They don't have television up here, not like we do on earth, but they do have odd ballet-type performances they enjoy watching. It more or less projects on the wall so that everybody can see it, and all the different species involved are fascinating to somebody like me who's not had a lot of exposure to anything non-human. The way they are able to move their arms,sometimes all ten of them, and the odd scales used in the music, melts away the most ordinary afternoon I've spent since getting abducted.

Look at me using that in a normal sentence. I didn't shudder or anything that time. Growth!

“You look like your mind is far from here, Margaret,” Kass says as he stares up at me. “Is there anything you’d like to unburden to me?”

“I suppose I'm just trying to get used to the fact that this is my new normal,” I say pointing out to the dark window of stars and planets that move in the distance. “I was never too interested in traveling and yet here I am. It's just a very different lifestyle than I thought I’d have.”

“If you were on earth, whiling away a part of your day, what might you be doing? Assuming you weren't at work or doing other tedious tasks.”

I stare out the window some more, imagining earth spinning out there somewhere, peaceful and oblivious to my departure. “There was this really nice riverside park by my apartment. When the weather was nice, I’d treat myself to a latte and bring a book down there and read for an hour or two. Maybe stop by a thrift store and see what weird shit I could find to put in my home. That was always my goal. Find weird shit I could show off to my friends when I saw them. Humans are good at making stuff that makes no sense to other people.”

“I'm sorry you are missing it. When you are ready, we do have earth-like park simulations on board. I believe they have carpeting that looks and feels similar to earth's grass and there are lights that supposedly emit things that make humans feel happier.”

“That might be nice. When I can actually walk again,” I say with a laugh.

He turns to look at me with a very serious expression on his face, clearly concerned about my well-being. It’s a nice change of pace, because in the past when I’ve dated somebody, they’ve been more concerned about things like whether or not I was paying my share of the dinner bill, or whether I was going to make a fuss at them when they decided to spend the entire weekend with their friends instead of participating in the plans I already made for the both of us that they fully knew about.

“We pushed you too hard, didn’t we? We should have waited longer. Made you ingest more fluids first.”

“You guys love throwing that phrase around, don’t you? Honestly, you couldn’t have stopped me from trying to take a ride on any of you. Tell me I can’t have something, and I’m going to want it that much more. I enjoyed myself, I promise. And if it does indeed get easier with more… erm,ingestion, then hopefully my recovery time will be better next time…”

I have to dislodge Kass from my lap and waddle over to the long, thin window on the wall, because there’s something weird going on.

Like I sent out an invisible call, the entire triad soon surrounds me, looking out with me into the dark sky that is starting to flood with a bunch of smaller individual lights. “What are those?”

“They look like messenger drones,” Owiin says as he watches in confusion. “It looks like they are attempting to spell something in your language, Margaret. That means they're likely run by a human or somebody working with humans. If it was a different species, they’d be using their own written language.”

“Does that say, ‘Give us Miranda, or else’? I wonder who that is. I don’t think she’s gonna have a very good rest of her day.”

“Not sure,” Adeema says as he lowers the blinds and brings me back to the plush sofa. “Here, fresh cold pack for you. And we have a meal ready, as well. Kass, do you need us to lick you?”

“Woah, whoa, whoa. Lickwhatnow?”

Kass stands beside the sofa and unhooks his pants, stepping out of them so that he’s bare from the waist down. Then he sinks onto the sofa, grabs his ankles, and spreads his legs wide. “Their saliva helps to heal me,” he explains with an unbelievably straight face. “Part of our aftercare. If it worked on you, we’d be ecstatic. Unfortunately, it seems to be a species-specific thing for us.”

Adeema gets to his knees before us, not hesitating to sink his tongue inside of Kass. He goes right to town on him, plunging deep inside, and then withdrawing and thoroughly licking the area over before plunging inside again. I watch the line of discomfort erase from Kass’ forehead as Adeema works, and magically, watching this does make me feel better.

“What even is my life right now? I feel really creepy for enjoying watching this, but oh, am I.”

Adeema flicks his eyes to me and makes a show of dragging his tongue slowly out from Kass, the stark whiteness rimming him before slipping inside once again. Obscene, I’m telling you.

His face definitely tells me he’s amused by my reaction, or maybe it’s just that my eyes are huge, and my breathing is labored, and he’s mildly concerned, medically speaking. “You guys are trouble."

“You know, it really couldn’t hurt to try,” Owiin says before sinking to his knees next to Adeema and undressing me. It takes very little for him to gain access to me, and whether or not it actually heals me doesn’t really matter, because later that nightwhen I drift off, I’m so damn relaxed, even if my vocal cords got strained more. You win some, you lose some.

---

“Ugh, not again,” I complain before shoving a pillow over my head. “Somebody needs to make that god-awful sound stop. I’ve not gotten nearly enough sleep to be dealing with this shit. What is it this time? Octopus babies melting one of the stabilizer wings? Flying fish attacking the kitchens and dissolving all the cookware?”

Adeema’s hand finds my face and pats it in a somewhat gentle but aggressive manner. “Are you well, mate? You’re asking odd questions. Those are very specific scenarios. Did those often happen on earth? I was unaware you were exposed to such dangers.”

If only he could see me rolling my eyes. “Well last time we had talking alligator creatures standing on two legs taking over. My ideas seem just as plausible.”

“It is merely the meeting bell,” Owiin says before yanking the covers off of all of us. Rude. Not that I could sleep longer anyways with the incredibly irritating siren trying to pick away at my eardrums, but I definitely don’t appreciate the sudden change in body temperature. The sheets they have here are crazy, they magically adjust to your body temperature so that you’re never too hot or too cold. I’ve never been so excited to crawl into bed before.

“Couldn’t they have met with us at a more reasonable hour?” I ask as I start looking for cast off clothes to wear. It’s on the list of things to take care of, alright?

“If it goes off in this pattern, it’s because something urgent has happened. Might not be an emergency, but it is likely something that needs attention rather quickly,” Kass explains ashe attempts to finger comb through his curls. “They’re not trying to inconvenience us, I reckon they’re trying to keep us alive.”