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Post by Milo Ventimiglia on Mar 31, 2011 8:35:19 GMT -5
Having Xara explain more about herself, her life and in a way her context was hugely important to me. I sat next to her and listened, trying to understand while being genuinely interested. I knew deep inside that I would never quite be able to fathom how she was able to end the life of another. The obvious influence of her social upbringing made plenty of sense to me, but perhaps I would never be able to truly step right inside her mind because I had not experienced what she had. Was it me? Was I weak because I couldn’t do it? Couldn’t kill? Or was I just a self-righteous son of a bitch? Maybe it was a combination of both. Don’t be so hard on yourself, I thought, feeling a little anxious. I had had my own upbringing, my own morals. And perhaps understanding what my dad was about to do to those people when I was a child had scarred my mind a little, and everybody reacted to traumatising things differently. This was the person I had become, and I could do little to change that.
“No, Xara. It doesn’t make you a terrible person,” I said, looking into her eyes. I meant it. I may not ever truly understand what made her kill without regrets, but I didn’t ever think that it meant she was evil. I knew my father had killed before. I also knew his father had been a warrior. Mactíre had killed for honour and justice, or so his code as a knight of his people went. He had also been a Prince and that meant taking on a lot of responsibility for the safety of his people. I gently took Xara’s hand as I usually did when I was being serious or trying to connect to her. Not necessarily connect by a mental link, but in an emotional sense. I also moved my tail closer, hoping to intertwine it with hers. I even went one step further: I put the walls of my mind down, in case she wanted to link with me. I was sure that she would sense that my mind was open to hers, even if I didn’t deliberately probe at her mind. It probably showed in my facial expression; my eyes were less guarded, my features less intense and softer.
“I accept you for who you are. I just...I guess I was a little afraid. But it wasn’t just, well, the man’s death which um...well it was seeing Theresa, heavily pregnant, terrified and helpless, and being clawed up the way I was, and it bought back memories of that creature which injured you so badly last time. I think it was a mixture of everything. And I don’t claim to be all wise and understanding...there is so much about you and your culture that I don’t know, and that I want to learn.” I was speaking too fast, trying to make sure that she didn’t think I was blaming her or telling her that her culture was savage. “I like hearing about your world, your old life, but I never want to ask you. I want you to know that it’s not because I’m disinterested, intolerant or don’t wanna learn. It’s because I wonder if it’s a really sore topic with you, and I’m either being a wuss or just being considerate by stepping around the topics carefully. Is that...is that okay?”
Suddenly, I didn’t feel like talking so much. I had spoken more in the past ten minutes than I had for a little while, and the emotional aspect of it was giving me a head spin. “Can we just have a nice night in?” I asked Xara. “Look; we’ve had a really rough few days. I’m not trying to...like, avoid the conversation really. I’m happy to talk if you want to. But I think maybe we should save it for tomorrow, just you know, do what we haven’t done in a while. Chill out together. Have alone time, just the two of us. No one else. Not even...not even baby.”
To be honest, the baby had definitely already become a ‘third person’, despite being unborn. Every time I wanted to buy something or look at plans for moving into the new house we had put a loan on, there were monetary considerations and me wondering worriedly whether such-and-such was baby proof or not. I was probably driving Xara mad, and I knew that Don had been even worse when Theresa had announced her pregnancy. We just wanted to do things right, my brother and I, as clueless about babies as we were.
“So tonight, it’s just for us. No thinking about the baby, or the house, or money or anything like that. Or even what happened the other night. I mean, I guess you shouldn’t drink alcohol, there’s still that consideration...but I won’t either. We just won’t have alcohol. But we’ve got all kinds of food that you bought home. I thought I spotted choc-mint ice-cream, am I right? And a whole packet of chocolate beans?” I didn’t want to ask whether she had been prompted to buy those because she knew I liked them or because she was craving them. “I also saw Tim Horton’s hot chocolate, wanna turn on the hot drinks machine?” Xara knew just how fussy I was with processed foods of any kind, and she certainly knew what brands to buy. The ice-cream was about as natural as you could get.
We made the hot chocolate, made a ridiculously huge bowl of ice-cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate pieces and some fruit...oh and wafers and things, then grabbed some other snacks and sat down in front of a movie. It was just a harmless type of film. Disney was still coming out with movies, and thankfully there had been a trend going back to 2D animation rather than 3D and those strange ones which seemed to surround the entire room in 3D parts of the film. I did like those movies; they made you feel as though you were in the film, and operated a lot like virtual reality, only less dangerous. Still, it was unnerving to have a helicopter flying right above your head in your own lounge room, or feel the walls shake when a 3D building which seemed to be right nearby...exploded. Being ‘in the film’ was a recent development which health authorities and other groups had opposed nearly as much as they had virtual reality. But there was just this quality to 2D film that never lost its magic. You also didn’t have to turn around to see parts of the film, because a lot of the ‘in the movie’ film versions put you well...in the film, meaning it was behind, above, below and in all directions rather than on a television screen.
Tonight’s movie was a new one about a cute family of pelicans. One pelican had to embark on a mission to find some princess pelican or other. Nope, storylines didn’t change much, even if the format, the setting or the species of the character did. “This is great,” I said as the movie came to a happy end. “Maybe happy endings do exist. I mean, I’m pretty happy.” I could be a real sap when I was half asleep, filled up with ice-cream and chocolate, and close to an equally content Xara. “We’re really lucky.”
Most of my anxious or confused thoughts had dissipated, but if I wasn’t careful, one would float to the surface, and I had to compartmentalise quickly in order to push my mind away from all my worries. Otherwise, I was feeling pretty content right about now. And we continued to feel very content as we made our way upstairs to our room, feeling almost light headed and giddy despite not drinking any alcohol. It was a huge change in behaviour for me from the past few days, but I had a tendency to have highs and lows like that at times, even if I didn’t always express them as dramatically as some other people. I could go from feeling very low to feeling great within mere seconds if something triggered it.
We slipped into bed after changing and brushing our teeth. I was relieved to sink down into the pillows, but I didn’t say anything. My tired sigh probably said it all; I was still pretty weak and really, sugar upon sugar wasn’t the best way to eat when I was like this. I didn’t care. I felt better emotionally and that was all that mattered right now. I turned a lamp off and smiled at my girlfriend. “I felt so lonely, sleeping alone all those nights,” I confessed. It had given me too much time to think. I lifted a hand to brush some hair from her face, knowing that I was probably behaving in such a relaxed manner that it might alarm her and make her think that I was faking it. In a way, I guess I was, though certainly not all of it. Remember I mentioned those highs? By morning, I would probably be right back to normal again, unfortunately, and potentially even lower as the day’s worries slammed into me. When a woman tells you that men don’t think about anything other than food or whatever in the morning, they’re wrong. It’s a myth. Maybe most men do, but not me. I’m sometimes clueless about things, but I sure know how to worry, especially with a baby on the way and a new house to move into as soon as possible. Not to mention the shit that had just happened to us, only offset by the untimely but wonderful arrival of Lily.
Turning the lamp off, I settled down and closed my eyes. Funny how I was so tired and yet I couldn’t bloody fall asleep. I tried to lie still for fear of distracting Xara, who was surely tired herself, but I fidgeted and tossed and turned anyway. It took a couple of hours for me to drift off. Something about the way the light shone in through the window bothered me, and even when I did drift off, I kept waking up and drowsily noting the strange light. It seemed to go on like this for hours, even though it could only have been thirty minutes or less. I couldn’t really pin point what I didn’t like. It was just one of those waking dreams which I had grown accustomed to whilst recovering, and the sweat all over my forehead proved that point. I tended to grow feverish at night because my body was emitting heat produced by the speedy healing. The fevers had grown far fewer and less severe as I was almost completely physically healed, but they were still annoying. Kind of nothing compared to the fevers we could get when we had absorbed too much energy. Dad had told me a story about Mactíre, once; he had been hit by lightning and accidentally absorbed most of it, and had spent several hours in a feverish state sending electricity, heat and light in all directions until he’d started a bush fire. It didn’t sound fun.
I guess I must have drifted off completely at some stage, otherwise I would have remembered (surely) being transported elsewhere. I’m still really surprised to this day that neither of us woke up, though I remember snippets of it through my dreams. More lights in the window. Screaming sounds. Lots of bushes, trees and odd scents, all swirled in with the usual surreal dream world my mind inhabited at night. Thing is, when I woke up, I definitely wasn’t in our bedroom. Nor was Xara, for that matter, because she was still lying next to me. I felt relaxed enough, though our bed had been traded for soft rushes and thick grass. Believing it to be another dream, I rose slowly and blinked, but I didn’t panic. Birds chirruped happily around us. Everything smelled...strange, yet earthy. Well, we were outdoors, so that made sense. “Uh...” I murmured, touching Xara’s shoulder. “I suppose I’m having a really lucid dream right now,” I added, though this just seemed far too real. I lucid dreamed enough to know that this must be something else. I didn’t move, almost afraid to. “...Xara?”
