Chapter Text
Mars sipped at his drink. He didn’t like the flavour, but he was too well-mannered to spit it back into his glass. He took to admiring the intricacies of the Earth Embassy instead.
Above him, on the raised ceiling was some sort of religious artwork. A man reaching out to another man. The figures held no significance to him, but he could appreciate fine art when he saw it.
He sipped at his drink again, swallowing quickly this time so it would not linger on his tongue. His aunt and uncle were off slow-dancing in a corner. Dione returned his smile when she saw him. Mars looked around. Selenia was with another child her age, and the pair walked loose circles around the reception room, talking quietly.
The Earth Ambassadors, Mars noted dryly, were nowhere to be found. He had checked for himself earlier. One or two of the nobility gathered, too, had inquired after their honoured guests. It was not a good look for the Earth Ambassadors to be absent at a function dedicated to their safe return home.
But Mars was merely the Crown Prince. He supposed with an internal sigh, that his father and mother would handle everything. All he had to do was enjoy the free food.
Elsewhere, Nadine feverishly smacked away at the Embassy’s communication console. She couldn’t blow this chance. Not when so much work had gone into getting her to this point.
She thought of Jasmine, who risked a spanking from her guardians just to steal a layout of the Embassy from them. She’d waved it off by saying it wasn’t hard, but she sat a bit awkwardly on that particular playdate.
Nadine also thought of Amie. Amie had created a distraction downstairs — she’d flown herself on the floor and started kicking and screaming. It didn’t last for long, but it drew enough attention that Nadine could sneak off from Solus.
She pressed another key on the console and shuddered. To think that there were so many more humans who, because their guardians stayed home, could not join in on this grand escape! And Nadine knew that however many humans she was in contact with, that there was a far larger number. Her eavesdropping on Solus revealed that every willing, high-ranking family had been given a human foundling. High-ranking civil servants, members of all branches of the alien military. And of course, the nobility.
There was simply no way to save everyone all at once — and Nadine couldn’t fathom why some of the precious few who could be saved would decline the opportunity. She would be the first to admit that she had a pretty good life here. She had delicious food, and status and a family that seemed to genuinely enjoy her company … but was all of this worth the loss of dignity?
Diapers. Bottle-feedings. Being bathed and talked to as if she were a child. Being called by a name that was not her own!
(She found that she didn't really mind the treatment now, but it was the principle of the matter for her.)
Nadine sent her message off. She kept things brief. Explained that she, along with several others, were being held captive at the Earth Embassy. She wanted a rescue mission. Or at the very least, a way to go back home. She would have accepted any help. Even if it meant sneaking off the planet, or hitching a ride back to Earth with another civilisation.
Her fingers shaking, Nadine looked up to the big screen. She wondered how much longer she had until someone came to find her. She hadn’t the time to fortify the door properly; all she did was tilt a chair beneath the doorknob. And even if the lights in the room were off, there was a window in the door — and she was wearing a very bright, and very sparkly dress.
God. What would she do if she got caught? Her stomach twisted and churned, and she almost began to sway. The beginnings of bile flavoured the back of her throat, and she swallowed it all back down.
She was relieved when the console screen flickered to life. Nadine could’ve jumped for joy when the face that looked down on her was that of one of the Ambassadors she knew from her hazy memories.
“Oh thank you, Jesus!” said Nadine. She smoothed a hand over her hair, mussying it up a little. “I can send my co-ords right now–”
“There will be no rescue mission.”
Nadine blinked. The bile-y taste returned. She craned her head to study the Ambassador’s face. Her eyes fixed on the display on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Judith Atherly. Ambassador to the Aswian Empire.
“Or rather,” Judith began to clarify, “no rescue mission is planned at this time.”
Nadine clenched his fists. “And why, may I ask, the everloving fuck not? We are being held against our will, here!”
“I concede that much, but every diplomat that was sent consented to a lifetime appointment. Yourself included.” The Ambassador lowered her head for a moment. “I regret to inform you of this, but I thank you — and the others, as well — for your continued support of the Earthen government.”
A lifetime appointment.
A lifetime. Appointment.
“You can’t do this.” There were rules for this kind of thing, Nadine was sure. Her mind was so scrambled that the words could barely form. “Y-you can’t just dump us here and–”
“You are a diplomat, my dear. As a diplomat, your job is to maintain a positive working relationship with Earth’s interstellar allies. And that duty must be carried out.” Judith rose a brow. “Unless yourself or the others are in tangible danger, then the lifetime appointment remains in effect.”
Tangible danger meant war, intense famine or disease. It was settling in now that there was nothing she could do.
But Nadine had to ask. “And what if I choose to resign from my post?”
She was hopeful when the Ambassador said nothing, and a little afraid too.
“You will no longer be part of this mission, and we will owe you no more than is owed to any other Earth-born human. Your diplomatic passport will be rendered null within the next thirty Earth days and you will need to make your own arrangements back to Earth.”
Nadine wilted. She wouldn’t even get a lift home?... She bit the inside of her cheek, still trying to think of ways to return home.
“So that’s it, huh,” she muttered at last. “What if I hitch a ride back with one of the diplomats here? The ones that only work in the Embassy?”
Judith smiled kindly. “We have vacated the Earth Embassy in its entirety.”
Ah.
She … She should have known. It was far too easy to get into the Console Room. She wouldn’t have even gotten upstairs if the Embassy was staffed.
Nadine stared straight ahead. Her vision blurred, and her breathing quickened. By the time she regained control over herself, the screen was dark again.
The Ambassador had hung up on her without even a ‘goodbye’.
The tears started up on their own. Wet, hot and heavy tears rolled down Nadine’s face. And before she knew it, she was seated on the ground with her back to the horrid, horrid console, and her knees drawn up to her chest.
