The sun had sunk already behind the mountains with their snowdrop peaks, the painted sky paling from goldenrod and carmine to coreopsis and pink carnation. Darkness was quick on its heels, but he didn’t fear it at all. The night was the domain of His Lady, and the Moonlight Matron’s benevolent gaze sheltered all in the quiet twilight.
Rue wandered through the streets, less crowded now that it was late. He preferred these times to try and find his directions, to map the land in his mind. The crowds were still overwhelming oftentimes. But his friends did say he was doing well.
Or at least…most of them did.
Sadness weighed his steps, but it was an old companion, and he carried it with him always. The hybrid started to hum to himself, spying a park up ahead a'ways, and decided that was a lovely place to linger and be lost in. He knew he could retrace his steps home, and the general directions of the market, the library, and Elly’s home — and Kerissa’s, unwelcome though he was nowadays — but not precisely where he was now.
So it was an adventure.
Oftentimes, Lektra Kendis spent her nights in her room, gazing out her window at the living city. She had been lucky to get an apartment on one of the upper floors of the building she lived in, allowing her a view of all the life that Selen harbored. But tonight, the woman needed a change of pace. After her day with Sebastian, she could barely sit still. So, she had decided the best course of action would be to try and walk all the excess energy off, and that’s how she ended up in the quiet Estle Park.
The young girl had climbed a tree and was currently perched among its branches with her messenger bag filled with books and schoolwork. She had intended on potentially getting some work done while she was out but found herself yet again nose-deep in a fantasy novel. Her wine and carmine hair hung loose above her uncovered shoulders, her gray tanktop covering her with only straps. A third of her legs were hidden by some blue shorts, the rest of her freckled skin exposed to the elements down to her blue shoes.
Incidentally, the woman in the tree was not the only one who liked them so well. Climbing, however, wasn’t even a thought to the hybrid. Still singing to himself, he chose a very nice plantaus ellisoes, a large and sturdy sycamore of warmer climes like this one. It wasn’t native, surely an imported species — he thought to see if he could manage a cutting, perhaps, or find the seed pods — but it was a beautiful deciduous he was happy to rest under.
His tune rose and fell softly as Rue settled down at the base of the tree in the hollow of its roots, oblivious to the pair of legs dangling above. He unpacked his satchel and flipped through a notebook, removing another book, turning to a page, and then beginning to write on a blank sheet of notes in a delicate hand. His tail turned pages for him when necessary, so he needn’t stop writing nor sketching.
“Great…” Lektra near inaudibly mumbled to herself once Rue’s singing reached her ears. The Firrerreo was quickly beginning to regret her decision to go out into nature instead of staying home in her climate-controlled apartment where she could look out at the skyline in a more solitary place.
The woman began to slide her loose possessions into her bag, sliding in textbooks and notes and the like. She hadn’t even noticed the pencil falling out of her bag since right after it fell, she herself jumped out of the tree into a tumble roll to break her fall. With a mild sigh, she looked behind herself at the source of the disturbance.
A strange rustling that did not belong in trees from above drew Rue’s attention, his singing tapering off as he turned his head up to look. He caught just a glimpse of a figure moving and a glint of red in the moonlight just in time to lift his face into something thin and sharp smacking into his eye, and bit off a yelp of surprised pain. His spine cringed instinctively as his tail whipped from behind him to curl around his ankle and leg. He froze, arm locked between reaching up to cover the eye instinctively and the marrow-deep training that he was not to move or make a sound without permission.
A solid thud came from nearby, movement, and his breath hitched as he tried to hold stiller.
Lektra’s eyes narrowed as she made an attempt to make out the form beneath the tree. The being’s shimmering hair is what caught her attention, but his curled position hid his visage from view. She should be disinterested, but something about the vibrant hues felt vaguely familiar somehow, and familiarity is a feeling Lektra was not used to feeling outside of Sebastian and Luka.
The Firrerreo took a half step closer, her muscles tense, her gaze fixed upon the hunched man. “Why are you curled up like that?” The woman asked, thoroughly confused by the man’s behavior.
