“Come now, Oraaka,” Father interjected, laying a hand on her forearm just as she had on mine. “Sending whisperers away would only draw more attention to Venan and his new authority, not less. Mind you, he is not only your son anymore, but your Elder as well. He is under no obligation to pay your musings any mind.”
She cast a disapproving glance in Father’s direction but yielded to his assertions as she harrumphed, “I am merely saying today is dedicated to something other than the recent bout of disquiet plaguing our city.”
I agreed with her, but I had no time to express such as a petite human bounced up to us. She was brimming with energy, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, a wide smile on her mouth and red rims around her eyes. I knew humans were prone to something called crying when they were emotional, and oftentimes the skin around their eyes grew scarlet and puffy, but there were no tear tracks on this female’s small face. I imagined she was simply on the verge of crying, rather than experiencing the aftermath.
“You’re Zuran’s family, right?” she asked. Her gaze fixed on me. “I mean, you look just like him. It’s kind of creepy, actually, like you’re a clone.”
Father started to respond for me, as Elders were not often addressed so boldly, but I answered before he had a chance. “Zuran is my twin brother,” I clarified. “This is our mother and father.”
Others may have taken offense to her audacious words, particularly the quip about my being a clone, but she could not be blamed. Zuran and I were identical to the last detail, from our long curtains of spectral-white hair to our slanted, alabaster eyes. Our skin was a matching shade of royal blue that darkened to navy in the places most exposed to the sun, and we were each tall enough to tower over this tiny human.
“So, you’re the Elder?” she pressed eagerly, knitting her fingers together before her midsection.
“Yes.” Again, I felt the swell of stares on me and squared my shoulders to buck the allegorical burden.
This lively human and I had actually seen each other before. She had been present when I attempted to rescue Elder Kharid from attack by a rogue Novai. That incident had ended in tragedy when my sword pierced straight through the Novai into my Elder’s chest, and the Wise One perished on that very spot within minutes. It was that day, that moment that had led to the darkest months of my life, and it was why I now faced a tepid backlash from the Dhal’atian people. I still had nightmares about the incident; I could still feel the sword breaking through the Novai’s front and sliding through Kharid’s sternum. The ghost would never stop haunting me.
“Well, it’s awesome to meet you,” the human gushed. “I don’t want to tell you what to do or anything, but the wedding’s about to start, and family is supposed to sit in the front rows. Phoebe doesn’t have family here, obviously, so I’m the next best thing. I’m Edie. Phoebe and I are nurses together in the colony. I’ve kind of been helping her put together this whole thing. You could say I’m the maid of honor, but I guess A’li-uud don’t usually have people standing up with the bride and groom, so I’ll just be sitting across the aisle from you.”
She took a breath after her rambling, and I stared at her. Generally, I was not much for lengthy conversation, but even the most talkative of A’li-uud did not often speak as quickly or extensively as she did. I was grateful when a second human approached and drew her attention from me.
“Edie,” the newcomer said, “they’re starting.”
I found my stare shifting from the perky Edie to her companion. She was taller than the self-deemed “maid of honor,” though she was still notably shorter than me. Her eyes were dark, her wavy hair darker, and her figure was as curvaceous as an ocean swell. A lilt in her voice suggested sweetness to my ears, but the rise of her chin hinted a measure of dignity in place of the innocence so prevalent amongst the sweetest-voiced. She was captivating.
“Shoot,” Edie expelled, grabbing her skirts to keep the hem from kissing the sand beneath us. She looked back at me, glancing briefly at Mother and Father, and advised, “We should sit.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It was a pleasure meeting you. I am sure we will speak again.”
“Oh, yeah, there’s the whole reception afterward,” she said brightly. Then, she scurried to the first row of neatly-organized chairs, her friend following gracefully behind. I led Mother and Father to our own seats just in time for the first notes of music to flow across the open desert.
