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 Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:24 pm
**Cabbage?** Damn it, thought Eshaa as she fumbled for her keys. Esperanza had just started screaming again, and despite her older brother's attempts to calm her, the only reasonable way out of the situation was to get the door unlocked and head inside before the neighbors complained about the noise. It didn't help that she had a notebook full of pictures of pottery shards, a report to for the museum that contracted her, and a cabbage precariously balanced in one arm.
"Mom?" asked Nahuel over the parrot child's screeches, "What's the cabbage for?"
"I don't know," replied Eshaa, finally locating the keys and unlocking the door. A cranky toddler and an overly-inquisitive child weren't really what she had wanted to come home to. She shepherded her brood inside and pulled the door shut behind her. "Doctor Jones gave it to me and told me it was a new project for me."
She scowled.
"I don't know why, unless he's referring to my mother's family's propensity for botany."
"What's a propensity?" asked Nahuel, putting his sister down. Ranza set to work kicking the carpet.
"Why don't you look it up?" Eshaa suggested as she headed into her bedroom. The notebook and report met the desk with a thud. She stared at the cabbage for a bit, debating what to do with it (Accidentally forget to water it? Nah, Doctor Jones would be pissed,) and finally decided to perch in on the windowsill. The weather had been unseasonably warm and clear, so the glass was open, and she supposed that would be good for it. After all, plants liked fresh air, didn't they?
"Moooooooooom, what's for dinner?" called Nahuel. Ranza had ceased her temper tantrum, but Eshaa could still hear her sniffling. She gave the cabbage a prod and left the room. The hungry masses demanded feeding, after all. At least the cabbage wasn't making any demands and didn't come with any instructions. After spontaneously combusting parrots and exploding leaves, she was quite through with the unusual flora and fauna of Gaia. Happily, the cabbage had given her no strange empathetic vibes, nor had it done anything particularly out of the ordinary yet.
It was just a cabbage. A large, innocent, leafy green cabbage.
"Can we have hot dogs for dinner?" asked Nahuel.
"Mango!" shrieked Ranza, naming a fruit she had tried molesting at the grocery store the previous afternoon.
"Yuck," said Nahuel, making a face.
Eshaa put some water on to boil, to a package of frozen franks out of the freezer, and dug a mango and a banana out of the vegetable crisper to cut up for Ranza.
"Can I have two hot dogs?" asked Nahuel. Eshaa gave him a warning glance.
"You're forgetting something."
"Oh yeah," he nodded. "May I please have two hot dogs?"
Eshaa noted he was scowling, but agreed anyway. "Sure, but only since you asked so nicely."
"Awesome!" enthused the boy as he perched on the counter and dodged a glare from his mother. "We played soccer at school today!"
"How was that?" asked Eshaa as she sliced a banana into cubes.
"It was fun! My team won!"
"Did you help?"
"Sorta."
Eshaa smiled slyly and looked at him as she put a handful of banana chunks into a plastic bowl and started on peeling the mango. "What's 'sorta' mean?"
"I didn't score a goal, but neither did anyone on the other team!"
"Well, that's good," said Eshaa. The water had begun to boil, so she unwrapped three hot dogs and dropped them in.
"I wan' mango!" shrieked Ranza. Eshaa hurriedly sliced the slippery fruit and dropped it into the bowl. She put it on the table and lifted Ranza into her booster seat.
"This goes in your mouth, not in your hair," she warned her. The toddler, as usual, nodded solemnly but did not comply. Sighing, Eshaa turned her attention back to the boiling hot dogs.
"Don't burn 'em," said Nahuel.
"Who here has been cooking for sixteen years?" asked Eshaa. "You or me?"
"You," said Nahuel pointedly.
"That's what I thought," she replied. "So could you just sit down and wait for dinner?"
Nahuel sat. After about fifteen seconds, he asked, "Is it done yet?"
"No."
Another fifteen seconds passed.
