Page 31 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER TWENTY

Liv

S he looks older, a little weatherworn, with a tiredness to her eyes that I can only imagine comes from having two young children and a third on the way.

But it’s my sister’s face staring at me, confused.

Of course she doesn’t recognise me - I was twelve last time she saw me, and she’s had nothing but my memory to hold on to throughout the decade she’s been trapped on this planet.

I recognise her, though, and I think my chest might split in two at how wonderful and tragic it is to find her here.

Wonderful because she is alive. My sister I thought had died on Alpha Colony.

Alive and well and with a family. She always wanted a family.

It was a big part of why she applied to Alpha Colony in the first place.

But it’s also tragic because she has been stuck here.

Alone. And Mercenia could have come looking for her.

Just like they could have come looking for us.

But they didn’t. They’ve never cared about the people at the bottom of the pile like us.

So I’ve had to think her dead, and she’s had to think she’d never see anyone human ever again for ten years because our lords and masters didn’t see enough value in her to find her.

“Olivia?” she says, her voice catching in her throat.

And I know how that feels, because mine is tight enough that I’m not sure I can breathe. My eyes burn with tears and I want to go to her, but my whole body seems rooted to the spot.

“Nobody calls me that anymore,” I say. “It’s Liv now.”

She lets out a small cry, and then we are in each other’s arms and I’m holding her so tight and she smells different to how I remember.

Floral and wild and of the root soap that Gregar made for me.

Her pregnant belly makes it difficult to wrap my arms around her fully, and she has to stoop a little.

And little Jassal - my niece Jassal - is tugging at both our tops asking why we are crying.

Eventually, Sally draws back from me, wiping the thick of the tears from her face before she turns to her daughter.

“Because I’m happy, baby,” she says. “This lady here is my family from back home on Earth. She’s my sister, Olivia. Liv. I haven’t seen her since she was almost as young as you.”

Jassal’s eyes go wide. “But I shot an arrow at her!”

Sally’s transformation from weepy happiness to angry mom face is so sudden I almost laugh. Jassal quivers, close to tears.

“I’m sorry, mama,” Jassal says, burying her face in Sally’s shirt. “I thought she was stranger danger.”

Sally softens, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’m sure your Aunty Liv forgives you.”

Aunty Liv had forgiven her long before knowing she was an aunty.

I drop to my knees and hold my arms out to her. Jassal comes to me, wrapping her arms, legs and tail around me. Already, my heart is fit to burst with love for her.

My niece.

My family.

“I think I need to sit down,” Sally says, putting a hand to her forehead.

Her raskarran is by her side in an instant, helping her to a fallen tree that serves as a primitive bench.

He sets their son down on the floor, reaching for a small wooden carved toy and handing it to him to placate him.

Then his attention is fully on my sister, talking to her in low, soothing tones.

She answers him in English, but he seems to understand her anyhow, telling him she’s fine, that she just felt a little faint. Surprise got to her, that’s all it is.

Gregar touches a hand to my shoulder, turning me to face him. Softly, he brushes a thumb over my cheek, wiping my tears away with a questioning look in his eyes. I smile at him, then press myself against him, his arms going round me in a comforting embrace.

“How are you even here?” Sally asks after a moment.

“I was heading out to Alpha Colony,” I say, moving to sit by her. My vest rides up my thighs, leaving me rather exposed. When Sally notices, she says something to Jassal in the raskarran language. My niece appears a moment later with a pair of trousers and hands them to me.

“I tricked my way onto a ship going that way,” I say as I slip my shoes off and the trousers on. They are sturdy feeling, but also light, and far more comfortable than my Mercenia jump suit. “I wanted to find out what happened to you. Mercenia told me you were dead. That you died on Alpha Colony.”

“I never made it to Alpha Colony, as you can see,” Sally says.

“But that place is bad news. I’m not sure if I had made it whether I would have survived long.

