Nova (38 page)

Shaking her head, though whether in denial or comprehension
K’llan could not be precisely sure, Avara replied “K’llan, we’ve been over this
before. I understand your concern, but I also understand
you
. You will
ensure my safety.” Avara’s voice, radiating an imperturbable belief, was all
velvet, steel, silk, and home in one.

And it both broke and beckoned K’llan’s heart at once, ending
any pretense of omission. Running a hand through her long, loose sapphire hair,
K’llan finally murmured “Avara, do you remember when you asked why I said that…Feeding
was especially dangerous for you and I?”

“Of course.”

“Have you considered why?” The Vosaia asked, wondering how
much the clever Human woman had deduced on her own.

Breathing deeply, gaze uncomfortably direct, Serros answered,
“I assume it has something to do with the empathic connection you and I share.
The link that seems to be anything but normative for Vosaia, though my
experience in this matter is limited to you and you alone.”

“Yes, it has everything to do with our bond, and yes, it is
unusual. In fact,” K’llan began, refraining from reaching out for Serros, “within
Vosaia culture, it is a bond
only
shared by Life–Mates, not platonic
friends or relatives.”

“I… see.” Avara answered, brows knitting in concentration as
she considered K’llan’s words, still refusing to shift her eyes away from the
Vosaia despite the declaration. Z’arr was struck by the subtle meaning of that
act, and suspicion was confirmed a moment later as Avara continued. “I cannot say
that I’m entirely surprised, especially since your… regard, is not one sided.”

Both pleased and frustrated, K’llan exclaimed, “Then do you
see the additional danger?”

“Not exactly. You also told me that Feeding is not
necessarily romantic or sexual in nature.” At Avara’s hesitation, K’llan was
struck by the fleeting thought that Serros was concerned about offending in
some way with her next sentence, yet in the end, pushed forward anyway. “Also,
I have been… casually… sexually intimate with Vosaia before, and there was
certainly no Feeding involved.”

For just an instant, K’llan felt a ripple of almost primal
territorialism at Avara’s announcement, with the lack of a singular pronoun particularly
inflammatory. It was a response that was driven by pulsing hunger, yet with an
iron exertion of resolve, she faced and then dispersed the feeling. As Humans
measure age, Avara was in fact, comparatively older. Thus in some ways, including
apparently having had alien lovers, more experienced than K’llan, despite the
two–centuries of life the Vosaia held above the Captain.

And more, given not only Avara’s undeniable physical draw,
as she’d thought before when first catching sight of the Captain walking
towards her in the Sonata on Sigil, the beauty and potency of the woman’s soul
would surely draw the interest of any unattached Vosaia within her orbit.    

K’llan cut her chin in both acceptance and also negation of
the importance of Avara’s disclosure. Trying to find the right words to produce
understanding, Z’arr proclaimed “Avara, I am saying that
because of our bond
,
my control may very well be less than it would be with another person.”

“I would think you would actually have more self–possession
because I’m not just anyone. I don’t know, not just some random stranger?”

Striving to retain the steady calm that was her more customary
state, K’llan answered “Yes and no. Because you are not just ‘anyone,’ because
I do care, the desire to go deeper will be increased. And I am also not sure
what Feeding combined with our link will mean, even in the larger sense.”

“K’llan, isn’t all of this a little academic right now?”
Serros queried, gesturing at their surroundings to encompass the realities
behind their entire on–planet situation. “Let’s be honest; we’re talking about
your life here.”

Giving in to a little impatience of her own, Z’arr responded
“Well, do you
really
think it’s an academic question? Would Lieutenant
Commander Adeline agree?”

K’llan could see the flush of heat sweep across Avara’s
features, feel the emotional spiral through her
nya
. Even more, she
could clearly read that Serros understood in that moment
how
she’d known
about the romantic turn in Avara’s relationship with Diana Adeline.

K’llan found herself fighting the urge to squirm in her seat
at the exchange and the position she found herself being placed in. One that,
given the nature of her connection with Avara, she would
never
have had
to endure if Serros had been born Vosaia rather than Human.

“K’llan, that is… neither here nor there, and any questions regarding
feelings for one another are for another time, another place. We are not going
to be… sexually intimate.”

Looking at the woman before her, so filled with persuasive
if somewhat naïve surety, K’llan couldn’t help but think to herself,
If only
it was that simple.

“K’llan?” The speaking of her name was question and demand
married to one.

Once more feeling the gnaw of insistent hunger crawl through
her body like scrambling mice trapped within a water–filled hole,  K’llan gave
the only real answer circumstance would allow. “Very well, Avara.”

Shifting her seated position closer, she took a final moment
to breathe. K’llan allowed a sliver of the tight control she’d been exerting
since planet–fall and in some ways, since their encounter in the Adrenix
factory almost half a year ago, slip away.

She felt a swift spike of excitement flash through her frame
and she studied Serros’s features, raven dark crown to elegant brow and long,
soot colored lashes framing sapphire pools, and finally, sweetly curved lips.

Reaching forward, K’llan laced her slender fingers with
Avara’s, and finding refuge in the Shield’s responsive grip, she slowly leaned
over to the seated Human. As the distance between their faces collapsed, the
Vosaia caught a brief thrill of anxiety and nervous expectation, then felt
Avara deliberately lower Arca SP enhanced mental shields in invitation. Progressing
with a sense of infinite care, as if afraid to break the fragility of the space
between one breath and the next, K’llan gently brushed Avara’s lips with her
own, contact feather light.

Almost immediately, she felt a trickle of the Shield’s potent
soul energy, her
nya
, shiver to and through her mouth and could feel her
own body’s insistent reaction. Answering the call, K’llan’s tongue traveled the
same path as her lips had, then sought further, moving to and then with Avara’s
mouth as she fell deeply into the kiss.