"How about now?"
"Nahuel, the hot dogs will be ready when they're ready and no amount of asking will make them cook any faster."
"Oh."
He didn't interrupt her again. Eshaa stirred the boiling water for another few minutes, got plates out, and put buns on them. Finally, after what could have been considered forever based on the amount of groaning Nahuel did, she drained the pot and put the hot dogs onto the buns.
"Do you want ketchup?" she asked.
"No."
"Mustard?"
"No."
"Tomato?"
"No."
Eshaa stared at the naked hot dogs. "Can I put anything on your hot dogs that you will eat that will make it look less like a plain, boiled slab of meat?" And a phallic one at that, she thought, remembering what Wystan's favorite thing to say about them was. They're called wieners for a reason.
"No," said Nahuel. "Can we eat now?"
Eshaa put a plate in front of him and then sat down with her own. "Dig in."
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Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:36 pm
**Clear with scattered star showers** "...And in what astronomers are calling perhaps a once-in-a-decade event, there will be meteor showers steadily through the next week as Gaia passes through the orbit of a minor asteroid group."
Nahuel looked up at the television and pushed his homework aside. "Does that mean there are gonna be rocks fallin' from the sky?" he asked. Eshaa laughed.
"A meteor shower is a fancy word for a bunch of shooting stars," she explained. Nahuel's face lit up. "Why don't you take Ranza up on the roof and see if you can spot some?"
"Cool!" he exclaimed, getting up from the table and going over to his sister, who was building something with blocks on the floor. "Hey, Ranza, wanna go look for stars?"
"Yeah!" agreed the parrot girl, reaching out. Nahuel picked her up, tucked a key into his pocket, and left the apartment. They took the elevator up to the roof and the jaguar boy stepped out onto the terrace. A streak of light sped past over his head.
"Ranza, look!" he said, "stars!"
"Oooh," cooed the little girl, pointing at another streak of light. Brother and sister watched the sky in awed silence for a long time as points of light streaked away into oblivion. "Lookit!" She exclaimed, moving her chubby finger towards a particularly bright and steady streak.
"That's a cool one!" said Nahuel. "Good eye, Ranza!"
"Fallin!" said Ranza.
"Yeah, it's a shooting star," he replied.
"No," replied the parrot, getting frustrated. "Is fallin!" Nahuel looked again. The star wasn't simply growing in brightness and then fading away into the atmosphere. It was really falling, speeding towards them. It wasn't big, and it wasn't coming directly at them, so Nahuel wasn't scared, but he was amazed. Was this magic?
He and Ranza watched as the star came closer and then vanished through a window a few floors below them. Nahuel gaped at it for a moment before connecting the dots in his head.
"That's mom's window! Come on, Ranza!" (Though, since the girl was still in his arms, she didn't have much choice in the matter.) He ran back to the elevator, frantically hit the button for their floor a few too many times, and hopped up and down impatiently as it descended. Finally, after an eternity, it dinged and the doors slid open. Eshaa was still on the couch watching the news, and Nahuel and Ranza proceeded to look around the door to her room. There wasn't anything there, though...
The cabbage was glowing.
"Was it doing that before?" Nahuel asked Ranza.
"Dunno," she shrugged, and fought her way out of his arms in order to crawl back to her blocks. Nahuel stared at the cabbage a bit longer in frustration. Why was it glowing, and where had the star gone?
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:13 am
**Why does this always happen to me?** At some point last week, the cabbage had begun to glow. Eshaa made an attempt to ignore it at first, but eventually had to start recording data. Where had Dr. Jones gotten this thing, anyway? Still, she wasn't sensing anything from it... it just glowed, and that was that. So she supposed she was safe for the time being. (The first day it had started glowing, Eshaa had asked him if it was going to explode, taking her, her children, and the rest of the building with it. Dr. Jones had laughed and told her not to be ridiculous.)
