The tour was a flop. Trying to have a good time, Tanya’s mother praised nearly everything Orion showed them. However, for every positive compliment she had, Tanya had five negative comments, determined to show how miserable she was, and how much she just wanted to be left alone. Picking up on Tanya’s gloom, Lee, a tall and stately jisbae eight years older than Orion, made a show of how pointless the tour was since nobody would remember anyway, and the guards could just point them in the direction they needed to go. Orion could see why Tanya liked Lee. He was the ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ type. His hair was black, but his skin was pale, like Orion’s, maybe a bit darker. His dark eyebrows complimented his bright orange eyes. His features were sharp, but not too bony. He didn’t have a single scar anywhere on his perfect face. He was clean shaven, as all jisbae were, since jisbae could not grow facial hair the way telblecs and lunimorves did. Orion felt like a silly little boy in Lee’s commanding presence.
Three hours later, Orion took them back to the guest room feeling stupid for even suggesting a tour, and seriously depressed. Instead of impressing Tanya, like he had hoped, he seemed to have made her even more upset with being there. She had never even thanked him for saving her life. It was as if she didn’t want anything to do with him whatsoever.
“Sorry I wasted your time,” he said dejectedly.
“It wasn’t a waste, Prince,” Tanya’s mother, sensing Orion’s gloomy mood, tried to cheer him up. “My husband and I enjoyed it.” He nodded in agreement.
“Thanks,” Orion half smiled, but couldn’t hide his disappointment. Tanya’s father came over and clapped a hand on Orion’s shoulder in an effort to lift his spirits, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, Orion couldn’t remember Tanya’s father ever saying anything at all.
“Why don’t you ever talk?” he asked. Tanya’s father looked down.
“He can’t, Prince,” Tanya’s mother answered. “When we were little, we stopped on some alien planet to refuel and resupply. The natives seemed kind enough, but they kidnaped him,” she gestured towards Tanya’s father. “We’re not sure what all they did to him, but we believe they cut up part of his brain. He’s lucky to be alive.” She looked as upset as Orion felt. “Since then, he has been unable to ninmisn or fysimae. He can be healed, but he cannot heal himself or shape shift, which means no vocal cords. We’ve tried.”
“What about sign language?” Orion asked. She just looked at him blankly. “You know, communicating with your hands instead of talking?” He could tell by their continued stares that they had never heard of sign language before. “Hey, tell you what,” Orion said, cheering up, “How about I teach you guys sign language? It’s not that tough to learn. As a prince, I had to learn it to be able to communicate with people who couldn’t speak or ninmisn.”
“Oh, would you?” Tanya’s mother cried and threw her arms around Orion’s neck. Orion stumbled out of surprise and tripped over a plant stand, knocking the plant over, and covering himself with dirt. Tanya and Lee laughed as loud as they could, more out of spite than because they thought it was funny. Orion turned deep scarlet. “Here, let me help you,” Tanya’s mother picked up the plant stand and the now empty pot as Orion got up. Tanya’s father helped put most of the dirt back and repotted the plant.
“I’ll get someone to clean this up,” he said sheepishly as he brushed himself off. Glancing at Tanya and Lee still in fits of cruel laughter, he hurried out the door. He told the first servant he seen about the spilled pot, and she rushed to clean it up. Orion took off for his room to change for his training session, and write about his humiliation and how he wished he could just melt into the wall in his journal in the secret room. He wrote about how the tour didn’t work, and looked over some of his other ideas to get Tanya to like him.