of: Marriage ^^
The process feels much like deep sleep.
The transport from Nibiru to Earth takes three Earthen light years to complete. On Nibiru, time is calculated differently, but it translates into a little less than a Nibirin year – around eight Earth years. You do not age during the process, though mentally you continue to mature.
The only thing I have found physically is you develop an aftertaste of star dust even after you’ve made the full transition. I learned this is why Xanther always sucked on the sweet juices of the trenga trees, he was a traveler of the universe who always suffered the dull, mineral taste of unborn stars. After kissing him, I always felt like I had made the journey between the planets. I sometimes even yearned for it.
On Nibiru, all Gregans are telepathic – connected through their nervous systems. It is not uncommon to see a Gregan emit sparks of electricity in the rare occasion he or she is upset, for example. Over time on this planet, my body has somehow started to mirror these habits, though it is all involuntary.
The feeling of meeting your Fated One is described as gnognen – or in a way an Earthen might understand “stellar euphoria.” When Xanther used to hold my face, igniting every synapse in my body to explode, he would whisper, “My gnognen.” To this day it is my preferred title, though I would only ever let Xanther claim me as his own. The words would begin as sound, but melt into the echo of telepathy – or jeena.
Xanther tells the story like this – moving in the way he does, slow, calculated but sleek and tall. (Gregans really are beautiful, agile creatures). You are born without a piece of you, which “Non” or “The Redeemer” has placed in another being. It calls to you and draws you forth like a magnet. The piece will call you from another dimension, another time, another planet – there is no place it cannot reach or know. Once the connection is made, you are inseparable – He says this is how he found me, I am what called him to Earth.
I cannot disagree with him. I found that many of the Gregan-thinkings align with my own – as odd as it seems. I do not know if I am the first human to marry into the race. I know other beings from planets farther than Earth have taken a Gregan as a spouse – but never one in the Orith or ruling family. I forgot to ask and it isn’t appropriate to ask now.
As a child there were many nights I spent staring into the black abyss, laying on the top of my parents’ roof in the countryside of Montana. I could not explain to anyone the truer-than-true pull I felt into worlds that were not our own and at the time, attributed the callings to God. Which I still do now, though I call him by a different name. In my travels across galaxies, I have found the reaches of Him to be greater than we imagined, more flexible to each race than we have fathomed. You can hear Him most during the journey between. He still feels the same now under the name of Non as he did when I sat in churches as a young girl. I have explained this to Ranthus, my half-human son, through jeena, with light-years between us.
The Earthen portal we use is located in Eastern Egypt. An ancient construct, with a wide courtyard – vast, rectangular in shape; it would seem nothing but a Stonehenge-type architecture to any Earthen. Its aged Roman columns and vast open spaces might tell archaeologists it was a place of sacrifice or tradition. The Roman numerals and odd symbols etched perfectly into the marble would speak of questionable human ancestry, many unwilling to assume extraterrestrial beings.
But as I stand here, looking over the craftsmanship I recognize it as being built by Gregan-hand. Since I have been back, I’ve gone to several of the World Wonders, able to determine the stark differences in manmade and Gregan-crafted architecture. Stonehenge and Easter Island, clearly human to my eyes – while the pyramids and Aztec temples were Gregan-assisted. Something about old cathedrals – especially those in Europe seem particularly otherworldly. But I never stay very long. I have found myself restless and bored most of the time, since my return.
Since you are kind enough to listen I suppose I should start at the beginning and explain how I got here now, with my current dilemma on Earth…
Standing on the edges of the portal, with the stars close to alignment – I find myself being pulled yet again back to them – back to the arms of Xanther and back into the sight of Ranthus. Yet there is a deep growling part of my humanity that is willing to ignore my title as Minkath or, to Earthen equivalents, “reigning Queen.”
Should I stay, I will hold a part of Xanther here forever; a part of Nibiru will die here with me. The planet might churn into chaos. I will have to wait for my Ranthus to come to me when he is old enough to transport. I will have already aged dramatically, away from my only son.
Should I return, I will be forced to defend what is rightfully mine, what has been taken away from me. I will be forced to face the pain Xanther has subjected me to…
Should I stay, I will be taken by Deek – “The Absorber.” I will be doing wrong by Non…
As the nerves in my body begin to blink, causing my body to leak electricity, I look up to the sky, where the portal is beginning to form – pinkish hues, like the storms of Saturn – faster than the winds of Jupiter. If I walk into the courtyard – I will be pulled into deep sleep and wake on Nibiru.
