Talas sat at the entrance to the cave. Where are you Asha, why do I miss you. He found that the babies crying he began to think of it was fainter the closer to the entrance he was. Moving his head from left to right slowly and methodically he scanned the dark night.

Pitch. Dark as the void. Where are the stars! Nothing, in the sky, and nothing but scrub out there and creator knows what else. His body shivered at that thought. If Asha was just one…. he let the thought end there. He sat and lost himself in the dark of the night on this moon under an eclipse. How in Hadis could this place be, how can life be here. Those old ruins across the plain he crossed with Asha from the crash. What were they? Someone was here before, maybe he can find out how they left. He grimaced in the dark as he hoped they didn’t die off.

Asha bounded across the craggy landscape with a hop-skip movement. Her emitter eyes lighting up the terrain while her large primaries drank in the darkness seeing beyond shadow piercing the night. At the speed of a cheetah on flat open ground Asha traversed gullies, draws, sink holes with ease and grace. Home, my babies. Not all but most. Some will sacrifice so most will live until the reaping.  A sob escaped her as she jumped high to the next foot/handhold while climbing a small natural rock wall. Close now. Her mind turned to the reaping. All she did was have babies, feed, teach, let them be reaped. Only the strongest 10 would go, go with the Didon. Then start all again, 100 babies, feed, teach, fight, go away. She had never dwelled on this before. It was only after touching Love in Talas’s memory of a mother. He was baby Talas. Mother loved him, Asha loved baby Talas.
 Asha loved her babies now like baby Talas. For Asha, her new heart raged inside, and it was simple, you loved or did not. The night was brighter tonight for some reason. Asha had an idea, she thought of the hairline crack and the pool of water at home. Maybe I can look not like monster to Talas. He will love me then.

 Talas found himself lost in non-thought, staring off into the Dark, he let his mind go away. Just go into that black hole and disappear. All thoughts stopped timeless, nothing just “ising” for a moment, eternal in that moment though. In that “ising” he is acutely aware of the environment and moment he is in. He felt more than heard Asha’s approach. She still was a kilomitor or more away. She felt him touch her.

Talas?

Yes Asha, are you ok? I ah I missed you, I worried.

A sob escaped Asha as Talas’s thoughts wrapped their way around her own web of thought.

Talas, you miss Asha? Tired as she was and worn at the edges, she found more in her and sped up wanting to close the physical distance between her and Talas. She felt a warmth never felt deep in her body. A raging fire of warmth that slowly crept like wildfire through her being.

Talas stood feeling her approach, her speed, her warmth. He could not hear her with his ears but deep inside him her approach resounded in loud echoes to his relief.

-d²