by Vi Voxley
There was an odd sort of romantic gesture somewhere in there, the true desire to meet someone with a blank page to write on. No rumors, no tales, no presumptions of others. It also meant they truly didn't know who she was or why she'd come to their planet.
I will tell them. Just a little time to catch my breath, please. Then we'll share secrets, she thought with the slightest bit of guilt.
After all, she had come to Octava to write on what in her mind then had amounted to the ludicrous notion of fate bringing people together from across the stars, and tying them to one another with permanent binds. She hadn’t been kind about it then.
She wasn’t sure if she could be as kind as she would have liked to be, even now.
"Can you let them know I'm awake?" Riley asked out loud. "I should get my tablet online and start calling people so they can stop worrying about me."
"That sounds good," Harbor said. "Is there anything else you need?"
Riley hesitated. There were many, many things she chose not to voice. Like how scared she was or how when she closed her eyes, she could see the explosion coming towards her like a wave of death.
Because surely that was what death looked like, a roaring beast of fire and flames, coming to take her away where her fateds couldn't follow.
She wanted to throw all caution to the wind and rush right into their arms, make them hold her until the galaxy spun peacefully again.
Riley knew she couldn't. She had to give it a little bit of time, at least until she'd come to grips with all sides of the bond. And it wasn’t just because she could barely lift her arms or move her legs.
"Nothing," she said as cheerfully as she could manage. "I have everything I need. Stop worrying. I'm back now."
"We will be back soon," Cole promised, his body twitching like he had been about to lean in and kiss her. "I'll contact the embassy and make sure you are officially alive."
They left her alone and Riley thought of the kiss she hadn't received. Her lips were aching for it, the warmth and the softness of it. The comfort they offered, the sheer power and safety they provided, Riley needed it.
The longing was so fierce that a couple of times, her hand was already rising to throw the covers off her body and run looking for them.
She didn't. Instead, Riley stayed in bed all day, trying to untangle her memories and to piece together the life she'd had before the accident.
She thought about her work, too. The tablet with her initial notes had been destroyed, which was probably for the best. If her fateds had read that, Riley wasn't sure they would have approved of the way she spoke of their culture.
Nothing disrespectful, just the same old, same old. The Gargon bonds were so amazingly strong that they simply defied logic. As much as Riley tried, she couldn't make herself a full believer. Even after finding her own fateds and feeling the pull between them with her own beating heart... it was hard to believe it was real.
The real deal, that was. There was lust, of course, and excitement. Thrill, temptation, wild curiosity and everything else that came with it. None of it necessarily said "love" to Riley. Not yet, at least.
She wanted to see the future unwind at its own pace, the way it was supposed to. Give it a chance. Something that she hadn’t seriously considered before being thrown head-first into a bulkhead.
Maybe a hit on the head is exactly what a girl needs from time to time, she thought with a slight roll of the eyes.
It was hard to imagine her story had already been told, or at least the conclusion written.
The bond sounded like a horribly simplified answer to her and Riley didn't like that. Easy answers and big promises weren't what she was looking for – neither for her story nor for herself. The truth and nothing but the truth was the only thing she'd settle for.
Mya returned that evening like Harbor and Cole had promised.
Riley had spent most of the day dozing in and out of sleep, hating how tired she was. Her body was out of energy and she needed it back now more than ever. As soon as the healers released her, Riley promised she'd set herself a harsh regime of dieting and exercise to get back into shape.
Every time she opened her eyes, the commanders were there by her bedside, guarding her dreams. It was incredibly soothing. Riley wasn't actively haunted by the explosion, but it slipped almost casually into her dreams. Waking up from one of those dreams, it was nice to have her fateds there, stern and unbreakable like the foundations of the galaxy.
All her attention jumped to Mya, though, when the girl ran back into the room. A tinge of pain shot through her when her daughter first went to kiss her fathers and showed them something she'd made in the class. Then she climbed on Riley's bed and every bit of jealousy was gone.
The little girl looked at her with amazement and wonder, just like before. Riley wondered how different she looked awake. Her own child had never seen her before, not truly.
"How was your class?" she asked, hoping her tone wasn't too childish.
She didn't want to coddle Mya or to treat her like a baby although there was nothing Riley wanted more than to just keep the girl in her arms and swing her gently.
"It was fun," Mya said happily, playing with a curl of her hair as she spoke. "We made these."
She dropped something into Riley's palm. It looked like a tiny necklace, too big to be a bracelet to anyone. Riley stared at it, not believing her eyes. She'd expected seashells or acorns or something along the lines.
Instead, the necklace was made of small glittering jewels – emeralds and pearls and gods knew what else. On Terra, it would have cost a fortune. Several fortunes.
"Where did you get these?" she asked, the amazement plain in her voice as she laughed, showing the commanders Mya's new "toy".
"From us," Cole said, shrugging as if it was nothing. "We provided them for her class. War trophies, mostly. Broken and remade for them to use."