So she'd gone back to casually ignoring the cabbage, though occasionally pretending to be interested in it for the sake of science. She watered it and took notes and made sure that Cat didn't eat it. And, in repayment, the cabbage had stayed alive and not done anything to make her suspect it of more sinister motives. (On Gaia, anything counted as sinister motives. Apartment maintenance men were waiting around every corner to blow up birds and saddle you with hellspawn.)
Currently, Eshaa was asleep. This fact was perfectly understandable when one considered that it was the middle of the night and anyone who wasn't either crazy or a vampire or both was asleep. Normal people slept at night!
Correction: She would have been asleep. She had just woken up under the impression that someone had turned on the light. As she rubbed her eyes, she asked, "Ranza? Is that you?"
The parrot girl had terrible nightmares, but if it was Ranza she would have been snuggled under the covers with Eshaa by now, her little feathered body radiating heat. Eshaa squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light. It was coming from the windowsil, where the cabbage was sitting on the open table.
Eshaa pushed the covers aside and got out of bed. The cabbage leaves had spread, like it was in bloom, but the center was too bright for her to see what was in it. After a while, though, her eyes fully adjusted and the light faded.
Eshaa muttered her grandfather's most colorful spacer swear.
Not suspicious, huh? Well, the not suspicious cabbage had just bloomed into a baby. How was that for not suspicious?
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:58 pm
Quote: Yeah, but where are the DINOSAURS? - Eshaa and Orli (and Nahuel and Ranza) head to the museum to pass a rainy day. Orli makes the acquaintance of a small phoenix girl and her mother. Orli and Polly talk shinnies, tails, and stuffed animals. Gwen refers Eshaa to Liberty Center.
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:43 am
Quote: Maze! Nahuel and Orli go on a treasure-hunting adventure in a maze, and find August and Brownie. Orli shows off her MAD READING SKILLZ.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:26 pm
**Babes in Toyland** Somehow, Eshaa had made it this far into parenthood without too many trips to the toy store. Nahuel was into trees and ropes and books and artifacts now, not toys, and Ranza had contented herself to play with her older brother's blocks and action figures. Orli, however, was a different case altogether.
Orli didn't like blocks. Action figures weren't too hot with her, either. She was several weeks into life and so far her favorite toys were three plastic gems, a prism that hung on a string in front of her bedroom window, and a yellow utility flashlight she had taken from the junk drawer in the kitchen. None of these were particularly contributive to a normal, healthy childhood in Eshaa's opinion.
As a child, Eshaa and her cousin had had plush dolls, model starfighters, sophisticated toy lightsabers, and a talking storybook that claimed to teach children six different galactic standard languages. She still couldn't speak Mando'a, so she wasn't sure how well the book had worked, but it had still been a happy childhood. She liked to think she was a good parent, and she wanted Orli to remember something better than a flashlight and three plastic rocks.
So they were at the toy store, walking up and down the fluorescent-lit aisles hand in hand. Orli was a sweet, calm child, content to walk besides her mother where either of her siblings would have eagerly bolted off to never been seen again. Not that Eshaa minded the calmness. She supposed it was her reward for putting up with Nahuel and Esperanza - an easy child, though not one she had asked for. She never asked for or agreed to her children - they just found her.
"Ma," said Orli intently, tugging her over to a shelf of packaged toy planes and spaceships. She had a contemplative look on her face as she looked at all the packages, and then broke into a grin and reached for a starfighter. She wrestled it off the shelf and held it up triumphantly.
"This one!" she declared.
"You want that?" asked Eshaa, trying to confirm the choice. Orli, it appeared, would be a child after her grandfather's heart. She'd just have to organize a meeting between the two and they'd be set for life.
"Yeah!" she said, looking at it through the plastic. "Spaceship!" she declared.
"You got it!" affirmed Eshaa. "Do you wanna carry it to the checkout line?"
