Page 22 of Alliance
“Boots off!” Auntie called, walking away. Her neck was as long as the height of her head, sloping into thin shoulders and a very slight waist. She wore a bright patterned dress in lime green, pink, and yellow, with a wide blue sash that matched her carpet. Each of her impossibly long arms was adorned with several bangles, all of which glowed with coolant as she used them to help her walk with the back of flat, thick knuckles.
“Auntie is a krkyrn,” Fásach said, jumping down next to me. “If you don’t know what a yiwren is, you definitely don’t know them.”
“Wow, she’s amazing. All of this is amazing,” I said, awed by the colorful interior and woman, shiny baubles and ribbons hanging from all over the ceiling. Most were blue, but some sparkled with green or purple.
“Krkyrn like rain,” Fásach explained. “Auntie misses it.”
“Fás’s girls strung it all up for me,” she said, waving one of her bracelets in front of a shelf full of things I couldn’t identify. Shiny and plastic, as bright as rainbows. One was an atomic clock. I could tell that much. That same song from the front door played, and the shelf slid sideways. Inside was a bright yellow and orange room with lights hung from the ceilings and the same blue carpet.
And in the middle of that carpet? Two grey and blue venandi girls, one flying her doll around on a ship model, the other bent over her holotab with a studious expression. The smaller of the two saw us first, gasped, and threw her doll and ship into the air.
“Para!” she yelled, scrambling to her feet.
“No talons in the carpet!” Auntie scolded as the girl ran across the floor and suctioned onto Fásach’s leg with an audiblethud.He laughed, ears perked, a glint in his amber eyes. The other girl joined them, more careful of the carpet than the other,and he knelt with his arms around them, swaying from side to side.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” the older one said, pressing her little mandibles into his shoulder.
“I’m glad you are too,” he sighed. “We need to talk.”
The older one smacked his chest. “Yeah, don’t do that again!”
“Who are you?”
The smaller daughter saw me standing with Auntie and they both turned, the elation dropping off their childlike plates. I dipped my head, said “Hello, I’m Roz-02,” then blinked, heat rising through my cheeks. “I-I mean, just Roz.”
“This is a friend of mine,” Fásach said, sitting on the ground. “Go ahead and introduce yourselves.”
The taller one squeezed her sister's hand, then stepped forward. “I’m Safia.” Her plates were mostly a silvery grey with a blue crown of nubby spires and mandibles.
“I’m Misila.” Her little sister was a brighter, more solid sky blue. According to my database, they were so vibrant because of their youth, and would likely darken to gunmetal grey and navy in adulthood.
“You’re both so beautiful,” I said with a big smile. I glanced between Auntie and Fásach. “I didn’t know children were so beautiful.”
Auntie grunted thoughtfully.
“Are you human like Imani?” Misila asked. She squinted at my hands and face, peering into the thermophobic hood I still wore tightly around my ears. “You don’t look the same at all.”
My eyes grew wide. “You’ve met Imani? Imani James?”
“That’s enough for now,” Fásach said, ending our conversation. My heart raced, but I bit my lip as he turned them back around with a serious expression. “I need you both to listen very closely. Okay?”
They nodded. “Okay, Para.” Safia grabbed Misila’s little hand.
“We’re not going back home. Instead, Roz is going to take us to a new one.”
“Were you hurt?” Safia asked, squeezing her sister’s hand harder. “Did something happen to our house?”
Fásach took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I was hurt. And the house isn’t safe anymore. But we got some of your clothes, and I saved your mara’s iden-archive, so we’ve got everything that’s important.”
Auntie poked me with a wide, veiny hand. “You, come with me,” she said, gliding gracefully on her knuckles. I followed her into the yellow room while Fásach spoke with his children. “They have some things here. If you’re leaving, they’ll want them.”
“Of course,tia.”
“What?”
“It means auntie in my native language.” My brow drew together. “At least, I think it does.”
The elderly krkyrn snorted, and some of the yellow fuzz clinging to the soft pads of her face billowed into the air like pollen. “You’re programmed with Hja Erle. You don’t have a native language.”
