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I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car. It was a good 30-40 degrees outside, much hotter than I’d like for it to be. The sun was setting and I was able to see the orange glow of the sunset reflect off the scattered white clouds looking like ripples while hanging silently in the darkening blue sky. I let out a sigh and reached over to the passenger seat to grab my bag. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and let a blast of heat hit me.
I scooted out of the car and closed the door before making the short walk to my cabin. It was a little house made to look like it was a log cabin, except that it was barely two stories tall, and had a small screened porch. The house-cabin was located in the middle of a field, itself surrounded by a coniferous forest of the type that was found in this part of the world. I walked along the path worn into the dirt by thousands of footsteps between the car and the house, and took care not to trip on any of the roots sticking out of the ground, noticing the brown pine needles covering the earth as I did so. I felt a breeze and listened as the surrounding woodlands rustled with the movement of branches brushing against each other. I looked up and saw a flock of birds highlighted against the setting sun.
I reached the porch’s old screen door (that had several small holes in it) and played with the latch. When it finally agreed to unlatch itself I pulled the fragile door open and carefully closed it behind me. Crossing the short and fairly empty porch, I opened the sliding glass door that separated the porch from the interior of the house and slid it shut as I passed through. I set my bag down on the table next to the door before I gasped and was lifted up from behind by a giant pair of hands, then pulled into an embrace.
“You’re late again.”
“I know, I know. The drive back’s long and one of the roads was out for repair or something, so I had to take a detour.”
I felt her make one of her ‘ack ack’ laughing noises as she held me against her cool torso. She pulled me up some more and secured me by wrapping her arms around my chest before resting her chin on my shoulder.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said quietly, a hint of a purr escaping as she did so. I raised my hands and laid them on her arms, trying to do the best approximation of a hug you could do to a pair of arms that were holding you.
We stayed that way for a minute, listening to each other's breathing. Slowly, she slid her hands back under my arms and lowered me to the ground, making sure I was stable before letting go. Once I was on the ground she patted me on the head before I turned around and hugged her as best I could.
“My my, clingy today, aren’t you?” she remarked.
“Oh lord knows I need it today,” I replied. “My mind's been acting up again and it's like a million degrees outside. I don’t have a/c and you’re just SO damn cool. Your entire body is just like the cool side of a pillow, I swear to god…”
She stroked my head with one of her giant hands before I let go and looked up at her.
Her name was Yænliti, Yæni for short, and she was an ariral. She stood about 3 meters tall, and her skin was a porcelain white with light gray stripes appearing occasionally. Her face could be described as similar to a cat’s, but I would say that aside from large yellow eyes, whiskers, and a small snout, the two looked nothing alike. She wore a garment that looked like a mix between a white lab coat and a jacket, and had a large pair of ears that looked something like half a butterfly’s wing on each side of her head, which wiggled slightly as she looked at me. Her hair was thick and coarse compared to a human’s and was a striking shade of orange. She stood on two massive clawed feet (noticeably almost never with any sort of footwear) that were at the bottom of her digitigrade legs.
I looked into her eyes that bored into me, wondering what was going on in that alien head of hers.
“I’ll be ready in a bit,” I said. “I have to take a quick shower first.”
“Take your time, there is no rush.”
I left her downstairs and made my way up the tiny spiral staircase to the upper floor/loft area that held the bedroom. I grabbed a fresh outfit consisting of a jumper and cute top I had thrifted recently before making my way back downstairs to the shower. Yæni was sat on my couch paging through some of my books as I passed her and entered the bathroom. Methodically, I changed out of my pants and a plain ‘Keljoy’ t-shirt, before stepping into the shower. Once clean, I carefully dried and styled my long brown hair before putting on my outfit and stepping out. Yæni was still sitting on the couch looking through my books, but looked up and let out a small mrrrr sound when she saw me, which I smirked smugly at.
“Ok, now I’m ready.”
“Good to go so quickly?”
“Ha ha ha, you’re so funny,” I said sarcastically.
She acked. “Like I said, no rush. Like usual. They’re all too thrilled that you’re so excited to come be a research subject again,” her ears drooped as she finished the sentence, adding emphasis in a way that was fairly easy for a human to intuitively understand.
