Epilogue

Wynn:

Three Months Later…

A door rattled open and a blond tween boy shouted, “Uncle Lorran! Mom says put on some clothes and come have breakfast.”

“I am wearing clothes,” Lorran replied, his face serene and upturned to the sun. He continued his routine, his body flowing through the motions and poses.

“Nuh-uh. Booty shorts don’t count.” The door slammed shut.

Wyn laughed, her focus gone. “Michael has a point. Put on pants.”

“Pants are tyrannical,” Lorran said, even as he gracefully rose to his feet. Maybe it was the morning light or the spring air or just her angle, but damn. He was all lean muscle, a popping ass and he moved with suppleness. More than that, he was just good. Fundamentally good and full of an optimism so bright that when he smiled, it was hard to resist joining in.

Like now. He turned that smile on her, bathed in morning light and his hair still rumpled from sleep, and Wyn smiled back.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for booty shorts in private, but…” She couldn’t finish the thought because pants were kind of terrible.

“But?”

Her stomach rumbled. “Food. Pants. Do it.” Already wearing stretchy pants and a tank, she shrugged on her hoody.

This was day four of their visit with Lorran’s family and they had two more days until they had to return to Judgment. Her introduction to Lorran’s family had been a whirlwind of hugs, home cooking, children demanding Uncle Lorran play with them and a general air of happy pandemonium.

She loved it. Lorran’s mother welcomed her in without a moment’s hesitation, and his family already felt like home. Well, it helped that Tani had the same mischievous personality as her son. The other two brothers…they must take after their father. Wyn hadn’t spoken long with her father-in-law, but Lorran told her to expect as much. As much as Tani was involved in the microscopic levels of her son’s lives, Oran was distant.

Just as important as getting to know the in-laws, Sonia’s ship docked that morning at Sangrin Station. They only had a few hours to spend and Sonia wanted to check out a botanical sculpture garden. They were totally going to have a girls’ day.

Lorran grabbed her hand and lifted it for inspection, smirking at the embedded paint in her fingernails. They had experimented with body paint last night; it was nothing that would scandalize her mother-in-law, but Lorran’s satisfied grin was enough to make her blush.

He kissed her paint-soiled fingertips.

“I swear I washed my hands. I need a nail brush,” she said.

“We will make it happen,” he replied. He had requested two magpies of his own, and Wyn had been sketching out different ideas. She wanted to leave her mark on him, but she did not want it to be a copy of her own tattoos. Lorran deserved original art.

Two for joy.

Until she settled on a design, she painted in various magpies in the bare patch on his hips, a spot only she could appreciate.

“My mate has gone to great trouble to make omelettes, which she should not because she is with child, and you are too lazy to come and appreciate her generosity,” a gruffer voice shouted.

Mene, the other brother. Along with his human mate, Rosemary, and her son from a previous relationship, Michael, Wyn had been getting to know her Sangrin dwelling in-laws. She met Seeran, Hazel, and their son, Gavran, almost immediately. Being stationed on the same ship, they often had dinner together a few times a week. Fine by Wyn. She enjoyed family time and Hazel made amazing desserts. The woman was a genius.

“Duty calls,” Lorran said, linking their arms.

* * *

“Come on. The sun is almost at the zenith,” Wyn said, dragging Sonia through the gallery’s lobby to the entrance to the sculpture garden.

“I thought this was going to be a girls’ day,” Sonia complained.

“It is.”

Sonia tossed a significant look at Lorran, who lurked three steps behind them.

“Ignore me. I am here to carry heavy items and offer no opinions,” he said, a friendly smile on his face.

Sonia blanched at the sight of his fangs.

Right. Wyn saw the problem. “Lorran, why don’t you hang back? Give us some space.”

He gestured broadly. He was three whole steps behind them.

“More space,” she clarified.

“Unacceptable. I must be present if an attack comes.”

“For crying out loud, it’s a sculpture garden,” Sonia snapped. “The worst thing that can happen is allergies kick in. Scram. I need to gossip about you, and I can’t do that if you’re listening.” She waved her hand at him in a shooing gesture.

Lorran gave Wyn a questioning look but backed away when she nodded. “It is warm. I will bring you cold beverages.”

“That sounds great,” Wyn said.

“Do not leave the grounds,” Lorran warned as he left.

“Oh my God, is he serious? He’s serious,” Sonia moaned.

Wyn shook her head fondly, thoroughly enjoying listening to Sonia’s complaints. She had some small worries about their friendship growing apart. They had never been so separated for so long. Speaking over the network wasn’t the same. It helped with the feelings of isolation and loneliness as Wyn adjusted to her new life, but it didn’t compare to wandering through the local art festival and swearing that next year they would have a booth.

From the moment Wyn spotted Sonia departing her shuttle, it was as if no time had passed. They were as they had always been, making snarky comments, referencing old jokes and complaining about a film as if they had watched it together and shared popcorn.

She wished they had longer than a day together, but she’d take what she could get.

The door to the sculpture garden slid open automatically. Wyn blinked in the bright sunlight. Lorran was right about the sameness of life on a spaceship. Same light, same ambient temperature and no breeze.

