Citrine (Deliverance #3)

25. Eli

25

Eli

My arm feels surprisingly good as it swings along my side as I move to the lake shore.

Wroahk is there and I start chattering to him about how nice it is this morning, but I can tell he isn't listening.

I'm mid-sentence sharing what I've observed of purbee flight patterns and communication methods when he interrupts me.

"You have this strange idea about adults living and working together. How do you know people are better together? What if they're just weaker together?"

My mouth drops open in shock, before looking closer at his face. "You rarely ask me a question without looking like you're going to tear my head off. I like this change. Why do you ask?"

"Separation is the way my people have survived for a long time," he tells me.

I think back to what other things he has said. "So, you band together so your entire species doesn't die, but you kill the weak?"

"Don't the weak also die where you are from?"

I let out a bitter laugh, uncomfortable with how close he is to the truth. "It's not really like that. My species is based on the idea of dependence on others. One person can't do everything, so we form societies, little groups of people who work interdependently to make living about more than just surviving. From that, we got the idea of a family. There's a mother, a father, and their children. Or mother and mother, father and father… or found family, whatever. A nuclear structure is what I mean, a fundamental part of an ideal society. If this part breaks down, the entire society might as well be on its way to a total shutdown."

Judging by the number of words that came out in English, that was probably confusing, but the look on his face lets me know he understood at least some of it.

He might be violent and odd, but he is definitely intelligent.

"So, your species move around in groups?" he asks. "Like schooling fish that flit around, trying to confuse you."

I splash some water, my eyes roaming and focusing on the colorful fish dumb enough to swim close to him.

"Not exactly, but close enough," I tell him.

He whips out a tentacle and grabs one of the fish.

I grumble at him. "Don't eat the pretty fish. They aren't even a meal."

"I don't stop you from consuming those plants, so don't try to stop me from hunting. They are just bottom feeders. Why do you care?"

"I just do," I hiss out.

"Is it because you feel like them?"

I ignore the barb, knowing he's just pissed at me, and also don't comment when I see him let it go. Instead, I go back to trying to make him a smidge less violent.

"The concept of kindness I mentioned earlier is what makes up our species. The sense of empathy. Caring for others more than you care for yourself. Parents care for their children more than they do for themselves, and that leads to longer lives for all of us. They show kindness to their offspring, and that kindness continues for generations, meaning most of us live."

He makes his laughing sound. "If you abandon your offspring, they'll have a better chance at survival as an adult than if you keep coddling them to yourself."

My heart thumps in my chest. That's essentially what my father did, though not by choice. I flash back to that terrible day when I was pulled from my classroom, told to sit down, and then informed he had been killed in a workplace accident.

I shut down the memory before I spiral down into the same black hole of despair that consumed me back then.

Living with my mother was even worse than abandonment. I was most definitely not better off.

I shake my head. "No. That's now how it works. Offspring get the chance to be stronger while you protect them. And it isn't just parents that protect them. It's a whole community based on kindness."

I'm making Earth sound like a utopia, but he's confused enough as it is, and I ignore the part of my mind that hates breaking something so complex down into such an absolute.

I'm pretty sure no society actually works like that, but if he can get this, we can cover the thousands of exceptions later.

Way, way later. Or not at all if someone rescues me.

He doesn't look convinced. "You're saying that kindness has to be applied to everyone, and not just yourself, or it doesn't work? You could never trust everyone to do that. Why can't I just claim your kind hands like I have the rest of this lake?"

My chest constricts, and prickles rise up the back of my neck. My breathing turns shallow and flashes of so many near misses when I was on the street bubble up. Hands groping in the dark, having to run away, sometimes leaving behind the few things I had managed to buy.

I take in a slow, deep breath and glance at the sun, focusing on the warmth it provides on my skin, then I consider how to answer him.

It's likely a reasonable question from his point of view, but if I don't stop that sort of thinking all of this might turn very ugly, very quickly. His thought process is that of a predator, and he's trying to think of kindness as prey.

I'm convinced he's smart enough to see that it doesn't work like that, but I don't know how to explain it without him just dismissing what I have to say.

Then I see it, though the idea scares me.

He might be an alien, but he's still male. Just like human men, I bet he'll need to learn the hard way. I'm positive he doesn't want to hurt me. I think it might be time for one of those lessons.

Living with an abuser teaches you really quick how to manipulate any possible situation in any way you can to avoid being hurt. It's time to put those hard-earned skills to work.