The hybrid curled tighter, wavering between a lifetime of obsequience and the lessons of the last months. He peeked up with his one good eye, feeling the other itch like hundreds of insects as it the sliced cornea slowly knit back up, and in the squinting view, he saw his friend.
Rue uncurled immediately, crying as much from his eye watering naturally as from the sudden rush of relief from stress.
“Elly?”
It was only moments later that he realized the voice wasn’t an exact match, and he shrunk back slightly again, fidgeting.
“Ah, apologies!” recited what he’d been practicing. “I mean. Ma'am. Or sir. Or. This one— I. Apologies. Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “B-bowing was the rule where I came from. I am still learning the new rules. Apologies for offending. This one I was just. Startled. Something hit its eye.”
Lektra’s brow creased. She knew her deceased mother wasn’t the only woman in the galaxy with the name Elly, but to hear it said aloud was… difficult, to say the least. The Firrerreo inched ever closer, her heart feeling weaker as she processed the way the man spoke. He obviously was some sort of servant, but knowing the galaxy, he just as well could have been a slave.
“Something hit your eye?” She questioned. The only reason anything would’ve hit the man would be because of her disturbing the treetop, meaning whatever harm had come to the man was her responsibility. “Kriff, I’m sorry,” Lektra quickly apologized before moving closer. “Does it hurt? Can you still see out of it? I can bring you to a hospital if you need.”
“Yes, Misst— Miss,” Rue confirmed of the first question, uncurling slightly more though he was still tense as she crept closer. Her apology was unnecessary but kind. “Miss need not be sorry. This one is accustomed to pain. The vision is blurred, but it is healing. I can feel it. Likely little more than a corneal abrasion.”
With his good eye, he glanced over her, and still felt she was the spitting image of his friend, almost. It was disorienting. But she also has a satchel, and as he felt around in front of him in the grass with his one hand, fully revealing his watering eye, he found a slim hard object. Seeing it was a beautiful colored pencil, he offered it out to her.
“Is this yours, Mistre— Miss? It is very nice. Cornflower almost. Some of my dear litluns have similar.”
Lektra crept closer until she was close enough to snag the pencil out of Rue’s grasp. She was hesitant to interact with him too much, worried this could be some sort of trap intent on taking advantage of her refound compassion. But when nothing came out of the darkness to take her, the woman was able to relax just a bit. “It is mine, yes,” she said simply. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
The Firrerreo knelt down to get a better look at Rue and his potential injury. Lektra certainly wasn’t the most traveled of individuals but she was almost certain the hybrid in front of her was something unique. He smelled of so many different species yet somehow maintaining his own unique scent. The mystery surrounding him was almost troubling.
“Yes, Mistress. This one has had many more severe wounds and healed from them. It has a healing factor due to its genetic code. See?” He meekly showed her his face, still bowed submissively on the ground. If she looked, she would see the eye now seemed normal, whatever was normal for him. She would also notice fangs when he spoke, much like hers, and the metallic quality to his hair.
The Firrerreo lightly crawled closer, wary of the anomaly in front of her. Unnatural, foreign scents kept her on high alert every since they were used against her.
“I’m glad you’re okay… I have a healing factor, too. It heals but it does not stop the pain.”
“Miss does?” asked the hybrid, a perk of curiosity in his tone. Then sadness followed, and the saddest and kindest of smiles. “Ah…so Miss must, to know that pain endures. This one is sorry. It wishes Miss had never known such things.”
Lektra couldn’t help but let out a solemn chuckle. She didn’t know the man in front of her, but something told her he knew pain just as well as she did. “I wish I hadn’t either. Thank you.”
Stopping just a few feet in front of Rue, Lektra sat down on the ground and sighed. “what are you doing out here all alone in the middle of the night?” She knew she wasn’t in Korda at the moment but the darkness was never truly safe.
