Related by Lora, Twilit Majz of Many Generations
 

Xexra stood silhouetted off in the distance. For the first time I noticed how she was stooped over, as though she had been carrying a great burden on her back for many years. “Creamy and delicious as warm chocolate pudding, cold as iced-over granite, implacable valkyrie in velvet,” whispered the back of my brain. “Never make the mistake of imagining this one is tractable in any way.”

“Worlds are built and destroyed by such creatures,” the front of my brain added.

“She is tolerating us for the moment, succoring us even,” said my limbic nodes, still quivering with the warmth of Xexra’s several simple kindnesses.

“Will it last?” my whole brain wondered.

“That depends on why she is doing what she is doing regarding us,” my limbic nodes warned. An icy, sharp edge of fear rimmed the feeling. I took that feeling very seriously.

“Our life might be in danger?” my hindbrain asked cautiously.

“Almost assuredly,” my forebrain counselled. “Turn on your life-or-death circuits, friend and we’ll live to tell this tale another day.”

I wondered if my impulsive rush into experience had taken me three blonde hairs too close to a sudden cliff’s edge. Where were Pon and Zygon when you needed two relatively omnipotent pains in the every which way but loose?

I realized I had no idea how to get back up to the cavern where they had left me. I could only hope Pon would remember me…and of course, he was almost assuredly why nothing untoward would happen to me – as long as I remained in his favor. Why in space and time had I run off without any way to contact my people back on Earth?

Before I could continue along this unpleasant line of thought, Xexra appeared suddenly before me. I startled, looked up into her huge, black eyes. 

“Your thoughts were far away, little one,” she said kindly. Her eyes belied no ill will of any kind. In fact, I felt like a child suddenly swept up into a mother’s warm, protective embrace. Nonetheless, prickles danced up and down my spine. The dichotomy between these two feelings left me feeling dislocated. Hesitantly, I replied, 

“I was just re-orienting after my experience with the Pool,” I said, as truthfully as I could manage. 

“Yes, your mind does seem filled with many things. Your body fairly cries out in the midst of a great clashing of many strong feelings,” she noted carefully.

She was an incredibly astute observer. I sighed and decided to lay my cards on the table, because I suck at dissimulation anyway. 

“I was just wondering how I managed to get myself into such a strange and dangerous situation.”

Xexra laughed a long throaty, sensual laugh. “Oh, you are in no danger here, little one.” But then she looked me straight in the eye, pierced me with her clarity. “I cannot promise you will not meet with deadly danger though. I know some of Pon’s plans. His own life hangs in the balance. If you help him, as he has assured us you intend, your life is also in jeopardy. I greatly wonder what would make an alien agree to risk her life for a race who can’t possibly mean anything to her.”

I would have laughed and told her that Pon had gotten it into his incredibly thick skull that I was in love with him, that I would follow him anywhere, except I had only been with him in the first place because he kidnapped me. I wanted to shout that he was a colossal ass, a self-important popinjay, a manipulator without conscience, except for two things. Xexra’s eyes were like knives – dead serious. She meant to know why the hell I was here in this mess with them…and that was the rub. I had not been kidnapped this time. I did come of my own free will.

Why the hell was I here? I figured it out as I explained it to Xexra.

“I am here because I am a dolt, a fool, an idealist, a dangerously curious adventurer, and I have obviously fallen in love with life at the frickin’ edge. I think that is probably why I am here, and yeah, I have been bowled over by Pon’s intensity, by his hopeless crusade. I guess somewhere in my blood I have the ambition for crusades. Maybe I was bored, too secure at one point in my life, and so now I take any opportunity that comes my way to shoot off in any direction that satisfies my inflated ideals, my over-developed sense of right and wrong. I could blame Pon, I could blame my parents, I could blame Zygon, but its probably all me. I guess it doesn’t matter to me what life form is suffering injustice. It is Life Itself that is suffering. If I am in the right place to help, I will. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” I finished, out of breath, my heart pounding from the effort of spurting the truth all over myself.

“Yes, it does, but at least you know you’re stupid. Self-knowledge is never a bad thing,” Xexra laughed. “I suppose you could use a hot meal and some sleep after all that self-inspection, especially since you found so little of merit to report. Deflation is hard work.”

I could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she was only half-serious. “Thanks,” I replied dryly. “I could use food and rest.”

“You’ll need both,” Xexra said darkly. “Pon and Zygon have returned. Their plans are laid. Tomorrow you three will set out. I will probably never see any of you again. I am sorry. It isn’t everyday one meets a stupid alien of interest.”

I had to laugh out loud. 
 
 

to be continued...
 
 

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