"I got it!" said Orli, gingerly cradling the box in both arms like it was some priceless treasure. Eshaa followed her daughter through the maze of aisles back to the front of the store and paid for the toy. The price wasn't bad, but it didn't matter. Orli had a real toy to be happy about, and that was priceless.
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Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:18 pm
Quote: Easter Egg Hunt! Orli, Nahuel, and Ranza go to Liberty center for an Easter Egg hunt orchestrated by Antony and Shade. In the process, they meet Chris, Rory, Carlisle, Casia, and Nataya.
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Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 1:06 pm
**Far Away Lights** Ranza was asleep. Orli could hear her breathing and see her faintly in the glow of the night-light and in the glow that escaped from her finger and toes and face and hair. In that respect, perhaps Orli was a night-light, too. At this thought, she giggled and climbed out of bed. The night light only turned on at night. During they day they had ceiling lights and windows. The sun lit up the windows. There was no sun at night. Orli pushed the door open and walked out into the living room.
The room was perfectly dark except for the light she cast, forming funny shadows on the wall. She crept towards the big window, the one that mom left cracked open on warm nights like this one, and gazed out it and up at the sky.
There were lights in the sky, like the sun but much, much smaller and more numerous, up there with the moon. The moon was a rock - the museum had said so. The other things, she guessed, were what the museum had said were stars. They were pretty. Like gems sprinkled across the night. Shinies. She thought of her friend Polly.
Stars, Orli decided, were like the world's night light. Pretty and far away, pinpricks in the darkness.
She climbed down from the window and returned with her trusty yellow utility flashlight. Then she climbed back up, pointed the light at the sky, and turned it on. Mom said there were other planets out there, far away, out orbiting the stars, and they would see different stars than Orli could. Then, if they looked in the direction of Gaia, maybe they'd see Orli's light.
Flashlight gripped between her hands, the little girl stared up at the night sky, confident that she was among its ranks.
After a long time of signaling far-off intelligences, Orli yawned, shut off the light, and hopped down from the windowsill. She was finally tired. The clock on the oven said 3 AM, but that didn't mean anything to her - she only knew she wasn't allowed to wake Mom up until it said 6. The tile was cool against her glowing feet as she padded back to bed. She climbed in, curled up under her blankets, and dreamed of glowing far-off palaces and nebulous, glowing banks of fog.
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:34 pm
Quote: The Star-crossed children! Orli and Eshaa head over to Liberty Center to check out that awesome playground, and Orli discovers Grayson and his father had the same idea. The star child and her new penguin friend go on marvelous adventures.
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:29 am
**The Sky Opens Up** Another night. Orli was jittery, thinking about her new friend Grayson and all the adventures they had had at the playground. She always had trouble sleeping, and even more so when she was excited about things.
Her flashlight was on the night table. She wasn't allowed to play with it at night anymore because it work Ranza up and Ranza actually did sleep. Mom said that when Ranza didn't sleep, she got cranky. Whatever cranky was, when Ranza got it, she squawked like a parrot and fought with Nahuel and Orli.
When she saw Grayson again, maybe they'd have even more adventures. Like the swings, or the tree Chris climbed, or more slides, or the big tower, or the sandbox. Oh! There were so many places to start!
Orli was too excited to sleep. She got up, went to the door, and pushed it open. She walked across the dark living room, briefly met the luminous gaze of Cat, Mom's grumpy gray rat-catcher, and climbed up onto the window sill.
There was no moon tonight, and the stars were out in numbers she had never seen before. She wondered about the absence of the moon - was it shining somewhere else if it wasn't shining here? Had a big fat space monster eaten it? Mom had told her about big space slugs that ate asteroids, which were sort of like moons.
Oh well. The stars were pretty. They made pictures in the sky, cut a thick band over her head. Between them, there was perfect darkness. Orli had never seen a sky like this before. It enchanted her. She leaned out the window and peered upwards.
The sky did a most peculiar thing then.
