Nanny For The Alien General by Athena Storm
Keilon
“Time for bed,” Serafina announces after dinner is done and the dishes put away.
I smirk to myself. Good luck getting these two little monsters to go to sleep. I’ve had nannies quit on me over the lengths these kids go to in order to avoid bedtime.
This is the first time I’ve been strong enough to be awake to see this. I settle back in my chair and wonder just how good a show I’m about to get.
Yet, to my amazement, the kids hop out of their seats and follow Serafina without complaint or protest. She’s turned her couch into a makeshift bed for them, I see. They willingly hop into it, positioning themselves head-to-foot alongside each other.
Serafina sits on the edge of the couch and tucks them in. She’s speaking to them, but in a soft voice. I can’t make out the words from across the room.
What I’m seeing is enough to show me how instinctively she’s able to interact with my kids. The comforting words she’s offering them, which are having the effect of causing their eyelids to droop. The little touches she offers to a forehead or arm, which seem to immediately induce relaxation in their tiny bodies.
My stomach knots a little. I wish I were as good at interacting with my children as this woman is.
The kids are quickly asleep. Just watching them pass out nearly makes me doze off, too. Then Serafina is standing over me and I’m quickly awake once more.
“I need to check your bandages,” she says.
For some reason, I feel myself resisting her care. Perhaps it is the lingering effects of my envy over how she is with the kids. Perhaps it’s something more. A lingering memory of what happened the last time she touched me.
“They’re fine,” I mumble.
“Thanks, doctor, but the patient doesn’t get to decide that.”
“Do not trouble yourself.”
“You exerted yourself pretty hard, today. I want to make sure the bandages are still clean and secure.”
I consider continuing to resist, then realize the stupidity of it. Like cutting off my spinal spikes to spite my back.
In wordless assent, I let the blanket I’ve wrapped myself in fall to my waist. Serafina glances over my body. Do I imagine the look of admiration I see in her eyes? Am I crazy to think there is even a hint of desire to her stare?
Immediately, whatever I think I intuit about her response to my naked torso is gone, replaced by a professional air as she kneels down and reaches out to me.
I brace myself against her touch. As she examines the bandages and her flesh comes into contact with mine, my spine reacts once again.
It doesn’t quite blaze to life with a fiery intensity, this time. Now, it’s more of a hum. A vibration, the way a surface might react to a musical instrument hitting a certain note. Two frequencies responding to one another.
My body is just confused, I think, as I struggle not to squirm beneath her delicate yet assured touch. It cannot be that she is my mate. She is caring for my wounds, so my body is reacting to her healing touch. Nothing more.
It cannot be anything more. Can it?
Serafina glances up at me and I realize that she’s spoken as she examines my bandages. I was too lost in the confusion of signals from my body to process what she’s said. I ask her to repeat it.
“I’m just wondering what brought you and the kids out on the lake,” she says, turning her attention back to the bandages. She’s unwound one and is applying a fresh one. “That boat I found the kids in isn’t a fishing vessel.”
“No.” I say. “We were… on a misguided pleasure trip.”
“Oh yeah?” she asks. There’s a hint of a smile on her face as she explores another bandage, expertly evaluating it.
“It was a stupid idea,” I admit sheepishly.
“Nothing stupid about a father wanting to spend quality time with the kids.”
“I suppose. It’s just that summer and autumn had somehow flown by. And I needed to do something with them.” Even as I speak, I wonder what is possessing me to share these intimate details with a stranger. A strange human, no less. Yet confiding in her feels so natural. “So, I got the boat and packed them in it.”
“I still don’t hear anything stupid about any of this.”
“It was stupid because it was a desperate, foolish attempt,” I say. There’s bitterness in my voice, a self-disgust that even takes me by surprise. The vehemence of my contempt for myself even stops Serafina’s fingers in their work, which my body complains over even as my mind focuses on other things.
I hesitate a moment, unsure of just how much to reveal to her. Even as easy as it is to talk to her, there is still the fact that I am a Kiphian King and she is a human living in an illegal settlement.
Yet what do I have to lose, confiding in her. She knows so much already. And she is so capable with Emex and Belanna. Perhaps she’d even have some advice.
“I love nature,” I say, my voice calmer now. “Particularly the Ribbon Lakes. My father used to take me on those waters when I was young. There is much beauty to be seen, many animals to note.”
“Like Mizonzs,” Serafina quietly interjects. It makes me smile.
“Yes. And laifries and poppyfish and the like…” I sigh. “I thought, being my children, they might instinctively have a love for nature, as well. Unfortunately, I was wrong. And now I fear instead of something that might have brought us closer, this trip has done little but increase the rend between us.”
That solemn confession causes a lump to form in my throat. I am glad to have spoken the words, to have gotten it off my chest. Yet I also fear that I’ve shared too much. The intimacy of it all is confusing me.
I fall silent.
