Marooned - Christie Golden [73]
Tears sprang to Kes's eyes at the beauty and pain of it.
Protruding from his back, as shiny and probably as brightly colored as the webbing between Aren Yashar's fingers, were two small vestigial wings.
Not feathers, no; nor were they the leathery texture and spindly structure of bats or other flying mammals with which Kes was acquainted. These had the texture of a butterfly's wings, fragile, completely useless, but there nonetheless, a mute testament to another type of existence, another form of being. The water slicked down their length, but as she watched, Aren backed away from the waterfall and the wings fluttered, shaking off the moisture.
But one of them was incomplete, ragged and broken looking. As if someone had found that butterfly and cruelly tried to twist off those fragile wings.
Kes must have moved, must have let her astonishment find a voice, for Aren suddenly froze. He whirled, splashing in the water, to stare at her. Kes stared back, her gaze locked, unable to turn away.
For a long moment, there was silence, broken only by the sound of the waterfall.
At last, Aren spoke. "You saw," he said. His voice trembled, fraught with deep emotion.
Kes nodded. Words had deserted her for the moment.
Aren sighed heavily and sank into the water. He stayed there, his hands making sculling motions in the pool, deep in thought.
Finally, Kes found her voice. "Why do you hide them? Are you ashamed of them?"
He shot her a look, but his expression was unreadable. He gestured at her. "Why do you clutch your towels so?" he replied, not answering the question.
Kes's face flamed. The towels did little to cover her nudity, but she would feel more awkward if she turned and ran back for the robe now that Aren had made an issue of it.
"Are you ashamed of your body?" he continued.
"N-no," Kes replied. "But nakedness tends to make people uncomfortable aboard Voyager. One's body is one's own business."
Aren smiled. "Exactly. Our wings are... private. We do not speak of them; we do not display them. Especially not to aliens." He paused, then glanced up at her, and Kes's heart raced at the vulnerability in his eyes. "But you have seen. I-I think I wanted you to see, to know."
"Tell me." Kes moved forward as if drawn, easing herself down on the side of the pool. Her long, slim legs dangled in the warm water, but she still held her towels protectively in front of her. "Tell me about the wings. What happened?"
Aren ducked under the water for a moment, then resurfaced, his body, hair, and small wings glistening with wetness. He did not look at her as he spoke, and his voice was soft, filled with a strange longing.
"We are an old race, Kes; older perhaps than you can imagine. Once, we could fly with these. But that was thousands upon thousands of years ago, when we were closer to creatures like the kakkiks than humanoids. We traded flight for mass, the ability to soar for the ability to run, to manipulate objects with our hands. The webbing," and he spread his hands to show her, "came upon us at about the same time as the wings faded." Aren paused thoughtfully.
"Let me start with some more recent history. On a fertile, gentle planet called Rhulan, there lived a people called the Rhulani. Ours was a culture rich in the arts and the sciences. With such a generous life span, any individual could learn and do so much. There was always a wealth of riches to pass to successive generations. Oh, they weren't many, granted; we were not overly fecund, not with such long individual life spans. But there were always some, bright eyed and eager, to fill the voids left by those who had passed on.
"It was... a long time before we noticed." He paused, not meeting her eyes. "When many families naturally have no children, it took time to realize ... that no families were having children."