Daylight slanted over the terrace as Suvah climbed to the top of the Circuit pagoda, her strides slow and graceful. A child's laughter rang behind her.
Tzezikh frolicked to the top step and bounded past her to the railing. He leaned over the edge, his slender tail waving in excitement, hues of delighted green and gold shifting over his skin. "Wow! Can we really see the whole colony from up here?" His voice cracked with the bio-electric snap and hiss of natural Lenyaki speech, yet he spoke in the human language.
"The colony, and all the way to the mountains of the Shadow side." Suvah pointed to the horizon. "Beyond that point is perpetual darkness. The opposite to the pure light of our home here in the capital."
The hatchling grabbed her hand. Tzezikh wasn't her blood child. His mother, an upstart Liege, had claimed the Circuit and thwarted the balance until Suvah had defeated her. Now, this child who would have once been considered an abomination to the Sacred Polarity ruled Suvah's heart and her long life. They were the last two Lenyaki to survive the genocide of their species at the hands of the Earth settlers.
A freighter skimmed overhead, engines a muted drone, its shadow drifting over the terrace. Tzezikh's azure-tipped eye stalks shifted upward to watch it pass. His enthusiasm for humble things never failed to lighten Suvah's mood.
"What was it like before the humans came to Lenyak?" The speech vents in his neck flared as he tried to phrase the question in their native language.
Suvah lifted her head as the freighter soared away. A human machine cutting across the perfect Lenyak sky. A sky which had once belonged to their kind alone. "It was...simpler then. Everything was defined by the perfection of the Sacred Polarity. And everything was alive. Charged. Every stone and structure imbued with living current. You could touch anything and be one with the electric mantras of the Sisters and our Liege, Jiruu. Everything nourished us, quickened us. The Incepted Consorts would ascend this tower every morning to sing and feed the Circuit."
"Did you come here, too?" Tzezikh asked with a shrill hum.
"Of course, though it was almost a human century ago. I used to dance on this terrace. The very air once carried our charge. Humans would never survive the sheer power we used to generate here. If the Circuit was ever to be fully restored, all non-Lenyaki flesh in this colony would be fried to a crisp."
"Oh." Tzezikh's shoulders slumped, the wind stirring his luminous mane. "I like the humans. Even after what the bad ones did to the Lenyaki. They're different, now. Our friends. Right?"
"Yes, young one. Remember the stories, always. But we must build our world anew." Suvah brushed her fingers over his face and held him close to her side. Memories burned within, but a new, gentler fire warmed her soul.
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