“Anything for science!” I laughed. “Plus, I want to spend some more time with you,” I poked my finger at her face playfully, “in a place that's a bit more comfortable than this little cabin.” I led her outside (as she was too big to be able to address the door latches with ease), before letting her pass me. I crossed my arms and questioned “So where’s your fancy cloaking spaceship this time?”
She turned her head around and gave me an eye roll, one of the few expressions that have the same meaning for both of our two species. “The same spot it was the last time I picked you up.”
“Exciting,” I said.
I looked around at the world that was still getting darker. With how far out I lived in the woods, I wasn’t too concerned about anyone seeing her or her ship. From the corner of my eye I could see her pull something that looked like a futuristic smartphone out of the pocket of her coat and she started tapping the device.
I turned back towards her just in time to see a shimmer in the air turn opaque, before turning into a tetrahedral shaped space ship, or rather a ‘Warp Arrow,’ as they told me the best translation of the name was. I walked over and stood next to her as the warp arrow slowly floated down towards us until it stopped a meter or so above the ground and about the same distance in front of us.
“This is still really fucking cool and reminds me of a sci fi book I don’t want to be real.”
“Oh?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”
“Yes, I will.”
A hatch on the side of the warp arrow opened from the seemingly perfectly smooth surface and swung down to the ground to become a ramp. Yæni gestured with her hand for me to go into the ship and I obliged, not needing to be asked twice to enter an advanced alien spaceship (even though I have done it before the excitement still remained). I bent over to fit into the hatch and then sat down in the seat further towards the bow of the craft. Yæni followed in after me and then took the seat in the more spacious rear of the craft. The hatch sealed shut before the walls of the ship turned transparent and we seemed to be floating above the ground in our seats. A moment later the ship silently moved upwards and then towards the ariral camp a few kilometers away.
During the short trip I made sure to look at the seat and the seeming lack of fancy gizmos it had. I watched trees pass by underneath us as we flew through the air, and it made me wonder about the safety features it had.
“Hey Yæni?” I asked, my voice being easily carried through the silent cabin.
“Yes, my Isabel?”
“Are there no seat belts in the future?”
Yæni let out an ack ack noise before asking, “What's a seatbelt?”
“A strap that goes across you when you are sitting in a seat in a vehicle, so you don’t go flying around if you get bumped, or get into a crash.”
“Theres no need for such things. All the inertia of everything inside the arrow is always zero with respect to the rest of the universe. If the ship were to crash, we wouldn’t feel anything, it would just be like we were sitting watching a video play on the view screen. Unless we were going fast enough the arrow got damaged, in which case we would be dead before we had time to process the impact.”
“Oh… About how fast is that speed?”
Yæni thought for a moment before answering. “About 15% the speed of light.”
“Oh.”
My brain went silent for a moment trying to process that information before I decided that it wasn’t worth questioning the implications of having that level of technology.
We made some idle chat, and a few short minutes later I watched as we came to a small clearing in the trees which the warp arrow settled down into, revealing the ariral camp. It consisted of what I was told were temporary structures comparable to tents but looked more like fully fledged buildings to me. They were all a blocky single story structure and were a typical ariral white color, with black lines around the doors, windows, and edges. I saw an ariral with short red hair wearing a black recon suit walking between buildings glance absentmindedly at the landing warp arrow before looking away. I recognized them as one of the guards that had been somewhat alarmed when they heard that an alien was going to be staying in their camp. I’ve come so many times now that they’ve calmed down about my presence, and even the novelty must have worn off.
The warp arrow ‘landed’ just above the ground and the hatch on the side opened up and graciously became a ramp again. Yæni got up before me and walked out of the warp arrow, I followed close behind her. The main structure was the largest of the white and black trimmed buildings and had a few small windows (which I suspected were actually panels of the weird stealth technology they had), and a big, (well, big for me) rectangular black trimmed door. The arrow had landed outside of the main structure as it usually did and I followed Yæni inside.
“You know what the plan is for today?” I asked.
“Not certain,” she replied. “But no medical stuff. I think the other time freaked them out. Probably just more questions.”
“Well that's nice to hear. I like answering questions.”
“Of course you do, you little weirdo, ack ack ack.”
I laughed at that too.
