Queen of Their Colony (Kindred Tales)

It was an uncomfortable seating arrangement for everyone but Dra’vik, though Iyanna seemed to have gotten used to it. It helped that she was at least five foot ten—almost two meters tall, which meant that the scale of the Monstrum ship fit her much better than Terra, who was only five foot five and a head shorter than her.

At least the three Monstrum from the Dark Side aren’t as big as Iyanna’s husband, she thought, looking over at him. They were all at least seven feet tall, which was quite big enough. But if all three of them had been nine feet or three meters tall like Dra’vik, she didn’t know if she could have handled it.

Of course, she wasn’t at all certain she could handle the situation now. Why was she sitting in this little café, waiting to meet with three complete strangers who claimed she was a queen? Wasn’t this just asking for trouble?

“What do you mean, make sure it’s not a mistake?” she asked Dra’vik now. “How can it be anything else? They seem to think I’m royalty or something. And I promise you—I’m not. I’m just a middle aged, high school science teacher. There is absolutely nothing special about me.”

“I think your admirers might say differently,” Dra’vik said dryly. “And look—here they come. Their Carpet Wole must have just pulled in to the station.”

He pointed and Terra saw three huge figures descending from the back of one of the enormous millipede-like creatures the Monstrum used as a kind of train or subway system to get around their ship. Any other time she would have been entranced by the sight of the giant beast, which was calmly pulling wisps of purple plant fibers from the metal ball above its head with long, sharp mandibles. But right now, all she could focus on were the three warriors from the Dark Side of the ship.

They looked different in the light—and dressed instead of naked, she thought. They were all wearing tight black leather trousers and tall black boots, as well as black leather vests which molded to their muscular torsos.

None of them appeared to be glowing now, so their skin must have some kind of bioluminescent factor that was only apparent in the dark. But they still all had separate and distinct skin colors—red, blue, and green—and each of them had strange black tattoo-like markings running up and down their muscular arms.

Her eyes skipped over their markings and up to their faces. They had humanoid features, she thought—two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two ears. But there was something strange about the red one’s eyes—they had that glossy, black, multifaceted look that reminded her of an insect’s eyes. The blue warrior had normal looking eyes and the green one—well, she couldn’t tell because he appeared once more to be wearing glasses—glasses that grew out of his head, which was just so weird.

Not that the other two were less unusual—the red warrior had short, sharp-looking horns and the blue warrior had long, feathery antennae that reminded her of a moth. Were they all part insect? She didn’t have a phobia against bugs like a lot of women did, but she’d never had any perverted desires towards them either.

Wait a minute—who said you were having “desires” for those three? demanded a little voice in her head. I mean, sure, they’re mouthwatering in their muscular, alien, multicolored way. But you are most definitely too old for any of them and the minute they see you in the light they’re going to understand that and then they’re going to make their excuses and get back on the giant millipede thing and go back to the Dark Side.

Terra was certain this was absolutely true. This was probably going to be the shortest first date in history! Then she scolded herself for thinking of the meeting as a “date.” What was wrong with her, anyway? Why did she feel so drawn to these three, despite their alien strangeness?

She didn’t have time to answer that question because at that point, all three of the multicolored alien warriors reached them. But instead of going to sit on the bench opposite Terra and Iyanna and Dra’vik, they came around the other side of the table, which meant Terra had to turn awkwardly to see what they wanted.

“My Lady…” The blue warrior dropped to one knee in front of her. He had classically handsome features with a straight nose and large, blue eyes. Thick black hair tipped with silver and blue came down to his strong jaw. The markings on his arms were curving and circular, reminding Terra of cursive script in a language she couldn’t read.

“Um…” she wasn’t quite certain what to say, but the blue warrior wasn’t finished yet.

“Forgive us if we frightened you earlier,” he said. “It’s just that we’ve been waiting to find our Queen for so long and when you finally entered our lives, well…” He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under the black leather vest. “I think we lost our craniums a little, as you humans say.”