Chapter 58

At least she’s dressed for the wedding, which shows she expects the ceremony to happen, and for that, the bride has to be alive!

Gen has her dark, long hair down, just like Kaleo’s. She’s wearing a “fuzzy” dress too, but in brown, almost like the fur of a brown bear.

Since the climate in Selvaria isn't bad for her, her long dress has a not-so-revealing slit and fits snugly around her pregnant belly, which I hadn’t noticed before because I was always too nervous in her presence.

This is the first time I’m attending a ceremony like this, so I’m really anxious. Space humans don’t even do baptisms because everyone who stayed out here, trapped outside their own home, is just trying to survive and doesn’t spend on anything unnecessary.

“Are you nervous about the moon ceremony?” Gen asks. “Kaleo already told everyone you don’t want to do the appreciation.”

I confess I enjoyed doing the “appreciation” thing when I was in the cabin, just with Virg, Kaleo, and the assistant. But the idea of doing it during a wedding made my stomach churn because hundreds of people would be watching, since this wedding will be huge thanks to Virg and her big mouth.

Besides, I want to build relationships here, try to “fit in,” as Kaleo so badly wants, but I won’t be able to do that knowing everyone in this village saw me naked.

“I think the wedding in general makes me nervous,” I explain, scratching my neck in the same spot I’ve been poking all week.

It seems like the closer I get to the ceremony, the more itchy I get all over, and I know it’s just anxiety. But Gen is startled when she sees me doing this and grabs my hand immediately, as if I’ve committed a crime.

“Does he already know?!” she exclaims, touching a blue spot on the top of my hand that appeared earlier today with her long, warm fingers.

“Know what?” I frown and gently pull my hand away from her.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. You’ll start smelling soon,” she shrugs and only leaves me more confused as she goes after my dress. “Do you want to put on the dress now? Let’s take advantage of the fact they’ve gone out.”

“Wait a minute, what are you talking about? Smelling what, Gen?” I ask, and she looks at me like I’m crazy, raising one of her dark eyebrows.

“Don’t you feel your body is different?”

“Yes, but it’s just the end of the heat. Kaleo said it completely ended three days ago and that our bodies might feel strange.”

“Your heat ended because you’re pregnant, Melisha!” she explains, and it feels like everything inside me stops. “And it’s probably going to be girls.”

“WHAT?!” I jump out of the chair and stare at her face with a huge blue spot in the middle, making sure she’s not joking with me. This has to be one of Gen’s pranks. “W-what are you talking about?!”

I must look crazy right now, for sure, but none of that matters because I think Gen changed her approach. She used to try to convince me to leave, and now she’s trying to give me a heart attack so I won’t marry her brother.

“I’ve never met another human before, but when the azuris get pregnant, we get more blue spots. When the spots are on the feet, it’s usually boys, but on the hands, it’s girls,” she explains and takes my hand again, pointing to the blue spot. “And it all starts like this, with just one little spot.”

“Oh my God…” I take advantage of the fact that the chair is still behind me and just sit back down in it.

“What’s happening? Your face color got lighter, and your lips are less pink,” Gen starts to panic immediately, even kneeling in front of me on the wooden floor.

“I need water.” I close my eyes tightly because everything starts spinning.

A minute later, Gen gives me a cup of water, which looks more like a round pot of water, and shoves some white fruits into my mouth that remind me of the taste of strawberry gum I used to buy a few times.

“Are you feeling better? Do you want me to call Kaleo?” she asks, sounding frantic, and touches my face. “You’re really cold, Melisha, even though you’re wearing your heated clothes.”

“No, the groom can’t see the bride’s dress before the wedding, it’s bad luck.” I shake my head and quickly realize it was a bad idea because it makes the dizziness come back.

“Okay, then. But if your mouth doesn’t get back to a normal color soon, I’ll have to call my brother. He might think I tried to harm you.” The poor girl sounds so desperate, and if I wasn’t feeling so nauseous and dizzy, I’d definitely start laughing right now.

Even she knows her reputation after how she’s treated me since I arrived.

“Are you absolutely sure this means pregnancy?” I ask, feeling like my world is upside down.

“For my race, yes, look here.” She shows her own hand and points to a blue spot the size and shape of a coin. “I didn’t have any blue on my hands before having kids, and this spot is so big because I’ve been pregnant for ten months, but when it started, it was the size of yours.”

“Ten months?!”

Now the translators automatically convert the way the azuris measure time to human time.

“Didn’t Kaleo explain how pregnancy and heat work?” she asks, and I nod.

Of course, I knew this could happen, especially since no one here seems to know what a condom is, and azuris don’t have venereal diseases, according to what the giant told me. But Kaleo has already had two heats and didn’t have kids, so I expected we’d go through this third one without any babies too, especially since we’re from different races.

“Heat doesn’t always result in pregnancy, sometimes it just ends on its own. But when it works, depending on the number of pups in the litter, it can last up to 15 months,” she says as if it’s no big deal.

Fifteen months is almost a year and a half pregnant!