((OOC: Hmmm I could have gone totally overboard with this post if I was having them fly into a world that I’d made up – hehe I’m leaving the descriptions to you, because it’s your world, especially the intro description. Tim Horton’s - my attempt at adding something Canadian in, something you’d recommended to me. I saw their online shop, looks great! Might have to bring some of it home if I can find a store there. We have a similar thing here – Gloria Jeans and stuff sells a LOT of products))
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Post by tessa on Apr 2, 2011 3:02:11 GMT -5
Xara merely smiled at Max and accepted his comments willingly, wrapping her arms around his bicep, pressing her chest to it and laying her head on his shoulder, kissing the softness of his neck with dry, pale lips. She pulled away and stared into his eyes for a moment. She wrapped her tail in his and he even let down his mental guard and letting her, finally, link to him and instantly she felt as if everything had fallen back into place.
“I love you.” She whispered, squeezing his arm for another moment. “you do not need to worry about my past. I am not ashamed of it, anymore. Not that I know you would not be mad.” Xara explained, “and so I am going to try to explain more about my world...if you want to hear about it.” She said with a gentle grin, dreamy, lost in the protection and adoration shared between them. She placed her own hand on her stomach and her heart quickened. There was something in there...something that would bind her and Max together for as long as they remain alive. It was remarkable.
Xara was happy to agree with Max for a quiet night in. She was happy as long as they were together. She wrapped a blanket around her as Max brought the food, sipping her mug of hot chocolate. And of course she had bought ice cream! She liked it before she was pregnant and now she just couldn’t get enough of it. She enjoyed the hot chocolate but liked coffee better. Unfortunately she was told drinking coffee while pregnant was a bad thing, and so she wasn’t taking any chances. She ate a good amount of what was there, feeling the need to crunch, to chew, to fidget and move but with a purpose so Max didn’t think she was just moving for the sake of moving.
The movies themselves were interesting to her and she watched as the coloured images moved about. She knew by now that pelicans did not talk and that the images were not real. She was glad that this one did not surround her like some of the others did. The virtual reality technology had really put her on the edge and stressed her out. The idea that your mind thought things was there when they really were not terrified and disturbed her. Seeing an entire city inside the small space of their living room was unnerving, and after all of the stress she had been put through, Xara did not know how her personal mental health would fare with the 3D movie and virtual reality.
When the movie was over they went to bed, Xara slipping her shirt off and crawling into bed beside him. “I was lonely as well, when you were not here.” She agreed, snuggling down and curling herself around him. With her face buried into his chest, hiding her from the world outside leaving only the soft warmness of the blankets and Max’s constant breathing...
She dreamed of nothing that night. She was asleep within seconds, taking great comfort in being near the man she loved, linked to him in the mental and the physical. She liked sleeping without a shirt, especially now since she was pregnant. She liked feeling the cool air on her back, his warm breath and sleeping sighs...
She felt like she was floating, like she usually did when she slept. She yawned in the morning and rolled into Max’s chest, breathing in his scent. His voice stirred her to take in more scents that made her sit bolt upright.
She stood and without a word she ran her gaze around the territory with wild eyes. This wasn’t true...she had troubles breathing and gasped a few times to keep from blacking out. The sky was gray, and the clouds were a dark reddish colour. She smiled up at them and held her hands, palms facing outwards. She turned in a circle. The sand was just as she remembered it, soft and hot under her feet, shifting slightly, and glinting with a purple colour like gems on earth. She squatted and let it fall through her fingers. When it hit the rest of the sand the granules she had taken solidified into a rock. If she held on to the rock it would solidify more into a precious gem. She picked the small purple rock up and threw it into the vast desert that lay between them and her tribe. She smiled as the stone sat on the sand for a moment before being gobbled up by a huge feathered burrowing creature with on large eye, which was almost snake like would it not be for its size and the arm that grew from its spine that it used to pick up and grind rocks. It was creatures like these which kept the soil moist and liveable. She looked past the creature as it disappeared into the sand again. They were on a small oasis very close to her tribe’s camp, the small oasis consisted of a pool of white water as thick as paint and covered by grasses. Attached to the grasses Xara knew were eggs. Eggs of the creature she had just fed. She smiled down at Max and offered her hand to him, her eyes moist with emotion.
“Max we are... well, this is... this is my home.” She said as if she herself did not believe it. She knelt down beside the pool of water and dipper her hands in deep, bringing the water from the bottom out to the top. Like the sand the water pooled into a sphere, almost as if by magic, which she handed to Max after a short inspection to make sure it was all real. “Take some and put it on your exposed skin it will protect you from bugs.” She said, “if you do not you will get ill.” She made another sphere and the same for herself, the water gelling ever her skin, giving her a healthy glow in the sunlight. She made another sphere and popped it into her mouth, handing one to Max again. “We have to cross the desert by night fall. We cannot find shelter here and my tribe is only a little ways away from here. If we are caught under the moons we will get sick and I will die.” She wasn’t sure how Max would react to the light of the moon but Xara’s kind would get stroke from it and not many survived. She smiled regardless; giddy but entirely aware of the dangers Max faced here.
“Max we are really on my home world. I am...I am...” she sighed and couldn’t finish the sentence and instead threw herself at Max in a crushing embrace. Her tribe, her mother... her father! She could not wait to see them all! She could imagine the warm welcome, people singing in joy. She hugged him tightly. “This is not a dream but how is that possible?”
A bird with four wings and a toothed beak barked at them from above but Xara ignored it, looking up instead at the massive almost never ending knot of large purple trees, naturally hollow with light springy branches that meshed together at the top. Her tribe lived on the border of a small clearing in the center of this forest, making their homes and huts inside the spacious trees. Their leaves rustled in the wind gave a slight chiming noise, like wind chimes. The sound seemed to lift Xara, who closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as if smoking a very effective drug. Her pupils widened even as she took max’s hand and began running without hesitation towards the camp. She stopped dead as the scent of blood caught her nostrils.
She followed it, sniffing. She followed it until she reached the ‘death place’ and looked slowly upwards. All the death trees, where bodies were hung to dry and to be stripped by animals, were bare with one exception. One large tree stood in the center and on that tree hung the body of her tribes leader---former leader—her mother. Xara gazed up in shock. Not horror, not sadness. She felt almost nothing for the loss of her mother whose harsh words and quick hand struck her many times in the past and festered resentment in her only child for the woman who had given birth to her. Xara’s shock was bred by politics alone. This made her the new leader. No, wait...it didn’t, someone had to have taken her place by now. Who was next in line? Her aunt. Her aunt was a good woman, a good, quiet thoughtful leader. Xara shook her head.
“Mother.” She explained dryly to Max, “she was defeated. Killed...dethroned.” she quirked a smile. “she is gone forever...” Xara heard the rustling of feet and her ears twitched. She did not hide. She stood to face the small group of people who looked like her. Who did not recognize her. Who yelled and waved their weapons angrily, then looked for a moment, froze, paused; then those same people fell to their knees in realization and cried,
“Home!” They said, bringing their foreheads to the earth as if in prayer. Xara translated for Max, “Xara! Home! Finally home!”
((Hope this was clear =D its a bit lengthy))
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Post by Milo Ventimiglia on Apr 9, 2011 9:49:33 GMT -5
Wherever we were, my senses were utterly confused. I was half lying on sand and half on grass; that at least was comfortingly familiar. But the smells…man, they were different. I won’t say that they were unpleasant, but they were foreign to me. How do I explain in layman’s terms just how different to someone who has never perceived anything other than their own world’s smells, sights, sounds? I guess I’ll try my best, but I’m no poet… The air was dry. I leaned back in the sand and looked up at the sky, more than a little stunned at the meteorological impossibility of the strangely-coloured sky and reddish clouds. My mind tried to come up with a scientific reason, naturally. There was red dust in the sky, since red clouds could exist on Earth; the troposphere contained a constant amount of visible, dense particles which made it grey; light reflected off other particles, changing the colours. The possibilities were endless, yet the very sight of the sky was both confronting and awe-inspiring.
“I…” I began as Xara stood up. I could sense her happiness, and I was surprised how quickly I surmised that this was her world. Of course, I didn’t think we could actually be here physically. We were dreaming, surely. We had linked for the first time in a while, and I had slipped into her dream. I had seen her world through a link months ago, had watched her and her father hunt through this strange, wild and exotic world. Its beauty had not passed me by, although I suddenly felt as though everything was more physical than it had been before. I glanced down at the warm sand, realising it was purple. “Cool,” I said, standing up and brushing myself off. The tiny sand particles fell easily from my clothes, less sticky than earth sand. Yet this observation defied all reason when Xara dropped some of it and, as if it had a life of its own, it drew itself together into a clump and melted into a loose rock which almost resembled a rough gem. I wondered if it had magnetic properties or some chemical properties which were activated upon the touch of Xara’s hand, but weren’t gems only formed by the extreme heat of the inner earth? It looked more like a piece of granite than a gemstone right now, but Xara later explained just what the sand could do. This was, for someone like me who had studied physics in-depth in university as a minor to meteorology, an absolutely crazy place with unimaginable possibilities.
