Authors: Pavarti K. Tyler
Two Moons of Sera
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TWO MOONS OF SERA
Copyright © 2015 Pavarti K. Tyler
Cover Art Copyright © 2015 Mallory Rock
~~~
ISBN (EPUB Version): 1622532945
ISBN-13 (EPUB Version): 978-1-62253-294-0
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Edited by Lane Diamond and Philip A. Lee
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eBook License Notes:
You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any
part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief
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~~~
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or the author has used them
fictitiously.
Tyler
Moon Dust (A “Two
Moons of Sera” Short Story)
~~~
Book 1:
Sugar & Salt
Book 2:
Protecting Portia
Book 3:
Dual Domination
Special Edition:
The Sugar House Novellas 1-3 -
Omnibus
~~~
Consumed by
Love - A Short Story
~~~
~~~
What Others Are Saying about Pavarti’s Books:
~~~
Shadow on the Wall:
“...the story lines were well constructed and the dots all
amazingly connected. Well done!” –
Dr Naif Al-Mutawa of the99.org
~~~
White Chalk:
Pavarti K. Tyler has taken a brave position; this gripping
novel breaks every rule and escapes customary boundaries.” –
Ann Pearlman,
Pulitzer Prize Nominee and Author of “The Christmas Cookie Club”
~~~
The Sugar House Novellas:
“The best written erotica I’ve ever read.” -
Tahlia
Newland, Editor and Author
Nilafay ran, slipping on the unfamiliar terrain, desperate
to reach water. The rocks dug into the thin flesh of her webbed feet, cutting
the sensitive skin. This place remained foreign despite being only miles from
her home. Never had she seen the sun so bright or felt the moisture evaporate
off her skin; she felt she would die from the cruelty of the atmosphere.
Navigating her way through the wilderness proved difficult,
but finally she breathed in the familiar briny scent of home. She licked her
lips, seeking relief from the dryness before stepping out of the tree line and
onto the rocky beach. The sun overwhelmed her sensitive eyes, and she slid
thin, clear membranes over them. She’d always considered the membranes
vestigial, before coming above water to the Erdland.
She moved forward, wincing as the heat of the sun burned her
delicate forehead. Her irises retracted and for a moment she was blinded, but
she could smell and taste the salt in the air, leading her to the water. The
rest of Nilafay’s senses remained on high alert, her eardrums straining to feel
the vibrations of distant voices.
Frantic to reach the surf, she slipped and ripped open her
shin. She bit down on her lip, refusing to cry out or shed a tear. She was done
crying.
Nilafay heard them calling from farther back in the forest;
the hunters who had seduced her with offers of friendship and a world unlike
any she had seen before. They circled closer, the creatures they commanded
following her scent and leading their masters closer. She shivered at the
memory of their strange hair-covered bodies. At first she had been intrigued by
the animals with the eyes of men, but when she learned they were there not to
befriend her, but to guard and cage her, she resented their tracking gaze.
She stood and resumed her pitch toward the coastline,
pressing through the throbbing in her leg. The sensitive myomere muscles of her
body were unaccustomed to impact injury.
Hunters approached the tree line, making no attempt to hide
their arrival.
She dropped to her knees. Her iridescent white flesh shone
in the morning sun, its lack of pigment reflecting the bright light beating
down on her. The rocky beach offered no asylum.
The men grew louder, closer with each passing moment,
speaking their gruff language.
She understood only a few words. But what she did understand
terrified her: net, animal, project.
Experiment.
Cage.
Please, just let me get to the water....
16 Years Later....
The sand softened the impact of my landing after I jumped
from the tree I’d used to climb over the rock wall separating my home from the
outside world. I released a shaky breath. I’d ventured farther out into the
forest today, farther than I would have if my mother had been around. Without
her here, I didn’t bother sneaking back in like usual. I spent the day
exploring as much as I wanted, and longed to know about everything outside the
small cove we lived in.
I’d never been beyond the mountain range overshadowing our
home, only through the forest leading south toward the villages. The danger of
discovery—or worse, capture—kept me from going too far. What would happen if
Erdlanders found us? My mother’s stories about needles and tests and tortures
from before I was born were enough to keep me on a tight leash.
The water beyond the cove led north, into the ocean, where
the Sualwet people lived—my mother’s people. We were refugees from that world,
too. They’d exiled her because of me.
My world held me tightly, like too-small clothing that
refused to adjust as I grew. Stifled and frustrated, lately I’d wanted to
venture farther, risking capture if only for a glimpse of an Erdlander. Mother
said they had hair on their heads like me, and some even had it on their faces.
They walked like us and spoke words as we did, although in a different
language. Mother taught me a handful of words she’d learned during her
imprisonment. The sounds fell easily from my lips and the more I heard, the
more I understood.
Erdlanders didn’t have gills and didn’t absorb oxygen
through their skin, using their mouths to breathe. I wasn’t like them and I
wasn’t like my mother’s people. I was not supposed to exist—an anomaly, an
accident of science—but my mother’s escape from her prison before my birth
meant I existed on the shore, alone but for Mother.
~
Serafay!
~ My mother spoke in the musical Sualwet
language as she emerged from the water in time to see me walk out from the tree
line. Her frown gave away her displeasure. She’d returned from scavenging with treasures
to show me.
~
Mother!
~ I waved, then reached back and pulled my
long chestnut hair into a knot.
~
Always playing with that hair.
~
~
Just because you don’t have any doesn’t mean you should
be so jealous
,~ I teased, and splashed into the water to help carry the
bags she dragged behind her.
~
These were a lot lighter underwater
.~
~
Give me one
.~ I held out my hand to take some of her
burden.