It opened.
It was certainly the strangest, most magical thing Orli had seen in her entire life thus far. First, the stars moved aside, like people on a bus scooting to let someone sit down, and a great dark void opened in their place. and then, from the center of the void, came a line of light, splitting the sky in two. It was like opening the refrigerator in the middle of the night and letting the light spill out.
The hole in the sky opened even wider. Orli stared.
And then a most peculiar thing happened to Orli.
She began to float. She could feel her hands and feet tingling as she let go of the window. In a few moments she was out of it, flying high above the rooftops of Durem.
First, she panicked. But then she looked at the light above her and felt reassured and laughed. She was soaring while the rest of the city slept! What would they say if they looked up and saw a little girl in a nightgown and aviator goggles flying through the night sky?
She wasn't afraid as she floated into the void, whizzing away from the world at hypersonic speeds. She was going on an adventure!
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:24 pm
**Star Stuff** The floating went on for what felt like a very long time, but Orli enjoyed the trip. It was pretty and comforting up in the sky, soaring through nebulas, zipping around black holes, and whirling past supernovas. She felt like she'd been here before, a long, long time ago.
After a long trip, the flight slowed and she came slowly to rest on a massive marble plane, like an all-black chess-board. As her feet touched ground, shapes rose up around her. Houses, shops, temples, factories - an entire city in the middle of outer space. Figures flitted past. Initially they were only indistinct bright spots, but they gradually formed humanish shapes, some tall and hulking, some small and pixie-ish. They glowed from their fingers, all different colors, like how the stars were different colors up close.
Orli, being a typically curious toddler, got to her feet with the intention of exploring. She turned around, meaning to get a better idea of her surroundings, and instead discovered an old man who glowed faintly silver standing beside her.
"We shouldn't keep the council waiting," he said, taking her by the hand. In seconds, they were flitting through the streets, making hairpin turns down crowded alleyways. Orli knew not to go with strangers, but this was different. This felt familiar and safe.
They stopped in front of an enormous templed and proceeded to walk up ten steps into the building.
Inside, they walked down a long hallway to a door.
"Good luck," said the old man.
"What for?" asked Orli.
"For everything."
He opened the door and gave her a little nudge. Orli went in and found herself in the largest room she had ever seen. Or, maybe, it was the same size as the hall of stars at the museum. Luminous spheres lazily orbited on the ceiling. She walked towards the other end, where she saw people sitting at a table.
"I'm Orli," she said as way of greeting.
"We know," said the one in the center. He glowed red. "We've been watching you."
"What's your name?" she asked, moving closer. She liked him. He seemed nice. And he glowed like she did! Well, so did everyone else here. But that was besides the point.
"You don't need to know it just yet," he replied.
"Why not?" she asked, pouting.
"It isn't important."
"Okay."
The man came around the table and crouched at eye level with her. He had a small goatee. His hair was orange.
"Do you know what we are? Where you are?" he asked.
"No."
"Do you want to guess?"
Orli thought long and hard.
"Stars," she said.
The man nodded.
"You too," he said.
It all got blurry after that, and while Orli was sure that the red man had taken her exploring, she couldn't recall where they had gone or who they had met. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure she had even met the red man at all.
The next thing she was aware of was waking up the next morning on the kitchen floor. She didn't think she had dreamed it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:33 am
Quote: Star light, Star bright Orli, Ranza, and Nahuel meet Ishizuke in the park at night while their mother tries to study Astronomy. They engage the other girl in a game of hide-n-go-seek-in-the-dark, which it turns out that Orli is really, really awful at. Orli breaks one of the basic rules of magic (as laid down by Nahuel, and what does he know, anyway?) and tells Ishi about her stellar origins.