I shook more sand from my tail fur and ruffled it out of my hair, which fell straight around my head. It usually had a bit of a kink to it due to the humidity back home in Ontario, but it felt much drier here. My mouth opened again as I prepared to ask a question, but too many things distracted me. First, I noticed that the purplish sand went on forever in three directions, expanding in every direction as far as my eye could see. It was briefly broken up by the grass and a weirdly coloured (and odd-smelling) pond, but it otherwise looked bare. Other than the huge forest behind us. Second, something really surreal erupted out of the sand, showering its surrounds with sand and clumpier stuff that might have been wet soil. “What…the bloody…shit…is that?!” I gasped, grinning. I was so sure that we were in a linked dream that I didn’t think to consider the danger we might be in.
“I…I guessed it was,” I replied, nodding my head once in agreement. “It’s a lot different to the place I remember from our last link, but I see similarities. The sky, for example. I remember that, vaguely, though whenever I looked up at it last time, it was blurred, a bit. I felt kind of like I was in a bubble of your world rather than … well this is so much more real.” If this was a dream, it was the most vivid lucid dream I had ever had. I knelt down beside Xara, glancing at the pond she was interested in. “It smells like…kind of like quartz crystals,” I remarked. “I know, that sounds weird, but they do have a strong scent. To me.” I didn’t touch the water, but watched Xara instead. My eyes widened as the water seemed to obey her will. That shouldn’t have seemed odd considering there were mages who could do that back home, and I could do that with fire, electricity and light, but didn’t know Xara had that ability. Besides, she wanted me to do it, too. “So…so it does it itself? I mean, I can’t manipulate water, except to heat it up or turn it into ice by taking the heat out. It’s not direct. Yeah I’ll shut up now.” I took the ball from her a little clumsily, expecting it to break and spill. It didn’t, to my relief. I felt its coolness against my palms. Sunlight glinted off it, and I looked up. There were two suns, and their collective heat was barely equal to the sun on earth. Still, I allowed myself to absorb its energy. Who knew when I would need it, although it took time to absorb enough energy from the sun to be of use, because my body needed a lot more energy to function than a plant.
Xara’s voice made me glance over at her, my eyebrow quirked in question. “Uh…like those old sunscreen tubes?” I asked. She probably thought I was ignorant. She must be enjoying this, I thought. Here I am, clueless about her customs when she was the same on my world. I didn’t begrudge her that. I had been politely amused when she misunderstood things like cutlery and coffee, and I had been as helpful as possible. Now the tables were turned, and I found myself enjoying the opportunity to learn something new, even if I felt a bit stupid. I watched Xara do it first. I followed her example, cautiously using my hands to spread the water over my exposed skin. It cooled me down instantly, and I felt the sun’s energy grow weaker. So much for absorbing energy any quicker. I swallowed the offered sphere, noting that it tasted like water with a hint of lime in it. Not unlike some water back home.
“So, we’re linked, right?” I asked, no longer so sure what was going on. “This must be a link-dream. This is cool, how come we’ve never done this before, well, not since that time before when we were starting to date, and I saw your dad and you hunting?” Xara was quick to dispel my theory. I nodded, but my stunned face probably revealed my surprise. “And…how…how?” I said weakly, hugging her back. “But this is a good thing, right?” For Xara. This was a good thing for Xara. But for me? I was suddenly in her position. Stranded on a world so unlike my own, so culturally foreign; even earth physics made no apparent sense here. I didn’t immediately sink into a melodramatic mood. It still didn’t feel completely ‘real’, and I was content to just follow her until we sorted something out. Surely…surely…I wasn’t stuck here. I smiled encouragingly to myself, fooling myself into a comfortable mindset while just a little underneath, I felt kind of sick.
Something called demandingly nearby, a strange barking, chuffing sound. I looked over Xara’s shoulder then up in the branches of the tree we were standing near, spotting brightly-coloured feathers and a long, lethal-looking beak. It opened its mouth, revealing numerous serrated teeth. Two beady eyes peered out from brilliant bluish purple plumage, and despite the four wings, it reminded me a lot of an ancient bird. Each wing was tipped with claws. It called again, and I realised that its language was completely unfamiliar to me even though I could generally understand animals. However, unfamiliar or not, after a few barks, I realised that it was possibly telling us that it didn’t like the fact we were so close to it. “Something doesn’t smell right,” I remarked as Xara pulled me through the musical forest. I noted, with some alarm, that the coppery smell must be blood.
Nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. It was a dead body. My head tilted slightly, and I wanted to look away, but something about the horror of it forced my eyes to stare. I briefly tore my gaze away to look at Xara, shocked at her tone. After what had happened in the forest behind my parents’ place, this was just too much to take in too fast. Her culture was clearly so different to my own, and I realised that I was already condemning it. I couldn’t help myself; I was judgemental about my own culture’s bloody history and violent, war-like tendencies, but everything in my world was so sanitised, packaged, a constricting mass of intertwining ideologies which made atrocities seem natural and acceptable. Oh yes. We were no different. But I had grown up in a world where justice was carried out privately and dead meat was packaged neatly on supermarket shelves. I did not partake in or necessarily believe the lies of the culture I had ultimately been bought up in, but this was definitely a lot for me to take. I was not used to death being so in my face. I was silent as I stared back up at the woman. Her tail, so like Xara’s, hung limply, the fur matted with chunks missing. Her skin was pale and mottled, her eyes glazed over in death. The body swung around a few times, and I noted a couple of very, very large worms digging into her abdomen. I nearly lost the contents of my stomach. I probably would have if my body hadn’t already transformed it all into pure energy, though I did nearly retch. She looked like Xara…
I never got a chance to reply, to cover my sudden revulsion. I was so caught up in the chilling moment that for all that I had good hearing and an excellent sense of smell and energy, I missed the fact we were being approached. A group of people – Xara’s people – had arrived. I tilted my head slightly, then looked at Xara. The smell of the dead body nearly overwhelmed me, but I forced myself not to breathe the stench in. The villagers or whoever they were seemed more interested in Xara than in me for now, though slowly but surely, their eyes began to move towards me. I was suddenly conscious of how different I was. My clothes must be alien to them. My tail was much longer and had shorter fur, and I had human ears, not cat-like ears. I shifted about uncomfortably, unsure how to be polite without offending them somehow. What if I accidentally fucked up by trying to greet them? I didn’t want to be rude. So I kept my mouth shut and waited for Xara to talk. After all, these were her people. This was her home.
((OOC: Left it there, wasn’t sure what else to post! Had fun with this one though))
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Post by tessa on Apr 9, 2011 14:14:23 GMT -5
Xara’s tribe was not unlike ancient tribes on Earth, except for the fact that on her world her tribe was the most modern out of the lot of them. There were Xara’s people who were ordered to call themselves the ‘Fighters’ under the recently deceased tribe leader, Xara’s mother Tix’era. Other tribes like hers lived in the great forest and near the oceans and seas, which Xara’s tribe had yet to discover along with the domestication of the feathered flying beast she had encountered earlier with Max. There was another race of her dominant species known by Xara’s tribe simply as ‘enemy’, because their tribes had fought over land rights for as long as any of the long lived creatures could remember. These people had longer tails with shorter fur, built for desert life, and huge ears on top of their heads that dealt with the heat. There were other smaller tribes they had encountered but those tribes were small, weak and lived far enough away not to be a concern to a tribe such as the ‘Fighters’ and the ‘Enemy’. Although Xara would find out soon, that the new leader of her tribe had ordered proper names be restored to both tribes; the ‘Tz’exu’ and the ‘Vut’ea’.
The small patrol was equipped for intruding Vut’ea forces. Their sharp hearing and sense of smell (for which they were chosen to take this position in the tribe) had alerted them to Xara’s voice. She was speaking another language, so they did not know it was her to begin with. Xara gave Max a gentle look and linked to him, catching the image of her mother’s dead swaying corpse gazing down at them in the corner of her eye, and then turned to walk towards the patrol.
“Stand, please, stand.” She said, in her own language which sounded almost like Italian with a peppering of German. The patrol stood. “Who is the tribe leader now?” she asked, and almost immediately one of the men raised his thumb to his forehead in salute.
“It is Dixura.” He said, “Your father’s sister.” “Has she done well?” “Princess, not better than y---” Xara made a sharp growling noise that shocked the man and he winced away from her as if Xara were about to strike him, or as if her growl already had. “That was not my question, Nie’ako. Has. She. Done. Well? Is there famine, death…war? What?” the woman stood so she was a head taller than the man who was mindful about his own stance. He was young and Xara remembered playing with him when he was a baby. Had that much time passed? The man did not answer, or Xara hadn’t given him time to. “Where is your patrol leader, Nie’ako?”
