Sci-fi Excerpt: "Incognito"

This is a stand-alone chapter for my sci-fi novel and, again, from the POV of Areya.

Areya watched the various people of the neighborhood go about their business, frowning and muttering words of condemnation for each of their seemingly trivial actions and behaviors as she crossed her arms and meekly observed. None of what these human beings were doing seemed to make sense to her.

She thought back to such occurrences that she’d witnessed since she’d landed here forty-eight lunar rotations earlier…

“Why throw the orange ball into the hoop? Why park the wheeled vehicle between the white lines? Why settle down in huddled groups to watch such preposterous images play across a televised screen? Why gather around the table to eat meals as a family unit rather than doing so of one’s own accord?” she pondered to herself.

It all seemed so utterly pointless. Why did such actions encompass their entire lives when these humans could potentially be invaded by enemies at any given moment?!

Many years ago, as a youngling, Areya had asked her mother and father –two of Clan Varsoloth’s finest military dignitaries- why her own species chose to reject intimate family gatherings. At the time, they had scolded her for spouting such blasphemous notions and showed her the error of her thinking by giving her ten lashes across her olive-skinned face. Afterward, they had then sternly explained to her that their species prided themselves on strength. Family togetherness only increased a youngling’s dependency for its parents; it was a sign of weakness and personal instability.  

Areya had accepted that logic soon afterward and never asked her parents that same question again, lest she face another set of lashing for her weakness and stupidity.

Areya sat idly back against the brick wall of an adjacent alleyway, looking out into the urban boulevard beside her as she studied its denizens intently. Four human boys were playing basketball ahead of her, a young couple was staring longingly at each other and whispering soft words to each other from their front stoop across the street, and, at the house to the far left, a mother was gently swaying her child back and forth in her arms while the human infant gazed up at her with glistening eyes.  

Areya shirked herself back as a boy passed the alleyway on his bike. To anyone else who may have cast their gaze over to the alley, Areya’s appearance was merely that of a slender teenaged brunette with jeans and a t-shirt. Little did they know however, that underneath that façade, was a female adorned of olive skin and silver hair. However, thanks to the device that altered her appearance –a chrome, boxy tool provided to her by the clan tacticians-, her otherwise alien form was now cloaked from the unsuspecting human public that she had immersed herself into.

Her present mission of pretending to be human was a waste of time to her. Ever since the clanmaster had given her this supposed “honor” nearly four months ago, she only felt as if she was being punished for some inadequacy or another.

As she halfheartedly watched the four boys scampering around, dribbling the basketball out in the street, she shook her head to herself, reconciling what she’d done to deserve this task of being an observer.

“Had I not proved myself time and again? Did I not single-handedly turn the tide of battle against the Terestroicans? And after everything that I’d done for them and proved to them, this is my just reward for my noble services?!” she sourly thought.

This was a constant burden that had been thrown onto her shoulders since the day her mother spawned her into existence fifteen Earth years ago. Her father had wanted a legacy, a dynasty, of fierce, gargantuan, battle-hardened sons that would exist only to grind their enemies into a pulp. Her mother supported these ambitions as well. Varsolothian parents always craved sons over daughters. Sons brought glory to the clan in warfare. Daughters were meant to merely produce males when they reached the age of fertility.

As such, on the day of her birth, it had come with great disappointment that Areya was born. After five glorious sons –sons that had achieved glory in battle countless times-, they had been cursed with a daughter. Her mother had wept tears of anguish and her father bellowed in rage as Areya was pulled from the womb that day.

Areya shook her head of the memories and turned her gaze back up to the humans she was studying. She cocked her head and looked intently back and forth at the young couple who had begun to do something quite different than the mere flirtations that they’d done minutes before.

The couple now leaned in very close together, his arm snaking around the girl’s shoulder, while their lips honed in on each other. Their noses brushed, briefly, before their lips met and pressed together with equal enthusiasm. Both of their hands intertwined as the human teenagers’ lips danced together shamelessly.

Areya squinted as she watched, open-mouthed in shock at what they were doing. She felt a dualistic mix of repulsion…and curiosity as the sight of the humans pressing their lips together.

Then, it all came back to her. During her preliminary studies back home, she had read something about this outlandish gesture.

“What was that?” she pondered to herself. “Kithing? Kitting?”

Her eyes grew wide with understanding, nodding her head to herself as the answer struck.

Kissing.

She recognized this occurrence –a gesture abhorred as blasphemy by own species- as one of intimacy between human mates. Still though, she shuddered at the mere prospect of actually performing an act as disgusting and despicable as pressing her mouth against another’s.

Back home, she had rejected nearly every male suitor that had made an attempt at her. Time and again, lanky, weak, despicable males with paled olive complexions, short statures and ugly demeanors had come forth trying to prove to her that they were the worthiest soldier to ever be born in the clan.

“Our offspring will be the proudest warriors that ever lived!” her last suitor had declared to her two Earth years ago.

That particular suitor had approached her shortly after she'd attained her first victory over Terestroica. He'd come up to her, intentionally flexing his muscles at her beneath his black battle harness and smiling profusely, showing her his jagged teeth.

That weakling’s brazen declaration of desire and his unattractive physical appearance had earned him a broken nose, a bloody eye, and two broken teeth to add the collection.

Since then, she’d not even considered mateship. Damn what her parents and her clan expected of her. She was a warrior…not a mother.

Areya gave once last look at the avidly kissing couple before she gave a shrug of indifference and another grimace of distaste. Making sure that her chrome, box-shaped disguising device was securely strapped to her leg beneath her blue jeans, she spun around and made for the back end of the alley to begin scavenging for whatever food she could find, leaving the oblivious groups of humans that she'd been studying to keep going on about their inconsequential lives.