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Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:22 am
Quote: Beach Party - Karaoke! Orli and her siblings head to the beach for a party with the other Patch kids. Orli reunites with her favorite partner in crime, Polly, and also with Rory and Chris. Together, they butcher songs from The Little Mermaid and have a jolly good time. Quote: Where U Been? Orli and Polly run off from the larger group to play catch up. Polly updates Orli on the state of her adventures, Orli laments that her life is not nearly exciting except for the minor fact that, OH YEAH, she's a fallen star, and manages to confuse Indiana Jones with pirates, albeit briefly.
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 7:27 am
**Preparing for Company** The sun rose on another not-so-quiet morning in the Cooper household. Ranza had recently grown and was now taking the opportunity to object that since she was now the same size as her brother, she deserved two sausages and two waffles just like he got. Nahuel was taking the opportunity to tell her, quite loudly, that she was a pig and would get fat if she ate as much as he did, and Orli took the momentary chaos and distraction to empty half a bottle of Aunt Jemima’s onto her breakfast and then gobble down the sticky mess while no one was watching.
“I’m going to the airport,” announced Eshaa once the breakfast dishes were put away. “Nahuel’s in charge.”
“Why’s he in charge?” demanded Ranza. “He’s always in charge.”
“’Cuz I’m the oldest,” Nahuel was quick to reply. Ranza was the same size as him, but that didn’t make things any different. “Why are you going to the airport, Mom?”
Eshaa sighed. “I already told you guys. Last week, remember?”
Nahuel, Ranza, and Orli exchanged looks. They hadn’t realized they were supposed to be listening.
“My grandfather is going to be visiting for a few weeks,” she explained. “I haven’t seen him in a few years, and he’s really eager to be meeting you guys.”
“That sounds a bit familiar,” said Nahuel with an uneasy laugh.
“Don’t burn down the house while I’m gone,” she stated, and then retrieved her car keys and purse. She still had the jeep from the dig site motor pool, and hoped she’d be able to hang onto it for the rest of the summer. “Nahuel, please remember to clean your room!”
“Aw man!” shouted the Jaguar boy, flopping down onto the couch as she left. That was right! He had to clean his room and change his sheets just so some old man could stay in it for the summer and he could sleep on the couch. Total suckage.
He turned on the television. A cartoon about a shape shifting ten-year-old filled the screen.
“Orli, Ranza,” he said, “Clean my room.”
“No,” said Ranza, who had been back talking to him more and more lately. “Do it yourself.”
“Orli?” he asked.
Orli was not that stupid, and was quite offended that he would have thought she was. Besides, she liked this show. “No,” she said. “Mom said you hafta do it.”
“Fine,” grumbled Nahuel, getting up off the couch and stalking off to his bedroom. The sisters were left alone.
“What do you think Mom’s grandfather’s like?” hissed Ranza, climbing over the back of the couch in a way Eshaa would have definitely disapproved of.
“I dunno,” shrugged Orli, mesmerized by a commercial for a remote-controlled plane.
“Mom’s from another planet,” said Ranza, flopping onto the seat. “What if he’s an alien?”
Orli shrugged. She herself was from outer space, so she wasn’t too inclined to comment on Ranza’s supposition. Ranza reclined on the couch, propped her feet up on the arm, and despaired that Orli was still so far behind her developmentally.
“I think Mom said he was cool,” she said. She hadn’t really been paying attention. “I just don’t remember why.”
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Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:02 pm
**I Think He's a Clone** Nahuel busied himself the rest of the morning with cleaning, which presumably meant tossing all clothes on the floor, regardless of whether they actually needed to be washed or not, into the hamper, and shoving everything that would fit under the bed… under it. Ranza found a bag of chocolate chips in the kitchen and she and Orli ate half of it while watching the rest of the cartoon. After the episode was over, a show about poorly proportioned fairies that spoke with pseudo-European accents came on, but all they talked about was shopping and fashion so Ranza turned it off and put the chocolate away. At some point Orli hauled out the blocks and they constructed an elaborate ancient city, complete with a ziggurat, which stretched from the front door to the kitchen.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do when their mother was about to return home with a houseguest, but they weren’t thinking of that.