The inside was, believe it or not, the same as it had been during my previous visits. The front entrance was a short little hallway with several doors, and I followed her through one on the left, her slender tail brushing against me as I rounded the corner. Inside was the usual cast of characters all wearing the same white labcoat outfit. Rinla and Sræy, Rinla with longer red hair, and Sræy with medium length green hair, both perched over their tablets on the table. They looked up from their tablets as we walked in and waved a greeting, saying something in their language that I couldn’t get before switching to scrappy English.
“Yes! Come! Come! Welcome!” Rinla started, standing up excitedly. “Good to see again, Isabel.”
“Good to see you too,” I replied, walking forward.
Sræy was grabbing things off the table and hurried into a back room, probably to set up some equipment to help with whatever they were planning.
“Are we just doing more questions today?”
“Yes. Still figuring out why you reaction. Want be safe.”
“Thats probably smart.” I turned my head to look up at Yæni. “Are you sticking around for the interrogation?”
“I’ll be in the room, but doing other things. I can help translate, if needed.”
“How wonderful.”
I looked back at Rinla, who had their eyes locked onto me. “We only ask few question today, do more tomorrow, yes?”
“That works for me.”
“Very good! Follow me.” Rinla gestured for us to follow and we were led into the room Sræy had disappeared into. The room was small, about the size of a walk-in closet, and I’m pretty sure it just used to be storage but they had turned it into an interviewing room since I started coming. Inside they were setting up what I assumed to be a camera and had their tablet on the table. I thought it weird how they have the technology to somehow negate some of the most fundamental laws of the universe, but still used a tablet and needed a noticeable camera to record things. Maybe we developed different technologies at different rates? Or that's as good as it gets? I’d have to ask Yæni about it sometime.
I walked to the other side of the table and sat at the seat I usually did. Rinla took a seat in their chair, Yæni caught one by the door, and Sræy took the remaining seat. We all made ourselves comfortable and I watched as Rinla and Sræy pulled something up on their devices. I looked over at Yæni who had her tablet out but was looking at me. I smiled at her and she raised her ears back, the ariral version of a smile.
Rinla cleared their throat and started speaking in their language. They weren’t doing this for me, but for the benefit of the listener, probably listing some information about the date and what not. They finished, paused for a second, and then started again in their English.
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes,” I said.
Rinla tapped some things on their tablet and then turned it around to face me. I leaned forward to get a better look and snorted. “What,” I mumbled to myself.
“We have looking into some new human memes and are wondering what this one means.”
On the screen was a distorted picture of a bar of soap with a bite taken out of it and the tube of a pump soap dispenser stuck into it. There were two lines of text on the image split between the top and bottom that read ‘mmmm’ and ‘sope.’ I started laughing and the arirals all looked at me curiously. It took me a minute to calm down before I answered.
“Mmmm, sope,” I said.
“What?”
“Mmmm,” I repeated. “Sope.”
“I don’t understand,” Rinla said confusedly.
“I don’t think it really has a meaning. It is something that is incredibly stupid and meaningless. Maybe its meaning is that it has no meaning. It is something that is so incredibly absurd it just… makes you wonder who made it and why before you realise you are laughing at it and you are the reason it was made. It's absurd humor.” I looked between Rinla and Sræy. “Does that make sense?”
“I believe so,” Rinla said and muttered something to Sræy who noted something down in their tablet. Yæni looked somewhat amused in the corner.
“Next image,” Rinla said as the image switched.
On the screen appeared a picture that looked like it had been haphazardly taken in a thrift shop. The main focus of the picture was a white t-shirt with a picture of a pair of jeans on it. I was beginning to sense a theme with the night's questions.
“That is a t-shirt with a picture of a pair of jeans on it.”
“We know. Why, though?”
“Wouldn’t you want to wear a shirt with a picture of pants on it?”
Rinla stared at me, showing no signs of emotion.
“Probably because it's funny,” I finally said, a little defeated. “It doesn’t make sense, so it's funny, and you wear the funny shirt.”
“I see…” Rinla looked at Sræy and something else was noted down. “Next image,...”
I stayed for an hour or so trying to explain the images they showed me, with minimal success. They somehow came across a goldmine of nonsense memes and for some reason wanted to make sense of it. By about the fifth picture I think they realised they were all fairly meaningless.
When that was done they did their usual sign out procedure, thanked me for my time, and then left the room. Yæni and I remained.
“Sooo,” I started. “You busy tonight?”
