Chapter 12: Mine!

This was perfection, the sun was setting over the lake, he had a full stomach and Hisra was leaning up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder and her hair hanging down over his chest as they soaked their feet off the side of the dock. It was a peaceful moment, one underscored by the joy of the idea of the impending doom that was about to befall the Millar clan.

He breathed in, envisioning the look on Greg Millar’s face as his family was knocked off of its pedestal, it was damn near therapeutic. And as he leaned back, his hands going behind him to prop him up he remembered the last time his family had faced the Millars. The only reason they had really won was because Jack had his arm in a cast from a biking accident and thus had been unable to participate in the arm wrestling competition, as such what had been a tie had become the Millar’s victory. Those wrongs would be erased tomorrow, all of them would be erased…

As the happy thoughts vanquishing his vacation nemesis floated around in his head Jack looked over to where the others were they currently lounged around in beach chairs catching the sun in their new swimsuits...

Swimsuits.

Jack froze up as a thought crossed his mind, a thought that froze the blood in his veins and with a rather worried voice he asked Hisra the question tentatively. “Hey, Hisra?” She looked up at him, her eyebrows raising as she noticed something was up.

“Yes?” she asked her blue eyes studying him.

“Uhhhhh,” Jack paused to order his thoughts, but quickly learned that with something like this you just keep going in mental circles, so he did the only thing for it and just said it out loud. ”Your race proposes by giving someone clothes right?”

“Yes, why?” She now looked really confused, which was a good thing, because confused was a damn sight better than pissed, of that he was sure.

“Well I kinda did just buy your sisters some swimsuits, should I start to worry about this?” Her look of confusion morphed into humor and she started laughing. It began as something small, a sort of rumbling vibration that built until it rushed out like a torrent of water escaping as the dam broke. He gave her a look and she coughed, fighting to keep her mirth in check. “This is serious, we need to talk about this.”

“It's not the buying or giving of clothing,” she said when she caught her breath, “what do you think that a grandma buying clothes for her granddaughter is proposing to the girl? Or parents purchasing clothes for their kids them proposing to their children?” She laughed again, and Jack was forced to concede the point even if he really didn't want to. “It's the act of putting the clothing on the person, it's symbolic, when a man purposes to a woman he put his clothing on her, a jacket is usually the norm.” she smiled at him, and this time it was a little more gentle than the mirth from before. “It is supposed to symbolize two things, the first is that you are giving her something of yours, essentially saying what is mine is yours, but also it is a gesture by the mn that you will clothe and take care of her, even if it means you go have to go without because of it.”

“Okay,” He said nodding his head, as he felt the pit of his stomach untighten. It hadn't made much sense before, the whole clothing thing, it seemed like it could be too easily misunderstood or not been what the person had intended, like in his case. But now that he understood the reasoning for it and the meaning behind the gesture he could see the logic in the action. “good, I was getting a little worried there for a second.” This time he laughed, and Hisra joined him in that laughter.

When it died down and was only the occasional chuckle more felt than heard he looked back over at the others. It seemed that all were accounted for, well all of them except one. He looked again, scanning the group and found himself wondering where exactly Hethuk had gotten to? Jack hadn't seen hide nor tail of him since the man had ran out of the room proclaiming that this was the happiest day of his life.

Almost as though he had been summoned from wherever he had been by though Hethuk showed up, the spring in his step and the smile on his face both made Jack smile in return even as the alarm and warning bells went off in his head. His future father-in-law was a well-meaning man, but he was also an alien, so his idea of good might not be the same as Jack's. Calling all of Hisra’s sisters and inviting them over without his permission first came to mind for example.

“Sorry it took so long,” he said, he was currently carrying a strange-looking silver case, it was smooth on all sides and had a single handle, it looked like the sort of brief case that a government employee would carry if that employee also wore a black suit and tie and sunglasses at all points in time. “I had to call in a few favors to find this.” The others got out of their beach chairs and walked over to see what exactly Hethuk had brought. “Honestly it was rude of me to not get you this when you got engaged to Hisra,” he said, before fixing Jack with a rather mixed look. “You have no room to complain there though, seeing as I was given no forewarning.”

“Ah, what is it?” Jack asked, resisting the urge to rub the back of his neck, after all, it wasn't his fault, he had been just as surprised by the turn of the events as Hethuk. Perhaps even more seeing as he had no idea that it had ever been a possibility as aliens had still been in the realm of science fiction for him.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Armor,” Hethuk said as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

“Armor?” Jack asked, feeling his eyebrows raise.

“It is an old Trilska tradition from wartime, the bride's father presents the soon to be husband with armor because if the husband dies then the daughter he is bonded with also dies,” Hisra explained. “Its stuck with us as we went from a planet-bound species to a space fairing one, though the suits of armor went from traditional armor to vacuum suits with plating, you know, adaptation and all that,”

“So it is in the dad’s interest to keep the son-in-law alive, thus armor.” Hethuk finished for Hisra Jack opened his mouth to say it was unnecessary but stopped when he looked at Hisra and saw the way she was looking at him, with an internal sigh he turned to look back at Hethuk. With a slight flourish he opened the case, and instead of some armor like everyone was thinking there was a pool of silver liquid.