On an elevated terrace, the garden grounds sprawled out before them in a disorganized web of crushed gravel paths, flagstone, fountains, hedges and groves of tall, leafy palms. It was chaotic and a riot of sight and sound, and Wyn loved it.

Moving along the path, they passed through an archway covered in colorful, winged insects. The covering was dense enough that Wyn could not see the arch or a frame. It was as if the insects hovered in mid-air, flapping their wings in perpetual flight. She refrained from touching, but she thought they were mechanical.

“This is wonderful,” she sighed. Then, “But why a sculpture garden?”

Sonia shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno. It sounded interesting and I feel like you don’t get enough sunshine living on a ship.”

“I’ll have you know that there are green spaces on the ship with artificial day and night cycles, so I do get sunlight.”

“Artificial sunlight,” Sonia said.

“Have you been talking to my mom? Because she told me that I was looking pale as a ghost.” Wyn held out her arm, the skin brown and warm in the sun. The medics prescribed vitamin D for the lack of sunlight, but all the wives took vitamin supplements. Her complexion hadn’t changed and the only thing she really missed about living on a planet were the sunsets and thunderstorms.

Though the endless starry views were fair compensation.

“Lorran is all the sunshine I need,” Wyn said.

“Oh, barf.” Sonia made some highly age-appropriate and mature retching sound effects. “You’re both so sweet, you’re giving me cavities. No, seriously. My teeth hurt. That’s a root canal. You made me have a root canal, you monster.”

“You like him,” Wyn teased, unable to stop herself from grinning.

“He’s alright, I guess, for a guy who’s totally into a soap opera.” Sonia rolled her eyes, but Wyn knew the truth. She and Lorran geeked out about Endless Hope and Suffering regularly. Wyn had mentioned the program, which prompted Sonia to binge the most recent season.

“Even if it’s melodramatic fluff?” Wyn asked, quoting Sonia’s exact words she used to describe the show in a series of angry messages, demanding to know why such a ridiculous soap opera was so addictive.

“Hey, stop using my words against me. The program is performance art. It’s so out there, it’s avant-garde.”

“You dig it.”

Sonia sighed. “I dig it so hard, and I guess I like your alien oppressor.”

“Husband,” Wyn said gently. Even though Sonia admitted to liking Lorran, Wyn wouldn’t let her talk smack about him.

“Husband,” Sonia corrected. “Oh, here it is. The Watcher. Okay, not a sinister title.”

They stopped in front of an empty stone pedestal in the center of a shallow reflective pond.

“Huh,” Wyn said, not getting it. “Call me tasteless, but I don’t get this whole negative space as art trend. Is it bougie of me to want something to look at?”

“So bougie.” Sonia shielded the screen of her comm unit and read the description. “The Watcher is a powerful comment on technology’s constant presence even when we don’t see it, yada yada yada. Oh. Its reflective nanoparticles light up once a day when the sun reaches the correct angle. This changes throughout the year, shifting the visible appearance of the work.” She glanced up at the empty pedestal. “Cool. It’s different every day.”

“Like a garden?”

Sonia rolled her eyes. “How very zen of you. Now hush. It’s almost time.”

The staff person at the ticket desk mentioned they were just in time to see the garden’s centerpiece in action and highlighted the route through the garden. It must have been a popular attraction because a crowd had gathered around the reflecting pool.

“I have found you,” a familiar voice murmured in her ear.

Wyn leaned into Lorran, bumping shoulders, or rather bumping her entire side against his arm. He carried two iced drinks, giving one to Sonia and the other to Wyn.

The drink was a slushy slurry of fruit and sugar. Wonderful. Just the way she liked it.

She shaded her eyes, checking the position of the sun overhead. It seemed to be directly above. What was supposed to happen? She glanced around at the crowd, to see if anyone was disappointed at the lack of a show or if they had an idea about what was going on. Art was so subjective, but she was pretty positive that standing outside on a warm day, staring at an empty pedestal, was not art.

Call her a bougie snob. Whatever. If this was meant to be some sort of ploy to get the audience to participate and their watching the pedestal was the commentary about invasive tech and the erosion of privacy, then wasn’t the artist clever. She never cared for performance art, always finding it less than substantive. Her art professors always told her she was “shockingly unimaginative” when it came to certain media.

Yeah, well, her art professors weren’t standing about getting sweaty under an alien sun.

Something shifted and sparked. A gasp ran through the crowd. Golden light wove its way up from the base of the pedestal, shifting like dust motes in a sunbeam. A figure of a child emerged, seated with one leg propped up, hunched over to protect the orb it cradled.

From her angle, she couldn’t make out any details of the face. She couldn’t tell if the child was lonely, guarded, wary, hopeful or what, but it stared into the orb, oblivious to the world around. The slender figure was definitely a child with small, underdeveloped horns. Shoulder-length hair floated up, as if caught in a breeze, and the shifting light gave the illusion of movement.

It was beautiful and ephemeral. Her mind kept supplying synonyms and then it was gone. The light had shifted, and it flickered out of existence.

No. Still there, just unseen.

“Oh, wow. That was amazing,” she whispered.

Sonia turned to her, catching sight of Lorran. She raised an eyebrow and asked, “Worth the trip?”

Wyn laced her fingers in Lorran’s hand. “Worth it.”