Pip's Ophidian Book 1: Beatlebug & The Provider

Chapter 18: Heven

When Pip woke, it was to a dark room with blankets strewn everywhere, the warm golden light of the heater in the center, and a heavy weight against his side. He shut his eyes again. Relief. Grief. Grief, relief.

Ma was gone.

The thought gouged his very soul and left him winded.

He felt loose in the world, like a gun without a hand holding it. He felt dangerous, and lost, and very, very free. Guilt swamped up around that last bit, and he bit his cheek, hard. Hoped that she'd been right about one thing, at least, and that she was free now, too.

Mel shifted against him, sat up. Looked down at him with sleep still in his eyes, and then gently stroked back his hair.

Pip caught his hand and kissed it. Humor flickered through Mel's eyes. What is that? he asked. Why did you lick me?

Pip immediately flushed. "I didn't lick you. I–" he sighed. Shut his mouth. Cautiously leaned up, flinching at the pain in his stomach, at the pain in his chest, touched Mel's face, and Mel quickly leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together as if he'd been waiting for that, for permission.

Pip breathed. Mel's breath tasted like the smell of moss. He was surrounded, with their heads pressed together, with Mel. Mel's short humor and leaping conclusions. His fierce, deeply ingrained sense of love, of right and wrong, of curiosity and love, love, love.

The wall was rubble.

He reached up and ran a cautious hand down Mel's crest, and felt something swoop dizzily in Mel, who sat up quickly, and Pip froze.

He did not say sorry. He did not pretend intent wasn't exactly what his actions reflected. He was trying to figure out what to say though when Mel took his hand. Come with me. I need to show you something.

Pip rose, with Mel's help, and followed. They left the blanket room. Wound their way through the halls to the cargo bay.

Through the window at the tail, he saw it before Mel opened the door.

Aquamarine moss thick as a wooly blanket on the ground. Great palm trees, green and wild. A hazy bright sky filled mostly with one spectacular moon.

Heven.

They were on Heven.

Pip stopped and stared up at the moon above, vast and almost blue in what seemed to be a dim morning light. Felt a gust of air against his face, warm and lovely, scented with greenery, and realized it was wind. His feet were bare, and the ground below was soft and damp. He walked on it cautiously, Mel at his side, and it did not swallow him.

He had never been on land before. Not that he could remember, anyway.

I know, Mel thought at him. Then he seemed to sigh with his whole body, and, a quiet admission, you scared me, as a baby. Such a small human. Such a strange, lovely little mind. Your 'Ma' never let me get close. I wish... ah, but there's nothing for it, you did not grow up here. But! He swung Pip's hand gently between them as they walked. This is my home. This is your new home? You could, perhaps, continue to grow here, with me?

Mel looked up and away at that last bit, and Pip realized he hadn't meant it as such a cautious question. Hadn't intended it to come out like that at all, and Mel's crest twitched. He was almost a head taller than Pip, yet he seemed suddenly anxious and small. Pip reached forward, took Mel's other hand, too.

What could he say? "Yes," he spoke out loud, and Mel tilted his head and flicked his crest in obvious annoyance, assuming, Pip hoped, that he had simply forgotten speaking was pointless. Pip's heart beat hard in his chest, and his stomach hurt. It's beautiful here, he thought out instead.