As if she were summoned, a black furred woman appeared. Xara’s eyes narrowed as the woman approached, trying to remember…
“Xara!” the woman took a knee off to the side of her patrol, then stood and walked up to the blank faced ex-leader-to-be. “Dixura is doing well. She is nothing like Tix’era.” The black haired woman’s eyes sparkled in the sunlight. “I think you would approve of her decisions.” Xara gave a curt nod, her eyes sparkling as well. Both women remembered, but they were both holding higher status’s in the tribe and followed a strict code of professionalism. What pleased and relieved Xara most was how her tribe members recognized her still as a leader; a few people disagreed of her policies on tribe leading and liked Tix’era’s bloodlust enough to go as far as disrespecting Xara in front of large groups, undermining her authority. If that was the case, Xara would have to act and make examples of them. If she did not kill them, which she never did, they would only go on to say that it proved their point; she was weak and not fit to rule. She could never win with those people…or her mother.
“Who is that?” one of the older men gave Max an incriminating look. “Is he a prisoner?”
Xara turned away from her old friend and towards the man who was pointing at Max. “no.” she said, walking to her mate and taking his hand in his. “This is Max; he is my mate. You are to show him respect and kindness, am I understood?”
A mate? A mate? She had a new mate? The lower ranking people in the patrol looked sceptical but a sharp look from the patrol leader made them stop. Xara noticed a different tone in the way the people in her tribe treated one another. It was more relaxed…not so regimented, but still practical. It was…comfortable.
She spoke to Max in English, “They are pleased but confused. Your scent confuses them. Do not worry they will not harm you.” She smiled gently and followed behind the patrol, linked to Max, and only Max, for the entire time.
“I am sorry.” She said through the link as she elegantly deflected questions about her whereabouts from the patrol members. “My mother’s body….disturbed you. But it is the most honourable way to be put to rest on my planet. I am at least glad for that. She was my mother, technically. But it means something huge has changed in my tribe. I want you to be prepared to run...okay? I do not mean to scare you. It will be fine, but…be prepared. Also, do not link to anyone else or let anyone else link to you.”
Her own heart hammered at her ribcage and she managed the hour long walk without feeling much panic until they got closer to the entrance to the main camp. She had forgotten how huge everything was on her world. On earth it would be said that her people lived in an ‘old growth’ forest. These trees were billions of years old. Their purple trunks gave off a scent much like cherry blossoms that soothed her mind for a moment, and the sunlight gave off a brilliant dark orange glow that splayed splotches of light and darkness all around them. She looked down at the leaves under her feet and saw one that looked like the symbol of love on Max’s planet, the heart. She felt bad that he had to suffer through this, and picking the heart shaped crystal leaf up from the ground and handing it to him, smiling softly, made at least her feel better. She passed on her feelings of love and promise to him that it would be okay, that she understood. She knew he must be missing his family…she missed his family.
The entrance grew closer. The trunks of the trees had been etched with symbols she had seen before but was not familiar with. Written language was for spiritual leaders only, but perhaps Dixura had ordered every tribe member learn it? She would ask her aunt later. They passed the threshold and the patrol quieted, the black haired woman stepped briskly into the tribe center, leaving the patrol behind. She announced their presence, and called out for the leader, Dixura who Xara heard give an excited order to find Xara’s father at once and bring him. Xara squeezed Max’s hand tighter.
They entered the camp and the black haired woman stood at the front of a crowd of people, like a guard as the patrol in front of them peeled off into both directions. Xara’s face flushed at the sight… all of these people. Her friends and relatives all surrounding her, looking at her with a sense of awe and disbelief, giving Max a distrusting look as if to warn him off of doing Xara any wrong, which Xara inwardly laughed at. If they only knew Max…if they could have been there all of the times he had saved her they would not be so sceptical. She wrapped her tail in his and walked, forced herself to walk, painstakingly keeping herself from running, wishing she could get there faster…
She stopped in front of the raised platform, a mound of dirt that had been placed there millennia ago. On top of it stood a proud and smiling woman with winter white hair and a creamy white tail, spattered in red stains. She had scars all over her body, but she did not boast them like her mother. The woman’s blue eyes were uncommon for her people and made her look serene and wise. Xara clenched her fist and brought her thumb to her forehead, bowing.
“Dixura I, Xara, and my mate Max Macrurach, accept and respect your authority. You are empress; you lead, and we obey.”
Dixura smiled and without hesitation, dropped down into a kneeling position in front of Xara to kiss the top of her head, then Max’s. “you are received and accepted.” She said this loud enough for everyone to hear. It was a short, sweet ceremony and people cheered and banged their weapons on the ground. It did not need to be said or ordered; a feast was to be prepared. Hunting parties congealed and foragers went out for supplies. Children and the elderly came in throngs to greet her and Max, then went to decoration.
Even Xara was overwhelmed. How…easy she was accepted.
“You smell different.” Dixura said under her breath. “Where have you been?”
Xara shook her head. “Later.” Dixura hesitated, wanting to know now, but…nodded stiffly. The messenger came back, panting and bowed to Dixura.
“He is in meditation.”
“Did you stir him?”
“He will be along very shortly.”
Dixura smiled, “He will be here very soon Xara he has missed you painfully. Oh yes, and Max… welcome.” She added, giving the handsome man a shameless, probing glance. “She chose a handsome one…even if you are a little deformed.”
“Aunty!” Xara huffed, crossing her arms. “Be nice!”
Dixura chuckled, “I am being nice. I’m allowed to pick on you.” Xara hugged her aunt warmly, and the woman hugged her just as warmly back. “I missed you…”
Xara, of course, translated all of this to Max. She kept in constant contact with him. She asked him, through the link, what he thought of the camp? They were in a huge, bare area. Above them light filtered through the woven branches to shine on the hanging fresh meat behind them, the games the little ones played under the elder’s watchful eyes. The elders looked no older than fifty years, but they had been around longer than generations of humans had been alive; centuries upon centuries. They knotted in groups and sang while some played tube-like instruments with reed mouthpieces which they blew into and swung around at the same time to get different pitches. People argued, children chased one another and husbands got in trouble from the wives for making a crude joke here or there. The houses were soon lit with small glowing orbs that were water mixed with a flammable liquid and set aflame from the inside to create a lamp. Pelts and furs and clothes hung for trade. Xara sensed him first. Her ears perked and she left Max’s side for the first time since they left the clearing. Her father appeared, his long auburn hair, more brown than red, fell just above the small of his back but was pulled into a tail to keep from getting in the way of hunting or fighting. His green eyes mirrored Xara’s, both in colour and emotion. Her father stopped dead when he saw her and his face twisted into a sob of relief. Xara’s eyes watered as she ran into her father’s arms, and the two fell to the purple earth, cuddling each other, gasping, taking eachothers scents greedily.
Dixura gave Max another look, a foxy grin, and a sly wink. She already knew Xara was pregnant…she sensed it the moment they touched. The proud aunt turned back to watch the show; and her brother’s reaction to his only grandchild was going to be fantastic fun!
“Xara!” the man managed to say, “Xara…”
Xara closed her eyes and buried them into her father’s bare chest, feeling his beating heart against her eyes. “Father…I’m sorry! I did not mean to leave it was…”
“I know what it was, I know sweetheart. Don’t worry, I know.” He purred, running his hand through her hair like he did when she was little and having bad dreams. She smiled and pulled away, sniffing.
“Well then you must know,” she said, pulling herself and her father to their feet and walking over to Max. She separated from her father, who gave Max a bewildered and calculating, challenging look. “This is my mate; Max.” She said, taking Max’s hand again, then placed her fathers hand over her stomach. The mans green eyes widened. “I am pregnant.” She said (still translating for Max).
“Pregnant?” her father squeaked. Dixura sniggered. He gave Max a venomous look.
Who was this boy to take advantage of her daughter like that---in her greatest time of vulnerability? Did he give the man permission to even look her daughter’s way, let alone touch her? Xara’s father growled at Max.
“Explain yourself, boy. Who gave you the permission to do this to my daughter?”
“Dad!” Xara gasped, horrified. Dixura’s giggling wasn’t helping either.
Her father crossed his arms over his chest and walked up to the foreign smelling man. “Well? Speak damn you!” he barked angrily.
‘He’s just playing with you,’ Xara instructed, ‘He knows I love you so he won’t hurt you. It is a test…he is being a…dickhead.’ She grumped through her private link to Max.
So much for a smooth welcoming.