I still felt eyes on me, prodding the back of my head and searing into my temple, but there was one pair burning into me I relished. In my peripheral vision, I saw the pretty dark-haired human watching me from her seat beside Edie and, though the afternoon was relatively warm, I shivered.
Chapter Fourteen
Octavia
The only wedding I’d ever been to was my cousin’s when she married her high school sweetheart. I’d stood beside her as a bridesmaid and smiled while she took her vows, and I’d stood beside her as a shoulder to cry on and held her left hand while she signed her divorce papers with her right twenty months later. My parents were never married, and I was an only child, so weddings just weren’t part of my lifestyle growing up. There was a general idea of what to expect at a wedding, though: bouquets, elegant white gowns, speeches, throwback oldies music.
This wedding wasn’t anything like that.
There were chairs divided into two blocks separated by an aisle, as usual, and a gorgeously-decorated altar at the head of the site, but that seemed to be the extent of the normal expectations. Everywhere I looked, bright blue skin shone beneath a milky-white sun. The altar was adorned with silky fabrics flipping in the breeze and vividly-colored flowers unlike any I’d ever seen before. Whatever instruments provided the music now flowing through the air were foreign to my senses, and the sounds they gave off were so mystical and ethereal I felt them rather than heard them. A tangy smell of cactus-like plants kept wafting across my nose rather than the sensual scent of roses or regal aroma of lilies as one would ordinarily smell at a formal event like this. To cap it off, we were sitting in the middle of a never-ending desert with golden dunes in front of us and peachy clay walls behind.
Edie was my date to this function; or, rather, I was hers. She was seeing a Corporal in the Ka-lik’et human colony where we lived, but he was on-duty for the ceremony and unable to attend until later in the reception, so she’d asked me to accompany her. I’d been a little leery at first, mainly because I didn’t know the bride or groom and felt like I’d be an intruder, but I’d ended up agreeing when she’d begged me in her energetic Edie way. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only other stranger in attendance—Edie told me Phoebe and her A’li-uud mate weren’t even sure who half the guests were—and there was a handsome upside to accompanying my friend.
The A’li-uud across the aisle was the most attractive I’d ever seen, and I’d been an Albaterran colonist for over a year. I’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the groom, but, from what I could tell, the two were carbon copies of each other—slanted opaline eyes, frosty waist-length hair, rich sapphire skin and cheekbones sharp enough to slice a diamond in two. But there was a noticeable difference between them, something I picked up on right away. The quick glance of the betrothed A’li-uud revealed an evident rascal of an alien in his smirking mouth and narrowed gaze. Looking at the other, the one mere feet from me, was like looking through a mosaic glass to see the brooding, reserved man on the opposite side. He was mysterious and hidden, his personality not lain out to bare before all but tucked safely away in his depths. And he was powerful. I could feel it radiating from him every time I so much as looked in his direction.
“You like what you see?”
Edie’s voice pulled my attention from the A’li-uud, and I flushed. Luckily, the sun was so bright and hot I was already pink with heat all over. “He’s good-looking,” I admitted quietly. I wasn’t shy to say so, at least not to her.
“He’s an Elder,” she said, grinning at me knowingly.
I wh
ipped my gaze back to him with surprise. He wasn’t wearing the intricately-embroidered robes common of Elder wardrobes, instead donning just the boots and jodhpur-style pants of Dhal’atian warriors and leaving his torso naked. If she hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have expected it. I knew the last Elder of the kingdom had died, of course, but the new Elder hadn’t been in public often enough for me to see him during the hours I wasn’t holed up in the colony salon.
“Are you sure?” I whispered. “He’s not wearing the fancy robes.”
She nodded soberly. “I’m sure. I even asked.” I felt her elbow nudge me in the ribs. “You should ask him to dance tonight.”
“Yeah, right,” I retorted sarcastically. “The Elder and the hairdresser. That sounds like a match made in Heaven.”