~
No, you’ll cheat and look
.~ Her mock scowl was
playful as she pretended to hold the bags from me in a protective embrace.
~
Fine then, carry them yourself!
~ I dove under the
surface and kicked off, letting the thin webbing between my toes capture the
water and propel me forward.
I loved being underwater. The weightlessness of it
surrounded and held me. The shallow cove was wide, and I could swim out quite
far before the ocean floor dropped off to the open sea. The call of the expanse
was hard to deny, but I couldn’t go out today. It made my mother worry, like
everything else, and I was anxious to see what she’d brought home.
I could stay underwater for hours, thanks to the Sualwet
part of my anatomy, and I longed to lose myself in the sea. Eventually, I
needed to resurface and use my lungs, but the time I stole in the darkness of
submersion soothed my dry skin and my lonely heart. As I broke the surface, a
thin membrane, a gift from my mother’s genetics, closed over my eyes to protect
them from the sun’s intense light. I paddled back to the shore in time to help
her heave the bags up to the rock-and-cloth enclosure we called home.
The fire in our makeshift hearth had died, so I used the
fire stone we’d salvaged in another treasure hunt to light a spark. I tried to
be patient while Mother pulled a loose shirt over her head, the thin cloth
hanging down to her knees. We found or made most of our clothing, in keeping
with the loose-fitting Erdlander style. Underwater people wore very little, and
what they did wear clung to their bodies. It looked so uncomfortable, but
Mother said it helped her swim faster. I always swam naked because fabric
impeded my movement.
The home we’d built on the cove was comfortable. We had
sufficient supplies, and hammocks hanging between the sparse trees to sleep in.
Recently, I separated the space into rooms, using the taut, weighted cloth the
Sualwet used as walls underwater, which Mother had scavenged from an abandoned
home. Farther back, a small cave in the rocky incline offered us shelter when
we needed it, but we both preferred to stay outside.
A smile brightened her face as she approached where I sat
next to the fire. ~
There was another attack
.~ She eased onto one of the
woven chairs we’d made and began pulling things out of the bag. ~
The war
seems to have gotten worse. There were a lot of bodies. It must have just
happened, and the sharks kept the other Sualwets away
.~
~
Sharks!
~ I leaned toward her, terrified and excited
by her adventure.
~
Yes! Big ones, too. The water was red with gore.
~
~
You shouldn’t have gone near them!
~ My smile
betrayed my scolding tone. I longed for anything half as exciting as what my
mother described.
~
They weren’t interested in me, too busy gorging
themselves on Erdlander blubber!
~ She laughed again.
In her eyes, the misfortune of others paled to the misery of
her life. She couldn’t muster much sympathy for them. Some might call her
cruel, but under her hardened exterior existed a gentle heart.
~
Besides, if those beasts hadn’t died, this would’ve
never been there for me to find.
~ Out of the sack she pulled what appeared
to be a butterfly made entirely out of stars.
I reached forward, wanting to touch the sparkling thing to
make sure it was real.
~
It’s a hair piece. They use it to decorate themselves.
~
I took the object in my hand and noticed how its sturdy
weight made it almost trustworthy. On other side a simple metal mechanism
opened and shut on a lever, not much different from the animal traps I made.
~
It’s amazing.
~ My voice was just a whisper. I turned
the gift over and over again before running my fingers along the sparkling
decoration.
~
Let’s put it in.
~ Mother didn’t usually like to
touch my hair; she said it irritated her skin. Tonight, she jumped up and
walked to the baskets that held my personal things, and grabbed my small comb.
~
When you were born, there was no hair on you anywhere,
just as it should be
,~ she began with a chuckle, pulling the comb through
my long locks. ~
But you were pink. Nothing like the other hatchlings I’d
seen
.~
Evening settled around us and the sun peeked from behind the
ragged mountaintop in the distance as she told my favorite story.
~
But then, you weren’t a hatchling were you?
~
~
No.
~ I smiled, relaxing into her memory.
She laid the comb down and ran her fingers through my hair.
It was an unusual moment of intimacy.
~
Mom....
~
~
You scared everyone else, but I knew.... I could see in
your silver eyes that you were something worth protecting
.~ She pulled my
hair back from my temples and fumbled with the strange hair piece for a moment
before it clasped with a click. ~
Beautiful
.~
~
Thank you
.~ I turned around and saw the wistful
expression, the one I’d grown up with, on her face.
We had moments of happiness here in our little oasis, but a
shroud of sorrow covered everything she did. Being away from her people caused
her pain and I hated being the reason for it.
~
What else did you find?
~ I said.
Dismissing her musings with a shake of the head, my mother
reached into her bag. One after the next, she pulled out treasures and
necessities. She had recovered paper for me to dry in the sun, jars full of sea
water—one with a crab!—cooking utensils, ropes, clothes, and even music on
melodisks.
I sorted her loot into piles of things needing to be dried,
repaired, or cleaned, while she inserted one of the new melodisks. The tonifier
was old, but its power cells still worked.
Music rose from the box, low and vibrating, thrumming
against me with its slow beat.
Mother stepped back from the sound as if it somehow offended
her, but didn’t reach for the eject key.
It sounded like nothing I’d heard before, with a rhythm that
did not welcome dancing or singing. I could make out no words, and when voices
finally joined the cacophony, the impulse to move with the music overwhelmed
us.
I took her hand and pulled my mother out of the small
enclosure under the evening sky. The two moons above us shone in the dim light,
one a little larger and farther away than the other. They gazed down on us as
our bodies took in the visceral intonations.
Something flickered at the corner of my vision, as if the
fire had somehow followed us and sparked in the night air, but when I turned to
look, it was gone.