I take a deep breath and hear the clicking tongue of Deek somewhere far behind me.
I close my eyes and listen to the silence of Non as he waits…
I have never been fully able to explain the way in which Gregans talk – their telepathy combined with their physiology, I think, is why they speak the way they do.
The noise is close to a hum – as though made as a faint guttural buzz from a human tongue. Or, more simply, the presence of a fly or a bee with a broken wing. I found out later it is not that they understand other languages but can read the brainwaves of other beings. The vibrations and radiations from the nervous system revealed more to them than any words possibly could. Even still, they are intuitive creatures, well-studied in emotions.
Xanther, though, went through the trouble of learning human speech for the sake of my companionship. His accent was a mix of my own inflection and buzzing. But I found this endearing and always appreciated the efforts he would make to keep me so long ago. As I know it was not always easy. (Ranthus, our son, found speaking very easily – born with many of the same features and biological limits as myself. But still very much – in so many countless ways – like his father).
It would occur later to me – when Ranthus was close to eight Earthen years old – that he took his existence inherently more gracefully than either of his parents. I often thought he spoke to Non as second nature – as vividly as I spoke to Non while in the passing. My main concern was always where he would feel most at home; I could not see him boding well on Earth – humans unable to accept his odd nature and especially his physicality. But even then, on Nibiru, he was handicapped in some ways – shorter than others his age, speaking in English tongue and with hair. Even the shapes of his eyes were like mine, although they were in the color of his father’s – bluish grey, with a hint of green. The color of seafoam.
I knew his father loved him as well as any could – even by human standards – but that did not save Ranthus from an unspoken murmur throughout Nibiru. Gaehr or abomination. Though many of the Gregans were able to accept Ranthus – some even forming closer bonds to him than I, I still worried, as mothers do, about those less welcoming.
Xanther could sometimes be aloof – which I learned later, maybe after it was too late – that this would be the natural bond between my husband and our son, that it bothered neither of them. Only myself. It would often be that my more human nature would dominate our conversations – Xanther taking every bit as seriously as the last. Xanther as Gregan as could be – caring immensely yet still calculated, calm and perhaps too patient. I would later learn – perhaps also too late – how to emulate these qualities.
-
My child was a blessing or a gaajic from the start. Even though it had been biologically clear Xanther and I would be able to reproduce – I was unsure if I could carry even a half-Gregan fetus.
They are truly beautiful creatures, standing almost seven to eight feet tall at average – some even at at nine or ten. Humanoid, being genetically more advanced than our kind, they have no protruding sexual organs and often walk amongst each other without clothing; though they will sometimes cloak themselves depending on the season or the occasion. Sleek with elongated arms and legs – on average four to five feet long – they maintain milky ivory skin, that is hairless. Their features angular, though their heads rounded squares, with eyes like glass – six by three inches oval.
In colors ranging all across the spectrum – some colors I have never seen. With mouths that can close flush and two dainty nostrils as noses. Some males adorned spikes or rounded horns towards the backs of their heads, much like that of some Earthern lizards, as Xanther does… but it does not make him any less beautiful – almost more so. He could cradle my face with only half of his palm.
Carrying Ranthus in the womb proved to be difficult. By a month and a half – I had gained sixty-five pounds and by human standards was large enough to give birth in only a week or less. Though I feared I might pop, Xanther would kiss my forehead – making Ranthus turn. (I would find later, my husband and son spoke to each other during these times, Xanther asking our unborn son to remain calm). After the kiss, Xanther assured me all would be well. Though I doubted his calmness, I would not dare to feel uneasy, knowing he could sense this. I had learned several years into our marriage how to catch certain emotions before emitting them electrically.
Though he would disregard my questions, I grew anxious. I had seen how Gregans were born – and it was very unlike that of the human ritual – which I figured was mainly due to their physical statures.
But, as usual in our marriage, I would wake one day to find that Xanther has resolved the problem for me and had planned something like a cesarean section for our child.
On the day Ranthus was cut out of me, my fever had reached 103F. The sweat poured out of me fast enough that Nahzim, my nurse, dropped water beads down my throat at an alarming rate. If I encourage the memory, I can still feel the beads hit the back of my throat like waves – in futile attempts to cool me as my body fought of an alien organism. It not knowing I had placed the child there by choice.