“This one is simply exploring and enjoying, Miss,” Rue replied, and then turned his teary face up to the sky, smiling beatifically at the moon. “Particularly under the light of its Moonlight Mother. My Lady Goddess watches over all in the night.” He hummed then looked back, parroting, “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“I’m taking a break from… Well, people. I was visiting friends and it’s always so overwhelming. So I came here to clear my head before heading home.” Lektra looked up to the moon like Rue did, wondering if there was something special up there.
“This is a very nice place for head clearing,” Rue agreed. “And people can indeed be overwhelming. Very much is overwhelming. Everything, it seems. This world is very different from mine. I am still learning it. It is…so full. Of people. Of things. The rules are all different. This one– I knew what I was before. I was good. I was good at it. Now everything here I do is wrong, and makes my friends angry or sad or both. This one does not belong. But…”
He finally turned away from the moon and smiled at her.
“But this one is trying.”
“I…” a soft chuckle escaped Lektra’s lips at the situation. “I know exactly how that is. Where I came from, every day was a fight. You never knew what was going to happen next. You were never safe. But here… everything is so peaceful. There isn’t danger or death around every corner….” The young woman looked away from the moon and towards Rue, his smile a grand contrast to the frown etched on her features.
“I’m glad you’re trying.”
The hybrid tilted his head, gaze extremely gentle as he searched hers. “Why are you sad? If everything is peaceful here. You are frowning,” he explained.
“Everything is peaceful and good and happy and safe, yes. But it isn’t for me. It shouldn’t be me that’s here talking to you.” To Lektra, she was the person least worthy of surviving out of the whole family. Everyone else had a life they lost when they were stranded and stuck, Lektra didn’t.
Rue merely blinked at her. “This one knows why it does not belong. But why not you?”
The young woman shifted and settled onto her rump, her knees now brought up to her chest in a defensive ball. “Because my family deserved it more than me.”
Rue mirrored her position, whether consciously or not, and somehow despite his longer limbs he made an even tighter, more skeletal ball.
“This one understands. All this one’s family have died. So, so many of them. All my litluns. Hundreds of them. And others. And Grandmother. All gone, expired, terminated. This one wishes often that others had lived when this one survived. But this is simply not so. I am alive. And they have died.” Another slow, catlike blink at her, peaceful as the foreign world she described. “We are alive. So it is. And so we go on. And we find quiet nights with lovely moons.”
He looked back up, as if to try and gesture her to enjoy it too.
“We both heal and we’ve both felt unimaginable loss and are both in a place we don’t belong… huh.” Lektra looked up at the moon again, yet again only finding the planetary body up in the sky without any additional answers. “Who are you?”
“This one’s designation is Experiment: Senth Peth Forn Krill Resh Dorn Twenty Nine Zero Zero Three Four Nine Nine One. But I am also called Rue. My grandmother named me that. Who are you?”
“That’s a long name. I think I’ll stick to Rue, if that’s okay with you?” She wanted to make sure that the being in front of her was okay with whatever name she called her. “My name is Lektra. It was given to me by my mother.”
“Rue is lovely,” he confirmed, and then stared when she introduced herself. His gold eyes widened. He stared. And stared. And then tears welled in his eyes all over again, and he leaned closer, looking at her once more with recognition.
“Lektra,” he whispered, so familiar. “You look just alike… But you are just yourself, are you not? Oh…Lektra, if I may ask, was your mother’s name Elly? Ellisyn?”
“Rue is very lovely, yes.” Lektra agreed, simply looking up at the moon with him still. It was so peaceful up there. No lights, no yelling, no life, nothing. Just the moon.
Her thoughts were interrupted, though, by Rue whispering her own name back at her before moving on to more what sounded almost like nonesense. She brought her eyes down from the sky and towards her newfound friend as they tried to process through their thoughts, which was all well and good, at least until he mentioned Elly again.
Lektra paused for a moment. “Did you… Did you know her?” The more she looked at the man, the more she thought of his name, the more familiar he seemed as well
Rue smiled back at her with pure happiness. “I know Miss Elly. She is my dear friend. So is young Sulla. And littlest Lektra.” He paused. “If you would want to be a friend as well, I would be.”
.