Page 60 of Alien Barbarian's Little Human

I nod, and her lips purse tightly.

“I’m sorry, Magog,” she says, brow heavily furrowed “I’m j ust not sure that’s possible. What you’re talking about is one of the great debates of the galaxy: Are souls real? And what happens to them when we die? I know that a lot of people, Vautan in particular, think the answer is open and shut. Souls live on, and are sometimes reincarnated into a new body, as dictated by the will of the precursors.”

“There are many things in this galaxy which cannot be quantified in strict scientific terms. I can chart the physiological changes occurring inside of me when I look at you, Nerita. I can sense the faster heart rate, the increased respiration, the flow of blood to particular extremities--”

“Um, are you building up to a point here, Magog?”

A chuckle escapes my lips.

“Always with the rapier wit. Yes, I have a point. I can quantify these physiological changes, but not the particular feeling of warmth in my chest whenever I see you, or even just think of you. I cannot put parameters onto love.”

Nerita swallows heavily and turns her face away from my own. Color comes to her cheeks as she studies the steepled hands in her lap.

“How can you love me? Even if…and that’s a big if…I can entertain the idea of past lives, and that you knew me in one of them, I still don’t understand why you could possibly love me.”

A frown crosses my face. I dare to place my hand on her knee.

“I don’t see how it’s so hard to understand.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m the youngest of nine kids, my parents didn’t evne bother teaching me how to write my name. They figured the school would take care of it. I rub everyone the wrong way, sooner or later, and I’m picky and temperamental and…why do you think I had to come al the way out here to Horus IV? None of the other planets will have me.”

She looks up at me suddenly, her blue eyes questing, as if to see if her tirade has made me change my mind about loving her.

“So I don’t know what I was like in the other lives, if they’re for rea. In this one I’m a huge spain in the butt who nobody likes.”

“You sell yourself grievously short, Nerita. You could have abandoned all of the injured. Your prospects for survival increase exponentially if you do so. Yet, you have made sure to care for them as if they were your own blood. That is nothing short of noble.”

Her cheeks turn red and a nervous laugh flutters out of her lips.

“Oh, stop it. Now you’re just buttering me up.”

I search for the human phrase and discover its meaning.

“Yes, I suppose I am buttering you up indeed. Is it working?”

“What?” She sputters with laughter. “You can’t just come out and ask how effectual…you’re something else, big guy. I don’t know why you’re slumming it with me.”

“If you do not stop engaging in self-denigrating speech, I will silence you.”

She scoffs.

“How are you going to do that?”

“Like this.”

My lips brush against her own. The sublime softness lights up my nerves with pleasure. Just a brief kiss, quickly done. Or so I intend.

But as if in sudden relief, she clasps against me. Our kiss deepens. Memories meld with new sensations. Kissing Micah, kissing Chloe, and kissing Nerita is all the same, yet wholly different. The body is not the same, but the soul and the heart are.

As our limbs and hearts entwine, so do our souls. Our thoughts. I can feel her prickling about in my mind, and I likewise touch her own. Nerita’s struggles have been subtle, yet profoundly despairing in this life.

Her parents truly don’t seem to have much affection for her. Most of her siblings are either incarcerated or on the run. Nerita’s life has been hard. I will not let it end in tragedy. Not this time.

Nerita suddenly pulls away from me, her chest heaving with heavy pants. She licks her lips several times as she struggles to speak.

“Oh my god, Magog…I remember! Not everything, not yet, but I remember being Micah. Oh god, I always thought those were just crazy dreams…”

“Dreams, and yet not dreams.”

---