X-64 A friends Warmth

A Friends Warmth

They say that Aluriza's possession of a higher intelligence. The thing that makes man so distinctly Aluriza, so much more highly evolved, is their sense of comprehension, rational thought; or at least, that is what’s commonly said. The truth, however, lies in the exact opposite. It is one of an Alurizan's completely irrational abilities that makes them so special; to see beauty anywhere, anytime, in anything.

It a cold winters night on The Outpost. A research project on the wildlife on Tidix most northern end. It’s one of those nights where you just can’t seem to get warm, no matter how many jackets, gloves or scarves you wear. A Xero, of black and green, X-064 stands on his back platform, looking out on a dark night on the edge of a thick forest. Lights shine dimly from scattered windows, trees batter against windows so thin and brittle that they should have shattered years ago. His face is grim as he picks fallen leaves off of an old ripped up couch and sits down, shivering.

Somehow, through some trick of the his mind, he is transported. Transported to neither a time nor place, but to a feeling reflected through both, a feeling thought long gone, forever lost, a feeling that would never return.

He stands outside on a night much like the one he began in. He is on Owai-6 (Oasis,), though it really doesn’t matter. The grimness in his features is gone, replaced by the soft, smooth unweatherdness of childhood, his head tilted up so high the back of his neck aches from the strain. A hand lies on his shoulder, the hand of some giant Creature, not a frightening one, but rather the comforting warmth that could only come from such an imposing figure. He calls this hand “Friend”. His other hand points up, at some distant star shining dim in the moonlight. “Do you see that one? That’s part of Orion’s Belt.” He doesn’t see the star his friend is pointing to; it is lost to him in a sea of shining beauty, thousands of torches shining in the windows of houses so distant they blur into a murky gray. “I see it,” he tells his friend. Not a lie, per se, but solidarity, a reciprocation of warmth, love in a shared experience.

X-064 and Stark walk side by side, the cold unable to affect them in their warm little bubble called famliy. They brush through the foot-thick snow lining the walkway and enter the cabin. They strip there gloves and boots, placing the boots on a tray in the front hall and Stark leads him by the hand into the cabin. They place their gloves side by side in front of the fire place,  huddling close, sharing in the warmth of the flickering dancing fire before them. They sit down cross-legged in front of the fire and Stark says something. It doesn’t matter what he said, just that they shared a laugh that seemed to go on forever.

Then X-064 is back on the small back platform in The Outpost, though it doesn’t really matter. He stands up and crosses to the railing, looking back out into the darkness. He can’t see the stars tonight, just an inky blackness stretching out from above the house, expanding endlessly into a sea of swirling nothingness. But he recalls that night, long ago. The cold can’t touch him; a warm bubble inside in his stomach won’t let it hurt him any longer.

It’s all so temporary, he thinks to himself, that temporary feeling. A temporary feeling, a temporary place, even a temporary friend. A friend he sees so little of these days. That night may be gone, they may be elsewhere, the stars may be invisible, but that feeling remains, just waiting to be conjured up from the hidden, obscured, magical parts of his mind.

And all was well.