I do not remember much of the ordeal, because of the fever. But I woke in the arms of Xanther, who kissed me into sweet slumber. Until I woke to the cooing cry of our son.
The scar across my abdomen is a large X that has healed impeccably – work no human hands could possibly perform. On Earth, many might assume it was a tattoo or intricate scarification perhaps… but I know it is far more real than anything a human has seen. Even when I am back at home in an apartment building, my shirts will graze across my stomach, sending a raw reminder to the back of my skull that I am light-years away from my family.
Ranthus was born at thirty inches and weighed seventeen pounds. With milky cream skin, instead of ivory, he had some hair (dark as my own) even directly after his birth. It was clear he would not have a flush mouth, like the Gregans, but had small lips – much smaller than my own – that were unmistakably human.
When he peered up at me for the first time with almond eyes, I loved him immediately. As time moved on, after the birth, I noticed speaking to Non grew easier – His voice growing clearer. It was because of this that I would not let Ranthus out of my sight for his first two years. Which proved to be a sound decision.
Xanther, of course, was more reserved in his affection towards our son. Though he did not shy from these acts of adoration with me, he was awkward in caring for Ranthus. I attributed this to the knowledge that while we are Fated Ones – that did not make the reality of fathering the first human hybrid child an easy one to swallow.
I found I could care less. I had married Xanther. I did not see anything surprising or strange in Ranthus. (Though I might if Non did not speak to me so convincingly – making me so sure).
It always amazed me how I love, obey – even worship at times – and adore Xanther. In my younger years – before him, at the age of eighteen – I was far different than I am now, yet still, in every way, the woman who so instantaneously loved him.
…
I had always been a strange girl, even in my youth – as my own parents sometimes pointed out. Though they loved me dearly, they would often alienate me unintentionally. As an only child living in the country, I did not socialize much and never wanted to. Being secure in my isolation, I did not think much of myself. It would be long after I became a ward of the state that I would finally be able to recognize myself as chosen or special, instead of merely odd and displaced.
It would be Xanther who would point out to me that I was lucky. Non had made my transition to a new planet easy, and it was true that not every being had this luxury. Some even died in the passing – their physical bodies going through withdrawal and shock. If I were given any attachments on Earth – it would have been harder to leave.
In truth, it could not have been easier.
I was accustomed to living alone by the time Xanther began to approach me in my dreams. At first he was nothing but a shadow – a shadow that vibrated in the background, leaving me filled with a peculiar sense of awe, comfort and shock. I was never able to remember the eyes I had seen so vibrantly, but they were never strangers when I slept.
This started when I was sixteen – at the time Xanther started the crossing to find me on Earth. By the time I met him, I was so accustomed to every inch of him, I did not hesitate nor was I scared, but excited. As though I had been waiting.
He approached me in a field outside of New Jersey, where I had gone to see lightning bugs by way of train. I was particularly good at pick-pocketing by this age, though I did not like to do so. But it made coming by funds one less stress I needed to consider – and I had suffered a long list of them. If there was anyone accountable for me – I didn’t know it – or they lived in a country far away, where everyone there was the same color as I am.
I recognized Xanther without doubt as he emerged from the brush with weary eyes. I felt Non – who I called God back then – plant me, reassure me, keep me. So I stayed, making room for him beside me in my wet patch of grass beneath a pond pine. I was enthralled by his height – and the intensity of his eyes. Xanther would tell me within minutes of sitting beside me that he had just made the passing between planets only a week before – then swam the Atlantic Ocean to meet me.
As a nineteen year old, I figured if I had any female human friends – even with the odd circumstances of the situation – they might find this romantic. But as the years began moving forward, I learned to not ponder the conditional natures of my kind. I had never fully understood them anyway – though I had definitely tried.
Hearing him say – or hum – my name was much like being named. As though it was the first time I heard sound, as though a firework was ignited in my chest. I would feel something like this every time he would say my name – even after I had abandoned him in my early thirties, returning to Earth. His hum would reach across light-years and touch me in the middle of the night – waking my soul, making it impossible to sleep.
