In an instant, a whole world was inside Tristan's brain.
A blue sun warmed a faraway planet with its humid rays.
Emerald green waves undulated toward barren lands.
Seven golden moons traveled a sky dotted with black stars.
Cities hung like icicles under silver clouds.
Glittering beings with meticulously shaped hair walked halls illuminated by vibrating light.
The scenes were more fantastical than the scenery of any movie he'd ever watched. Even Avatar. And Tristan had watched Avatar more times than he could count. It had been his comfort watch when he was a kid and his parents fought downstairs, escaping into a magical world when his own became too much. But even all those times accumulated couldn't compare to his wonder about the world Vyrsa allowed him to gaze upon. It was stunning. It was overwhelming. It was... alien. So alien that no mere earth dweller could imagine it. This world was past the capabilities of imagination.
"Wow..." he marveled as a fanged tiger floated by in the atmosphere. When it roared at him, making the air flutter, it felt like he was there. In another world. So far from his simple dorm room, filled with piles of homework and dirty dishes.
Moments later, the extraterrestrial world faded away and Tristan once again found himself sitting on the worn living room couch, stained with beer from when Brody invited his hockey buddies over. Everything about his home looked so dull in comparison to the world he'd just experienced, although to be fair, if he compared the home of one of the aliens to the Grand Canyon it would probably also come up short.
The woman in front of him was definitely not dull though. Vyrsa sparkled in all the unfamiliar shades of her home world, and her eyes made promises of mysteries yet to be discovered.
And her lips... they appeared as lush as the sand dunes leaning into bright green water. He fought an urge to press his own lips against them to find out if they tasted like those faraway oceans.
Tristan blinked, attempting to chase away the improper thoughts. Sure, she'd kissed him before, but that had only been to soothe him into slumber. He'd realized that while he drifted away the night before. Besides, who knew what her kind's customs regarding romance even were? Or if romance even existed in their realm?
The philosophical quandaries distracted him for long enough to remember how to behave in a proper manner, at least according to Earth's standards.
"So..." he mumbled, unsure how to even address what she'd just shown him by simply tapping her radiating fingernail to his temple. That was definitely a nifty trick. He wondered if it worked for Astronomy homework as well. That could have come in handy about an hour ago. "Is that your home planet?"
"Yes," she confirmed, warmth mixing with sadness in her eyes. She must miss the sheen of the blue sun. "That's Isola."
"It's... beautiful," Tristan said, unable to find the words to properly describe what he'd just seen. Every word he knew seemed trite and inadequate. "Where is it?"
Not knowing much about the universe, because he doubted his Astronomy 101 facts could stand up to Vyrsa's first-hand experience of interstellar travels, he realized it was kind of a dumb question.
"That way," Vyrsa pointed toward the kitchen, or well, past the kitchen. Way past it. "About twelve hundred light-years or so."
That was definitely far. Even Tristan could comprehend that. Far enough to require travel at impossible speeds to reach.
"So how did you end up here?" he asked, meaning not just on earth but in his bedroom of all places.
"The Portal of Wishes," she whispered, curling up with her arms around her legs as she spoke. She looked less alien when sitting like that, just a girl far away from her home trying to calm herself. "I should have known better than to trust it but I did. And it failed me."
So many questions ran through Tristan's nerdy brain. Were portals a common way to travel in space? How many of them were there? Did this mean that Stargate was actually based on reality?
But when a silver drop slid down the alien's sparkling cheek, he forgot all of his queries. "Are you alright, Vyrsa?" was all he could think of to ask because it seemed to be the only thing that was important.
She shrugged in a defeated manner. "I mean, I'm stuck here, and while I've always wanted to explore primitive planets and I'm sure this one is lovely, it's just not my home." Another drop appeared in the corner of her eye.
Tristan couldn't help himself. He reached out his hand to wipe away the tear, stroking his fingers across skin smooth as velvet. A slight buzz reverberated under his fingers as if she was charged by an electric current. Realizing what he was doing, he halted mid-motion. "Sorry," he apologized, hastily removing his hand. "I shouldn't have..."
"It's fine," Vyrsa assured him, catching his grip mid-air.
