She felt dainty, light as a feather, and unnervingly far off the ground in his arms. It was an unusual experience for her. Those thoughts fled when she caught sight of the home he was taking her to, as he traveled along a stone paved path through a small grove of trees towards a structure with multiple peaked roofs, shingled by what looked to be orange scales as long as skateboards and twice as wide.
The house itself was framed up by bones—a variety of animal bones, rather than the dragon bones that made up the city. To her relief, there were no human-looking bones among the mix, but it was still a startling sight. The bones appeared to be lacquered and carved, with some ubiquitous dragons on them, but also other fanciful-looking beasts that probably weren’t all that fanciful in this world. Those horned, multi-tailed, ridge-backed, spike bearing monsters might even be the owners of the bones that now bore their carvings.
The walls were made of lacquered hide, stripped of any fur and appearing as solid as stone, though the stretch of leathery membrane was unmistakable.
The double doors were conventional wood, made of the same bleached white that some of the doors in the temple had been.
A garden of colorful flowers and plants surrounded the entire house, which was probably about the size of a small tract home, but definitely nowhere near as bland and sterile as one. Unlike the density of the buildings in the city, this one appeared to have some property surrounding it, which included the grove they’d passed through after leaving the sky lift station.
Jotaha carried her around to the back of the property to show her an incredible view of an ocean behind the house, along with a sweeping stone terrace that had a set of stairs leading down towards a beach below them.
He finally set her on her feet on the stone terrace so she could stand at the retaining wall to look down at the beach.
“This out-terrace is one of the most desirable in the skilev. I chose it to be a home for my drahi as soon as I saw it, and the final touches are almost complete for our mating. We will live in my old quarters in the left wing until the first mating ceremony. After we bond, we will begin our seclusion in this home.”
She turned from the beach to study him, noting that he stood ramrod straight, tension clear in his squared shoulders, his spines shifting as he avoided her gaze.
She knew, before he mentioned that he’d picked this home for his drahi, that he wasn’t talking about her. This place had been chosen with Farona in mind. She would have to live with that, knowing that all those “final touches” probably were also meant to appeal to another woman. He undoubtedly figured this would occur to her, which was probably why he looked so tense.
“So, I have many questions, especially about this ‘first mating ceremony’ and ‘seclusion’,” she said, forcing a bright smile. “But they can all come after I finish the tour of our future home. What I’m already seeing is beautiful!”
She tried to focus on the beach view as she injected admiration into her tone, and ignore the bones and hide and oversized scales. The house did have a certain artistry to it, but it was alien in architecture and materials to what she was used to, and she didn’t know if she could ever forget that it was built for someone else.
30
Everything seemed to be working out with his drahi. She appeared to be accepting of his claim, and it even seemed like she might care for him, and might someday be able to feel for him the way he felt for her. He should be relieved, and happy. Instead, Jotaha was tense and uncomfortable around her, though some of that was because his need for her only grew more difficult to ignore as her scent filled his head. They would need to have the first mating ceremony soon, or he would end up burning off his salavik because of his unquenchable desire for Sarah.
The idea to take her to their future home as a means to distract them both was a terrible one. There was so much within the home that he should have changed before bringing her here. Everywhere he looked as he led her into the house, he saw his plans for Farona. The furniture, the plants, the ornaments, the cooking room, the weaving room, the brewing chamber, even the mating room, had all been chosen for Farona.
He suspected that Sarah was aware of this. Her voice took on a falsely high-pitched tone as she dutifully complimented everything she saw, even though the drooping of her shoulders and the difficulty she had in holding onto her nixir grin told him a different story about how she felt about the house.
She didn’t like this home, nor should he expect her to. She might not even like the location. He and Farona had daydreamed about living just above the beach where they spent so much time as nestlings, before he entered into jotah training. He had no idea if nixirs even liked the water, though Gaia was blessed with so much of it.
He also didn’t know if Sarah even wanted a fruit grove of her own, or a full garden from which to harvest produce and herbs for her brewing and cooking. He wasn’t even certain she did such things, though he was sure Farona would teach her if she asked.
When he and Farona were nestlings, they had dreamed big, though they both grew up on the bottom edge of the left wing, packed in like so many of the poorer yan-kanat. Jotaha had lost his father when he was just leaving the nest to enter training, and his mother had died not long after her mate, leaving Jotaha with no one but Farona and her family to turn to, since his parents had not had a fruitful mating and he had no nest-kin.
While Jotaha had focused on becoming a better hunter and fighter in the hopes the chanu zayul would someday choose him and elevate his status, Farona had built her wealth through learning many different skills. They were both successful now, but they both still lived on the wing, because they had planned to move to an out-terrace together.
He had no idea what Farona would decide to do now, and prayed that Seta Zul would find another mate for her soon so she would not suffer any more heartache, but he had to focus on Sarah, and find out what her dreams for her future were. He could not give her a life filled with the machines she apparently created, but he would promise her anything this world could provide for her.
Including a different home. One that wasn’t built for someone else. One that Sarah herself could choose.
“What was your home like, on Gaia?”
Sarah turned from her examination of a silk-spider incubator in the weaving room. The confusion drawing her brows together eased as she focused on his question. “The townhome I lived in was about half this size. Just two nesting chambers, a living room, cooking chamber, and hygiene room. It still felt grand after living in my van.”
“What is a ‘van’?” It sounded as if she did not concern herself with space, if the home had been half the size of this one.
Sarah’s tension returned, her lips flattening as she shrugged her shoulders. The movement caused the dress she wore to slide over her unbound chest mounds, causing the tips of them to harden. They were so alien, yet he could remember staring at similar mounds on the murals of the titaness Theia and wondering what they felt like. Whether they were as soft as some said, or as stiff as the stones beneath his feet. As deviant as it felt to him, he wanted to know, and his salavik was in complete agreement. He was so focused on that intriguing mystery that he nearly missed her answer to his question.
“….to explain. I guess it’s like a carriage or cart, only it doesn’t need any animals to pull it.”