We crash landed here after a systems malfunction on our ship.

Quite a few of the crew died while we waited for rescue. You may have noticed, the fauna here…”

“Bitey,” I say, thinking of the big cats, the enormous birds.

“Exactly,” Sally says. “We were being picked off one by one. And then I got kidnapped by a raskarran. Not Jaskry,” she adds, patting her raskarran’s leg.

“He rescued me, and tried to bring me back to my crew, despite knowing I was his mate. But when I got there, I overheard my captain talking about selling me off. Decided I’d take my chances here. ”

I absolutely can’t blame her for that. It’s been ten years since she headed out to Alpha Colony. I wonder if things have changed since or if me and the other girls were going to be sold off to someone, too. I don’t even want to think about it.

“There was a malfunction on our ship, too,” I say. “The captain put us women on the escape pod and set us to crash land here. He said he would send for help, but I never figured Mercenia would come for us. Why would they?”

Sally nods. “Especially considering their track record with ship safety,” she says. “Quite damning that two of their ships malfunctioned out here.”

Damning, or too much of a coincidence. The thought makes me a little uneasy, but I brush it aside.

There’s no point dwelling on things I have no control over.

Not when I’m here, reunited with my sister.

I grill her about her life here instead, asking about her children, Jaskry, the planet.

She asks me about life back on Earth, and I tell her how it got worse and worse every year, how the restrictions on bottom tier citizens just kept increasing.

Breeding licences, curfews, social gathering bans, all the myriad ways Mercenia made our lives miserable.

“I know it’s primitive here,” Sally says. “I know living in a wooden hut probably doesn’t sound like it’s up to much, but you and the other girls can have good lives here. Lives where you have the freedom to choose how to live it. And, if you’re very lucky, someone to share that life with.”

She glances over at Jaskry, who’s talking to Gregar in hushed tones while occupying little Ahnjas, her eyes full of such love and adoration I almost feel I’m intruding on a private moment.

“I thought about you all the time,” she says, turning back to me. “Hoped you were safe, happy. I was going to leave this place behind to get back to you. I only stayed when I heard the captain saying those things about selling me off.”

“I don’t blame you,” I say, reaching out to take her hand.

“I’m glad you’re safe here. I knew Mercenia was lying to me when they said you’d died in a freak accident.

Of all the awful things I imagined were the truth, I never dared to even imagine you were still alive, never mind happy. With a family.”

“And you came out here to avenge me?” Sally says, voice soft.

It does seem ridiculous now. Why I was so willing to risk everything just for some sort of revenge. But my everything on Earth didn’t include a gorgeous man, the possibility of a family.

Air that smells of green.

“It was live a few more years working in Waste Disposal. Die of toxic chemical exposure after a short, miserable existence. Or come out to Alpha Colony and try to get revenge. Or something. I think I thought I didn’t care if I lived or died. Until I came here and came face to face with dying.”

But even then, maybe I wouldn’t have cared if this planet hadn’t been so beautiful. Hadn’t given me a flavour of what a good life could be. In the waking world and in my dreams.

We talk for a long while, until the children grow antsy and restless. When little Ahnjas starts climbing up Sally, tugging at her clothes and babbling for her attention, she sighs, smiling down at him.

“You just can’t sit still, can you, ey’ahsak?”

Hearing her speak raskarran words is strange. She doesn’t growl them the way Gregar and Jaskry do, but there’s a rough quality to her voice that mimics it. She sounds alien.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

Sally gives a little shrug. “It doesn’t have a good direct translation.

It means something like ‘spirit of my tree’.

It’s a term of endearment. Like ‘my love’ but raskarrans don’t really have a concept of romantic love.

They have their mates. ‘Love’ as we think of it implies an impermanence.

You fall in love with someone, you fall out of love.

For raskarrans, mates just ‘are’, there’s not any falling in or out.

It’s unconditional. I guess that’s the closest translation.