“You already know the answer to that,” Yæni smirked, something she had picked up off of me.
We both got up and walked out of the room. Rinla and Sræy were looking at something on their tablets. They looked up and waved a little hand as we walked by. We left the main building we were in and our hands drifted together as we walked to a set of small rectangular buildings, the personal tent-rooms they stayed in. It really was a lot of luxury for an outpost on an alien planet, I thought. I wasn’t sure if it was something to do with the way arirals lived that they put more effort into affording themselves luxury than humans did, or if it was due to their level of technology being so advanced they were able to easily have such things in the situation.
We walked past a few of the plain rectangular structures before coming to Yæni’s. They had offered me one of my own to stay in while I was here, but I declined on the basis that I’d just be spending all my nights with Yæni, so I would just stay with her. She opened the door and I followed her in. It was similarly minimalistic inside, being basically a studio apartment with next to no decorations. A small cooking area was off in the back along with a bathroom, and there was a large round red plush bed lying on the ground surrounded by pillows. I immediately walked over to the bed and collapsed face first. It was very soft. Yæni walked past me and acked. I laid there for a minute before rolling over. She was in the kitchen corner looking into a cabinet I didn’t know was there.
“What sort of alien greeblies do ya got in there?”
“Greeblies?”
“Food.”
Yæni pulled out a box that had a picture of a shrimp on it and shook it in my direction. “We got shrimp.”
“Is that stuff cooked?”
“Nope.”
“You really do just eat raw food sometimes, huh?”
“Well, we don’t think of it like that. We don’t need to cook our food as much as you do, it just tastes better sometimes when it's cooked.”
“Lucky you,” I nodded. “Got anything other than raw shrimp?”
She looked back towards the cabinet. “Theres some zœni; it's kind of like that ‘popcorn’ stuff you showed me, but if you don’t need to pop it first.”
“That might be a good snack while watching something. We can have a real dinner later.”
“Sounds good to me,” Yæni said while pulling out a box of what I presumed to be the ‘zœni’ from the cabinet. She walked over to the bed and handed me the box before sitting next to me. The box had an illustration of a purple blob wearing raised back ears, meaning they were happy in ariral. I opened the box (which seemed to be just a paperboard box like you’d find most human snacks in) and saw a bunch of purple-blue rough balls. I reached in and pulled one out to scrutinize it. It seemed like a slightly dehydrated blueberry with the dryness of popcorn. I popped one in my mouth, and sure thing, it was like popcorn, just with a bit of a fruity flavor.
“These things really just grow off plants like this?”
“Yes. They are the seeds of a very domesticated plant. I don’t think having your seeds be a good snack is a very good survival trait, ack ack.” Yæni opened up her pack of shrimp and tossed one into her mouth. “I’d like to watch something made by a human, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Got any ideas?”
“I was gonna ask you given that you’re from this planet and all.”
“Oh ha ha. Let me think… There's this one indie show that's been popular recently, it's animated, and from some clips I’ve seen I think it looks good. It's about a virtual reality that people get sucked into and have to play games everyday. Very colorful and fun. I think it's called The Amazing Digital Circus. There's also this other movie called Your Name that I’ve been wanting to rewatch. It's like a romance where the characters get body swapped with each other. Then there's another one called Girls Last Tour, which is about two kids wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Not the most upbeat, but it's still a really good show.”
“Are those all animations again?”
“I-I mean,” I stammered, “maaayyybe.” Yæni looked at me with a look in her eyes that could only be described as playfully-condescending. “I’m a little weirdo, I like the cute little cartoon characters.”
Yæni put her arm around me and gently pulled me to her side. “You’re my little weirdo. That's one of the things I like about you so much. Weird little human, ack ack.”
I smiled, closing my eyes as I leaned against her. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” she said, resting her cheek on top of my head and letting out a little purr. We stayed like that for a moment, each taking comfort in the other's embrace. “Now, I liked the sound of that second one. What’d you say it was called again?”
“Your Name.”
“I’ll pull it up,” she said while lifting up her head and waving her free arm in the air, causing a bland looking white wall to turn into a screen. I never thought I’d be helping an alien pirate Earth shows with their technology. Life is strange.