“Maybe not Heaven, but it could be a match made on Albaterra,” she replied with a chuckle. She motioned to the altar in front of us. “See? It’s common here. Besides, I bet he’d be right up your alley.”
Edie and I didn’t actually know each other as well as her words suggested. We became friends only a few months ago when Phoebe, the bride, left the colony and took up with her A’li-uud boyfriend. Edie started coming into the salon out of boredom, looking to change up her hairstyle more often than Katy Perry, and, when we realized we clicked, she latched onto me like a leech and never let go. I didn’t mind. I liked Edie’s vivacious spirit, especially because I could only take so much of the other hair stylists before I started feeling like I was losing my mind. They were a little too superficial for my taste. Edie was superficial too, but her heart was so kind it was an easy flaw to overlook.
There was movement behind us, and we turned in our chairs. At the base of the aisle was an A’li-uud with broad shoulders, rippling muscles and smooth, flowing hair, and on his arm was a pretty blonde smiling so brightly she matched the sun with her glow. She wore a ground-sweeping gown of emerald silk rather than the traditional white dress, but I preferred it. Surrounded by the unusual alien atmosphere, it seemed fitting, and it brought out the pale azure tint of her eyes. The music billowed out everywhere, wrapping us in melodic notes, and bumps rose on my skin from the sheer touching weight of its emotion.
Step by step, the couple strode up the aisle toward the altar, toward us. The rest of the guests twisted in time with their progression, but I remained turned to the back. Someone was behind the seats, lingering near one of the poles supporting the nearby reception tent. More focused scrutiny showed the lingerer was a female, her skin as blue as the groom and his doppelganger Elder. Her face was beautiful, angled and pointed and as regal as a queen, but her mouth was twisted in certain rage.
I pressed my knuckles into Edie’s thigh, trying to get her attention without interrupting the ceremony, but she shifted a few inches out of reach. The perplexing female suddenly met my eyes. I froze, caught, before remembering it wasn’t me who was encroaching on the wedding.
She raised a single finger to her lips, her eyes boring into me fiercely, and then disappeared behind the tent in the blink of an eye.
Chapter Fifteen
Venan
Seeing human colonists, particularly those who had arrived recently, navigate through the ways and means of Albaterran life was much like watching a newborn discover the world around him. They were wide-eyed and flustered and unaware of themselves, and observing such effectually lifted witnessing A’li-uud to a status of sage content, not unlike that of parents. The uncertainty drew a line between native and settler to antagonize the already-obvious differences and stunt the progression of integration. Thus, the segregation of human from A’li-uud remained both a product and a necessity of the colonization process.
Never had I felt as united in inaptitude with both A’li-uud and humans alike as I did sitting beneath the soaring canopy of the reception tent while my brother and his new wife danced. Nobody was comfortable; all present seemed to be equally unfamiliar with their surroundings, as we were in the midst of a perfect blend between human and A’li-uud culture, and the only beings I saw entirely at ease were the bride, the groom, and the exceedingly energetic Edie.
Traditionally, A’li-uud weddings were comprised of a brief ceremony officiated by the kingdom’s Elder and attended just by immediate family members. After their joining, the new couple was then sent away to prepare a feast for their handful of guests, which was to be served at the home of the female’s mother. In the event the couple had not yet acquired a marital residence, they were to spend the three days following the wedding doing so. If they already had such, they retired to the said residence for three days, where they would remain uninterrupted to solidify their bond as husband and wife. It was a simple, intimate custom designed to sever the ties of separatism and merge two histories into a single future.
