That is a good way of thinking of it," Jahir said, and let the words go, resting his hands on his lap and lifting his face to the sun. How long he remained there, he couldn't say; nor did the mindline suggest, for Vasiht'h seemed as ignorant of it as he. But after a time, he went into his pocket and brought forth the medical bracelet, and the chain he'd strung his ring on. He set them on the grass, smoothing the blades. The light traced the edge of the metal, glinted on silver.
After he stood, Vasiht'h said, quiet, "I had no idea you kept them."
It is not so much that I kept them, as that I didn't throw them away," Jahir said. "They were not a thing to be thrown away." He glanced down at his offering. "They were a thing to be let go of." Like so many things in the Alliance he would one day have to give away. That he would lose. That he would have to make his peace with outliving.
A warm hand touched his wrist, startling him from his reverie. Vasiht'h waited until Jahir met his eyes, and then said, very clearly, "But not today."
No," Jahir said. "But not today." He managed a smile. "I am decided, arii. Don't fear."
I don't," Vasiht'h said. "Not anymore. I just don't want you to feel alone. And... that reminds me. Would you like to come home with me when I go back in a few days?"
Ah?"
My family," Vasiht'h continued. "They'd like to meet you. Now that we're done with the degrees, they very particularly want me to come home for a celebration, and Dami asked me to invite you specifically."
I... I would be pleased to, and honored," Jahir said. "But I thought Anseahla was even heavier than Selnor?"
It is. I wouldn't expect you to stay long," Vasith'h replied, beginning to walk down the hill. "I'm going to stay a couple of weeks, but you can just stop by for a day or two."
And... then what?" Jahir asked, puzzled.
Then, I thought you might check out a place," the Glaseah said, cautious.
The mindline shivered, offering flashes of images: a train ride, a busy port, a distant haze in a sky that looked real but memory told him was artificial. Not his memory. Surprised, Jahir said, "This is a place you want to live!"
I think you might like it too," Vasiht'h said. "Which is why I'd like you to go explore it on your own for a little while."
And this mysterious place?" Jahir sampled the images, felt the frisson of anticipation in them like wine.
Starbase Veta. I got laid over there on my way to Selnor," Vasiht'h said. "It's... well. I'll let you see for yourself."
Starbase Veta," Jahir murmured.
You can pick out an apartment, as long as I get to buy the kitchen table."
Jahir laughed. "So sure you are of this."
Let's just say... I have a hunch." Vasiht'h grinned. "Anyway, we're going to be late for our own graduation party if we don't get going. Or worse, all our guests will have drunk all the wine."
Heaven forfend," Jahir said. "We shall make haste."
At the base of the hill, though, he turned. Looked back at what he was leaving behind. Presence was everywhere. Presence was here, and in the heart. He rested his palm on his breast.
Jahir?"
Coming," he called. They went down the hill together, leaving behind the stillness, the memories of ash smeared on brow, of the inevitable passing of all things... back to the city, to their apartment, where Jahir opened the door on the people awaiting them, the smell of fresh-baked cinnamon cake, of wine, the sound of laughter, the faces, the raised glasses welcoming them. He let Vasiht'h precede him, glanced once over his shoulder... and then smiled, and went inside.
His partner brought him a glass. /You're home,/ Vasiht'h said, warm as flagstones on a hearth.
/We're home,/ Jahir agreed, and took it from him. /My friend./
Jahir and Vasiht'h have earned their licenses as xenotherapists at last, and they have their hearts set on starting their practice in one of the Alliance's most exciting and cosmopolitan destinations: a sector starbase. But dream therapy is a revolutionary treatment modality, and as esper practictioners they will have to work hard to win the trust of their community. Not only that, but they have a deadline: if they can't prove themselves an asset to the starbase within six months, they'll have to leave! It'll take hard work, compassion, and a dollop of luck to navigate the pitfalls of this challenge... but surely two such extraordinary friends can find a way to claim their dream hearth.
Book 3 of the Dreamhealers Series is set in the Peltedverse, and at the behest of readers continues the story of xenotherapists Jahir and Vasiht’h.
APPENDICES
Almond Saucers
Vasiht'h's vault of cookie recipes would need its own cookbook (and chef) to be properly replicated. But almonds make a fair approximation of more-almond, so I'm including Vasiht'h's recipe for a nut butter cookie Jahir named for the shape of the results. Almond saucers are flat, thin cookies, but chewy, not crispy, and like their fictional counterparts are fabulously expensive due to their ingredients. They are, however, moist and modestly healthy... if you are suffering from high gravity syndrome.
Almond Saucers
1 cup and 2 tbsps almond flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8th tsp sea salt
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (soft)
1 egg
1/2 cup almond butter (or half almond and half peanut)
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz chocolate chips, melted (optional)
Preheat oven to 325. Mix flour, baking soda and sea salt in small bowl. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar in large bowl. Add egg, almond butter and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add in dry ingredients and stir. Refrigerate this dough for at least an hour (longer is better). Place tablespoon-sized dollops on parchment-paper-lined pan--leave room for spreading. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
For maximum decadence, wait until cookies cool, then dip half of the cookie in melted chocolate and allow to set. These are sweet cookies, so we recommend dark chocolate for the contrast!
