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I clicked the pen on and off a couple more times to show them how that part worked, then passed all the pens and paper over to the girls.
“Take these to the other kids and make your own posters. That’s what these are. Posters,” I held up one of the posters, grimacing to see I’d grabbed Dalk’s snarling face from my pile. I put it back down hurriedly, just in time to acknowledge the squeaky “Thank you!” before Wanda and Vanda bounded away to join their friends who were waiting watchfully in the other rows. Vanda distributed the papers and pens, giving instructions like she’d been using human pens all her life.
I was glad the children were so into it. I didn’t want the only posters of support in the stands to be for our home team. But our Sea Sand guys were just so outnumbered here. And after what Oxriel and Dalk went through in these mountains before...
I just wanted them to know we were here for them.
Tilly and Nasrin grabbed Oxriel and Zoren’s posters from the pile, leaving me with Dalk’s face. Of course.
“These really are clever,” Zaria said from beside me, glancing down at Dalk’s grumpy image. “I admired my mate Arton before the Vrika ever came for him, you know. I would have liked to have let him know it in some small way.”
Before I could get all weirdly defensive and blurt out something about definitely not admiring Dalk, I switched gears.
“Did you guys, like, date?”
Zaria’s sight stars pulsed in confusion at my question.
“Courting, I guess? Is it common to have a relationship with someone before the Vrika establishes a mate bond?” I clarified.
She sliced her hand through the air. “No. It is not common. Young people will occasionally have casual physical encounters, telling themselves it is practice for when the Vrika bestows a mate upon them.”
“Ah. The good old friends-with-benefits situation,” I said, nodding sagely. “We have that at home, too.”
“But otherwise, no,” she said. “At least not in our tribe. We are counselled from our youth not to establish bonds too deep with anyone, lest those bonds be painfully severed when the Vrika calls and chooses another mate for us.”
“So you don’t abide by the whole, ‘it’s better to have loved and lost’ thing eh?”
At her blank stare I waved away my words.
“Never mind. It’s just a saying from where I come from.”
Zaria appeared to be mulling over my words as I turned my attention back to the men below. With what Zaria had just told me in mind, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the single men down there would never get to have the whole ‘loved and lost’ deal?
And how many of them loved, but loved secretly, never for the other person to know, only for the Vrika to bond that person to someone else?
There were just so few women here. Some of the dudes down there had to have had feelings for someone who ended up with another man. There were several human/alien couples I could think of even now where the two people fell in love before the mate bond was established – Priya and Lerokan, for example, or Kat and Galok – so I knew those feelings were possible without the Vrika or Lavrika’s call.
I ran a sympathetic eye over the Deep Sky males, and my eye didn’t stop when it reached our Sea Sand boys. Zoren could probably identify with the Deep Sky men more than most. The Death Plains also had no more unmated women, and their tribe was even smaller than this one.
What we really need, I thought idly, not noticing or maybe not willing to acknowledge how my gaze seemed to have snagged on Dalk’s hulking form, is another ship with a bunch of human ladies on it to crash here...
I sat bolt upright, as if someone had pinched me and pinched me hard.
What the hell, Fiona?
None of us humans had chosen to come here, and frankly the whole ordeal had been more than a smidge traumatic. Drugged and taken from our homes? Watching the crew of the ship get slaughtered by alien crap-spider monsters? Then getting carted off by Fallo’s men who we weren’t sure would rape us or eat us or maybe try to keep us as pets? I shouldn’t have been wishing that on anyone else just so that some lonely alien lads might one day get some sweet human loving.
I knew all that. Told it to myself very, very sternly. But still kinda thought about it, just at the back of my mind, as I watched the restless males below. There were some really, really good men here. Men who might never get to love someone, or at least have that person love them back and start a family with them. Though I felt nothing romantic towards him, I was pretty sure I would throw a fucking fit if sweetie pie Oxriel didn’t end up with someone! Or Zoren, with his thoughtful, serious nature. Or any of the other decent guys in the Deep Sky tribes or the ones that I’d gotten to know at the Sea Sand settlement.
Or Dalk...
No. Not Dalk. That grumpy, knee-licking man could just be alone forever and see if I cared.
I was pretty sure I would care, actually, and that just made everything worse.
Even now, as only one of approximately twenty men in the clearing, Dalk was the only one my eye was drawn to again and again.
And again.