Unconditional love. For a partner, or for your children. ”

“What about for your nieces and nephews?” I say.

Sally’s eyes grow watery. “I think it would still be appropriate.”

“ Ey’ahsak ,” I say, trying the strange syllables for size.

“Almost,” Sally says, repeating it again for me, slower.

“ Ey’ahsak ,” I try again, and when I glance around, Gregar is watching me with a look of such pride and devotion. It makes me feel all jittery inside. I feel an urge to go to him, to touch him, just to convince myself again that he’s real.

That he’s mine.

Jaskry prepares food for all of us and sets Jassal on the task of packing up their supplies.

Gregar returns to our camp to pack up our things, telling me through Sally that he is happy to take care of it without my assistance.

The translation is a little stilted, my sister frowning in concentration as she listens.

“The dialect is slightly different,” Sally says afterwards.

“The tribes stay in different areas and they all have slightly different ways, according to Jaskry. His tribe lived near a big river, so they were part of the Great River tribes. Gregar is of a Deep Forest tribe. They’re all one people, but it’s a bit like the different tiers back home.

Jaskry could be from the bottom tier, while Gregar is from one of the top ones. Not in terms of hierarchy, just…”

“Just differences,” I say.

“Exactly,” Sally says. “We’ve been keeping off the radar.

Jaskry’s tribe… They weren’t good to him or me.

He feared that others would behave the same if they found out about me.

That they would try to take me away from him.

So we’ve not been around any other raskarrans.

I’ve never had to get an ear for the different versions of their language they speak. Sorry.”

I shake my head. “Don’t apologise. I’m glad to have even half an idea of what’s going on for a change.”

Sally smiles, then lets out a small laugh.

“I remember what that was like - only being able to talk in the dreamspace. It doesn’t take long for your connection to strengthen to the point where you can understand each other.

Gregar will not be able to understand me until he learns a little English.

But as long as you are talking to him, your meaning will be apparent to him.

It’s strange, but it works. Like the minds connect and understand each other on some deeper level than the spoken word. ”

Sounds amazing, and I can’t wait for it to happen to me so I can stop the crazy hand gesture communication.

When Gregar returns, we eat. I’m still so hungry, and I don’t know if it’s because of my week of eating increasingly smaller rations, or last night’s exertions. Either way, it pleases Gregar that I eat so heartily. He keeps topping up my plate with more from his own.

“Just wait til you’re pregnant,” Sally says when she notices. “You might think you understand the term ‘overbearing’ now, but I promise, you don’t.”

Still, she smiles at Jaskry, and he smiles back.

“Are we going to be a tribe now?” Jassal pipes up, her eyes shining with excitement.

Sally’s smile fades, hesitation in her expression.

“You’re not coming with us?” I say.

Sally looks to me. “Liv, I would love to, but that’s Gregar’s decision. It’s his tribe.”

“And I’m his mate. That means I get some say, right? His tribe has taken in all the other women. They’ll be glad to have you guys, too.”

There’s hope in Sally’s expression. I think of her living on her own out here with only Jaskry and their children for company for ten years.

Jaskry might be devoted, their children sweet, but it’s not exactly a rich, full social life.

Surviving just the two of them, especially once children started arriving, must have been a challenge, too.

With Gregar’s tribe they’ll have security, a helping hand to look after the kids and company other than each other.

I don’t think I’m being selfish in thinking it would be good for them.

“You’re coming with us,” I say.

Gregar looks down at me. He clearly doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, but I think he might recognise my determined tone. He strokes his knuckles across my cheek and the touch sends a shiver through me.

I gesture to my sister and her family. “They’re coming with us,” I say.

Jaskry says something in the rumbling raskarran language, and Gregar turns to him to reply. They speak back and forth a moment, then Gregar turns to me, pressing a kiss against my forehead.

“Yes,” he says, twisting the English word with the growling tone of his voice.