Human weddings were evidently much more lavish and grandiose in their celebration. The number of guests was obscene, a quantity comparable only to the masses who gathered to hear an Elder speak. A feast did indeed follow the ceremony, but it was neither prepared by Zuran and Phoebe nor was it held at the home of my mother. Rather, we were to eat in the richly-decorated reception tent from assigned seats placed neatly around circular tables in groups of eight, and we were served by warriors Zuran had asked to assist. Such division between guests meant conversation was limited to those appointed to respective tables, which, in my humble opinion, dissolved the aura of intimacy essential for a wedding. Furthermore, music and dancing followed the meal, initiated by a dance reserved solely for the bride and groom. Though their arms were wrapped around one another and they gazed into the other’s eyes adoringly, I felt the personal element was lost in the sea of silent onlookers. Perhaps I had merely become irreverently cynical in my months as a contested Elder, but the ordeal appeared more to me as staged and contrived than it did a beautiful commemoration of true love found.
Cynicism dismissed, the tent had truly been dressed exquisitely. Strings of lit geodes roped around the borders and across the unoccupied air overhead, casting a soft and starry glow upon both objects and attendants. Tables were handsomely garnished with shimmery silken cloths and grand floral centerpieces in hues of gold and indigo and crimson and verdigris. Each chair encircling each table was a solid, transparent material of mid-back height, lit by luminous geodes of the same color scheme embedded within the glassy construct. Between the flowers and the food, my nose was overwhelmed with scents, but I also detected a sugary aroma of unidentifiable origin beneath that eliminated what little familiarity I had with the ambience and tempted my sensical curiosities. Only my ears were unobstructed by peculiarity, as the musicians and their instruments frequented the city streets like semi-permanent Dhal’atian installations. Taking in everything, the combination of such flamboyant features reminded me of the Merchant’s Walk inside the Ka-lik’et walls, though this was arguably of a more elegant design.
As Zuran and Phoebe twirled about an open space unoccupied by dining tables, I was approached by the same small human who had accosted me earlier. Edie sank onto the seat beside mine, which had recently been vacated by my father in his pursuit to speak with an old acquaintance several tables over, and arranged her skirts neatly around her legs.
“Hi,” she breathed, a broad smile of greeting splitting her friendly face.
“Hello,” I reciprocated with a slight bow of my chin. I was inclined to peer in the direction from whence she arrived, hoping to spot a glimpse of her buxom companion, but I restrained myself in the interest of appearing collected and composed—just as an Elder ought to be. “You are enjoying the wedding?”
She nodded eagerly, sending styled curls into a frenzied bounce. “Oh, yeah. A’li-uud stuff is so much cooler than what we have on Earth. I mean, look at this thing!” She seized the backrest of the chair upon which she sat and jostled it slightly, rocking a breath before righting herself again. “Totally awesome. It’s like being in a movie.”
I knew not what a movie was, nor was I interested in finding out, so I simply nodded with
indifferent agreement and swiveled my gaze idly over her shoulder. The dark-haired human I admired so was nowhere to be seen, but there was a human male standing amongst the scattered tables with his eyes pinned on Edie. I tilted my head in his direction and said, “I believe you have a fancier.”
“That’s my date,” she replied proudly after following my indication. “He’s a Corporal. We’ve been seeing each other for months, but we haven’t had the whole ‘exclusive’ talk, you know? I’m not really sure why, because I’m not going out with anyone else and I don’t think he is either. I’ve started to wonder if he has commitment issues. What’s weird is, back on Earth, I would’ve dumped him already for not putting a title on our relationship, but here is different. I guess I don’t care as much. I mean, the men outnumber the women like three-to-one, so I’ve got options. Either he’ll make me his girlfriend or he won’t, right?”
Again, her rambling stunned me, particularly because she spoke to me as if I were a bosom friend rather than a relative stranger. Instead of answering her assumedly rhetorical question, I decided the time was opportune to segue into asking about her original accompaniment. “Has your female friend left, then?”
“Octavia? No, she’s right there.” She pointed in the general direction of her Corporal mate. Behind him, I noticed a head of adumbral hair, and I realized I had first failed to see her because she was sitting with a group of other humans into which she blended quite seamlessly. When I turned my attention back to Edie, I found her smiling at me with a measure of smug suggestiveness. “Why? Do you like her?”
Yahn: Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Alien Mates Book 4) Page 36