The shot of unadulterated energy and euphoria cracked
through her body with more force than any bullet slicing through flesh. The
charge was lightning captured, dynamism made manifest.  Pure life surged from
Avara to K’llan, an explosion of primal force that wiped away restraint,
resistance, and barrier like a child’s paper toys caught and shredded by a
hurricane.

With a sense of unquenchable want, the Vosaia locked her questing
mouth to Avara’s, hunger both fed and magnified by the Human’s offering, by her
answering lips and tongue.

Soon there was no thought, no sense of time or space, no possibility
of sight or sound, no scent, touch, or taste outside of the person with her now,
joined in soul and flesh. With realization, something extraordinary occurred. Accompanied
by a sense of finality likened to a door smashed to splinter and dust, a flood–fall
of images, thoughts, sensations, and feelings coursed from Serros to Z’arr,
capturing mind and heart.

The glint of gold turned to blue,
the sticky spray of

wind, the taste of salt and an
expanse so endless as

to swallow time itself…

Folding into,

Green upon verdant green, the
sound of chattering,

red–crested birds and howling cattail–colored

primates…

Sound and light shifting and a,

Human man, ink–black hair and
merry gray–blue

eyes crouching over a floor–sized
palette, gently

holding a slight hand a fourth of
the size of his own.

He using clever fingers to guide
the tracing of

pattern, the swirl of cool pigment
blending with the

scent of linseed oil…

Then shock and childhood lost with,

The scudding sound of cannon ballista
firing into

hearth and home, smoke filled alleyways
and the

desperate cry of a girl made indistinguishable
from

the whimper of a cream–furred retriever
lying in a

pool of blood…

And shadow drinking shadow,

A young, dusk–covered face of a skinny,
teenaged

Marcus Perez sobbing over the
body of a rotund

woman with starry–night braids,
floral–patterned

dress a tattered flag...

To transformation symbolized by,

The smell of wood oil and upturned
earth, the grief

raked face of a tall woman with
burnished–red brown

hair and crystalline blue eyes
next to a younger

version with darker hair and a
sage hued gaze. The

crick–creak of coffins going to
rest signifying the

sound of an oath sworn …
 

Then gentle sweetness and sorrow,

A brilliant, sun–filled green
park, nature captured in

a timeless clinch, and the scent
of sweet asylum

blossoms and a slight woman with
dark hair and

gilded eyes, whose kiss tasted of
lemon–drops and

goodbye…

Preceding the ringing clarion of
victory and release,

The smell of ion and a magnified
vision of a gold and

gray dreadnaught firing the
totality of her port

batteries, resultant shockwaves
coupled with knifing

pain yet countered by a sense of
fierce exultation and

the deliberate acceptance of
coming death speeding

close…

Faith and belief confronted as in
sharp relief,

The interior of a starship’s
Strategy Room and an

array of Human brass headed by a
sun–silk crowned

woman sporting Admiral’s pips,
with unmoved eyes,

demand flickering across her
beautiful features and

the heady swell of finality,
trust and love betrayed…

Followed by submersion in undeterrable,
cold rage,    

Moisture consuming dry heat, ramble–stone

buildings sprawled under a tri–solar
sky. The tic–tic

shuttered hum of a struggling power
generator

murmuring as a pearl–skinned individual
with blood

red eyes and burgundy markings,
cries out in denial,

screaming for clemency, and the
surge of wrath that

signified refusal…

A shift to renewal and the
reignition of conviction,

the sense of coming home
encapsulated within,

The smell of recycled air coupled
with the sharp tang

of metal merging with petroleum,
and the slow reveal

of artificial light pooling over
the sleek panes of a

silver–steel and royal blue
kissed starship, set

against waiting stars…

On and on, the sense–ridden image–flow rushed forward,
demanding and devouring, granting and sustaining. Incredibly, K’llan knew that
she’d barely brushed the pool’s surface.

Soon, without deliberate decision, K’llan felt the current
shift, as she became the giver even as she was given to. The Vosaia’s
nya
intertwined
with the Human’s, the looping exchange of energy without end or barrier,
synchronous and complete.

Nothing K’llan Z’arr had ever experienced, nothing brushed
with the quill of imagination compared, or could even have hoped to capture this
reality.

Perhaps most astonishing, the ever increasing tempo of
exchange seemed ad infinitum, an endless escalation of spirit and physical
response. It was with that realized thought, that the first hint of danger
fractured the state of shared, vital bliss. A warning written in the subtle
undulation of flickering energy and heralded with the sound of physical
response.

Awareness brought by, yet outside of, K’llan’s fusion with
Avara slowly returned. With it, recognition that she was no longer sitting up
but instead was lying atop Avara’s body. Her hips were nested with Serros’s,
and the fingers of K’llan’s right hand were gripping smooth back skin with
bruising ardor, her other palm impressed into the body–heated dry gravel
underneath them. With a trickle of disquiet and embarrassment, K’llan become
conscious of the sticky signature of sexual release within the confines of her
borrowed Karukai trousers.

Though skin had not once touched flesh underneath their
apparently irrelevant garments, K’llan also knew through their actively
trilling link that the same was true for the Human she clasped so closely to.

Despite still humming desire, K’llan forced herself to
answer the subtle shift, the pull of withdrawal. With exquisite care, she
gently extricated her
nya
from the Human’s. And the everyday became
present once more.

Sight returned, K’llan looked into the shimmer–bright eyes
of the Human Shield Operative, watched the play of her curling lashes as lids
gently opened. More than anything, she wanted to blend her mouth with the other
woman’s once more, only a heart’s–breath away.