Star Side

Chapter 63

His mother kept staring as I set up a note and started typing in the names I knew, my hair forgotten in her claws.

"This seems more like magic..." she said softly.

"Maybe magic is just complex tools," I said, then paused, a little needle of fear wondering if I had said something I shouldn't. "Not that I know magic! Is magic bad?"

She crooned and emitted calming waves towards me, easily smoothing down my unease.

"You are not bad, so any magic or tools you have won't be," she said in soft clicks of her teeth and throat.

I wanted to ask how she knew, but her fingers were moving again and figured I didn't need to complicate things more than they already were. After all, these people could feel all my emotions and had been watching me for the past three weeks. If nothing else, Gilrack would tear down anyone who thought I was evil—and wasn't that a weird thought to be comforted by? Strange that I could have so much faith in him to do so, when no one else had ever treated me as someone to be viciously protected.

That also went miles in comforting me for the freak show I was about to become. Gilrack would be next to me. He'd protect me.

Shatit had also brought a sort of leather and fur bandolier with three egg-sized bulges in it. It had hard leather on the outside, and rabbit-soft fur on the inside to keep eggs tied to ones chest and warm in the case the mother had to leave the nest. Both Shatit and Gilrack told me that nervous mother's felt better leaving the nest if their eggs were with them. It did sooth me somewhat to think about bringing them with me, but, sadly, the bandolier was made for aliens at least half a size bigger than me at their smallest. Thus, after Shatit had done me up in a carefully tied and sewn silk dress and ushered me to the porch, it was Gilrack who wore the egg bandolier, which held all three of our purple and blue eggs hidden against his chest. I found myself preferring it that way. They'd be safer with him, and warmer. He ran at a few degrees hotter than myself, something that always worried me when I was trying to keep them warm.

Yes. I have realized I've turned into a brooding hen and come to terms with it. Human chicken is me. I incubate eggs. Moving on.

Even with the eggs, Gilrack easily lifted me up. I fretted about hurting the eggs, but he held me carefully around them, if only to ease my nerves. Their shells were still plenty strong enough to endure my weight, even while I doubted that. Like hell I was going to full on sit on them, thank you very much.

We floated down the beautifully polished chasm to the white-blue glowing chandelier filling up the opening below.

"Don't worry, little mother," said Shatit as she parachuted down besides us, her violet wings puffed with air. "You already know all you need to know about greeting and manners and your words are clear."

"No one will harm you," said Gilrack.

Yeah, but they would be looking at me and everything that made me different. Just because Gilrack thought I was the most beautiful thing to ever exist didn't mean everyone else would. Gilrack was probably a freak. Like me.

Bad memories percolated up from the vault I tried to keep them in and I closed my eyes tight against the light. Looks weren't everything to humans, I got that. But in a society were designer babies were the in thing, being ugly meant a lot more than it should, even if a century before I would have looked completely normal. No one cared. I was just the unfortunate, ugly chick meant to be gawked at or used as a basis for comparison.

When I opened my eyes again, Gilrack's feet had just hit the landing just before the stairs that would lead up to Shatit's throne. Down the first flight of stairs, on the reflective white-gray floor of the grand hall, waited a crowd of fall-colored aliens. Their faces varied as humans do, with long or squat noses, square or weak chins. Their hair styles varied as well, though long seemed to be more in fashion. I saw more females with beads in their hair, though their beads didn't consist of as many jewels as me. Some looked like they had bone or simple black rocks for their hair décor. Their horns also varied, from black to tan to almost white, wavy, long, or curled like a goats. Even the little horns of the females varied from straight or curled.