(( OOC: Okay… its long. I hope it was okay though! I assumed Max would follow her, and that he would let her hold his hand and that stuff. Also, you can assume he knows what they are saying because his link to Xara translates for him. She will link to Dixura and her father so he can speak to them. Hope that works ))
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Post by Milo Ventimiglia on Apr 14, 2011 10:06:38 GMT -5
Linked to Xara, I could hopefully gain a better understanding of what was going on here. Of course, being confronted by a completely different culture speaking a language I didn’t have a clue about was enough to make me feel extremely … well, a little unwelcome, maybe, which was to be expected because they didn’t know me and I looked a bit different. I glanced at their tails, then down at mine, which swayed gently behind me. My fur grew longer in the winter time, but it would never match Xara’s. Besides, mine was probably twice as long. And their ears…mine were human, hidden beneath my messy hair. While Xara spoke to them, I found myself gazing curiously at the tops of their heads. The ears matched the colour of their hair. And their weapons…I didn’t want to make anyone mad, that was for sure.
I was staring.
I quickly averted my eyes as one man gave me a sharp look. In fact, I was getting a few sharp looks. They seemed mostly interested in Xara, however, and I was a little startled by the way the tone of their voices sounded. Were they afraid of my girlfriend? Admittedly, her growl made my fur bristle a little, an instinctive reaction. It was almost spinechilling. I remembered that I had just as nasty a growl.
An outsider, a mere observer, I stood back a little and fidgeted uncomfortably. A woman with dark fur and hair seemed to know Xara quite well. I caught her scent and memorised it automatically. They spoke in a language which was both pleasant to the ear and a little harsh. It was almost familiar, but so alien that I couldn’t really pick up on where the familiarities were exactly. Maybe it was the way they pronounced certain things; it almost sounded like German, yet it was also very different, more musical, like the way my mom spoke in her native Sicilian.
Once again, wary and curious eyes trailed towards me. I stood a little taller, feeling threatened. An older man with sandy-coloured hair and fur spoke, and I had the feeling it was about me. I frowned; I didn’t like the way he was speaking, and I looked to Xara for support. Why hadn’t she mentioned me first, instead of leaving me to stand here like an idiot for them to speculate about? Maybe it’s just her custom…after all, they haven’t seen her in…well, who knows how long… I was being childish, but I still felt a bit resentful, not to mention embarrassed by the sudden attention. My cheeks and ears reddened and my tail fur puffed up a bit.
Xara answered him, then spun on her heel and approached me. I studied her facial expression, trying to deduce what was going on, but she took my hand and offered words of reassurance which soothed my nerves at least a little bit. “Right…but if you could translate or let me know somehow what is being said, I would feel more comfortable,” I said, knowing I was being a bit disagreeable. I didn’t retract what I had just asked, however; I felt it was fair.
As we followed the welcome group or whoever they were, I tried not to look at the stiff body hanging from the tree. Flies buzzed around the head, especially the nostrils, eyes and ears. I shuddered. It’s fine, I said shortly. I wasn’t angry, I just didn’t want to think about it or say anything about it. This was too strange to me. It seemed barbaric and cruel. When I spoke again in her mind, my conveyed thoughts were softer, more understanding. I’ll keep my senses alert for any danger. Just make sure you alert me. I don’t know what to expect. Remember that I know very little about your customs. My hand tightened around hers, and I looked into her eyes meaningfully for a moment before looking ahead to gauge any new activity or change.
The scenery around us was breathtaking. I almost forgot the negative aspects of our situation for a moment as I gazed up at the gigantic trees, awed into silence. Each purple trunk was so thick, it would take a lot of people to fully circle it hand-in-hand. Dappled orange light danced across the shadows, contrasting beautifully with the purple trees. The scents here were overpowering, but not so strong that I couldn’t distinguish all the other smells. In some ways, the forest smelled like a forest back at home. But in other ways, it was totally alien, and I felt that I could probably spend hours here. It made me want to become a writer or an artist, to just sit next to the mossy trunks and convey my sensory experience into a brilliant piece of art. There were strange creatures, large insects and unidentifiable flowers everywhere. Nearby, sunlight glanced off a patch of pale yellow flowers which exploded in unison, sending puffs of dainty white spores into the air. They spun like little dancers, some sticking to the trees and others soaring further up into the canopy.
I was so distracted that it took me a few moments to realise that Xara was trying to give me something. I turned around, looking down at the heart-shaped leaf. I smiled, feeling a little sad and yet filled with love at the same time. It sounds stupid, but I’ve always been a bit emotional like that. I took the offered gift carefully and with meaning, letting it settle in the palm of my hand as I looked down at it. I let my feelings of gratitude and acceptance flow through the link, not needing to voice them to let her know how I felt.
After what seemed like a while, I noticed the mood changing among the group. Had we arrived somewhere? It seemed we had. We walked through some sort of entrance, which seemed to be guarded or blessed or something with symbols etched into the trunks. Once inside, I looked about with interest. We seemed to be inside some sort of…tree-hall. Maybe not a hall, but it was enclosed, sort of. I could see light streaming through the canopy, but I suspected that this place would keep the worst of the weather away. The sounds of children and music relaxed me, because they were things I recognised. The music and the language might be foreign, but we had both back on earth, and both were a sign of happiness and fun, of creativity and learning.
People quickly noticed our arrival. I followed Xara, closely watching and listening, my tail wrapped in hers. I hated the way I was being looked at, as though I were a commodity. It was probably harmless; I was an outsider, after all, and not all of the looks were mean. But was this how Xara had felt, coming to Earth and being noticed for her differences? We had been ostracised on Earth, forced into slavery, but people knew about our existence. We were nothing new, not really. Just another two strange species to add to the mix. So here, I suppose I felt vulnerable and ‘weird’ in comparison. Alien.
We stopped in front of a large mound of dirt, which somehow looked more regal than it was if only because of the person standing atop it. It was a white-furred lady with the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Maybe it was the contrast of the blue against the fur and hair. Her skin was marked heavily with scars, and I tried not to stare at them. Clearly, she had had a hard life, maybe the life of a warrior if I remembered Xara’s cultural explanations correctly. To be honest, there was still a hell of a lot more that I could learn about her world. She had only told me a few things. I never pressed her, assuming it was hard for her to talk about it.
I was relieved when Xara translated for me. Now, I could grasp what the hell was going on. So when the wintery woman knelt down to kiss our foreheads, I didn’t feel so weird about it and I just went with it. Of course, I had no idea what to say in greeting, so I smartly kept my mouth shut and just nodded and hoped that it wasn’t some cultural slight. Within moments, we were inundated by people. They chattered to us, and I tried to smile politely, to acknowledge their kindness in accepting me, but for all I knew, they were calling me names and smiling mockingly. A few of the children were gaping at my tail. One pointed at my head and giggled, and she was quickly reprimanded for her presumed rudeness. I didn’t take it too badly; kids are like that. They are sometimes brutally and innocently honest. Many a child is the cause of embarrassment for their parents in the shopping mall. I wondered if our child would be ‘observant’ enough to point out every rotund person or laugh at something else inappropriate.
Xara and the woman who I now knew to be her aunt, ‘Dixura’, drew me back into their conversation. I smiled at her as Xara translated, then reddened at her observation that I was ‘deformed’. “Well I, uh…I’m not deformed, I’m just different to you,” I said, a little defensive. “A different species.” I hoped I wasn’t overstepping my bounds here, but the woman didn’t seem perturbed by my comment. My voice trailed off as they hugged, and I once again felt an outsider. Nonetheless, I was happy for Xara. She had her family here, and people knew her and loved her. My family is light years away… I kept this thought private.
Small lights were beginning to appear around the place, reminding me a little of those Chinese lanterns except not as varied in colour. My eyesight wasn’t perfect, so I had to really look to make out the hanging furs and things further up near what might have been houses or something. When I looked lower, I saw more furs and clothes, confirming my thoughts. It was a pity that awesome eyesight didn’t come as a perk to my species, even though we had heightened hearing and sense of smell. We didn’t age, so generally poor eyesight was just a genetic thing. My aunt, who lived in Scotland still, wore glasses. My eyesight wasn’t perfect but I didn’t need glasses either. Luckily we had the night vision of a hunting animal and we could see colours a little more vividly than humans. Anyway, I digress, I’m guessing you could look that biology stuff about my species up in a book these days, since we’ve been more thoroughly studied. It’s amazing, I replied to Xara, though once again words weren’t that necessary; she could tell how awed I was through the link.
An important-looking individual suddenly appeared, detaching himself from the crowd. There was something familiar about his face, especially those eyes… Xara’s father, I thought with sudden realisation as she ran to him, almost looking for all the world like a little girl. It made me smile. Until Dixura gave me a creepy look, anyway. What the hell was with the look on her face? My smile became kind of nervous, and I fidgeted until she turned away. When she bought the man over, I knew instantly that he had an issue with me. Of course he did; he was Xara’s father. No matter how old she got, she would always be his little girl. I had actually seen the man before during the time I had seen her world through a link, but only from afar. She had told me of him and I had liked the sound of him. However, the caring parent demanded a lot of respect, and I found myself feeling a bit submissive. I also felt some stupid need to prove that I was good enough for her, so I turned to face him and tried to look respectful while holding my head high. His scent was powerful, like my parents’ scents. This man was an alpha, even if he wasn’t the leader of these people. My parents had very alpha-like personalities. I was neither an alpha or an omega, but somewhere in between. I knew how to take charge and had led a lot of teams in the field at work, but I didn’t try to take charge in many situations unless necessary.