She was never going home.
She was never going to walk on Earthen beaches again. She was never going to eat ice-cream again. There would be no more early-morning walks. No grocery shopping. No benign experiences on Earth, the kind that made you stop and appreciate your life.
It was never for her to again dip her hands in cold, Earth water. It was never for her to mingle with other humans, or do all those little things she promised to do at one point, someday.
Never. Never. Never.
She didn’t know how loud she was, and neither did she care. She needed to get her tears out. And they all came out. In great, big, heaving sobs.
“My poor child.”
Gentle hands picked her up at the sound of a mother’s voice. Nadine bawled louder. She was pressed up against a shoulder, her head forced to hang over the edge while she cried.
“Come, sweeting,” said the voice. “Let’s get you out of this awful, awful room.”
Nadine looked up just enough to see her carrier make for the door. The chair she tucked beneath the doorknob was still there, untouched.
She hardly had time to wonder how this woman — this matronly saint — had entered before they both wound up back in the outside corridor. It had been instantaneous. Some sort of phasing, or perhaps, teleportation.
“Solus, darling,” the woman called.
Darling. Nadine perked up. She pushed backwards, trying to see the face of the one who now held her.
It was the Empress. Nadine racked her mind for the name in between her quiet tears. It started with a ‘Z’. Zena? Zenon? Ziza? No. Zira.
“I did not expect to return home to an unhappy child,” Zira said. “She was in the room with the large console.”
Solus sounded like he was frowning. “I suppose she discovered that the Earth Embassy has been vacated?”
They spoke as if they knew. Nadine sucked in a breath. She had been talking in English with the Ambassador. Far as she knew, none of the Aswians knew any amount of English. If they did know … if they did know … Nadine didn’t know what she would do.
She was surprised to be lifted up. Empress Zira smiled up at her, holding Nadine high above her head.
“There is much we must explain to you,” she said. She spoke perfect English. “And … much we must apologise for.”
Nadine glanced over at Solus, eyes wide. Did he speak English, too? If so, what about the time she blabbed to him in English and told him about how she wanted to go home? Had he heard all of that? Had he understood it?
“I’m sorry, dear child,” he said, with a sad smile, “but I have always been able to speak your language. It was simply …” His smile thinned. “… more convenient to feign ignorance.”
“A-and what about your son?” Nadine managed to say. Her face felt hot. Solus had seen every part of her, and had known that she was an adult that didn’t want to be there. He had known. “What about Mars? And Selenia? And Dione?”
But it was Zira who answered. “And what of Mars? He has never bothered to learn a language in his life. He always travels with a translator.”
The others, she said, were similarly ignorant of English.
“I don’t get it,” Nadine sputtered. “Why lie? Why do any of this?”
Solus and Zira smiled at each other. Nadine couldn’t understand why, or even read their faces.
They started to walk together. They were moving away from the noise of the reception hall downstairs, and towards a more secluded part of the second floor.
Nadine knew they wouldn’t harm her.
“We did genuinely believe the humans given to us were young,” Solus started to explain. “Aswians live for a long while. It did not immediately occur to us that humans were not so long-lived. Once it did, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.”
Zira chimed in, “We know that none of you were told the full details of your appointment here. We shan’t hold it against any of you — all the human foundlings will be able to make their choice.”
“Our choice?” Nadine murmured.
“Yes, dear,” Zira confirmed. “You must have noticed that some of your countrymen are happy here. Others will still wish to return to Earth, which is understandable. Of course, we cannot guarantee your safety on Earth.”
Nadine understood what Zira meant. If a diplomat returned home now, they were abandoning their lifetime appointment to the mission. It would be difficult to rebuild from that.
Outside of this, Nadine was suspicious.
“What’s the catch?” she demanded to know.
Solus answered, “I must protect the interests of the Empire. All those who return will have their memory of the time spent here … buried.”
“You mean ‘removed’,” corrected Nadine. She met his purple eyes. “That’s one of your abilities. Isn’t it?”
“I merely suggest things,” he explained. “I cannot create a memory from nothing. Neither can I destroy a memory completely. But what I am able to do will be more than sufficient.”
Mind erasure was on the table, then.
“What if I don’t want to go home?” she inquired instead. “Are you going to … to bury my memories then too?”
Solus shook his head. “There would be no need.” He explained that he merely wanted to keep Aswian information out of Earthen hands.
Okay, Nadine thought, My mind gets wiped if I go home. I don’t know what the Earth government will do, and the Aswian Empire won’t ensure my safety. If I don’t return, my memories remain intact.
“If you choose to remain within the Aswian Empire,” Solus started again, “you will be granted asylum and allowed to live on your own terms, as any other adult citizen.”
It was tempting.
But Nadine knew there must have been at least one other option.
“What’s the last option?” she asked. They were on a balcony now, out in the cold night. The only warmth came from inside the Embassy.
Solus started to explain, but Zira cut him off.
“To continue living as you are now,” she cooed.
Nadine warmed at the thought. She wasn’t particularly sure why. “And I get to choose for everyone else?”
“No sweet child,” Zira said, “everyone chooses for themselves. The choice you make, whatever it may be, is wholly up to you.”
“What if I don’t choose today?”
“No one expects you to.”
Nadine paused. “Am I allowed to change my mind?”
“Yes.”
She looked to Solus. “Did I make a good daughter?”
He chuckled. “Everything I could have wanted and then a blessing more.”
Nadine reached out for him. “Then I’ll stay here.” She laughed a nervous little laugh as Solus held her up to kiss her on the tummy.
She basked in the afterglow. She wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced that she had made the right choice, but she supposed she would find out soon.
For now though?
Nadine yawned. All of her crying had tuckered her out.
She fell asleep knowing that she was in safe hands.