Page 42 of Life-Debt

“Challenge the Veloc to design the best ship possible for you and your lady to venture into the unknown in search of the lost. May the best design win. Then she can transform her ship into one you will both be pleased with. You will surely have a nest here and on our world, but your true nest will voyage between the stars.”

Huh. Mystoran had good ideas. “You should do that. The Veloc might not be great at traveling, but their ships seem to be good.”

“We are great designers. We are not so good at flying the things we design. It is one of our few flaws.”

“The only thing flawed was your hunting tactics,” I replied.

Mystoran bowed his head, flattened his crest, and whistled his despair. “You have chosen a cruel female, Little Cousin.”

“I like her just as she is.”

FOURTEEN

They adored each other to the point of death

One year, three months, and twenty days after landing on Veloci Minor, I said goodbye to my old life and welcomed in the new. I’d been warned the Veloc took romancing to extremes, but nobody had told me they viewed weddings as the most important ceremony in one’s life. In the tradition of the Veloc, I started my day with a head-to-tail grooming, where they decked me out in a ridiculous number of jewels and a white dress. Typically, they dressed in the color of the clans, but despite over a year of bickering, Delta had dodged being claimed. I expected he’d lose that battle soon enough, and his clan of cousins would win that war.

They adored each other to the point of death, something the Veloc respected.

Sometime during the preparations, I’d learned white had been a tradition sourced from Earth, although nobody quite understood the purity angle. Keeping my dress white for the ceremony would test the patience of the Veloc. The latest batch of hatchlings adored me, tended to follow me in flocks, and had a dress-destroying habit of spitting up fur, feather, and bone while they grew used to eating live prey.

At least they no longer needed milk, which presented a whole different spit up problem.

Miracle of a Lost Crimson Star had been one of the easier hatchlings to raise, and I’d done well not overfeeding her, thus avoiding most of the problems. The hatchling had grown into a fledgling, and she’d won the right to carry rings and flowers in another human tradition. As nobody really understood the point of the flowers, we’d ended up dressing the waist tall Veloc in a dress covered with them.

She would steal hearts with her adorable attire.

“Humans are strange,” I informed Delta’s mother, a woman who preferred to be called Mom and refused to give me her actual name. I’d given up the battle and gone with it. My actual mother, who also wanted to be called Mom, snickered at my commentary.

It amazed me that my parents had made the journey all the way from Andromeda to witness me wed a man I’d plucked out of space.

“That’s really not how flower girls are supposed to work, but frankly, this is so much cuter, this is how the tradition should have been,” my mother announced. “Flower girls, on Earth, threw flowers. That’s all. A little boy tended to be the ring bearer. I’m guessing you just saw flower girl and ring bearer in the listing?”

We had, and rather than try to cover up our amusing mistake, I nodded. “Well, we tried.”

“This is so much better, but if you want to mimic a human ceremony, bring that little boy this girl likes and have them just walk together down the aisle. It’ll be trivial to deck him out in flowers.”

Delta’s father took the hint and went off to secure our impromptu ring bearer.

“Anything else we’ve gotten woefully wrong, Mom?”

“Everything, but I love it and think this is perfect. Well, perfect for you. You never liked doing anything the easy or sensible way. When we’d been asked if we’d wanted to modify you, I’d thought your father had been out of his mind to request survival adaptations. But as I wanted you to live a long and happy life, I figured he’d been right. Now you’re living among…”

“Feathered murder machines,” I provided.

Mystoran, who’d been assigned as Delta’s right hand Veloc for the wedding, hooted his laughter. “And you are our prized furred murder machine.” And without missing a beat, he regaled my mother about how I’d slapped a tracker onto a bastard of a hatchling kidnapper and shot him out of a tree.

Miracle of a Lost Crimson Star pressed her head against my stomach, and I smiled at her, stroking my hand over her crest, careful to avoid her new decorations. “Still Water Under a Bridge will be with you, so you don’t have to worry about how long it is until you can see him. The ceremony won’t be that long, but you two will need to be quiet like we discussed.”

She pressed closer to me and cooed.

Delta’s father returned with Miracle Star’s favorite friend, and the pair cooed at each other, nuzzled, and settled into their routine of greeting each other, preening their feathers, and otherwise drawing attention to themselves. “My son is growing rather impatient, as he seems convinced you’re going to run straight for your ship and flee the planet rather than get married.”

I gestured to my head, which sported a fortune in shiftgem crystals. “Part of my life support system is decorating my hair. I can’t fly without a life support system.” In reality, my life support system had been torn apart by an overenthusiastic Delta, who owed me a new one and had dealt with several hours of me crying over its destruction, however accidental. And by accidental, I suspected he’d been clumsy on purpose to make sure I couldn’t flee the planet. “And part of my life support system is decorating my hair because he broke it.”

“And he’s helping you fix it, just after the wedding. I don’t know why he’s so convinced you’re going to run so he has to chase you.”

I shrugged. “It’s probably because I kept threatening to run off and take the impressionable hatchlings with me, training them to venture among the stars rather than stay on land. I even promised to bring the impressionable hatchlings back and get their parents’ permission to take them off on short flights. I think he broke my life support system so I wouldn’t actually do it.”