23:48 02/06/2592 –(8737/562/12/02)

“Gabriel, we need you in the yard now; Abolet and Joryil are at it again,” Bama said, entering the break room.

Gabriel sighed, put the rest of his sandwich into his suit’s airlock, and after quickly swallowing it, he said, “let’s go.” Gabriel had gotten an upgrade since moving to Yursu, inspired by the fine outfit Hetwa had possessed. He had bought a modular suit, which had a food airlock meaning he could now eat without a quarantine being imposed on whatever residence he was in.

It also possessed a toilet function, allowing him to urinate in any public bathroom in the galaxy.

Finally, he had customised his suit with other fabrics making it appear that he was wearing casual clothing rather than a piece of industrial equipment. His face was still hidden; however, he liked that no one could see him, it made him feel mysterious.

Gabriel was still a gardener and still good at it, but now he had a second job; he was currently undergoing an apprenticeship at Kabritr’s correctional home. A facility for troubled youths. Most came from broken homes, and it was homes, as usually neither the mother nor father was willing to take them in.

The children also had behavioural problems, some of them being quite aggressive, which explained how Gabriel had been able to get the position, despite being the same age as a late-stage teenager to most Tufanada. Hell, some of the children here were older than Gabriel.

So it helped that any child here, even armed with a weapon, would struggle to hurt him. Some of the kids came from gangs, and that kind of toughness gave Gabriel a lot of clout with the minors.

Kabritir house was a pleasant place; it worked off the principle that if you treated people like people, they would act like it too. Not to say that it was easy, many of the kids had experiences comparable to Gabriel’s, and he knew that all that hostility and baggage did not go away because you got a warm meal and a soft sleeping rack.

Which was where Aboley and Joryil came in.

The two of them had made good progress in the seven and ten years, respectively. The main problem was that they flung mercurially between loving and hating one another, and it seemed today they had chosen to hate one another.

Gabriel could see them from one of the windows, and the argument quickly devolved into a fight, so he hurried to the door, Bama trailing behind.

As he approached the two, as a small crowd of other children egging them on, Gabriel slowed; he could not be seen to run. Gabriel needed to show them he was in complete control, and rushing made it seem like he was not.

Gabriel pushed through the crowd, which quickly broke apart now that he was present. The children, even the most aggressive, had seen what Gabriel could do, and they were in no mood to test him.

“What are you to doing?” Gabriel demanded, pulling the two of them apart. Aboley threw a punch at Gabriel, and she immediately regretted it. He held her fist tightly as Gabriel finished separating the two, having been utterly unfazed by the strike.

“You know that hurts you and not me,” Gabriel commented, taking a quick look at the damaged limb. “You haven’t cracked the exoskeleton; you’ll be fine, sore for a few days but fine,” he added, letting go of her hand.

“Now, do I even want to know what stupid trivial thing started this pointless fight?” Gabriel asked, folding his arms. From anyone else, Gabriel's gesture would have meant fear, but to everyone present, it meant he was not in the mood for games.

Joryil was the first to speak; he pointed at Aboley and told him, “she stole my rock.”

“It’s not your rock; it’s my rock; I found it first and put it near the fountain; you moved it without my permission,” Aboley argued back, and the two drew closer, ready for a fight.

“QUIET!” Gabriel shouted, and the two immediately backed away from each other and stood to attention.

“There are hundreds of rocks on these grounds; you two really are reaching new lows,” Gabriel chastised. “You two are better than this; I know you are; you were inseparable just this morning; I saw you trilling together at breakfast,” he added.

“That was before he-” Aboley said, but Gabriel cut her off, his voice calm, but he made it clear he would not be ignored.

“I do not want to hear any more about the rock,” Gabriel explained. “Now, you two are going to wave hands and make-up; if you can’t be civil, then you can stay on opposite sides of the estate for the rest of the day,” he added.

They attempted to argue, but Gabriel had more to say, “my wife is coming to pick me up in two hours to see my daughter's Mabat dance. Do I need to cancel it just to babysit you?”