Funny how, in this alien culture, the first thing her father did was grow protective and angry when Xara told him she was pregnant. With my baby, no less. There was no way that she meant anyone else. Pregnant by me, an alien, a man he did not know, and potentially a dropkick or someone dangerous. I swallowed hard and looked at my feet, then scratched the back of my neck, feeling my ears heat up. I forced myself to look up again, knowing that he wouldn’t respect me if I just backed off and stammered an excuse like most young guys would. I was nearly twenty-four, not some teenager. I took a deep breath and didn’t reply to Xara when she tried to make up for her father’s behaviour. It was hard not to back away, or growl and challenge him as he approached me and entered my personal space. “Translate for me?” I said out loud to Xara. I turned my head to her father. I had to be an adult about this. I remembered the father of a girlfriend I had dated for what, like a month, in highschool? He had chased me out of his garden when he had found us making out behind a tree. Man, he’d even threatened me with a shotgun. Fun times. “Sir,” I said, nodding once. “You must be Xara’s father. My name is Max; it is a great opportunity to finally meet you; she speaks of you all the time.” I offered him my hand. “It’s customary where I come from to shake hands as a form of respect and greeting, I hope it doesn’t offend you. And about the pregnancy…maybe we can sit down somewhere and explain? Xara and I have a lot to discuss with you and I don’t want you to think that I’m taking advantage of her. I love her very much and would give my life for her.” My tone was dead serious, and I held his eyes the entire time I spoke. I was sure he wouldn’t miss the honesty in my words, even if he had to rely on Xara’s translation to understand me. I just hoped that what I had hastily said made some sense and that I had passed his ‘test’.
((OOC: Hope it’s okay. It might be a bit scratchy, I was tired and wrote it over two nights.))
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Post by tessa on Apr 17, 2011 2:45:42 GMT -5
Rasha---
How could he? How could this long tailed foreigner claim his daughter? Rasha stifled a growl, his tail bristling and ears erect. He could feel the corners of his mouth pull his forehead into a scowl, hooding his coconut coloured eyes. Forget the boy for a moment; what about Xara? She disappears for who knows how long now and then suddenly appears with a baby? Rasha didn’t know what to think about that, settling his eyes on the belly of his own baby, which was now slightly swollen, he noticed regrettably. She smelled different too. If she wasn’t warm, he would have thought she was dead simply by her unnatural scent. Other people noticed too, and gave the new comers a wide berth. Soon the clearing had calmed and quieted, leaving the tribe leaders and the newcomer-with-no-ears for a moment, though curious young eyes peeked through their houses to gaze at the scene. Surely they all wondered what was going to happen; were they going to be killed? Rasha knew that they worried, and he worried too sometimes that another situation would occur where he would have to kill as a consequence or punishment. But that would not be today, and never with her daughter.
The majority of the people realized this and busied themselves, instead, with preparing the feast for the following day. It would take an entire day to prepare such a celebration. Rasha’s eyes and thoughts travelled from Xara to her new mate. The boy looked old enough to be acceptable, and though his words made no sense without his daughter’s translations, he could tell that Max was honest about his feelings towards Xara.
His daughter’s eyes begged him to accept her new mate. Those deep eyes loved the oddly coloured male with the long tail and awkward speech. He could see that the pair were comfortable, and knew that it did not matter what he thought, Xara would remain with Max even if Rasha said ‘no’. He could see it in the way Xara proudly held her belly, as if to say ‘he mated me, here is proof and I am proud’. Dixura was no help as her vibrant blue eyes pleaded with him as well. He looked at all of them in turn, trying to find a way out of it, trying to find excuses as the odd male spoke but—but the male spoke of love and sacrifice and, damn it, he was being honest too. How could he possibly say no to that? Besides, if he said no he would lose her again... he could not risk it, not even for some stupid fatherly insecurity.
Rasha sighed and rolled his neck on his shoulders, muscles exposed into the sunlight. He grinned and made sure to bear his teeth at Max, hoping the male would be intimidated by him. “I accept that.” He said to Max in a deep voice as Xara translated. Dixura smiled and jumped up and down in excitement. Rasha glared at her and hissed. “Are you not supposed to be running the tribe?”
Dixura pulled a face at her older brother. “Yes.” She whined, turning on her heel. She smiled at Max and patted him firmly on his rump. “I am pleased greet you...Max.” she said, kissing Xara fondly on her forehead before taking her leave. Rasha heard Xara say something to Max in that awful language and groaned inwardly.
“Thank you.” She said, snapping him out of his inward grimaces. He smiled and placed his hand on Xara’s shoulders, kissing her on the cheek. He knew he’d have to do the same for Max, but he’d felt the energy of Xara’s baby when he kissed her and in a sudden rush of affection, kissed Max squarely on the lips. He patted him on the shoulders.
“Come, we can speak in the hut.”
Xara—
She hardly knew what to say about that. She had already apologised for Dixura’s actions, fearing Max’s reaction to it. But her father’s reaction stunned her. She had been getting some unhappy feelings from him earlier about her pregnancy but his paternal instincts were stronger than she thought and her baby’s energy had prompted sudden warmth towards Max that had surprised her. She watched Max carefully. “I am so sorry,” she said to him, “that is perfectly normal on my world...here...” Xara blushed, and shrugged apologetically. What else was there to say, she wondered, taking his hand and squeezing it gently as she guided him to the tree where she grew up. Did they enjoyed embarrassing her like that or had they done all of that honestly? She wondered how she was going to explain everything about her world to Max, how many more awkward moments would there be and how he was dealing with everything.
It was a huge relief to Xara, how Max was the focus of all of her worries now that she was home. She had feared that she would be too engrossed with getting back to the familiar and might accidentally ignore him. But she made a good point not to, and stole glances his way here and there to gauge his emotions because she was using her link only for communication. Whatever he was going through inwardly he could share if he wanted to, not because SHE wanted him to. It was a great relief that her tribe accepted them so she had nothing major to be concerned about over top of Max’s well being, except for maybe the baby.
Since she was thinking about it... did she seem more pregnant than when she went to sleep? Xara’s brows furrowed nervously and her heart beat quickened. She would have to ask Max, obviously. But...later. Now she walked down a foot trodden path to a tree within the ring around the main camp which was covered in hand prints. She placed her hand over one as she walked by and smiled, practically euphoric. Everything smelled the same and she revelled in it with lit eyes, pushing through the flap of vines that served as a door.
“This is my home...” she said, taking a moment to let Max look around. She saw the shelves in the house that served as beds, but aside from that and a few trophy heads of animals which guarded the outside perimeter of the house, there were no decorations. The beds jutted out of the walls, winding up the huge tree like a spiral staircase. She pointed upwards, “we sleep on the lower half of the tree, and there are levels higher up for cooking and other things like birthing. Everything is separate... we do not invite people in to socialize in a room. We do that outside in the main camp. only people who live in the tree are allowed in the tree...” she smiled, held her palms outward and spun in a circle, flopping down on her father’s bed, made soft with animal skins, feathers and grass like plants. She looked up and smiled at Max, “it makes a home very private, yes?”
Her father was already sitting on a ‘chair’, or a smaller shelf, and was smiling at them both. He said something to Xara and she sat up, patting the spot beside her so Max would know to sit there. She translated.
“He says he would like to know where I have been.” Both father and daughter’s expressions faded into darkness. “he wants to know what has happened. Why my neck has a thing on it, why I smell...dead.” she sighed and her shoulders drooped. Her father said something gently in his native tongue, to which Xara replied quietly, smiling gently. “He told me not to be sad, and that he still loves me. But he is worried I may be sick, because of where I have been.” She stopped and thought to clarify, “as in he fears my link may have been...injured. Probably from when I was working in the hospital.” She gave Max a worried look. But it wasn’t serious, was it? Her father shook his head smiling. “He says the tribe elders will check for me tomorrow. But he doesn’t think it is likely anything is badly damaged.” She rubbed Max’s hand with her thumb, playing mediator was...boring. But she wasn’t about to complain; she was glad the two could even get to meet.
She took a moment to compose her thoughts, then took some time to tell her father a bit of what happened to her, holding barely anything back. She didn’t go into every grievance and injustice but she trusted her father so she was comfortable in telling him everything; even the worst of things, things she was afraid of saying any other time, that made her squirm. She translated to Max via link, but he knew most of what she was saying anyway. Some of her stories made her father angry and he paced, muttering darkly. Others made him teary eyed and brought him to his chair with his head in his hands, shaking it slowly. But wait! She told him, it is about to get much better. Then she went on to explain about Max and his family, how much she loved them and they loved her. These stories prompted some glances from her father towards Max; some gentle nods of approval, and even a friendly smile once or twice.