When their hands interlaced the world began to tingle around them. Everything turned into a mirage, foggy and just out of reach. Something beneath her skin was definitely affecting Tristan in a quite pleasant manner. Vyrsa guided his hand back to her face, allowing him to once again dry her tears.
Tristan took his time wiping away every tear, noting that they hardened against his skin to form perfect metal drops. When he eventually pulled away his hand, five of them lay on his palm. He carefully slid them onto a coaster on the living room table, to make sure the treasures didn't get lost.
"There must be a way for you to get back home," he said, trying to sound certain. "I'll help you in any way I can."
Her smile at his offer made his insides tingle, despite them not physically touching. "Can you get me astatine?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with hope. Or perhaps they just always sparkled like that. "It's what I need to fuel a spaceship, if I can build it."
Tristan hesitated to answer, even if he, the quiz bowl champion, had the answer at the tip of his tongue. It had been a question on Jeopardy recently. "The rarest element on earth" had been the answer when "What is astatine?" was the question. "That... might be difficult," he mumbled, not wanting to let her down. "It's kind of... uncommon around here."
"Oh..." The sparkles faded from her face as she frowned.
"I can try though," he assured her, despite knowing that the elusive substance contained dangerous amounts of radioactivity. Surely there was some way to acquire some without risking his life?
"Maybe if you give me more books, I can figure it out." Vyrsa gestured toward the bookshelf, where a few chewed-upon books still remained. Apparently, she didn't have a taste for cookbooks or maps. "Ones about the physics and chemistry of this planet. If I know more about my surrounding, I may be able to figure something out, since the technology of my planet is vastly superior." She sounded kind of smug when saying those last words, although Tristan saw no reason to protest as it was probably true. Earth was a mere colony of simple ants in their universe filled with wonder.
"Sure," he agreed. "I can get some at the library. Although... do you need to eat them?" He already had the head librarian Mabel out for his head after too many outstanding tickets, on account of needing to study everything between heaven and earth for his quiz bowl competitions and never being able to find the time in his busy schedule to return them.
"Preferably. That's how I take in information best. Although maybe this planet has established some kind of virtual database by now?"
"You mean like the internet?"
The confusion on her face revealed this to be a word not in Vyrsa's vocabulary. "Like this," Tristan tried, pulling his phone from his pocket. "We use it for information storing, I guess, and connecting with other people." Looking over at Bobby pulling a flip-move on the couch pillow, he added, "and a lot of cat videos." The Instagram account he and Brody had started for their cat had actually just hit a thousand followers. Tristan doubted Vyrsa would be impressed by this though.
Vyrsa looked in fascination as he showed her various apps and sites. She even giggled at a particularly cute video of a cat trying to fit into a way-too-small box. "Yes," she said after the demonstration was over. "I think I can use this to learn about Earth, just let me try." The alien reached her hand toward the phone and when she touched it her nails started to pulsate in blue.
A smile gleamed on her lips as blue lights blinked on her elongated ear lobes as well, "Yes, I can read the data. But it will take a while for me to learn it all. Days probably. I can only do it in short bursts since I need to process the information afterward."
"You can stay here for as long as you need," Tristan promised, ignoring the fact that he had a roommate who could arrive home at any moment. He would explain the admittedly hard-to-explain situation to Brody when it came to it. "Is there anything else you need?"
"Perhaps the next Game of Thrones book?" Vyrsa suggested. "Since I ate the first one I probably need to take in the next one in the same manner. It seems crucial to the history of this planet for me to understand."
The rest of the books were probably in Brody's room, as he'd borrowed them from Tristan at the start of the semester, so that was a request that didn't risk the librarian coming for Tristan's head. "Of course. I'll get them." He paused, before asking a perhaps silly question that nonetheless had to be asked. "But you do understand that they're works of fiction, right?"
Vyrsa cocked her head. "Fiction?" she asked.
"Like stories that aren't real, just for our amusement. Don't you have that on your planet?"
She shook her head. "Everything we read is real. Why wouldn't it be? We learn about the history of our planet and the universe. Just like you learn about dragons and Targaryens."
Tristan sighed, realizing he had some work to do here. He reached his hand toward her blue-pulsing hand atop his phone. "I think maybe before you start downloading information about Earth, I need to explain to you what a story is." He grabbed the remote of the TV and turned it on. "Let's start with introducing you to Netflix."