“Is my seventeen-year-old girl more of an adult than you?” Gabriel asked.

“No sir,” Aboley said, looking at the ground.

“No sir,” Joryil added, fidgeting with his hands.

“I’m sorry I took your rock,” Joryil said, looking at Aboley.

“I’m sorry I started the fight,” Aboley replied, not looking up from the ground.

Gabriel smiled; they were doing well; he did not even have to prompt them this time. “Go have fun; your weekend isn’t even over yet,” he told them.

***

“You're doing really well with those kids,” Nish said after hearing the story from Gabriel.

“About as well as can be expected; I won’t even tell you what Joryil's mother did to him,” he replied, looking out the car window.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I don’t think you need to, I can well imagine, given how quiet you are about it,” Nish said, turning right.

“You know, if those two were human, I’d say they just needed to have a quick shag on the stairs in about two years and get it out of their systems,” Gabriel mused aloud.

“Well, they’re not; that kind of attitude is pretty common among soon-to-be adults,” Nish explained. “Why I remember when I was their age, I used to fight with my friends all the time, it’s the hormones, you see, makes them very irritable,” she said.

“And shame on you, reducing everything to sex like that,” Nish added, jokingly admonishing him.

“You are not one to talk to me like that about sex. I’ve never known anyone so insatiable in my life,” Gabriel retorted, recalling how Nish was during her past three mating seasons. Not that he had any experience in that regard, Nish was the only person he had ever been with.

“In my defence, since we’re married, I have no other outlet, and I might add, I’ve never had such ready access to sex before, no waiting about, no selecting, just getting to do it five times a day,” Nish replied, recalling those special moments fondly.

Gabriel scoffed, and Nish added, “you should take it as a compliment; you know, these past three years, I’ve actually managed to get work done during the Hofhoris festival, blew my colleagues’ minds; it did.” “One of the benefits of having an alien husband who's constantly in heat, no worry about our mating seasons not coinciding.”

“I am not constantly in heat; I just don’t have a set mating period. I hear enough of that crap from the kids; thank you very much,” Gabriel said. “First thing they did when I started working there was look up human reproduction and sex habits, little perverts.”

“They’re taller than you,” Nish pointed out.

***

“Talk to me before you decide to eat anything,” Nish said, eyeing the snacks and informal drinks put out for them as they waited with the other parents for the display to start.

“Why,” Gabriel said, eyeing a bowl of nibs.

“Do you remember what you were eating at the last P.T.A. meeting?” Nish asked.

“That giant savoury cracker, yeah, it was delicious,” Gabriel said after some brief recollection.

“It was a table mat, Gabriel,” Nish explained.

Gabriel looked at her and replied, “it was great; if you’re ever out shopping and you see the same make, buy me one.” “Anyway, if it was such a problem, why didn’t anyone mention it?” he asked.

“Everyone else thought it was some human culture thing, and I thought it was funny,” Nish explained.

“Then why don’t you want me to do it again?” Gabriel inquired.

“Because they billed me for it; I’m not made of money,” she answered.

Pista’s instructor appeared on stage, and everyone took their seats. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone brightly, and Kosor, the ice giant Yursu orbited, hung serenely in the sky.

Mabat was a traditional dance form native to the Ralosth Peninsula, where twenty-two Tufanda all engaged in a synchronised dance. Nish also mentioned that the dance needed to be done outside on a day with little cloud cover and Kosor visible.

In the past, the Ralosthrie people had believed Kosor was the physical manifestation of their rain, river, lake and ocean god and that by dancing under his gaze, they could please Kosor and convince him to protect them from Onuru, the sun.

If they did it correctly, the river would run whole, and the drought would end.

Now that Gabriel thought about it, Nish and Pista often engaged in events and celebrations only found here. Gabriel had the sneaking suspicion he had married into an ethnic minority family.

His biggest clue was a year ago when he mentioned wearing fancy clothes when first meeting someone, what Nish had done on their first day out together. Yet they had flat-out denied it as if they were embarrassed by the idea.

