Page 26 of Star Bright
But some wounds weren’t visible.
From Vash’s comments and her reading of the drakling specific parts of the IDA handbooks (there’d been many draklings IDA patrons over the years, including one that accidentally ended up featuring in the interstellar hit, The Great Space Race) she knew beings with shapechanging abilities tended to be more physically demonstrative than many species, probably because they were in such close contact with their beast.
But it was impulse not academic manipulation that had her brush back a knotted lock of auburn hair from the girl’sforehead. “I would climb with you again. But if I reach too far, just let me know.”
After a heartbeat, Yadira’s pupils returned to their regular shape, and Darcy’s hackles subsided. Who had she been talking to: the girl or the beast? And why did she have the feeling that the latter—lurking though it was—might be easier to reach than the former?
Vash returned with a plate, artfully arranged with tidbits. “Yaya, you must eat something. These are you favorites.”
She looked at the plate, and for a moment, Darcy wondered if she’d just smack it out of her father’s hand. Then with a sigh that slumped her shoulders, she took it and shuffled toward a table up against a window overlooking a small sculpture garden.
Vash let out a shorter breath. “Even though I can fly, I’m still walking on eggshells with that one.”
“We have that saying too, and our teenage years are also tricky. Is there someplace in the universe where no one struggles and the transitions between life stages is effortless?”
He turned back to the buffet to assemble another plate. “If there is, they don’t need the Intergalactic Dating Agency.” He glanced at her. “Which foods would you like?”
“Oh. I’ll just leave the three of you. I need to…” Except she had no actual caretaker duties beyond making sure nothing bad happened.
And if something bad was going to happen, it would probably happen right here.
“Let me grab a cup of…” Abruptly, she noticed there was no coffee carafe. Probably wise of Kong to have removed any potential drakling irritants, but she’d only had her first three cups this morning, and after that blunder on the climbing wall, she could use another few cups to settle her nerves. But she settled for a glass of some sort of milky juice with colorful swirls, like boba except in ribbons.
“The sky is burning!”
Atsu’s cry of alarm sent them both hurrying to the table.
The boy was kneeling on his chair with his nose pressed to the window. “See? Ash is falling.”
So much for settling her nerves. Darcy took the chair next to the boy, across from Vash who sat next to Yadira. “It’s not ash. It’s snow.”
“Snow?” Atsu bounced a few more times, tipping the chair back precariously until she wedged her foot on the lower rung to anchor it to the floor. “I’ve read about snow.”
“You don’t have snow on Skyearth?”
“Not where I live. Where I used to live. I don’t know what it’s like now.” He twisted around to look at her. “You’ve never been to Skyearth?”
“I’ve never traveled off this planet,” she admitted.
“Me either. Until now.” Though his eyes didn’t change, he abruptly stilled, the irrepressible restlessness transforming into something alien.
No, she decided, not exactly alien, just too grownup for a child his age.
The boy pinned that unblinking gaze on Vash. “Because Addah thinks we need another mother.”
Darcy took that awkward break to sip at her juice. It was…good. A little strange, with more than a tinge of heat, which she probably should’ve expected, but good.
And maybe she wanted to hide behind her glass while she waited to see what Vash would say.
Vash matched the boy’s stance, still and steady, and for a moment Darcy could clearly see the resemblance like a mirror through time. “Your mother flies—still and always—in the skies our hearts. But I also wanted more for you then memories.” He tilted his head to include Yadira in the explanation, but the girl sat even more frozen than Atsu, as if she were clinging toa terrible cliff no one could see. “I wanted more hands to help guide you and build our lives again, maybe along a different path but still a good one. I wanted other eyes to help watch over you, and to share with me when I have troubles that shouldn’t bother you. I wanted another heart, beating like mighty thunder with ours, a music of love goes on like the winds that circle through the seasons of our lives, changing perhaps but always there.”
Darcy bit the inside of her lower lip. That had not been her experience with Christopher. There had been no elemental force to their connection, just convenience and habit, more monotony than music.
Vash put both his hands on the table. “But now, I think I was wrong. I didn’t just change everything by choosing to come here and putting us in stasis, making us vulnerable to the ship’s malfunction. I was wrong to make this choice for us without being sure it’s what we all wanted.” He turned his hands palm up on the table one stretched in the direction of either child. “I won’t ask for your forgiveness, not yet. But I will say again that I am sorry for what I’ve done to us. I would give you a whole universe of skies, but only if that’s what you both want.”
Atsu reached across the table to link his hand with his father’s. “I forgive you, Addah,” he said sweetly. “Ammi always said I was a handful and a wingful so no wonder you wanted someone to help you.” With his other hand, he snagged Darcy’s next to him. “You don’t have wings, and your hands aren’t even strong enough to hold onto the rocks. But if Addah thinks he can hold you—”
Darcy jerked straight. “What? No. That’s not—”
