Chapter 14
"I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."
"Mm?" Don turned to look at them - his daughter and the girl standing beside her. They lived in a small town bordering the fringe, where everyone knew each other, yet hers was a face he'd never seen before.
"This is Gaia."
"Hello, Gaia," he said. He bent forward to dig his finger into one of his shoes and pry it off. "Are you new around here?"
"Yes," the girl said.
He nodded, looking her over as with the edge of his foot he pushed his other shoe off. He kicked them roughly towards the doorway. She was a pale and skinny little thing, with shoulder length dark hair. Probably not even ninety pounds. She was actually extremely pretty, surprisingly even moreso than his Alessia, though her childish build was nowhere near as bodacious. "Hey, that's a nice top you've got on there! Did Alessia make you that?"
Gaia glanced down at the pale purple top she wore, which was made of woven alien grass.
"Actually Gaia is the one that makes them," Alessia said.
"Oh. That's quite a talent you have."
"Thank you, Mr. Greco," Gaia said.
"Please, call me Don."
"Gaia's been on her own since she got here, and she doesn't really have any place to stay. I was wondering if it would be okay if she stays here with us occasionally."
"Hmm," he hummed. A look of concern was forming upon his bearded face. He immediately started to wonder what such a pretty and vulnerable looking young lady was doing traveling to their town. He suspected she'd been trying to escape some sort of abuse. "Well, Alessia doesn't have friends over very often, but when she does they're always good kids."
At that Gaia smiled slightly.
"You can come stay here whenever you need to, Gaia. Our house is your house." He then turned to his daughter. "Sweetie? Make dinner for three tonight."
Alessia looked to her friend and started to giggle. Their plan was turning out well!
Chapter 15
She opened her eyes. She saw the afternoon sky above, filtered through the rustling jumble of unearthly leaves. She lifted her head off the immense mushroom cap, the centerpiece of her forest home. Her companion was laying against her, her curly haired head nestled between the abundant peaks of her bosom.
To ease a cramp in her back she wriggled slightly, repositioning her spine. At that motion the girl stirred, and she too awoke. With sleepy brown eyes she looked at her goddess, at first blinking groggily but soon being stunned alert. "Gaia, you're... purple?"
"Mnh?" Gaia looked down at herself. Her body was indeed a whitish shade of that, and all over veined with darker details as if she were carved from polished marble. "Oh. I must have fully released my form in my sleep. That's just how exhausted you left me." With a thought she shifted her skin to the more Earthly pale pink Alessia had expected. "Sorry."
"So... that was your truest form? You normally look that way?"
"Hmm..." Maybe she should have let Alessia know beforehand? "Yes."
"I've always known you're not normal, even for a goddess. No goddess can do what you do... Change shape. Control the plants. Eat them as food."
"That's true."
"Are you even one? Because it seems to me... I think... you're not from Earth."
"Oh?" Gaia stroked a hand down her lovely human's back. "I can do all the things goddesses do, though." As Alessia's eyes narrowed on her she hesitated: "you're right. I was born here, not on Earth."
"Yes, so was I, but... Moreso. You're purple. Like everything else here. I think you, as a whole, are
from the planet Eva.
"
"Ah, Alessia. Well... "
"Well? Is it true?'
***
Eva awoke from her dream, feeling thoroughly disoriented. In her semi-alert state she was struggling to understand a layer of mystery that had come with it: Had she dreamt of that girl before? There was something very familiar about her, and of herself being called by her 'Gaia'. She turned onto her side. There was blue sky and a thin layer of snow on her windowsill.
Ah... yes. She'd indeed dreamt of them both once before, only then she'd been the human, and Gaia... well! She'd demonstrated in full what it was they were doing that could leave her so exhausted.
That was two months ago, and then as well she didn't know what to make of what had been shown to her. It had significance. There was meaning there, which she couldn't yet process.
"Time?"
The time is 9:46, am.
"Dammit." Eva slipped out from under the covers. She didn't have much time left to prepare. Her love would soon be waiting for her at the nexus terminal.
***
The door of the travel nexus opened, and its ramp lowered to touch down upon the grass. Val felt the air, cooled by the moderate southern winter, creep in and penetrate the warmth of her mobile environment. She tightened her sari around herself. It never got cold in Lemuria.
The mid-morning sun was shining into her eyes as she stepped out, dazzling her, and she had to cup her hand over her brow and squint to make out Eva, who was standing waiting behind the fence around the landing zone.
"Hello."
"Hey babe," Eva said. She pushed her sun glasses up onto her forehead and opened the fence gate to walk towards her. Val had to get on her tippy-toes to kiss her, and that she did, briefly but with no lack of affection. It'd been almost a month since they last had time to meet.
"Cute outfit," Val said, "though I could do without the heels. You're already super tall."
"Sorry. This is just what winter looks like this year," Eva said. She watched her tan-skinned, curly blonde haired lover step back and rather critically begin to judge her outfit: A purple jacket with a fluffy pink faux-fur lined hood, too tiny to reach the ends of her arms or zip up. Her chest erupted out from within it in a black tank top, tempting Val's eyes with deep cleavage. Below she wore tight black leggings which clung to her long, womanly legs and hugged her goddess package tight against one of her thighs. She stood in black knee-high boots, with stiletto pointed heels adding another five inches to her height. It was unlike any look a person of the more classically cultured Lemurian continent would bear. It was also though, to the eyes of Val or anyone else fortunate enough to behold her, a most pleasing sight.
Eva stepped back into range and set her hands on Val's hips. As she looked into the smoky painted eyes of her love she began to play with the pink and red fabrics that wrapped her divine body. "You're not dressed warmly enough. You're gonna freeze if we don't get to my vehicle soon. C'mon."
"For the majority of this visit I wasn't planning on wearing anything at all, anyway."
Eva smirked, and images of the two of them alone filled her head. With the cold wind hitting her, she stroked some of her purple streaked hair away from her face as they turned towards her vehicle. "Let's get on with it then."
Inside Eva entered their destination into the vehicle's computer, and as they settled in across from each other in the circular little chamber it lifted up and away from the travel nexus station.
"So I brought this," Val said, taking a bottle out of her bag.
"Oh..."