"It's absolutely divine," Riley breathed, turning the green-and-white necklace in her hands. "I can't believe she gets to play with one of these. It has to be worth this center."
"Not on Octava," Harbor said. "We have droves of these if we need them. Our jewelers are working on something truly beautiful and priceless for you."
Riley couldn't stop herself from glaring at them over Mya's head.
"I don't need jewels," she said carefully, not wanting to insult her fateds. "I don't wear jewels. I occasionally like looking at them."
"Trust us," Cole said with a playful grin. "You will like that one."
Riley sighed, turning back to Mya and listening to her talk excitedly about her day.
Trust, she thought. I have to trust this will work.
16
Riley
A few days later...
Arriving at her new home was more than a little weird.
She couldn't describe the feeling exactly. The closest she could get was stepping into a museum where people still lived. Everything she saw and touched belonged to someone else, meant something to them while she was outside, looking in.
The house her fateds had built for her and their daughter was a large villa at the edge of the capital, Taria. The fact that it was no ordinary house was obvious even to Riley, although she did have a little experience with hidden detectors and inconspicuous gun turrets.
It was clear the villa was meant to double as a safe house for them. The entire place was built to keep those inside well protected, and the ones who were supposed to not get in strictly out.
Harbor and Cole didn't comment on that feature. Maybe it was common for Gargons to do that. Riley wouldn't have been surprised in the least. The warriors were known to be overly careful and more than a bit overprotective of their fated.
So she understood the function of the villa. It was supposed to be lovely home that just happened to be better equipped to face the enemies than half their defense towers.
Very Gargon. Quite amusing.
The rest... was less funny. Riley was careful to smile for Mya's sak
e who was excitedly running around, coming back every two minutes to check if she was still there and then dashing off again. Every time she returned, there was an object in her tiny hands that she wanted Riley to see.
A tour. I'm getting a tour in my daughter's life, she thought.
After the lavish courtyard, the inside of the building got even worse. The main rooms were decorated to show the house belonged to warlords. There were rows of trophies and ancient weapons mounted on the walls. Riley's head was spinning at the blatant ignoring of safety measures around the child, but she figured her fateds wouldn't let any danger come near their little light.
Gargons knew how to strike their weapons at the most vulnerable parts of their enemies. It didn’t mean they didn't know how to stop someone from getting hurt. Being a warrior meant they were very good at both.
She wasn't bothered, for example, by the way they lifted Mya up while still being armed to the teeth.
That was because her attention was focused on something else, something that hurt a whole lot more.
Mya was so very glad she was there. It was obvious from every little thing she brought Riley, from tiny stuffed toys to her paintings to actual people she wanted to meet. The staff of the villa as well as the warriors in the service of her fateds greeted her with a bit embarrassed expressions. She released them as quickly as she could.
She remembered the way Mya had jumped into her arms back at the healing center. There had been true glee there and the sort of love only a child could bear towards someone.
Riley had been thrilled, thinking that perhaps the gap of three missed years between them wasn't so bad. They could overcome it, weren't they already?
And then she had gotten "home".
Mya was running up to her and introducing her to the world she lived in. It took Riley a little while to understand what was wrong with the picture, until she heard a terrifying crash somewhere.
At once, Mya let go of her hand, fled to Harbor and didn't stop her quiet whimpering until the commander caught her in his strong arms.
"It's all good, pearl," Harbor said in the gentlest voice Riley had heard from him yet. "It's the arena. We talked about this, remember? Warriors are training there. Things get broken. You don't have to be afraid. Nothing can hurt you here."
He spoke in a hushed voice, yet there was a distinctively firm quality to it. Riley was impressed despite the awful pain in her chest. She watched as Harbor slowly petted Mya's hair until the girl visibly relaxed and nodded, trying to pull a brave face.
Riley's fingers could feel the ghostly touch of her daughter's hand slipping out of hers.
That was it. Mya didn't really think of her as a mother yet.
She shouldn't have been surprised.
To be fair, Mya didn't know what a mother was. She had never really had one. Only a sleeping woman as she'd drawn in the picture sitting beside Riley's bed in the healing center.
Before the accident, Riley hadn't been able to gather much information about the Gargon world, but she knew one thing. The commanders would never have allowed another female to come into their life, or to play a mother to Mya for that matter.
That position belonged to her. It was as sacred as the bond between them. And it had been empty for a long time.
So there it was. Mya had two fathers and a woman who had brought her into the world.
Then the moment of hurt and despair passed.
This is fine. She doesn't know me yet, she doesn't look at me with the same amount of trust yet. This is absolutely normal. How could I be mad that she has two fathers who make her feel safe?
The decision to have Mya run to her next time was born in her heart. With the same unflappable stubbornness as she approached her work challenges with, Riley swore she'd make it happen. There was no use in wallowing in pity, crying about the years she wouldn't get back. The only road worth taking was forward.