Xara smiled broadly, eyes toasty and red. “He says he is sorry for mistrusting you and that he is happy you are my mate, now that he knows more.” She said leaning her head on Max’s shoulder. She kissed his neck softly and then hugged him, pressing her enlarged belly into his. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly as her father rose to give them some time alone “I know you miss them. If there is a way to go back...” she would go if he wanted to, but... she was home now. Would she really want to... “I will---we will go back. I promise, Max.” But she felt guilty for making that promise, knowing it wasn’t entirely true. She would try to stay. She didn’t want to leave her father, of anyone.
Rasha walked back into the room after a moment’s absence, holding a blanket and draping it over the couple’s laps. Xara slid off her mate and smiled up at her father, “he wants to hear from you now. He also says there will be food soon, then sleep.” She snuggled her head into Max’s shoulder and yawned sleepily. “Is that okay?”
(( OOC: Hope it was okay, I just assumed he would take the seat next to her but I can modify that if you want Rasha approves...anyone who loves Xara is fine with him You can also say Xara translates for him to Rasha in your next post if you want to I'm okay with that. ))
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Post by Milo Ventimiglia on Apr 28, 2011 5:34:40 GMT -5
Relief swept over me as Xara’s father appeared to relax at my words. The man offered me a really big, hearty grin, showing his teeth the way my dad did when he was extremely amused or pleased with something, and I took it as a positive. I had no idea that he was intending to be threatening, because it was just a different custom to the one I had grown up with. To me, he looked happy. I was a little perturbed when Dixura’s hand snaked over to my backside. I jumped, then blushed, my heart racing and my mouth open. Was it normal for them to grope and slap each other like that?
“Uh, it’s fine…” I said when Xara apologised. “My family had some friends who had this daughter…she was a year or two older than me, but she always used to behave kind of inappropriately…” I shut my eyes, wishing I hadn’t said anything at all. Had I just insulted her by insinuating that her aunt had just been, in my view, very rude? It was worse that I got so embarrassed by it. I had friends who would laugh it off, whistle, or play it cool, but me? I just stumbled over my words for ages, or tripped over something whenever a girl showed me a lot of attention, or made an ass of myself in whatever way possible. I studied Xara for a moment, wondering how I had ever managed to get such a great girl. She was just my kind of girl too – I wasn’t interested in party girls with shallow interests. Xara was different. She was interesting as well, because she had come from this rich, alien culture. I would never grow bored of her and I hoped that she wouldn’t bore of me over time. I was just glad that she didn’t get angry when I talked endlessly about my adventures out in the field chasing storms, or stupid shit George had gotten up to. Some girls made everything all about them. Not my Xara. I always felt as though we were on an even playing field.
But then there was her dad…
Meeting Rasha made me uncomfortable. I won’t deny it; I’m a guy, and guys hate meeting their girlfriend’s parents. In my case, it was because I was worried that they wouldn’t like me, or they would eat my head off for some small slight, or that they might turn out to be the in-law-zillas or something that so many films were based around. I didn’t like it when people disapproved of me. It made me freak out a bit and it could result in one of two things: I could either become defensive about and claim that they were assholes and wrong about me, or I could try to please them in any way I could and further make a dick of myself. And with me, it could definitely go either way depending on the situation. Or I could withdraw and give up altogether, but that’s never possible with in-laws, not even if they’re from another planet. In-laws are always part of a marriage, whether they’re present or not.
So far, Rasha didn’t seem like a real asshole or anything. Protective, sure. A bit scary, yes, but he was my pregnant girlfriend’s alien dad who spoke another language and lived in a warrior tribe. I had hope yet. In some ways, he already reminded me of my dad. Maybe it was that big bear-like smile he had given me, or the twinkle in his eye. It was probably arrogant of me, but I thought a lot of my family. I kind of figured that they were like the dream in-law family, the kind who loved my girlfriend and would always support her unconditionally. So it was pretty positive that I saw even a little similarity there.
There was just one thing about Rasha that made me wonder just how I was gonna deal with some of the cultural intricacies that made me feel pretty weird. I was still recovering from Dixura’s little game when the man suddenly came at me, those muscles pretty visible. I tensed, wondering what he was going to do, and I was very shocked when he pressed his lips into mine. What the…what the fuck?! My whole body went as stiff as a board. The hairs on my neck rose, and my tail fur fluffed up. He pulled back rather suddenly, then slapped at my shoulders playfully. He didn’t wait to see what my reaction was, but said something to Xara and turned to walk away. I stared at Xara, speechless, trying politely to recover.
I took Xara’s hand gratefully and instantly hung my head guiltily. “Sorry, he just scared me, that’s all. I’ve never been kissed by a guy before.” I paused, then shook my head ruefully. “Wait no…yes I have.” To make light of the situation, I quickly withdrew a stupid drunken party story, the kind almost everyone has. “Well, this might surprise you, but once, George made me get up on a table at one of our friends’ parties…and do karaoke. Neither of us has the greatest voice…and at the end, he hugged me and kissed me. He was being a dickhead, just having a laugh, but a few people thought we were gay for ages after that.” I sort of grinned and ran a hand through my hair. Purplish sand fell out of it, and I scratched a bit more out before combing it through with my fingers. “Anyway no one is to know about that, even though everyone probably knows anyway.”
As we walked, I lapsed into silence and my mind wandered elsewhere. Later, I would wonder how the hell I hadn’t noticed that Xara’s belly was bigger than before. I was pretty clueless about pregnancy or maybe just rather unobservant at the time. My mom and Theresa could have smelled and sensed the changes in Xara, but while I had the ability to, I didn’t have the knowledge to know what to sense or smell. I doubted my dad had a clue either, or even Mr Perfect Don for that matter.
The tree we approached was covered in hand prints. I smiled as Xara touched one of them, and I wondered if they had the same cultural significance as they did back home. Hand prints were something done in elementary school or pre-school or something, or just at home. Each one was a memory, and my parents had put our ages next to them. My mom had made an artwork out of them using photos and other drawings we had done; it was hanging up in the entrance hall across from the kitchen entrance. Unlike our place, however, there were also garish animal heads around the entrance which made me squirm slightly. We did not relish in death at all, even though we used a lot of the animal parts from the beasts we killed for food when we hunted. We definitely didn’t display them like trophies. I was going to have to try to understand this culture, and I again I felt a pang of nervousness: what if I was trapped here? But even if we weren’t (because I still wasn’t admitting to myself in a way that I would be stuck here), I wanted to try to learn about the culture for Xara’s sake. She was learning about the mixed culture of my family and species. We didn’t share all of America’s customs, of course. My parents came from Italian and Celtic/British backgrounds, and also from a faerie background, even if they didn’t know a lot about the latter background. This rich, diverse mix of cultures was something which Xara had to deal with every time we went over there, so I would show her the same respect. It wouldn’t be easy, just as it hadn’t been for her.
“It’s pretty cool,” I agreed, wondering if I was being afforded a great honour by being allowed into her family home. I stood there awkwardly as she sat down casually on the bed, wondering if I was breaking custom by standing or whether I would commit taboo by sitting on their furniture. I decided it was safest just standing for now, but sat down as soon as I was offered a spot. She translated patiently for me, and I nodded every so often, looking both at her and her father when they spoke. Dead? I didn’t like that description at all. I said nothing.
The conversation began to take a dark turn. I could feel her emotions, sense her unease, and it made me fidget a little as well. She had really suffered badly on Earth. My family and I had been very lucky considering, but Xara had copped a lot of shit. I wanted to take her into my arms, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of her story. I kept hold of her hand instead, letting my positive energy flow into her through the link and physically through her hand. I was particularly adept at shaping my natural energy into transferrable emotions or translating emotions into readable energy, because I had a lot of empathy for people. It was another reason why I felt so connected to Xara, whose link also transferred emotions as well as complex thoughts.
Rasha seemed to warm to me as the conversation became more pleasant. He left us alone, and I hugged Xara back, noticing for the first time that her belly felt different against mine. I didn’t know whether to say anything or whether I was just confused. Besides, her words were more than distracting. I didn’t get a chance to reply before Rasha came back, but, I reflected later, her promise to return with me didn’t sound entirely convincing to me and our link made that pretty apparent. When her father returned, I smiled and nodded in thanks, not knowing what the word for ’thank you’ was in their language. I was almost relaxed when Xara said that he wanted to hear from me. I tried not to look alarmed. What was I meant to say to him?
