I could feel his breath on my exposed shoulder as he reached around and wrapped the necklace about my neck.
It hung across the top of my dress as he clasped it together.
His breath grew heavier and hotter on my skin.
He was going to kiss me, I thought.
He was going to plant one right on my bare shoulder…
I waited but the kiss didn’t come.
He was thinking too much again and pulled back.
A little disappointed but nonetheless pleased with the effect my dress had, I turned and smiled up at him.
“It’s your birthday,” I said. “You should be the one getting the presents.”
“You’ve already given it to me. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I’ll never forget this moment.”
He extended an elbow and I took it.
As he led me out of my room, I realized with dawning relish that there was going to be a whole lot more he was going to remember after tonight was through.
With how hot he looked, it was going to be a lot easier than I thought.
Kayal
The guests started turning up ten minutes after we did.
They came in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The Qyah were a very homogenous race, rarely venturing outside their solar system, and although they were friendly with other species, farming was something that could be done on any planet anywhere in the galaxy, and who would travel all this way just to farm these lands?
The soil, although rich and good for growing, was stony, and required backbreaking labor to properly prepare it.
There were few natural wonders, and even if you spent a great deal of time scouring the planet for something worthwhile, it would have yielded few results.
So what was there to attract anyone to this quiet outpost in an unremarkable section of the solar system?
Its one outstanding quality was its location.
It could be used as a springboard to explore the murky depths of even more distant star systems.
Our nearest neighbor was over a hundred light-years away.
Qyah was an island in an ocean of space and time, the last stop before expanding outward into the far reaches.
That was why the Shadow was so interested in it.
Not to capture and enslave its inhabitants which were perhaps the greatest resource we had.
The Qyah were big, earthy people with humble origins, and even more humble lifestyles.
They came wearing our traditional dress that harkened back to our warrior past.
Baggy and comfortable, it was made for battle.
Warpaint completed the ensemble.
Different colors and patterns connoted the origin of the warrior, from his tribe to his position inside it.
In two days, when the Shadow attacked, no amount of fighting spirit would save us.
We would be captured, corralled, and enslaved.
It was of these things I dwelled on as the guests handed over their gifts.
My younger self washed the feet of each guest as a sign of respect.
To prevent inflated egos, the gifts would be opened only once the guests had gone.
With so little time to buy a gift for my younger self, I decided to make one.
I headed into the forest and cleaved a branch of a nimbu tree, bent it until it could flex no more, and attached a string of tendons from the rear legs of a pixod.
I fashioned arrows from the fast-growing orchit vines and shaved the tips to sharp points.
They were housed in a quiver made from a hollowed-out shell from a peruru fruit.
I wrapped everything up in a broadleaf and tied it together with seaweed.
My younger self beamed up at me and shook it beside his ear in an attempt to figure out what was inside.
“Don’t shake it too hard,” I said. “It might explode.”
Kayal immediately stopped shaking it, his eyes wide as dishes.
Yoath leaned over and whispered in his ear, loud enough so everyone could hear:
“I think he’s pulling your leg.”
My younger self peered at his leg but didn’t understand the reference.
The guests gasped dutifully when Pana brought out the food on giant platters.
Many of the other females had brought their own home-cooked dishes too, each having at least one item with a coveted secret recipe.
Although they weren’t allowed to compete when it came to handing over gifts, that rule didn’t apply when it came to food.
A rule designed by our patriarch ancestors if I ever heard one!
The party was smaller than I recalled.
In my memories, there had been thousands of guests, not a small handful.
The adults had seemed big and scary, the women strict and harsh, but none of that turned out to be the case.
They all wore broad grins, the men slurping at their home-made beer and erupting into loud gales of laughter.
The women jabbered amongst themselves, tasting each other’s food and insisting: “You have to tell me your recipe!”
There was one figure amongst the women who garnered most of the attention.
Ava.
She alone didn’t wear the traditional Qyah dress.
It was just as well.
The female dress was designed in a bygone era to accentuate a female’s reserved nature.
Ava’s dress was sexy and classy at the same time.
She ensnared the eye of every male Qyah present, even those who’d been married for several decades.
The women, at first put off and disturbed by her, quickly accepted her into their fold.
They had little choice.
Pana took on the role of the mother goose and made it very clear that if anyone had a problem with Ava or her style of dress, they would have to deal with her first.
It was clear who garnered the greatest respect in the group.
When Ava helped with passing the food and drink around and helped the others with any task they needed carrying out, she became one of them.
“Tell me,” a tall and narrow-shouldered Qyah called Fram said. “Where did you find her? What species is she?”
The moment he asked, the other males quietened, leaning in to listen to the answer, no doubt hoping to learn more about her origins and where they could find one like her.
None of them would know the planet’s name as it wouldn’t be
