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It’s late Dust when Sym finds Solane lying on the rock that Dys loves so much, her hair curling around her in beautiful perfect waves. She smiles to see him, exuding contentment, and though the electromagnetic fields present don’t touch him the way they do her, he smiles back. “Good afternoon, Solane.”
“Sym!” She pats the space by her side. “C’mon, sit with me. It’s soooo nice here.”
He does, gladly. “You seem very happy.”
“Yeah!” She beams up at him. Humans are so fascinating -- the expression touches everywhere, not just her mouth but her upper cheeks and the space between her eyes. Even her eyebrows tilt with it. “Well, I’m not actually, but right here I am. It’s nice!”
He tilts his head curiously. “What do you mean?”
“I feel like shit all the time, lately,” she says. Her eyes close blissfully as her head tilts up to the midday sun. “I’m so worried Dys is gonna do something stupid, and Cal keeps getting in fights with all the soldiers, and I’m so jealous all the time that I wanna hit something, like, constantly. But here… I don’t feel like that. I don’t feel anything but good!”
Sym has many, many questions. Most pressing: “What do you mean, something stupid?”
“I dunno.” She waves her hand in the air. “He’s just got the vibes for it, lately.”
How interesting. “Dys vibrates?”
She giggles at that, rolling onto her side to better look at him. “Nooooo, I mean like. The feeling he’s giving off lately? He’s always intense, but, like….” She shrugs, which dislodges her perch on her side, and when she falls over she laughs again, louder than before. “I dunno!”
Interesting. Perhaps he’ll ask Dys later about his ‘vibes.’ For now, there’s more questions blooming like fungi in his mind: “Why is your colony defense force fighting those it’s meant to protect?”
She sticks her tongue out, one hand comes up to flop onto her face. “Because Vace has the biggest possible dick on Vertumna, and everyone’s gotta know!” This sets her off again, her laughter echoing down the ridge.
It’s very pleasant; Sym smiles to hear it. “Why does the size of his genitalia matter?”
Somehow, this only makes her laugh harder. He waits patiently, enjoying the sound. “It’s like,” she manages, gasping a little around it, “uh, a human thing? It means that he thinks he’s soooooo cool and strong and shit. Reality is he’s just a jackass, though.”
“I see,” says Sym. “In that case, I believe your genitalia would be much larger than his.”
He… must’ve made a mistake, from how she shrieks with delight at that. “Sym!” she cries, holding her stomach as she laughs so hard a tear streaks down her face. “Sym, noooooo, you can’t say that, that’s completely wrong….”
What follows is a ten minute crash course in the word dick and all its permutations, the difference between being a dick and having a large one, why it’s called dicking around if there’s no sex involved, and on and on and on. It’s all very fascinating; Sym makes a note to be extra careful with this body to ensure he won’t lose this data before he uploads it. “So in summary,” he says, to check his learning, “Vace is a dick, who believes himself to be in possession of a big dick?”
Two thumbs up. Her fingernails are fascinating and lovely; he would very much like to study one in more depth. Perhaps she’ll give him some clippings. “And may I ask what you’re jealous of?”
“Dick Vace,” she says, hands coming back down to rest on her stomach as her eyes flutter back shut. Idly, he reaches out and takes a lock of her hair between his fingers, marveling at the texture of it. “He’s dating my…. Well. I guess she’s not really my best friend anymore.”
The negative emotion she feels about this situation must be quite powerful, to cause such an unhappy look to cross her face despite the electromagnetic field in which she lies, even briefly. “We used to be,” she says, and already the worst of it’s fading away, smoothing back into placid calmness. “Like, Nem and I were so close for forever, y’know? Sportsball buds and partners in crime! And she gave me this, too.”
She holds her wrist out to him and shakes it so the bracelet on it jingles. Sym reaches forward, touches it gently with two fingers. It’s nothing special, just a datapad with a few various media files uploaded onto it. “She told me it was from my ‘secret admirer.’ Can’t have admired me that much, though, if she’s sucking face with Vace now.”
“She’s sucking on his face?”
This gets a smile, though not a big one. “Euphemism for kissing. You know what kissing is, right?”
His eyes slide down to her mouth. “I do,” he says. “Though I’ve never tried it myself.”
She cracks an eye open at him, and looks utterly unsurprised to find him staring. “Go ask Dys about it,” she says. “I’m a big, big lesbian this time around, my friend.”
“Would you kiss me if this body was female?” He wouldn’t mind taking a new form, if she’d prefer it.
Sol takes a moment to consider that, nose scrunching up as she stares at the sky. Human skin wrinkles so much. It’s wonderful. “Nah,” she decides, eventually. “Like, you’re great and all, don’t get me wrong, but I’m stupid into Nem. Plus Dys would be so mad at me if you stopped being this hot because I asked.”
“Alright.” It’s a bit of a shame -- there really isn’t anyone alive like her. He can only imagine how wonderful kissing her would be. Which reminds him: “Why won’t your Nem suck on your face?”
