Page 32 of Crave
By the time she’d cleaned up, he had an orcish breakfast ready, plus Earth coffee.
“It’s not my favorite, but I know you like it,” he said before slipping away to the shuttle’s small hygiene unit.
Why was it so hard to ignore him when he wasn’t even around?
She gulped the coffee, brooding. Brooding like a silly hero in one of her grandmother’s romances. Why had she told Sil about all that, about her uncle, about her mistakes? He already knew she was trouble, and she’d just went and told him it was in her blood, that she was just foolishness coming and going? Ugh.
Running away from another mistake had never looked so good.
But when he returned, she found herself saying, “We can’t leave yet.”
He didn’t try any Earther expressions or curiosity, or orc ones for that matter, just stood there, still as carved stone himself. Like he’d given up.
She shifted from foot to foot, like part of her still wanted to flee even though there was nowhere to go. “You haven’t even tried singing the stones.”
After a long moment of silence, he said, “Because there are no stones, not even pebbles. Just dust.”
“So, sing that instead.” More silence that was worse than explosions, and she wanted to grab him and shake him. “It might not work. I’m full of bad ideas. But…” She shrugged. “There’s nothing left of Roxy’s home except atoms and memories. Since you said stone singers carve molecules of minerals into other ways of being, do that to the dust.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
She jutted her jaw. “Why not? You said the orcs haven’t had a stone singer in forever. It can be whatever you want.”
“I’m not being coy,” he said. “The stone singers of legend had masses of precious material and gemstones to work with.”
“Well, you don’t have mountains. You have dust.”
He straightened. “That’s not enough.”
“I believe you.”
His eyes narrowed. “You believe in me?”
“No, I believe it’s not enough. But you could go for it anyway.”
He walked away from her.
For a moment, she almost laughed. So much for her inspirational prowess. But the impulse to mock even herself withered. How could she inspire him to make something out of nothing? She’d never been able to scrape together any sort of dream either.
He’d retreated to the cockpit, so she went the other direction.
In the cargo hold, Roxy waited—of course it waited; it wasn’t going anywhere of its own volition—in the dim lighting, so she sat next to it.
Since she wasn’t going anywhere either.
The datpad blinked. “Lonely?”
She started to agree because she must be lonely to talk to a rock, but then she shook her head. “Just thinking.” Being lonely and desperate had led her down some wrong paths, but that wasn’t the case at the moment.
She patted the rock, imagining herself giving it some mineral version of photosynthesis, as Sil had explained it. “How are you doing?” She’d left behind her planet and most of her people, but at least they still existed behind her.
“Too long. Too far. Last.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe somewhere else out there, there are others. It’s a big universe. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Together.”
Sighing, Kinsley closed her eyes as she tilted her head back against the wall. Talking to an actual pet rock that couldn’t talk back probably would’ve been more therapeutic—or at least less weird. But apparently she was starting to think of this as real life, who woulda guessed? “Sure, yeah. Maybe.”
