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“Do you think we need to address the fact she likely had no idea what she just did?” I look to my triad, trying to determine how much trouble we would get into for allowing a human to go through all of this when it's pretty clear she can't give consent.
Owiin is definitely contemplating it, but Kass just looks excited. Reserved, but excited.
“You know the rules,” Kass tells us. “We can't influence them to accept, which we didn't, other than letting her know what our timeline was. We can't initiate contact, which we have no way of doing anyway. She contacted us, she filled everything out. There's nothing in our contract with earth that states inebriation cancels out a contract.”
“That's true,” Owiin points out. “It's not like this is the first time somebody has signed up in such a state. And that’s just assuming anyway, based on her behavior, that she was consuming alcohol. Who knows, maybe she's just very... eccentric.”
I let out a very undignified snort, because we all know that there's eccentricity, and then there's drunk as a space satellite.
“Did we just find ourselves a mate?” Kass asks quietly, as if saying it too loud might prevent it from coming to fruition.
“We did. Oh my maker, we’re getting mated!” Kass and Owiin move closer to me, and we take our triad formation. Arms around each other's back, foreheads all touching. It's finally happening. After all these years of searching, we'll finally get to have a mate.
“We need to prepare the ship for travel. We need to go pick her up before our earth time slot is up.”
I look at my wristband to see we have a minimal amount of time before our pass expires that allows us to stay near earth waiting for a mate, and it's going to take at least thirty Earth minutes to arrive at her home from where we currently are. This close to earth, we can't move too fast or else it will disrupt too much on the planet.
“I'll get everything locked up. , you drive.”
“I'll make sure the bed is clean,” Owiin says with excitement in his step.
It doesn't take long for the information that our Margaret submitted to come through our system, and I'm able to lock on to the GPS the machine inserted in her hand when she thought that it bit her. I shake my head. That was adorable.
I make sure that our ship is fully cloaked as we approach so that we don't startle anybody, hoping that we've given our mate enough time to do anything she wishes to do before she leaves.
When we're hovering above a large brick building where her location is signaling from, I'm down to only a few minutes left. With shaking hands, I press the button that will send out impulses to her GPS to get her outside. She’ll automatically seek the clearest ground to access us, and it takes everything I have to not jump out of our craft and cover her, because she seems to have fallen asleep in nothing but an overly large T-shirt that her lovely rump pokes out of as she looks around her in confusion.
The beam grabs her, lifting her gently and she starts giggling uncontrollably, pretending to swim through the air, and then trying to make what I think the humans call snow angels in the air once she flips to her back, doing flips and playing the entire way up to us.
If this is her inebriated state, I think she'll be quite fun at all times. Nobody's this playful and fun in only one state of being.
Our hatch opens and sets her on her feet inside our ship, and the three of us just stare at her, on our main platform, surely feeling the same; that she must be a mirage, an artificial image meant to tempt us to the high heavens. There's no way a creature this perfect, this stunning, chose beings that look like us when she has her pick of all the humans on earth.
“This is fancy,” she says looking around. She doesn't even seem phased that she's in an alien spaceship, or that we're starting to slowly escape Earth's atmosphere.
“We're so excited you're here,” Kass coos quietly. He's the gentlest out of all of us, the softest, the most delicate. He's a good choice for approaching her in this situation, because he's less likely to startle her. His whole demeanor is very calming, and I can tell she's entranced by him.
She lifts a hand to her mouth as she takes in the gentle yellow glow of his eyes and the rainbow prisms that flow through his hair and down his neck and then continue just underneath the surface of his skin. Her eyes linger on his elongated ears, his narrow jaw and his tall but lean frame.
“Damn,” she says eventually. “You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”
Owiin clears his throat, seeking her attention. Which she gives.
She pulls a quick intake of breath as she looks over his deeper purple skin, with the little glowing lights that look like stars running across his bare chest. The symbol on his forehead glows in her presence, and then she’s staring at the short horns growing out of his head that are barely covered by his shaggy hair. His body is beautiful, sculpted due to his race and genetics, well made for pleasing his mate.
“I take that back. You're both the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Am I being pranked?”
Owiin looks to me, but I wave him off. One of us needs to drive this ship, and I don't have half the beauty they do. Let her marvel at them while they take care of her. My time will come.
I strap myself back into the seat and listen to them communicating with her, getting her into place to be strapped down for travel. I hit the intercom so they’ll hear the counting down for exiting Earth's atmosphere, so they’ll be prepared for jumping.
Once the indicators tell me that all harnesses are fastened fully, my time on this rotation is fully up, which means I don't even have to punch in the coordinates to our space station, because the ship will take us there automatically.
I’ll be stuck up here in the navigation pit by myself for a few hours, so I try to take in the sights, try to ignore my triad’s voices as they soothe our new mate, smiling to myself when she starts to fall asleep again. It's best she sleeps for now anyway, she has a lot of change coming her way, and she'll need to be well rested for all of it.