Poet
A Varan Tale
By
Angela B. Mortimer
Copyrighted Material.
Poet
A Varan Tale
Copyright © Angela B. Mortimer 2015
ISBN: 9781311751010
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.
Poet.
‘Carnos!’
He turned around, Rucella called out to him as he walked home after a long, frustrating day in the laboratory.
She smiled and ran up to him, her long dark hair flowing behind her in the soft, cool breeze. Fixing him with her strange Hyclos eyes, and determined to be heard, even if her stepfather was tired and in a hurry.
‘I’m late Rucella, I’m hungry and before I see your mother I need a little sleep to quiet my mind.’
‘I know, it’s a special anniversary and you’re celebrating with a private dinner this evening, and that’s why I must speak with you.’ Rucella was a young woman always in command of her feelings. ‘I know how hard you and my father work for us, but I ask a few moments of your time.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Lucessa.’
‘Ah,’ his daughter Lucessa. ‘Go on, what’s the matter.’
‘Carnos, she hasn’t turned up for the last six family occasions and when I ask her why, she doesn’t stop what she’s doing. She mutters yes or no, or worse um to everything, she’s not listening, because she doesn’t notice what is happening around her. I’ve talked to mother; she says Lucessa is very like her when younger, and happy searching for what she must find.’
‘There are more family occasions here than on Varan,’ he joked, he loved his sons and daughters, and his many stepchildren, like Rucella.
‘Please Carnos, talk to mother she listens to you. I’m worried about Lucessa. She ignores admirers, says she’s busy with her work. I don’t care what you say, here on Astras it’s not the norm,’ insisted Rucella.
‘Life hurries along, everyone eager to help Astras grow; as I’m sure it was once on Varan. In our early days we didn’t live as long, had wars and almost wiped ourselves out a few times, for reasons we don’t remember. Astras is doing well, but for us from older civilisations it all happens too fast. Like you, a mother many times over, yet still a young woman in Varan terms.’
Rucella had heard it before, ‘And if I lived on Varan I’d still be at school. I find time to study, father makes sure I do. But if I’m old enough to help Row administer this planet, I’m old enough to be a mother. So please stop making excuses and talk to mother for me. Even if elders don’t see Lucessa’s behaviour as strange, everyone else does and is worried. Young Astrians, and no doubt Varan too, are interested in sex, even the most studious. Please Carnos, we love Lucessa, but she’s a loner. She loves her nephews and nieces, but she forgets their name days and they get upset. No one else forgets, well Donas does, but he’s always away on an expedition somewhere, so he’s forgiven.’
Carnos felt envious of his son Donas, he and many of his peers rebelled, family gatherings happened far too often for a young man or woman with their own interests. But Lucessa was different, she didn’t have the excuse she was wandering the stars far from home. Lucessa’s abilities and interests were similar to his own, but he had to admit Rucella was right, Lucessa was lost in her work, with no time for anything else, and he sighed. ‘I’ll talk to your mother, but don’t be surprised if she says Lucessa is fine, again.’
‘Thanks Carnos.’ Rucella smiled and kissed her stepfather’s cheek before running back to her busy household.
Carnos sighed again, he agreed with Rucella, but this was Astras and customs might be similar, but were not the same as Varan. Lucessa was different than her siblings. He was proud of her and so was her mother, who indulged her very serious daughter by a flurry of expeditions throughout this galaxy, and he suspected others too. Lucessa focused on the power of the white crystals and those powering their ships. She wasn’t sure what she looked for, but she burned to find it. Carnos understood her abstract approach to her work as did his best friend Sark. How many times did a random idea turn up the most interesting finds? All Doella said was, she’d succeed and then refuse to say more, in her usual infuriating way. Glad to reach his gate and his ever open front door, he ate a quick meal and was soon asleep.
Waking later than intended, he bathed, dressed and cut flowers from his garden for his beloved Doella, before opening the gate adjoining their properties. Even now he often pondered this strange life, sharing the woman he loved, with her other men. Men he loved as brothers, particularly Sark, who had the house on the other side of Doella. He even loved the still terrifying Wylane. He’d hated Wylane’s father Wylar so much he’d wanted to kill him. Jealous of Haris, he once didn’t approve of her relationship with the tempestuous hybrid, and the venerable elder, the Karish, Core. Because he loved her he stayed with Doella, and had the life he once described as rogue, and not of a respectable Varan. No doubt there were others, once he’d be insane with jealousy, now he accepted it. He often longed for an easier life on his home planet at the other end of the galaxy. He kept the dream deep within, only Doella knew it, he dreamed of living on Varan in a large family house, with Doella and their children, then he remembered all the friends he loved here and the longing would disappear. He smiled, remembering how much he’d hated those numerous family gatherings on his home planet, just as Donas and Lucessa did.
Doella spent too long away on her many projects to save the best Earths from self-destruction. Doella’s obsession with saving long-neglected Earths, without breaking the Varan laws she grew up with, was understandable. She felt every Earth failure was due to Varan giving up when it got too difficult. When these stressed planets needed more help than her race was prepared to give them. As if the Varan, in reality, wanted no rivals. The rest of the time she was here for her family and after his jealousies and difficult past behaviour, she still loved him. Doella was so powerful, he doubted he alone could satisfy her needs, so full of life, her life source endless, he’d have burnt out his enhancers years ago trying.
She’d heard his thoughts and called to him cerebrally, ‘Rubbish,’ she said, as she came out to meet him and take the flowers with a grateful thank you.
‘Doella, I’m happy and I’ve just realised how much. I thought about a life on Varan with you as I’ve dreamed, and then thought how I’d miss Sark and all my friends here.’
‘You were angry,’ she admitted. ‘I was never sure you’d stay and I wouldn’t have blamed you, if as dear Takos did, you went back to Varan and married a normal Varan woman.’
‘Well, early on I was expecting you to be my wife, in the usual tradition, just my wife.’
‘If I were still a Varan, we’d have married.’
‘Yes, and I’m happy you think so too, even though I can’t change what’s happened.’
He followed her inside and watched as she put the flowers in a vase. A few moments later she was pulling him into the bedroom. He smiled, with Doella it was always sex first and talk later.
The food was simple here on Astras, as it was on their home world. Fresh food and animals, kept for eggs and cheese, another of Doella’s Earth ideas. Haris used his replicator to “make” his meat. The Varan and Hyclos thought it barbaric, both races being vegetarians for as long as their records went. The weather on Astras was mild, and crops did well.
Wylane didn’t change his dragon ways and kept his herds well away from the settlement, on the other side of the planet. There were many dragon vi
sitors from planet Wylar and most ate their mother’s food, but when the blood rage came hunting lessened it.
Doella loved food and giggled as Carnos fed her, as they lay half-naked on the rugs and cushions of her favourite room, filled with treasures from the past and new acquisitions from the Earths she visited. Sometimes Doella appeared as young as Rucella, and yet sometimes it was as if she were many millennia older than her race.
‘I’m thinking more babies,’ she said. ‘Mine are grown up and don’t need me.’
‘Now?’ he grinned and then became serious. ‘Wait a moment, first Rucella made me promise to ask you something?’
‘Lucessa?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see Lucessa’s reasoning, she is driven and I understand why, but I agree a little with Rucella too, she spends too much time working. She’s full Varan and most young men here are