Taking a deep breath, Riley shut down the part of her mind that said she didn't belong there.
She would.
"Come, Mya," she called when Harbor put their daughter down. "Show me everything."
She didn't see her fateds again for the rest of the afternoon. One moment they were behind her and Mya, the next they were gone.
Riley knew what they were doing and was grateful for it. The commanders were not very subtle in their attempt to let her have alone time with her daughter as if they suddenly just dropped off the face of the planet.
The quick and immediate burst of regret was the first truly surprising thing that day. Riley found herself missing them five minutes after they'd parted.
It wasn't just curiosity, either. The word she was really looking for was magic. The single day she'd spent with them wasn't enough, not by a long shot. There was a true and undeniable longing in her to find out every single detail about the commanders and the bond between them. It rocked her very being to the core, just as finding out she had a child did.
In truth, Riley felt adrift and aimless. Luckily, she had a solution. The one that had always worked, come what may, was going back to her roots. What she knew best was her work.
She looked at Mya, swinging happily over the edge of the arena, watching warriors train with some nasty-looking mechs that set Riley's imagination on fire. Her old self came back with such nauseating speed she felt a little dizzy.
The two of them looked on, Mya sitting on the edge of the round field reminding Riley of a gladiator pit and her holding on to her daughter. She clapped whenever one of the mechs went flying through the air, clearly not unfamiliar with the whole practice.
Riley wanted to say it wasn't appropriate for a child, but what did she know? These were Gargons. Harbor and Cole had probably been fighting at that age, taking on the arena themselves.
Instead, she asked:
"Do you like them? Those big ones with four legs?"
Mya nodded, her big bright eyes shining with delight. Her legs were dangling over the edge and there were moments when Riley thought she'd jump onto the arena.
Not gonna happen. I need to have a word with your fathers about a few cultural differences.
"You do?" she asked with a tell-tale voice. "I do too. They remind me of metalbugs. I heard about them when I was a little girl, about as old as you are."
"What are metalbugs?" Mya asked, a true and honest curiosity in her eyes, looking at her with wonder.
That single moment made everything just perfect. Her daughter, the very image of her, in her arms at last.
She wondered how mothers generally handled the awesome and terrifying concept of having a child. How did they manage to overcome the crippling horror of ruining such a miracle and how did they resist giving their child everything they knew?
It all descended on her in one moment of recognition. Then Riley thought back to her own mother, dusting off the memory she hadn't wanted to dig up for a long time. The pain was still there, as soon as her mother's eyes appeared in her mind.
A strong, firm look. A pair of hands as strong as any man or so it felt like to little Riley. The voice that never shook and the tiny smile that never died.
Until the day she had passed away.
Gods, Riley thought. I thought my Mom could do anything.
She always worked best with a goal before her. Just like that, Riley took her first step on the path of making sure Mya saw her the same way.
"Back then," she began. "I had a friend named Tom who always played with me. We had a lot of fun. Terra has some amazing forests and mountains and they hide the most extraordinary treasures and adventures. But dangers too, and a few monsters."
Mya's eyes were wide and Riley grinned, continuing.
"One day Tom told me about the worst of them. The metalbugs. They crawled on top of the mountains, lurking in the shadows behind children who had come looking for treasures quite like your necklace there. Some were tiny and bit you on the knee, others were big and you had to run away.
"Some..." Riley said, lowering her voice
a little so Mya had to lean in to listen better. "Tom told me some were so big they were the very hills we climbed on.
“The big ones were very sleepy, so they laid down and started dreaming of whatever it is metalbugs dream of. And then rain fell upon them and trees came and dug their roots deep and storms blew in rocks and mud, covering the metalbugs.
“Tom said that if we weren't careful enough, we would wake the big ones. He said the ground would shake and the biggest of the bugs would rise and we would be on top of it..."
Riley laughed, seeing the way Mya's mouth had dropped open in wonder as she stared at her. She was no longer looking at the real mechs, which was probably a good thing since one of the warriors hadn't been quick enough to dodge a particularly jagged-looking blade.
"Do you want to hear what happened?" Riley asked.
Mya nodded at once and it filled her heart with such joy she had never felt before in her life. It was true what they had said then. Having a child was unlike anything else, a feeling you couldn't describe to someone until they felt the blessed happiness for themselves.
"Come then," Riley said. "Let's go somewhere nice and cool and I'll tell you."
Her daughter threw her tiny little hands around her neck when Riley leaned in. The feel of her heart beating excitedly was the greatest gift she'd ever received.
As she walked, Riley wrote in her head as she often did. Just like with Mya, she had decided to keep being who she was and that meant only one thing – writing down what she felt and thought about the world around her. She didn't know if it would ever be published, only that the words beat at her mind, needing to get out.
It wouldn't be the same book she had sought to write when coming to Octava, of course. She had no doubt that the world had changed and so had she. Perhaps it was for the best. Now that she considered it, Riley didn't think she'd been very fair to Gargons the first time.
