return. What a lark what a plunge! It was always like that, as I found myself on the hill near Abigail’s, the sun low among the trees. I watch her running to greet me - sometimes I surprise her, sometimes she sees me arrive. Her hair is long, heavy, shrouding her face. I am ecstatic to see her, there is an Alliance story I want to tell her. Is that it? Or maybe the weightlessness is from a time earlier than that; from finding the expedition. She glows and the air warms us both. We embrace. We kiss. Her hair tickles my arm wrapped around her back. I poke my head around the door and the expression on Abigail's face, framed by the trees behind her, frightens me. I shake my head, attempt to dislodge the guilt that haunts me still. As I round the crest of the hill I get a glimpse of the house; the windows are dark. She must be out in the fields today, or in the nursery. I will be bereft of the warm greetings that swirl in my mind. But that doesn't matter because Abigail's home is my home now. Our home. Hi honey I’m home. I am home.
Flauraan, Abigail is 14, Sophie is 16
We watch the Eridanus II disappear into the sky, back on their expedition to who knows where. I still can’t believe that I had no idea there even was another expedition. I will have to grill Louise about this when I eventually return to Earth myself, how a detail like that could possibly not be something we knew. Although apparently communication between Science Institution centres is really poor, so I guess it’s not that weird. Still. Wow. Embarrassing.
But I’m happy at least that that oversight meant that I was able to be here to help bridge the conflict between my people and Abi’s, and to fight the Weraynian (even if I was pretty useless at that). And of course if I hadn’t been here I never would have even met Abigail. I look at her now, turning my head a little. Most people are already starting to dissipate with the expedition’s departure, but she still has her head raised, staring at the spot in the sky where it went from a bright spot back to nothing. She is watchful, but there’s something else in her eyes. It’s the same look she gets when she’s stargazing. She has this love and curiosity for the universe that I think is so awesome. I hope she gets to explore the universe herself someday. I’ll happily take her with me too, if she wants. She’s probably not ready for that, it’s a big shift, but still. The idea makes me excited. Regardless, I’m gonna be on Flauraan a bit longer. I’ve got my report to do, which will take longer than normal given this planet, this system, is completely unknown to anyone outside it, that I know of anyway. There’s so much to document! And it gives me the perfect excuse to spend more time with Abigail, and maybe get around to asking her if she wants to go on a trip or something with me. Hmm, what a nice thought. The part of my brain that doesn’t shut up tries to remind me that my research should be secondary to the search for my dad. My dad who is missing along with a whole bunch of other people and possibly got into a similar crisis to the Eridanus II. But I tell myself that Abigail is smarter than I am, and she’s offered to help me look over my files, my searching route. Everything will be fine.
Finally Abigail tears her eyes away from the sky above us and smiles at me.
“Ready to go?” she asks.
“Of course.” I say, and follow her in the opposite direction of the dispersing crowd, towards the forest, the hill, her house.
So many of the trees were burnt during the Weraynian incident, and now that the giant spaceship is gone the forest around it looks even more depressing. We pick our way around the most scorched patches of ground, and I start speaking my thoughts aloud.
“So sad that all those trees are gone now.”
She stares around her solemnly. “It is. My town will just have to hold more sapling planting sessions on top of the seasonal ceremonies.”
“The what now?” Abi’s people are very different from mine, and this is yet another new concept to me.
She tilts her head at me and smiles. “We have a nursery in the council building with saplings for ceremonial purposes, and we hold plantings for all of our major events. In one portion of the year we do the funerary plantings, and we also have the marriage plantings.”
“You plant trees when people get married? Why?” I ask. I wonder if people do something like that on Earth. I don’t know anything about weddings.
She shrugs. “It symbolises the new stage of life, which is the whole point of marriage.”
“Oh, because people have babies and stuff? I know people on my planet used to do that.”
She frowns. “People do often get married because they’re having a child, but that’s not the only reason. It’s just any committed relationship you know - people get married when they’re moving in together, when they’re creating a business or a research project, even when they have shared finances.”
This is so interesting. “So it’s not a romantic thing?”
She looks at me curiously. “It can be. But romance is just one reason people commit to each other.”
I nod, thinking of my own commitment to stay with Abi, my desire for us to join forces somehow. Her people’s concept of commitment feels a lot less restrictive than the Earth rules around couples and babies and stuff. You don’t really get married on Earth except if you’re romantically with someone. It’s never been something I’ve thought of myself doing, but now I’m thinking about what if me and Abigail got married. The planting ceremony sounds pretty cool.
“Do you think they’ll do more planting while I’m here?” I ask.
“Hopefully, if the council decides it’s the appropriate time and we have the right sort of saplings. It probably won’t be as impressive as the marriage ceremony though, it will be more of a rush to organise it.”
“Well I hope I can see the marriage one as well.” I say. “That sounds really cool.”
She stares at me for a moment. “It is.” She shakes her head and holds out her hand. “Come on, let’s speed up.”
I take her hand gladly and we disappear deeper into the forest, away from the scorched battlefield.