-
During my first passing to Nibiru, Xanther held me close to his torso and we spoke in deep sleep. It was timeless up in the cosmos and though physically we slept, he spoke to me of the universe and of the planets within our reach. There is no rest quite like that of when you are safe in the portal, a place where your kaerk or soul can feel home at last.
It felt like we spoke for centuries.
Even after arriving on Nibiru my ears would ring of his hum for days. When we were together in the portal we held an eternity between us – radiating in the vacuum of space. We had already loved for light-years, so by the time a ceremony was held, Xanther and I already knew the weight of our matrimony. After travel, I could feel the beat of his pulse at the roof of my mouth causing me to dream of oceans even when we slept in our nagwa – a rock structure, popularly inhabited by Gregans on Nibiru.
Before landing though, I found that if I asked specifically he might take me to neighboring planets – as he did twice on my first passing, to two small planets I grew particularly fond of. We would visit them again – either for leisure or wherever politics might summon Xanther.
Zin was a quaint place and though I could not communicate with its beings even remotely – I enjoyed them profusely. No taller than a foot, the Dorschtk were small malleable creatures with the texture of jellyfish, standing on five to ten thin legs – all maybe three inches high. Kind and well-humored, I loved watching them laugh – causing them to bounce. Xanther would later explain to me their mannerisms, helping me to interact with them more appropriately. Instead of simply picking them up and letting them sit atop my shoulders, though they enjoyed that as well.
The second planet, Quatrinol, was still in its earlier stages of development. Dull, slow moving masses of vegetation sprung up from the purest water that looked like glass. Impeccable and new mountains raised from the swamps and the most colorful marshes gave birth to the densest fog I had ever seen. To look upon the ocean of Quatrinol was bliss – in its vastness I wished to walk upon it, but knew better than to harm the new life that might be forming there. It was here that Xanther and I would eventually conceive Ranthus – by the light of three moons.
I feel the lighting in my palms, almost begging to get out; Electricity that could burn me through to Nibiru should I let it. But I will not.
Although the pain is damning, I breathe through the charges, letting them subside for another day. I suppose now is a good time to explain where I am.
Zin and Quatrinol are, of course, not the only two planets near the passing. There are millions, though not all contain the atmosphere my body requires. Of them, though, there is a select handful I have been able to grow accustomed to. I never asked Xanther about the magic behind my body’s adaptation – I suppose I was too caught up in the beauty of everything he gave me. I was too human, and too naïve.
By the time I realized my title as Minkath bestowed these ethereal capabilities unto me, it was much too late. I was never told enough when I first relocated to Nibiru and though I can only half-heartedly resent Xanther for this, I am aware many of our quarrels could have been resolved had he only told me every piece I yearned for. Instead, he damaged with the false pretense he was protecting. I had found that intentions were the same anywhere in the universe – it did not matter if they were good. Our natures would surpass us.
The planet I currently inhabit is called Oura. It is small and forgiving. Probably no larger than the Earth’s moon. I share it with the Freeya, gentle and large creatures – who I do not think are from here, but I could not know as we do not speak the same language anyhow. They are herbivores, so I must be too – unable to ever bring myself to eat one of my neighbors.
The Freeya are three to four feet tall, resembling mounds of dirt, or how we might pile them on Earth. With their four flat feet, the Freeya are akin to turtles but have six eyes – all equally placed along their bodies (almost as a human might wear a belt). Most are shades of green and light orange – though I have seen rare ones the color of light blue. (Which I have come to reason is the human equivalent to albinism). The younger Freeya are feathered, though they molt after maturity leaving a thick leathery skin.
Not many visit Oura, probably due to the odd mannerisms of the beings here – and the relatively dull terrain (above ground). Which is understandable – as more tempting places like Zin and Quatrinol are reasonably close by, especially if within the portal. So it has been a safe haven for me. I am isolated, though I do not feel abandoned. The trees are young and though the fruit could be sweeter, the water is pure and full of minerals, and the caves are warm every night.
It has been years since that night when I stood on the edge of the portal, between the beckoning of Deek and the call of Non. I have aged little since then – spending most of turning time in the passing – though the worlds have continued doing so. Earth obliviously but continuously searching the cosmos, unaware that it is hiding from them; Nibiru, teetering.
Of the Gregans who have asked me, “Why?” I will answer to one only and know within my soul that day will come shortly.
After all, as with all things in the universe, it is only a matter of time.
Prologue to “Within Light-years” (unfinished) - 2011