“Oh, my stars is that an Altrasi?” Arka gasped as she caught a glimpse of the pool of liquid. Jack hadn’t even noticed but the others had come up around to see what the commotion was about, and he joined everyone looking into the pool of what looked like mercury.

“Indeed it is!” Hethuk answered, with obvious pride in his voice.

“Dad! You didn’t!” Hisra gasped, looking at the box with a mixture of shock and delight.

“I did!” He answered, practically aglow with pride now.

“Quick question, what exactly is an Altrasi?” Jack voiced the question on the gathered humans’ minds. He was having a hard time seeing how this pool of liquid could form any sort of armor, or was it perhaps that the armor was kept in the liquid for some reason?

“It is a sentient suit of armor,” Hisra said as she leaned in closer to it, she looked like she wanted to touch it, but kept herself from doing so.

“Sentient, as in alive, conscious, aware? With a personality?” he asked. “Cause I don't know if I am comfortable with wearing a living thing,” Jack said, staring at the silver liquid with some misgivings.

“Well, it is an Ai, really, created by Trilska scientists, during the study of what a bond actually is. It doesn't have a personality, yet, you see it comes to life when it touches a bond, and it really is like the physical representation of that bond.” Arka said, her eyes were shining and those strange diamond shape Trilska pupils of hers were dilated unnaturally large as though they were drinking in all of the details.

“Essentially you will be wrapped in my feelings and love.” Hisra sighed dreamily, and he almost rolled his eyes at that, he restrained the reflex but it seemed like Jean and Jessika had no such self-control.

“That's good and all, but I still don't know about wearing a living thing,” Jack said once again, he really wanted to drive that point home here. “I mean like, leather? Sure, I put that on any time, but it's not like the cow is still alive, mooing at me as I put my belt on or something,”

“Come on honey, all it is a physical version of the bond between us, how would wearing that be a bad thing?” she asked, showing her big puppy dog eyes to him. Trilska really had an unfair advantage there, seeing as their eyes were already larger than the human norm and were practically all iris, it gave them a cute pouting look 99% of the time, so when they really turned that look on it triggered something in the human brain, that need to protect the cute thing with big eyes reflex. He resisted the urge to pull her close and crush her against his chest as he patted her head and whispered baby talk at her like she was an actual puppy.

The struggle was real.

“Fine, I'll put it on, but uhhhh, how exactly do I go about doing that?”

“Simply put your hand in there,” Hethuk answered, and Jack took a deep breath before he complied. The liquid was cold, and had a slightly sticky feel to it, it caused the hair on the back of his arms to stand up, and he fought the primal fear that gripped him and told him to pull his hand out as he felt it crawl up his skin. To help this he closed his eyes, but this really didn't help that much, he felt it spread all over his body.

“Oh, Oh, Matrix, it looks like that mirror scene from the matrix!” Jessika shouted out. “I knew I remembered this from somewhere!” It really wasn't helping as Jack currently was being eaten alive by some alien Ai suit thing, not a very pleasant thing.

“Ok, Jack it's good now.” Jack opened his eyes, and looked down at his body. He was now covered in a suit of armor that had a strange look about it. It fit his form perfectly, hugging every part of his body and there were several plates covering vital areas. The only color was silver, there were no blacks or other colors, just silver on silver on top of silver. It really gave it the look of an untextured 3d rendered asset before an artist was done with it.

“This suit will enhance your reflexes, movement, and strength, and when not in use, and not stored it will be autonomous, now try to store it,” Hethuk said.

“And how do I go about that?” Jack asked, surprised at the deep sound his voice made through the suit, which was when he realized his head was enclosed. He hadn't even noticed up to that point, he could still breath just fine, and there was no lack of peripheral or anything else to say he was wearing a helmet.

“Just think of it, it should know what you want, it's not dumb after all.” Jack didn't really get that explanation but he attempted it nonetheless. With a little effort the suit was stored, turned into a small silver bracelet that fit on his right hand.

“Cool,” Jack said.

“Right? But you haven't seen it all yet, why don't you make it take sentient form.” Hethuk was practically bouncing with excitement, so Jack just went along. After all, he didn't want to ruin the moment for him.

“Sentient form?” He asked, attempting to keep the trepidation out of his voice.

“Yep, same way it's stored.”

“This is so exciting, I wonder what our relationship will look like!?!” Hisra bounced up and down.

The bracelet melted off of his arm, landing in a silver puddle by his feet, before rising up in a roughly humanoid shape. Soon it started to take more distinct features, mouth, eyes, nose. Much to everyone’s surprise it soon looked like a silver version of Hisra, well perhaps a younger version of Hisra, age 15 to 16 ish.

The Altrasi stared at Hisra, who was looking back in shock, before looking over at Jack, then back to Hisra, before peering back at Jack once again. Much to everyone’s surprise the silver creature bounced up and wrapped her arms around Jack.

“Mine,” it simply stated in a voice that was tinged with a synthetic sound. It looked over at Hisra and tightened its grip on Jack. “Mine,” it said triumphantly in a cute voice.

Hisra narrowed her eyes and practically growled.

“Physical representation of their relationship huh?” Jessika said, laughter in her voice. “Looks pretty damned accurate to me!” she and Jean doubled over laughing, Jack just sighed. It looks like his initial trepidation when Hethuk had shown up had been warranted after all...

“Mine!”