While she pulled the movie up in her unfamiliar interface, I leaned against her while snacking on some of the zœni, reflecting on how shattered my worldview had become in the past few months. From what the arirals here have told me, they weren’t planning on contacting any humans while they were on Earth, only wanting to set up a small outpost on the planet to study the environment and observe us from afar. That, however, changed when I managed to knock myself out in the woods last winter while hiking. One of their guards was scouting the woods at the time and came across me, when they saw I was lying unconscious in the middle of the woods with injuries the team decided to bring me back to their camp. Apparently while I was out they had to give me an experimental vaccine just so I wouldn’t get sick from being around them. I eventually came to, and while they tried to hide the fact that they were aliens initially, interacting with me as little as possible and only wearing suits when doing so, I wasn’t convinced and eventually got them to open up to me. I don’t think they expected me to be such a xenophile. They offered to take me back to where I lived to recover, but I insisted on staying because how often do you get a chance to hang out with aliens?!?!
As Yæni was the ariral most familiar with English, I ended up spending most of my time around her. We were both a bit eccentric compared to our societal norms and ended up bonding over our eccentricities. She was very much interested in humans and human cultures, probably why she was the most fluent in English, and I was interested in sci fi and aliens and anything that wasn’t human, which was why I was so eager to be around them. By the time my injuries had healed, we had reached an agreement where they would pick me up for the weekend and I would spend it at their camp helping them with their Earth research. They were interested in my physiology, given that I was the only human research subject they’ve had access to, but most of what they wanted me for was to help them understand Earth culture. Stuff like, what about this meme makes it funny? Why is there prejudice from some groups of people towards others? Why aren’t humans universally obsessed with any specific foods?
From my perspective, it was just an all around win. I get to spend time around aliens, I help them to understand humanity, and I get to spend time with Yæni, whom I had grown even closer to. They didn’t even seem to care that we were in a relationship.
How lucky I am to have all this happen to me
I listened to Yæni’s breathing as I watched her pull up the movie.
“This the right one?” She asked.
“Yes,” I nodded. I started snacking on the zœni again as she gestured for it to play.
—
A few hours had passed since we started our night of lounging. She liked the movie, describing it as ‘distinctly human.’ I asked what that meant and she explained that arirals were much more materialistic throughout their history, their myths and legends being more grounded in reality as opposed to having magic and the like. I told her I was happy to be her little magic wonder-ape. She patted me on the head in return.
After that, we decided to make an actual dinner instead of just eating snack food, but not before changing into pajamas (I kept a pair in her room). We ended up having a dish called kængiy, which was whatever meat you had access to covered with a sauce made from a strange fruit that looked like a little purple pumpkin. We used a lobster for the meat as it was common in the area. It was good, but a bit too sweet to be a favorite of mine. Ariral food tended to be loaded with much more sugar than human foods due to their different dietary requirements, and the sauce proved no different. We watched The Amazing Digital Circus while we ate.
I found it a little amusing how large her portion size was compared to mine. We sat on the floor to eat (which was apparently a normal thing to them, I didn’t mind), and I watched her break off the tail of one of her 3 lobsters, dip it into the sauce, and then throw the whole thing into her mouth. I gaped in horror at her, while she gave me a quizzical look.
“...What?”
“You… You just ate the shell? Just like that?”
“Yeah… Is this another one of those things humans don’t do?”
“No,” I laughed. “No, we do not do that. I think that would be like chewing on a broken plate for me.”
“Well please don’t do that,” she said slyly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
We kept on eating while watching the show. I needed her help to break the shell on mine open in some places as we didn’t have any tools to allow my comparatively weak human body to be able to do so. When we were done we moved onto her bed and I let her hold me in her lap while we watched. We got through 3 episodes before deciding that it was probably a good time to go to bed.
“Wanna see something cool I figured out how to do?” She asked.
“Sure.”
She did some more hand gestures to open up interfaces I couldn’t read before all of a sudden all the walls turned into a screen, and they flicked and changed the world around us. Aside from us and her bed, we were now sitting in the middle of a field of grass under a starry night sky, with a substantial portion of the sky being dominated by a planetary ring like the one Saturn has, stretching from horizon to horizon. It reflected sunlight down onto the ground, illuminating us in its faint glow. The experience was like a mix of being in a holodeck from Star Trek and a planetarium. My mouth gaped open.
“Ack ack ack. You like this?”