Nahuel came out of his bedroom, which looked, against all better logic, surprisingly clean.
“Woah,” he said, “You guys built Akator.”
“That’s the idea,” agreed Ranza, dumping out a bin of action figures on one of the remaining empty spaces on the floor. “Orli, gimme your space ship.”
Orli was happy to supply her plastic starfighter and joined Ranza in sifting through the action figures. They produced about six different versions of Indiana Jones (With whip-snapping action! With vine swinging action! With machine-gun accessory! With kung-fu grip!) until Nahuel decided that the one they needed was not in the box and vanished into his room.
He returned a moment later with the brand-new action figures he had bought with his pocket money. Ranza and Orli hadn’t been allowed to play with these yet. They were Nahuel’s prized toys, more detailed and elaborate than the hand-me-down figurines Eshaa picked up at garage sales.
He started to hand the Marion figure to Ranza, thought better of it, and handed her to Orli, choosing instead to give Ranza the Mutt figure, keeping Indy for himself. Both sisters knew better than to argue over their character assignments,
The action figures had just ascended the Ziggurat when the front door opened, triggering a chain reaction that send the entire block city tumbling to the ground. Nahuel lead a hasty retreat for the action figures and tossed the starfighter onto the couch.
“Like a broom over their footsteps,” he quoted. Orli climbed over the couch to retrieve her starfighter. The person on the other side of the door was having trouble getting it all the way open because of the blocks. Ranza noticed the trouble they were having and ran to pull the blocks out of the way. Eshaa pushed the door the rest of the way open.
“Not smart, guys,” she said, surveying the ruins. “What happened here?”
“The aliens destroyed Akator,” said Orli from the couch, holding up her starfighter as if it explained everything.
“Is your room clean?” Eshaa asked Nahuel, stepping into the apartment and kicking more blocks out of the way. She was followed by a man who, Nahuel quickly decided, looked like Dr. Jones except a bit older and with longer hair. The man set down a suitcase as Nahuel nodded.
“Alright,” said Eshaa happily. She motioned to each of the kids in turn. “These are Nahuel, Ranza, and Orli,” she explained to the man beside her, and then motioned to him. “Guys, this is my grandfather, Nat Cooper.”
“Hi,” responded the siblings in eerie and unintended unison. Nahuel took the initiative to start putting away the blocks before their mother could yell at him about it, and Ranza joined in. Orli, who could easily be considered exempt for no really good reason, hopped off the couch to get a better look at the visitor.
He didn’t look like an alien, she decided. Ranza had been wrong. He looked human, more human than their mother. (But Eshaa had already explained to them that she was what was called a half-breed, so Orli could sort of piece it together.)
He smiled and pointed to the plastic starfighter she held in her hands. “I flew one of those,” he said.
Orli looked at the starfighter, wondering how anyone larger than an action figure could fit into it.
“A real one,” he explained, seeming to understand her confusion. “The real ones are a lot bigger.”
Orli nodded. “You fly?” she asked.
“I’m a pilot,” he explained. “One of the best.”
“You’re forgetting the past tense,” said Eshaa gently.
“How old are you?” asked Nahuel, looking up from his clean-up effort.
“Eighty-seven last month,” he said, laughing.
To the siblings, none of whom had even been alive a year, that seemed impossibly old. Eshaa lead him off to show him the rest of the apartment, and the trio regrouped to whisper conspiratorially.
“He’s an alien in a human skin,” said Ranza lowly.
“He looks like Dr. Jones,” hissed Nahuel. “I think he’s a clone.”
“I think he’s cool,” said Orli, happily looking at the ship in her hands. He’d flown a real one! Someday she’d fly a real one, too!
Her siblings shot her annoyed looks and pushed her out of the circle so they could continue exchanging thoughts in private.
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