Yield: 24 cookies (or so).
The Species of the Alliance
The Alliance is mostly composed of the Pelted, a group of races that segregated and colonized worlds based (more or less) on their visual characteristics. Having been engineered from a mélange of uplifted animals, it’s not technically correct to refer to any of them as “cats” or “wolves,” since any one individual might have as many as six or seven genetic contributors: thus the monikers like “foxine” and “tigraine” rather than “vulpine” or “tiger.” However, even the Pelted think of themselves in groupings of general animal characteristics, so for the ease of imagining them, I’ve separated them that way.
The Pelted
The Quasi-Felids: The Karaka’An, Asanii, and Harat-Shar comprise the most cat-like of the Pelted, with the Karaka’An being the shortest and digitigrade, the Asanii being taller and plantigrade, and the Harat-Shar including either sort but being based on the great cats rather than the domesticated variants.
The Quasi-Canids: The Seersa, Tam-illee, and Hinichi are the most doggish of the Pelted, with the Seersa being short and digitigrade and foxish, the Tam-illee taller, plantigrade and also foxish, and the Hinichi being wolflike.
Others: Less easily categorized are the Aera, with long, hare-like ears, winged feet and foxish faces, the felid Malarai with their feathered wings, and the Phoenix, tall bipedal avians.
The Centauroids: Of the Pelted, two species are centauroid in configuration, the short Glaseah, furred and with lower bodies like lions but coloration like skunks and leathery wings on their lower backs, and the tall Ciracaana, who have foxish faces but long-legged cat-like bodies.
Aquatics: One Pelted race was engineered for aquatic environments: the Naysha, who look like mermaids would if mermaids had sleek, hairless, slightly rodent-like faces and the lower bodies of dolphins.
Other Species
Humanoids: Humanity fills this niche, along with their estranged cousins, the esper-race Eldritch.
True Aliens: Of the
true aliens, six are known: the shapeshifting Chatcaava, whose natural form is draconic (though they are mammals); the gentle heavyworlder Faulfenza, who are furred and generally regarded to be attractive; the Akubi, large dinosaur-like fliers with three sexes; the aquatic Platies, who look like colorful flatworms and can communicate reliably only with the Naysha, and the enigmatic Flitzbe, who are quasi-vegetative and resemble softly furred volleyballs that change color depending on their mood. New to the Alliance (and not pictured in the line-up) is the last race, the "Octopi" of Either Side of the Strand.
For a more detailed look into the species of the Alliance, a Peltedverse Guidebook is available through me; you can get it by signing up for my mailing list (from my website), by jumping on my Patreon, or by emailing me directly (haikujaguar at gmail).
Author Sketches
It's typical for me to do sketches while writing, a sort of mental doodling as I work out events and character arcs. These sketches are not intended to be the final word on what the characters look like! In fact, I usually have trouble pinning down people's looks. I just keep at it anyway.
Jahir and Vasiht'h are among some of my oldest characters in this setting. My original drawings of them... I think they date back to the early '90s! Needless to say there's a lot of bad art of them, by my standards, because there's a lot of art of them in general. Here are the ones that seemed suitable for inclusion for this novel.
1. Vasiht'h with Seersana U Mug: A quick ink sketch (made with the kind of pen you dip in an ink pot) of Vasiht'h looking skeptical and holding a Seersana University mug. I wish I had been clearer about the university logo! I'm sure I knew what it was supposed to look like in 2013; in 2017 I'm mystified!
2. Sehvi: A doodle of Vasiht'h's closest sister which despite the cartoony-ness gets across her impish sweetness.
3. Exhausted Vasiht'h: How poor Vasiht'h spends a lot of this book. Slumping when you have a centauroid lower body must be challenging. I like this one because it gets across the chunkiness of his body.
4. Bedside: Way back when this story was still a set of nebulous pastiches, the clearest image I had of what was to come was this picture of Jahir slumped along a hospital bed. I wasn't sure if it was one of the kids up there dying (which is why the figure looks young) or someone else, but the emotional crux of it for me was this symbiosis between Vasiht'h and Jahir in their grief and hardship. This is the rock that will get them through the rest of their lives (including the events of the Princes' Game series).
5. Jahir and the Author: I often do doodles of my characters talking to me. I was jotting notes for Mindline while listening to my 80's Pandora station when Alphaville's 'Forever Young' popped up. I thought it apropos, but Jahir showed up to disagree. I thought he deserved the chance to do so publicly. (I am the jaguar person in the back.)