“I-I… I love it! It's amazing!” I squinted to try and find any traces of pixels, but was unable to. It honestly felt like real life aside from the absence of any wind blowing despite the soft rustling sound the grass made as it slowly swayed in an imaginary breeze. “Is this an actual location?”
“No,” she said while gently resting her head on top of mine and pulling her hands around me, purring a little. “Its a fictional place, but entirely possible. The whole planet is simulated and based on Earth ecology, with added planetary rings, and I placed us in the middle of a giant grassland.” I turned my gaze down from the sky and looked at faintly illuminated rolling hills of green grass stretching to the horizon.
“It's gorgeous…”
“After what you said about playing space simulation games last week, I looked into what arirals have done, and after playing around with it I pulled up something I thought you might like.”
“I.. Thank you. It's amazing.” I leaned back into her and closed my eyes for a moment. “I never thought I’d see technology like this, let alone being able to share the experience with someone from another planet.”
“I’m glad I could give you those things,” she said softly. “Want to lie down?”
“Sure.”
She pulled one of her hands away to carefully lay both of us down on our side while holding me securely with her other arm, before putting it back around me. Her tail curled over and wrapped around my waist, and she rested her head on top of mine. I’m not sure I could’ve moved even if I wanted to, which I most definitely didn’t.
The feeling of being in the middle of a peaceful grassland on an alien planet with rings while being held by an alien whom loves you and you love dearly is not something that I can properly bring across in writing. The chemical formula of my brain at that time must have been mostly dopamine, I was in so much bliss. If you had told me this was a dream I would have believed you. But no, it was real, and it was happening.
“Have I ever told you how lucky I am that I met you?” I said quietly.
“Have I ever told you how lucky I am that I met you?” She retorted softly.
I put my arms around hers and snuggled deeper against her. She responded by putting one of her legs over mine.
“Do you think arirals are going to officially contact Earth within our lifetime?”
“Mmm. I’m not sure. Humans are so similar to us in so many ways, I think most arirals would be happy to see humans and arirals talking. You are just still a developing culture, and not unified. We don’t want to come from the heavens and give you all our level of technology, some country might decide to go to war with some other country with weapons that they don’t properly understand and kill lots of people with it, and then a human is never going to be able to be the one to discover the fundamentals behind the technology. We don’t want to risk your lives while taking away your potential accomplishments. I think we’d step in if it looked like you were going to nuke yourselves, but only at the last moment. I’ve heard some people playing around with the idea of sending a message, just to let humanity know they aren’t alone in the universe, but it's just an idea. Until humanity learns to love itself, or until they reach out, I don’t see it happening.”
I laid there in her embrace, taking in what she had said.
“What about me?”
“You?”
“Am I not a liability, since I know about you?”
“I mean, yes, but I think they trust you enough not to go telling the world. You seem to understand us well enough to know that we want to act in the interest of humans, and you don’t seem reckless enough to do such a thing.”
“And would they let me go back with you?”
“I think that's up to you in that regard. The research teams back on my planet would be over the moon to have a human to talk to, and I think the government would be willing to sponsor you. Let the cute little human come live with us and all, and show how similar our two species are. But once you go I'm not sure they'd ever let you come back. You’d be saying goodbye to anyone you know on Earth, forever, and you probably wouldn’t see another human again, unless we somehow came across another human who wants to come back with us, which I don’t think is likely. Being different from everyone else is tough, and you’d be signing yourself up for a lifetime of that.”
I let out a sigh and watched the grass wave gently. I didn’t want to ask about what I knew was on both of our minds.
“How… How much longer are you all planning to stay on Earth, again?”
I felt her tense up a little around me.
“We were scheduled for one Earth year. So we’re still planning on being here for another couple of months. After that, I think they wanted to study some different biomes in other parts of Earth. I’m planning on being with them for that, which might take another couple of years, and after that, I’m not sure. I could still fly you into where we are no matter where you are, though.”
“Its not an imminently pressing problem.”
“Exactly. There's no rush for you to make a decision, and whenever you do I don’t want you to feel pressured into making it one way or the other. It's a problem for the future. Right now, let's just enjoy the moment.”
“I agree,” I said, cuddled in her cool embrace, basking in the simulated starlight while looking at the glowing ring hanging overhead and the rolling fields of grass surrounding us. “The future isn’t important right now. For now, we have each other.”