She makes a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “Messed that one up too, bud. It’s ‘suck face,’ and if you wanna use it like that you’d say ‘why isn’t she sucking face with you?’” And then she sighs, one hand coming up to cover her face. “And also, she really, really isn’t my Nem.”
He tilts his head and waits for further elaboration. It doesn’t come. “...Humans are very strange,” he says, finally. “I wonder if I’ll ever fully understand you.”
“Mm,” she says with half a shrug, placid again. “We could say the same about you.”
He laughs, delighted. “You could, couldn’t you?”
The grin she gives him makes him feel warm all the way down to his strange new toes. Marvelous. Together they sit in the sunlight, her half-drowsing with a contented expression, him twirling locks of her hair between his fingers. It’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon, though as the night creeps in and she makes no sign of moving he frowns.
“Solane,” he says, finally, as the first sun touches the horizon. “You need to go home before it gets dark.”
“Nnnnnnn,” she says, rolling over away from him so she’s flat on her stomach. “I’m gonna feel so shitty when I have to leave here, though.” She tilts her head to peer at him with one eye. “Can’t you just, I dunno… stay here with me tonight? Be my knight in shining armor?”
“I would love nothing more,” he says, earnestly. “But I have no way of knowing when my duties might call me away, and I couldn’t leave you here alone in the night. Besides, your loved ones would worry if you didn’t return.”
“Ghhhhhhh.” She buries her head in her arms. “Yeah, probably. Man, this is gonna suck so bad.”
“Do you need help?”
There’s a pause long enough Sym considers repeating the question, but before he can she sighs against the rock and sits up. “Yeah, if you don’t mind,” she says, not quite upset but not smiling like before. “I already know the second I get too far away I’m gonna cry, though, so you’d mostly just be my big tissue who gives me hugs.”
“I would be honored.”
That gets him a grin; he smiles back and hopes she knows how much he means it. How often he’s seen human beings holding each other, from outside the walls! He’s looking forward to trying it himself -- though he wishes she wouldn’t have to cry for him to finally get his chance.
“Okay,” she says, and slides off the rock, sighing as she goes. “Let’s get going.” One step, two, three, and then she stops, turning back around. “Sym,” she says, and though the field’s effects shouldn’t have lessened to any major degree she already sounds mildly distressed. “Are you sure I can’t just stay here with you tonight? Leave in the morning?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, as gently as he can, and then puts a hand on her back. “You can’t.”
She gnaws on her lip a long, long moment. “I really am gonna cry all over you, so you know.”
“That’s perfectly fine.”
Again they start walking. This time he leaves his hand on her, and when the sniffles start up, he keeps pressing her gently forward until he’s certain they’re fully out of the field’s radius. “Alright,” he says, finally letting them come to a stop. “Solane --”
She crashes into him so hard he barely manages to catch her, heavy with muscle as she is. “Fuck,” she says between gasping breaths, tears already beginning to soak into his shirt. “Fuck, I should not have gone there today, it’s just made everything worse, fuck….”
“Shhh,” he says, the way he’s seen humans do, and reaches up to fold her into his arms as best as he can. “It’s alright, Solane. It’s alright. Shhh, just breathe.”
Her grip strength is remarkable. He wouldn’t be able to get away if he wanted to. It’s good, then, that he doesn’t -- instead he holds her and pets her hair and whispers all the platitudes humans tell their crying loved ones as she weeps in his arms.
Eventually her tears peter out. They stand together on the ridge wrapped up in each other, but the first sun has almost fully set and the other isn’t far behind. “Solane,” he says, and then feeling daring presses his lips to the top of her head. “You need to go home.”
“I know,” she says, voice muffled against his shirt. “I just….” She sighs, explosively, and though he knows she has to, when she pulls away he feels a deep sense of loss. The skin around her eyes is puffy and red, and her face is still quite damp. Sym uses his sleeve to do something about the second part, though the first is out of his control, and she lets him with a miserable half-smile. “Thanks,” she says, quietly. “For letting me freak out on you.”
He shakes his head. “Every moment spent with you is a pleasure.”
Her little smile tugs slightly wider. “Save those lines for Dys, my guy. They’re pretty wasted here.”
“How is the truth a waste?”
This time she kicks lightly at his ankle, the way he sees her do with Dys sometimes when they talk. To be included in such a ritual sends something warm all through him. “You know what I mean, lover-boy.”
He doesn’t really, but she looks a little less unhappy than before, and more importantly -- he tilts his head, focuses on the calls of her name in the distance. “Your team is looking for you.”
Solane blinks, head tilting towards where he looks, though her human ears wouldn’t be able to pick the voices up at this distance quite yet. “I should get going then, huh. Ugh, Utopia’s gonna ream me for being so late, it’s nearly dark….”
And for his part, he needs to ensure he isn’t seen. “Rest well, Solane,” he says, already beginning to step away. “I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks again, Sym. I’m really glad I ran into you today.”
He beams. Her regard, as always, leaves him warm with delight. “And I you.” The voices are growing closer; in the distance he can see that woman’s white hair shining in the dimming light. “Farewell, Solane,” says Sym, giving her a bow, and with one last look at her wondrous face, slides away into the shadows.