*****
Upon the next blissful morning, we feasted on an old-fashioned breakfast of eggs and toast, lovingly prepared by Ikanya, who in the middle of our meal began showing me the various foods and naming them for me. “You must learn our Kellian,” she softly breathed into my rapt ears. Touching an apple, she said the word for it was “tochan.” “Hobi” was the word for bread, and “juzzot” meant melted butter, as smooth as my wife’s velvety warm skin.
After a time of whiling away the hours happily with my wife, she began teaching me the Kel’s history. I learned they were originally from Earth, as I’d long suspected, from the lost continent of Atlantis, before the Great Wars between many different fighting peoples had nearly destroyed our two planets.
All of a sudden, seemingly from nowhere, my wife looked intently into my eyes, which were gazing at her with unspeakable love. “You’re part Kel!” she announced loudly, to both of our amazement.
“Huh?” I haltingly asked. “Are you sure?”
“It’s in your eyes. Our people were scattered during the Great Wars.” I guessed she was probably right. Ikanya, an award-winning student of ancient Earth history, knew all the generals of the ancient Roman Empire, and often compared me to the heroic Marcus Aurelius. I would always quote him to her, while we made our briefly blissful love:
“How quickly all things disappear, in the universe, the bodies themselves, but in time, even the remembrance of things.” But I knew I would never forget our brief time together, even beyond my death and utter obliteration.
We went outside a lot together, to enjoy and cherish the beautiful city we were protecting and repopulating for our monumental fight. One day we sauntered out of the apartment, strolling down the cobblestone streets of Zambawa City, locked ritually hand-in-hand. We happily found a lovely verdant meadow, cheerfully blown by the wind, with a gurgling stream running through it.
We both took our shoes off, and began wading until we were waist-deep, and wonderfully cooled off, a most magical moment indeed.
Hours later, Ikanya and I sat on a small marble bench as we searched the heavens for the awesomely potent and available stars. There were millions of them, but sad to say, no readily apparent moon.
“Do you miss the moon?” Ikanya inquired, in her lovely sibilant and sylvanly sweet voice. “Yes,” I replied, burying myself in her soft embraces. “I wish we could be together under a silver moon, forever, not just a few weeks.” My wife smiled broadly as a river, while a meteor shower flashed a spectacular show overhead.
“Make a wish,” she tittered girlishly. “You have that expression, too?” I muttered into her smooth neck. “Yes, it’s old hat with us,” she sweetly sighed, so versed in our old expressions.
I put both arms around my wan, winsome, and somehow petitely glowing girl, and we slowly walked home, going to bed, gamboling playfully as we always did, and falling asleep locked in each other’s embrace. Under the twilight streaming in through the skylight, I gazed upon the gorgeous face of my queen, wondering how she would look under the old-fashioned, delicately pale streaming moonlight of Earth; that light would be able to precisely capture the diaphanous glow that always seemed to radiate from her austere, yet childish features.
There was something ethereal about my wife’s face; it held mysteries about Earth and my new planet that conjured up visions of boldly spiritual places and far-off wonders to come that I would surely get to behold, someday, and soon.
Unless I simply died – first.