“Sir,” I started after a moment’s hesitation and thought. Xara translated. “I appreciate your hospitality and wanted to thank you for honouring me by allowing me to visit your wonderful home.” I made sure that I talked to him and not to Xara, because it would probably have been rude of me not to aim my words, however alien they were, at him. “I also thank you for allowing me to mate your daughter and generally for not killing me on the spot.” I grinned nervously, hoping I had read him right and that he would chuckle at the joke. “She’s a beautiful, amazing and skilled girl and I will take care of her and of our child, I promise you that. I would give my life to keep her safe. I hate what happened to her on my world.” My face echoed my sentiments. I felt as though I was just repeating what I had said to him before, but I didn’t know what else to say. “I hope you forgive me if I seem to accidentally make a mistake with your customs or do something that’s taboo or something. I look forward to being able to learn about your culture and your language, if that is a right I am allowed, if you don’t mind I mean. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about me, or the culture I came from.”
((OOC: I wasn’t sure what else he would say to Rasha…I don’t think he knows what to say haha! I forgot – were Max and Xara engaged or planning on getting married? I can’t believe I don’t remember. It just struck me then. I’m so tired right now though.))
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Post by tessa on May 1, 2011 3:54:26 GMT -5
Rasha’s lips pursed as Xara translated. The three of them sat in silence as Rasha considered Max’s words. It was one of those long, tense silences that Xara hated. The kind of silence that left her to think and to worry. The kind that made her wonder and imagine her life back home on her own world and then mourn the one she left behind. What was especially hard was knowing there was the family she left behind and with every hour the fact they were missing from her life now blackened that part of her heart with bitter longing. Then--- “What is wrong with him?” Rasha asked in a baffled tone. Xara curled her lip into a frustrated snarl.
“Dad there is nothing wrong with him; he just wants you to like him. Will you just be nice, please?” she replied in her native tongue, doing little to hide the frustration in her tone.
Rasha’s eyes narrowed hotly. “Tcha, cheeky girl; I am being nice.”
Xara left that part out of the translation for Max and merely offered him an innocent grin.
Rasha turned his gaze to Max and rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching out his taught muscles, “Max; you make Xara happy and it makes me happy to see it. I hope you realize what it means to me and my family that Xara is pregnant. In our culture, a lot is expected from the male partner. Do you know how to fight? Oh, what am I saying, of course you do not know... I can tell by your arms,” he patted his own arms, his native language sounding so regal and smooth, like rust coloured silk, or dust coated rubies. “I can tell by your body that you are not a fighter. You must learn how; you must be able to protect her here as you have done on your world. I know it is a lot asking of you...Max.” Rasha managed to smile, “but as she becomes more pregnant she cannot fight like she used to and it is up to you and I, and all of us, to protect her; you most of all.” He paced his meeting room floor anxiously as Xara caught up to translating. “Now with that being said I have no doubts you will keep her safe, and I give you my full blessing and support as mated partners.” He stopped pacing a smiled at Xara. “Now if you will excuse me Xara, I am due for a night patrol around the Vut’ea border.” He hesitated for a moment and looked from one child to the next, his eyes dark with worry. “We...well, we fear an invasion...” He looked as if he wanted to say something encouraging, but shook his head and continued out the entrance of the hut instead.
Xara's eyebrows came together worriedly. "Don't worry, it is probably a-a false alarm, or something..." An invasion... her stomach flipped and knotted at the thought of it. That was not something she wanted to worry about her first night home. Her ears pricked when she soon heard the whooping calls of her people as they rushed off to their nightly duties, and she sunk blissfully, as if someone had doused her in warm water.
She snuggled into Max’s stomach and clutched him gently. “I love you Max. I don’t care where we are, or who we are with as long as we are always together, and never apart. I just... I love you so much...” she trailed off and squeezed him tightly, wrapping her tail around his, her leg around his leg, and her arms around his torso. She felt his breathing as a comfort and tried her very best comfort him, and keep him happy through good energy and positive thinking. “My father secretly likes you you know. I am his only daughter... he is testing you...I believe Earth males do the same for their daughters, yes?” she chuckled dryly. "When I was younger..." she began, and continued talking well into the night, about her father and some of the culture significant things Max may experience. She went into battles, told him the words for greetings and how to identify himself. “...and for coming of age you must kill a jerughtoce and survive... it is a huge, huge animal that looks almost like a shark, but with eight feet and it lives on land...” However, soon her words became muffled and broken up with yawns, and the exhausted woman drifted off into a deep, lulling sleep...
“Xara!”
Xara’s eyes popped open as her body lifted itself into an upright position. The black furred woman was standing over her and Max, grinning girlishly at them. “You brat; you didn’t come and say hi!”
“what?....hey!”
The woman jumped into the bed between the couple and snuggled down between them, wedging Xara away from Max for a moment. Xara only blinked confusedly, ‘What is going on, who is this? Where are we?’ she wondered blearily. The black haired woman leaned forward on her hands and knees and took a nice, long whiff of Max’s scent with her nose, and more importantly her lips, barely a hairs width away from his neck. “Mmmm.” The black haired woman sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she enjoyed Max’s foreign, manly scent. She opened them and squirmed forward to examine him more closely. “Oh, Xara! He smells fantastic! Where did you get him? I want one! Which tribe are you from, cutie?”
Xara hissed furiously as the dark haired woman’s fingers crawled their way towards Max’s thigh. Her eyes narrowed and the very pregnant red-head sat up and grasped her best friends arm, using all her weight and fury to toss her clean off the bed. The woman wasn’t expecting Xara to be quite as strong as she was and hit her head on the wall of the tree harder than she had time to brace herself for. She pulled herself up onto her knees and looked up at Xara with crossed eyes for a moment. Xara was electric with anger, her tail fur bristling, her skin ice cold, mimicking her green glacial gaze. The other woman took the challenge and the two of them stood, bristling, glaring deep into each other’s murderous gaze...until they both suddenly started chuckling. “Xara! It is you!” the black haired woman vaulted into Xara’s arms, smothering her in kisses. Xara did not return most of them, except for one quick one on the forehead. “What are you doing, Yehra?” she said stiffly.
The dark woman shrugged and grinned. “I was introducing myself. Don’t worry I don’t want him, I think he likes you too much. Besides, I wanted to see if you could still kick my ass. Apparently you can.”
Yehra turned on Max and smiled a friendly smile. “My name is Yehra. And, surprise! I am your fighting instructor, you lucky boy! Come on, get up.” She kicked the mans side of the bed roughly, shaking the entire thing. “Xara you come as well. Rasha gave me strict orders that both of you need to be a part of this. Well? Come on!”
Xara blinked rapidly. “Yehra...Yehra is there an emergency?”
“The Vut’ea are advancing.” The dark woman spat out in an official sort of manner, as if giving a report, or a set of orders. She paced the family home, looking for some sort of closet.
Since they were very young, Yehra had been welcome in their family home. They were good friends of Rasha, and related to Tix’era, who also wanted to nourish the warrior that Yehra would soon become. Xara followed her friend and relative thoughtfully as she spoke, translating for Max as she spoke.
“We need to prepare him. In case of an invasion, he, Rasha and a small patrol will escort the elderly. the young and, in your case,"she patted Xara's belly softly, "the pregnant, to the 'safe place' and guard you there while Dixura leads the battle front on the camp...oh! Where are those weapons? Ah,” Yehra grinned in triumph and picked open a small panel in the wall which opened into a large closet like space filled with weapons. She picked out a few and tossed them to the ground, “Xara’s-mate,” she said, “come here. I need to fit you with the right weapon...”
Xara broke a bit of a sweat. Fighting...Max? No. She couldn’t imagine it. She didn’t want to imagine it. She didn’t want Max to become some sort of heartless warrior, like she had become, even though she thought it was probably impossible for that to happen. She fidgeted nervously and her uncertainty leaked through her link to him. Xara looked to Max with a conflicted, pained expression. How could she deny him the tools to defend himself? What if she began to give birth and he was all she had to protect her? She had, literally, no doubts that he would do anything to help her but... what if she died? Accidentally of course, and he was stuck on this world without her? How would he live? He would have to fight at some point...it was the way her culture worked.
“Max...” she whispered, “you will not have to hurt anyone. But it will make Rasha feel more secure if you let Yehra teach you to fight. And... I apologise for her behaviour. My people are very...” she grinned innocently, trying to lighten the mood. Her body shook, however, for she was scared for what he thought of her, of her world, and of her family at the moment. “Well, they are very unaccustomed to the idea of personal space and, I guess, boundaries...apparently.” She smiled and reached for his hand comfortingly. "It will be okay, yes?" The woman blinked as her voice cracked. What was happening? she thought, racked with helpless guilt, Oh... poor Max...!
((OOC: thought I would let the tension build up and maybe add in some action scenes in the way of a self defense crash course? If you don't want to do that, thats fine as well. Also added some more inappropriateness, lol XP Xara's realizing now exactly HOW different her world is from Max's. Hope the post was okay. I thought I would leave it off there. You can use Yehra in your next post if you want to do the training scene. She's definitely a background character. Xara will be off to the sides, watching and giving comments and shouting encouragements or whatever. ))
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