Gabriel would have brought it up with Nish, but he did not care all that much. Nish was Nish, and Pista was Pista; that was all that mattered to him.

Pista emerged along with the dance partners; gender was no factor in the dance, so there were boys, girls and treas.

A small group of adults sat before the stage and began to play. It was mainly composed of wind instruments, symbols, and drums, but a couple of strings rounded out the piece. It was oddly haunting, with many unnatural stops; Gabriel did not know if it was intentional to put the listener on edge and some distance between them and their god.

Or perhaps it was a limitation of the Tufadna body, and it sounded like a flowing piece to them, and it was his human brain that was able to pick out the problems.

Pista waved at Gabriel, and he waved back, it was a habit she had picked up from him, and everyone apart from Nish seemed very confused.

The children took their positions, and the dance began. Unsurprisingly, there was as much flying as jumps and twirls; Gabriel was impressed with how graceful they were, but he kept most of his attention on his daughter, who continually glanced at her parents.

Nish’s pride was clear to see; Gabriel, however, was inscrutable with his suit on. She knew her father well enough, though, and she could imagine the smile on his face; it gave her confidence.

The dance ended after five more minutes with one final flutter around the stage, and the children curtseyed. Gabriel clapped as the Tufanda parents detached their wing muscles and made a buzzing noise.

Once the children were dismissed, Pista bounded from the stage and leapt straight at her mother. Nish caught her, and Pista asked, “did you see? Did you see? Did you see?”

“We saw; pretty hard not to,” Gabriel said, patting her head.

“Do you think it will rain now?” she asked, looking up at the sky.

“Maybe, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we,” Nish replied.

***

Pista had fallen asleep on the ride home, which was not unsurprising considering how much exercise she had done today. Gabriel carried her inside and placed her on a kobon, essentially a Tufanda chair, suspended on the wall where a Tufanda would half hang, half sit.

Due to Gabriel’s unique biology Nish and he had been forced to move into a custom-made home located on the very top of the city. He had received a subsidy from the government to help with its construction, and technically, the location was on the rough side of town.

This was Tufadna rough, though, and he’s seen more challenging places when he was in primary school.

He had had one altercation with a group of ruffians. They had considered themselves the rulers of six city blocks, not hard-line criminals per se, just an organised mob of assholes.

The gang had turned up at his home shortly after he had moved in and called Nish and Pista a word, one that made Nish flutter with indignation and Pista buzz with fright. Another clue Nish and Pista were not members of the dominant culture around these parts. After that, it ended pretty much how you would expect.

Most of them flew away before being arrested for a hate crime. The others went to the hospital before being arrested for a hate crime. Not that Gabriel had done it alone; once Pista had been safely sequestered in the house, Nish had returned to help.

However, all that was in the past, things had settled down, and Gabriel was enjoying domestic bliss.

Gabriel’s P.D.A. got a ping, and he checked his latest message. It was from Erilur; he would meet the Ponut’kild and Risoti for their annual get-together in three months. He was looking forward to that; Gabriel had fired the final shot in their little letter-writing competition four months ago.

A grand display fit for a queen involving a trumpet procession. There was no way Erilur could top that unless she won the lottery, and he had known it when he had sent it.

He could well imagine the look on her face.

“I’m going for a shower,” Gabriel said as he headed for his own private wing of the house, hermetically sealed, allowing him to be his entire self. He even had a greenhouse filled with plants from Earth, allowing him to feel the sun on his skin.

“I take it you don’t feel like cooking,” Nish said, making herself a drink.

“Not today,” Gabriel replied.

“Good, because I’ve got a craving for freezle takeaway,” Nish said, letting Gabriel get on with his shower.

Just before the airlock leading to his wing, Gabriel looked at a picture hanging on the wall. It was significant for two reasons; it was one of the few images of him standing outside the home without his suit.

It had taken two weeks to decontaminate himself for that, a rather unpleasant thing, more so as he did it every year to deal with Nish’s urges. Not that he found those urges distasteful.

Finally, because sitting in the frame was a second photo, one of Jariel smiling at him. Gabriel smiled back.