Nanny For The Alien General by Athena Storm
Serafina
“Sera! Sera! We’re going to make lying tea!” Emex announces as we go into the cabin. He holds up a string of what looks like yellowish, mossy hair.
“Uh-uh,” Belanna corrects him, holding up a strand of her own similar stuff. “We’re making liza tea.”
“Lyzic tea,” Keilon says, setting down the baskets he helped me bring in.
“Let me see,” I say to the children. They hand me some of the stuff. I smell it and get a whiff of something sour. My nose crinkles and I pull away from it. “Oh,” I say as I try to regain my breath, “great.”
“It has to prepared properly, first,” Keilon says, with a hint of reproach. He collects the stuff from me and the kids. He tells them to help me put things away while he debuds the lyzic to ready it for steeping.
He’s got it simmering over a fire by the time I’m starting to prepare dinner. More soup. But at least I got some fresh vegetables to throw in it. Keilon stands beside me as I chop and throw bits of produce into the broth.
“I’m glad to see you up and about,” I tell him. Glad is an understatement. His recovery is a relief. And an excitement. “I’m also glad to see that you had a fun afternoon with the kids.”
“It is all thanks to you,” Keilon says straightforwardly. “A combination of your healing and your advice.”
“I only did what I could,” I say, feeling myself blush.
“Modesty is not always becoming,” Keilon says. He’s standing so close to me I actually tremble a little. I grip the knife tighter to avoid chopping off a finger. “Take pride in your work,” he says softly.
“I do,” I reply, looking up at him.
“That’s good.”
“I take pride in my soup, too, and if you keep crowding me, it’ll overcook,” I whisper. He realizes how close to me he’s become. Given the red of his tattoos all over his body, it’s hard to tell if I’d be able to see him blush. However, his body language tells me that if he could be, he would be.
Keilon backs away and I dump the rest of the veggies into the soup. A short time later, we all eat dinner together. The kids provide a never-ending stream of information about lyzic and their hunt for it. There are several arguments over who found the most. They also share some facts with me about the plant that, from the weirdness of their statements and the humorous gazes of Keilon, I gather are less than accurate.
As we finish our bowls of soup, Keilon serves his tea. To my amazement, the sour taste is, indeed, gone. In its place is a kind of grassy flavor, with a hint of mint and cinnamon. It’s refreshing and soothing.
“Delicious,” I say.
Emex makes a face. Belanna looks uncertainly at it, then decides that she’d rather be on my side than her brother’s and announces loudly that she, too, thinks it’s delicious. She forces herself to keep drinking while Keilon chuckles into his own mug.
“Look!” Emex suddenly cries out.
He points to the window. Right on schedule, the snow has begun to fall. Thick, white flakes make their lazy way to the ground.
“C’mon,” I say, pushing myself from the table. I grab my mug of lyzic tea and lead everyone outside.
The air is quiet and still, as though the whole island was holding its breath lest it disturb this gentle first snowfall. The heavy flakes fall sporadically, each one doing its own kind of dance on its way to the ground. The air seems charged with possibility. The flip from one season to another.
Emex and Belanna are both trying to gather snow to make a snowball, but there is little more than a light dusting on the ground. Before they can start expressing disappointment and upsetting the mood, Keilon catches their eye.
He sticks his tongue out and lets a snowflake land on it. He quickly slurps the flake up. The kids’ eyes light up. Almost immediately, they’re racing around, spinning, weaving, trying to catch every last flake on their own tongues. They turn it into a competition, of course, each child shouting out an ever-increasing number with every flake they catch.
“Be careful,” I say quietly to Keilon as I come to stand next to him, my cold hands wrapped around my warm mug. “You’re getting good at being a dad.”
“Hm,” is all he says in reply. He finishes his own mug of tea and sets it on an outer windowsill. He begins to walk toward the lake. It feels natural to join him, so I do, though as we reach the shore, I hang back a little.
He goes and stands at the bow of the little boat that brought him and the kids to the island. The thin layer of snow on it must seem to him a metaphor for the sedentary days he’s passed here – and the ones he will be forced to pass, yet.
Looking past the boat, Keilon stares out at the water, and at the ever-increasing amount of ice occupying it, with a melancholy expression. I wander close to him again.
“‘Lord, let winter come. The first snow is here. Who has a lover shall be comforted near the fires. Who is alone shall stay so, shall sip tea into the night, shall wonder if spring can ever come again…’”
“Rilfa, again?” he asks, still staring at the lake.
“Always,” I say.
He lets out a deep sigh. “The lake looks lovely. Like a painting.” His voice, like his expression, carries an air of complex emotion. Sadness at what the winter freeze means, appreciation for the beauty the dusting of snow on the water and the ice brings. It hurts my heart.
And I long to kiss him. More than kiss him. I long to press my body to his. To bring him comfort and relief, and pleasure, and have him do the same to me. I long to feel him, all of him, deep inside me…
Hold on, Sera, I tell myself, and force my gaze back out on the lake. He’s going to hie it out of here as soon as he can. Don’t get attached.
I sip my tea. Soon we head back to collect the children and return to the cabin. The snowfall is brief, but the feelings evoked during it linger on until I fall asleep, and even into my dreams.
