I stopped and looked at him. “That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.”
He grinned. “Did you expect it to be faith and devotion to the goddess?”
“Well, yeah, kind of.”
He knelt next to me and lifted one of my feet, putting on my boot and tucking in the pant leg before lacing it. “That might be the reason spoken aloud, but things can have many reasons. I find most often the reasons spoken aloud are the smallest motivations behind big actions.” He finished lacing my boots, then sat on the edge of the bench while he did his own. “I could tell you the land is protected in respect to the goddess, as tribute for the way our ancestors treated the planet in the centuries before we discovered spaceflight. A putting to rights the land back to its natural state after being brought to the brink of destruction and overpopulation. But in reality, the ormonai discovered spaceflight and spent the next millennia abandoning their home world to spread across the galaxies until one day a rich asshole I might be related to decided occupying our home world would be fashionable.”
I snorted. “That sounds like something humans would do.” I sat next to him and leaned against him.
“I used to think ormonai were some superior species, that we thought and lived this elite life separate from the rest of the galaxies because we treated nature with such reverence.” He gestured to the window, the city spread out in the distance. It was a stunning blend of giant indigo trees and even taller skyscrapers. And here we sat, at the top of one of the tallest buildings, overlooking it all.
“You don’t believe that anymore?”
“No.” His arm came around me and pulled me onto his lap. “It was what my father raised me to believe, but I’ve seen other worlds with my own eyes, set foot on their land, and spilled blood into their dirt. I’ve fought against and with dozens of other species. We may all be different, but fundamentally, people arepeople. The beats of our lives and the histories of our species frequently follow similar paths.”
“That’s kind of a beautiful way to think about it.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Come, let’s eat so we can be on our way.”
He led me into a sitting room where too much food was laid out. He began filling a plate. “Eat up while you can. We’ll be on travel rations when we reach Monai, and while our packs will be heavy, we’ll be bringing extra supplies for your friends.”
He handed me the plate and waited until I started eating before filling his own.
The door chimed, and Rainair entered, wearing similar clothes, the light purple bringing out warm tones in his fur.
“This is way too fucking early, Kex.” He crossed the room in a few long strides and dropped into a chair across from us. He picked up something that looked like a chicken nugget and popped it into his mouth before pouring a mug of tea.
“Good morning to you too,” Kex said, then added a few things to my plate. Rainair focused on shoveling as much food as he could into his oddly shaped mouth and ignored Kex and me.
I scooted my plate a little farther from Kex and picked up my own tea. It was strong, with a nutty flavor, and not at all bitter. “Are we going to another village before we enter Monai?”
“No, we’ll fly to a spot as close to the border and your friends as we can. There isn’t a village nearby,” Kex said.
“Who lives in the villages? I can’t imagine them being full of the elite,” I said, and popped a piece of green fruit into my mouth. It was sweet, a little like banana.
“When the ormonai returned to occupy this planet again, they designated the sacred lands to satisfy the goddess, then built their cities tall and imposing to provide for their greed and need for luxury. Over time, the villages began to develop along the border. The people there choose to live traditionally, but theyare not uncompromising. They have proper medical resources and some have varying levels of tech in their homes. Some are wealthy, others are not.”
“Where would you prefer to live?” I asked him. Kex seemed reluctant to return to the city, and I didn’t think he had made a decision about his grandfather’s legacy.
“I enjoy my time in the forest, but I prefer modern plumbing.”
Rainair snorted, and I grinned.
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“Shall we be off then?” Kex said a short time later when we had eaten our fill.
“Let’s get on with it,” Rainair said, standing. I still didn’t quite get why he was coming when he didn’t seem particularly interested in the journey, but it felt like maybe Rainair just needed company.
I stood, planning to use the modern plumbing before we left, but Kex called out, “Wait.”
I stopped, but Rainair did not.
“Rainair, just a moment,” Kex said, and the cat-man came to a stop.
“No offense, but if you and your mate need a quick interlude before we leave, I’d rather wait at the flyer,” Rainair said.
“You did listen to the part about no tech in the forest, didn’t you?” Kex asked.