Chapter 88 CHAPTER 88
The lunch was loud.
There were other people in the large house, cousins, nephews, little children who wanted to see what a person who fell from the sky looks like.
And I was stuck in the middle, scared, tense and trying to control my blinking and beating heart.
All my nerves were frayed; I felt like I was being spread open for strangers to touch and dissect. I thought I hated hugs, but this time, I realised I despised them.
The unwelcoming feeling of being so close to someone who barely knows your name all in the name of trying to be cordial.
Something so intimate, yet used for fakeness.
They won't remember my name after this but my skin will always remember the clammy feeling.
After all, it reminded me of the leech and how it hugged my skin all the way into my nostrils.
I kept breathing deeply, and struggling to keep that white streak off my face so irritation doesn't blow up into something else.
“So Alira,” another cousin, tall, a warrior with purple scales spoke up, “tell us about your planet. Is it as fascinating as ours?”
My skin prickled.
All this time they'd talked about me, at me, over me but never pulled me into the conversation.
It was bearable.
Now I was expected to… talk.
“Leave her alone, Zonir, she is not comfortable with us yet,” Amara replied for me and I immediately shot her a grateful smile.
I wished the food would stop tasting so good so I would stop eating and excuse myself but I hadn't eaten in days, and my body was swallowing every plate placed in front of me.
That was his Mother's doing, urging me to eat more, Healer's instructions.
“Don't speak for her Sis, she's been with us long enough. Besides, who knows when the next Cousin Zade is going to let her come sit with us again?”
“She's a part of the family now Zonir, she won't be hard to speak to. Just let the child heal first would you?” Zade's father said and the man quietened down
“Forgive my son,” another man that I think is Zonir’s father said to me, “he's been trying to portal travel for years now.”
I sat up immediately.
“He has?”
“Drakkonia is just one spot in the universe, one tiny dot. I've been saying there are other planets besides ours but they keep telling me I'm daydreaming and I need to focus on driving the Fae back. Mind you, three hundred years ago, they made everyone believe the seven kingdoms were all that existed. Now you fall down from the sky and my parents are still trying to convince me I'm crazy. Please tell me your planet has done more than ours?”
“Drakkonia is her planet,” Zade growled, his first input the entire time, only content with holding my hand under the table, taking away my plate and ensuring I drink more water.
“You know what I mean,” he grinned and then turned back to me. “So? How normal is portal travel on Earth?”
The way he pronounced earth was funny but I indulged him
Afterall, he seems to hold the answers to all my problems.
“We call it space exploration, and we use space ships, not portals. I still don't know how portals work but space ships are built by scientists and engineers of different areas who put the vehicle together and then astronauts get into it and fly into space to explore other planets. And you're right, we're tinier than a spot in the Milky Way alone, not just the universe. It's infinite.”
“Milky way?”
“That's where the earth is, I don't know what direction Drakon is because as I said, I don't know how portals work, whether it sends you to the next planet in the astral plane or it transports one to another reality altogether.”
“Well the way Portals work is very simple, you choose the time when the two suns are –”
“Zonir,” Zade's father spoke up and I suddenly realised that everyone else had quietened while we were speaking, until now, “go and get my Steed ready, you and Alira can continue this conversation some other time. Your father and I are going to the capital tomorrow morning.”
“Come on Uncle, I can still –”
“Stop arguing and do as you're told!” His own father snapped and I watched him get up, grab a large lap of some wild animal and with grumbling, walk out from his chair.
“I'll catch up with you some other time, promise you won't be a stranger?”
“I promise,” I replied, my heart racing.
“Don't mind Zonir,” Amara said to me, “he enjoys yapping and dragging everyone into his head. It's a wonder how he hasn't chased away the Faes with his mouth.”
Everyone laughed and the conversation moved ok but I was stuck in place.
I was so close to finding answers that I had given up on but they cut it off. Something told me it was intentional and I had a fear that they were going to go warn him to keep his mouth shut about this.
“Are you done with your food?” I heard Zade's gentle voice and I realised I'd been holding the lap of the chicken in my hand for the past three minutes or so.
“Yes,” I said, dropping it and washing my hands.
My thoughts strayed again to the matter at hand.
If I find a way to make the portal work, will I use it?
‘What is wrong with you Alira, of course you will,’ I chided myself.
I literally just escaped death a few days ago, all from a strange, unknown animal. At least on Earth, I knew what the dangers looked like.
Here I was like a lone fawn in the wild, susceptible to every kind of danger.
As I followed Zade out of the dining room after another bout of greetings and goodwill messages, I began to plan my research again.
Instead of looking for magical books, maybe I just need to look at how the planet works, especially how its suns work.
“Alira,” Zade pulled me back to the present as he shut the door.
“Yea?” I looked around and realised he'd taken me to a different room.
Was I that consumed by the thought that I wasn't looking at where I was going to?
“What is happening? Is Draco right? Are you trying to leave me?”
Shit, now I have to lie again.