Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
As the day wears on, it is impossible to tell how much time is passing. The sun doesn’t seem to exist, and the sky does not change. The clouds do not drift. I realize, with a start, that there is no breeze. The sky may as well be painted on.
Every new realization I encounter makes me feel slightly more uncomfortable. Freak is the only part of this whole thing that makes me feel real. I snuggle as close to him as I can, I close my eyes, and I feel his touch, his steady three-dimensional existence. The warmth of his body and the slight motions of it remind me I still exist, even if the place I am in doesn’t.
* * *
Freak
We are treated to a welcome feast, and of course my pet has questions. I thought she might settle once she got fed, but even though I keep her in my arms and offer her food from my hand, she manages to ask them.
“Is this your family?”
“We do not have families the way you are accustomed to thinking about them, but yes,” I tell her. “These are the ones I love.”
“They’re pretty,” she says. “Is everyone in your species ridiculously hot?”
“I don’t know,” I laugh. “Maybe? To your eyes, probably. You have a way of seeing the best in the world.”
“I do?”
She seems surprised.
“Yes, pet,” I chuckle. “You see me for much of what I am, I think, but I am sure you adorn me with more, besides.”
She blushes, recognizing it for the compliment it is to both of us. I love this little creature. I have known her for less than one of her days, but there is a connection between us that those of my species would recognize as fate. This was always intended to happen. She was made for me, and I was made for her.
She snuggles up against my chest and closes her eyes. She is tired. This realm has that effect on a lot of creatures who are not from here. We won’t be able to stay long. That works for me, for I do not want to stay long. I need to return to the front lines.
“Tasin, you’re supposed to be speaking with us. We’ve missed you.” Alara chides me, sending her voice into my mind. Once upon a time, Alara was the daughter of the matriarch. Now she is the matriarch.
It was not always certain that she would take the command position. For a long time, it was considered that I might be suitable to command the home realm. But I spent too much time in the worlds of the real, and somewhere between my being captured and now, she assumed the role. One could be bitter about such a thing, but of course, if she has command, then it can be assumed she was always destined to have it. There are no accidents in our cosmology.
Her disapproval would have concerned me at one point, but I have just suffered a series of lengthy indignities and pains that has made me much less patient and far less interested in bowing to hierarchy of any kind.
“You can speak to me while I tend to my pet,” I respond. “She is still new to me. And this is a world she is not safe in, so forgive me if I do not take my eyes off her.”
I feel the pout.
Alara approaches us, a smile frozen on her face. It is designed to make my pet comfortable. I can tell by the way she stiffens against my chest that it is not having that effect at all. My pet is intimidated. Well, she should be. Alara is powerful. She has an ability to twist the fibers of reality in ways few of our kind can. Some say she might be the most powerful matriarch we have ever had.
“Can’t you put her down for a moment?”
I don’t want to put her down. After everything that has happened for the past few years, I feel as though she is anchoring me to myself. The studies done on me were not pleasant. The scientists who had me in their grasp tried to take me apart in hundreds of different ways. I was hurt terribly and repeatedly, but with my pet in my arms I feel something close to normal.
The others have missed me, but they do not want to address the events of my captivity either. We are all skirting the issue, over and over. I suspect they know more than they want to share with me. How could they not? We are all uniquely connected, our consciousness a mesh we all weave.
“No,” I say aloud. “You can speak to me with her here.”
Mara smirks against my chest. She cannot hear Alara, but she is very good at working out what is happening in the absence of information. Humans are talented in that regard. What they lack in sophistication, they make up for with instinct.