Playlist
Using formalized playlists as inspiration is a habit of about two years' standing now. These playlists are not intended to be literal soundtracks; I use songs that give me the right "feel" for what I'm planning, either in lyrics or sound quality. Then I listen to them while commuting or running, which is when I do most of my plotting.
As I mentioned in Mindtouch, Dreamhealers is the most pastoral of the series Jahir and Vasiht'h appear in. But once we get into Mindline, there's a lot more drama and tension than there was in the first half of the story. For inspiration, I added some more songs to the list I already transcribed in the back of Book 1. They're still 80's pieces, for that glittery feeling... but they're a little more plaintive or tense.
"Mad World," Tears for Fears
"Promises, Promises," Naked Eyes
"Why Can't They Leave Things Alone," Blancmange
"Across This Antheap," XTC
"Under the Milky Way," The Church
"Reptile," The Church
"Helpless Helpless," Camouflage
"Shake the Disease," Depeche Mode
I think of "Space Age Love Song" as the theme from Mindtouch, but the theme for Mindline is definitely "Reptile." There's some debate whether this song is about a woman or about drug addiction, but the uneasy, driving tension in it mapped well for me to the wet epidemic.
Return to the Alliance
Dear Readers,
There are several series and interlocking storylines set in the universe of the Pelted. Most of these involve the long lead-up to the conflict with the Chatcaava, barely mentioned in the Dreamhealer's Saga, and by their nature are less pastoral than the story of how Jahir and Vasiht'h met. Of the various offerings, Earthrise, Book 1 of the Her Instruments trilogy, is a more traditional space operatic adventure with a strong romance subplot, and involves the irascible human captain of the perpetually underfunded merchant Vessel, the TMS Earthrise, and what happens to her when she ends up rescuing an Eldritch prince. I highly recommend moving on to this series next, if you haven't read it yet! Or take a side-tour and pick up my collection of Pelted short fiction, Claws and Starships.
For those of you who want darker fare, Even the Wingless goes straight into the Chatcaavan Empire itself to show us the iniquity that the Alliance will be facing, and pits an Eldritch ambassador against an entire court of torturers and sociopaths. It is a tense, bloody, and violent book, and sets up the events that will affect the course of intergalactic history. It is, however, full of triggers, and while Jahir and Vasiht'h show up later in Book 2 of Lisinthir's series, it remains a difficult set of books. Readers, beware! Even our gentle healers are subject to their own internal pressures and problems. They survive and come out stronger in the end, but some of you may want to skip the journey.
Our intrepid mindhealers will return again in one more more Dreamhealers story (Dreamstorm), in addition to "Family" which is already available. I also hope to write the story of other Eldritch immigrants like Sediryl. Those will be coming soon! Or if you'd like to detour somewhere more gentle, I recommend trying my romance novel, Thief of Songs, or visiting Kherishdar with The Aphorisms of Kherishdar.
Stay tuned! Or if you prefer, sign up for my newsletter to be alerted when new books arrive!
-M
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daughter of two Cuban political exiles, M.C.A. Hogarth was born a foreigner in the American melting pot and has had a fascination for the gaps in cultures and the bridges that span them ever since. She has been many things—web database architect, product manager, technical writer and massage therapist—but is currently a full-time parent, artist, writer and anthropologist to aliens, both human and otherwise. She is the author of over 50 titles in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, humor and romance.
The Dreamhealers series is only one of the many stories set in the Pelted universe; more information is available on the author’s website. You can also sign up for the author’s quarterly newsletter to be notified of new releases.
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review… or telling a friend! (Or both!)
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Also by M.C.A. Hogarth
Alysha Forrest
Who Is Willing
Either Side of the Strand
Blood Ladders
An Heir to Thorns and Steel
By Vow and Royal Bloodshed
On Wings of Bone and Glass
Her Instruments
Earthrise
Rose Point (Her Instruments Book 2)
Laisrathera (Her Instruments 3)
A Rose Point Holiday
Princes' Game
Even the Wingless
Some Things Transcend
Amulet Rampant
Only the Open
In Extremis
From Ruins
Spots the Space Marine
Spots the Space Marine: Defense of the Fiddler
Spots the Space Marine: Letters
The Books of Kherishdar
The Aphorisms of Kherishdar
The Admonishments of Kherishdar
Black Blossom
The Dreamhealers Duology
Mindtouch (The Dreamhealers 1)
Mindline (The Dreamhealers 2)
Dreamhearth
The Godkindred Saga
Flight of the Godkin Griffin
The Godson's Triumph
The Stone Moon Trilogy
The Worth of a Shell
Pearl in the Void
A Bloom in the North
Twin Kingdoms Romances
Thief of Songs
Cantor for Pearls
Standalone
Alysha's Fall
Anadi Dolls
A Trifold Spiral Knot
Dark Lighthouse
Fire in the Void
Freedom, Spiced and Drunk
His Neuter Face
In the Line of Duty
Money for Sorrow, Made Joy
New Stories
Season's Meaning
Mindline (The Dreamhealers 2) Page 32
