Stories

Letters to Lelia - Chapter 3 - Who Are You?

“Did you see my notes?" Humon asked, shuffling the pads on Lily's desk. Lily lifted her eyes from the mound of packages, reminders, and party decorations that had been slowly accumulating around her ever since they got the blessed news the Bonding Ceremony was going to be celebrated on Terra Two. Her maternal desire to be of assistance to her eldest daughter was fighting an older, more personality specific urge to dump everything at once and take a trip to a region of space she hadn't visited before. She realized, while thinking this, that there were no regions she'd never seen, and strained her overwhelmed mind to figure out if and where she saw Humon's work. She jerked, aggravated.”

Letters to Lelia - Chapter 2 - The Gates of Perception

“Who is in charge of the hors d'oeuvres?" Seth asked. "Sister Abigail," Roberta replied, focused on a delicate piece of machinery that needed soldering under the microscope. "You're not serious!" Seth yelled, making Roberta's hand shake for a second. The pen slid over the board, covering it with a slobber of molten metal. "Thanks!" Roberta snapped, snatched the slide from the microscope and threw it on the growing pile of similar slides in the trash can, proof that the sister had kept very busy the whole morning. "Who in their right mind would put sister Abigail in charge of cooking anything?" Seth continued, like a slow growing storm, ready to strike at any moment. "Do you realize that I've been working on that board for the last six hours and I finally got it right?" sister Roberta growled at Seth. "That means your next one will be even better. Who put sister Abigail in charge of the hors d'oeuvres?" Seth asked, deadly calm.”

Letters to Lelia - Chapter 1 - Love.Purple.

"What exactly are you doing?" sister Roberta asked Sarah, who was fumbling with a knotted bunch of ribbons, growing more frustrated by the minute. "I can't believe I'm wasting my time with this! Where is Sys? Why can't we just remake this?" the redhead abandoned the struggle, her cheeks flushed and her eyes gleaming furiously. "Can you take this to your lab and bring me back a fresh spool of non-knotted ribbon? You have no idea how many things I have to do right now, all at the same time!" "I think I beat you in that department, my dear. I haven't even started the staging for the light show, so if you'll excuse me..." Roberta left before Sarah had a chance to pass on to her the ribbon unknotting challenge. "What. For. Use. Ribbon." Purple inserted their unavoidable wisdom. "Wisp. Think. Matter. Worthless. Anyway."

Letters to Lelia - One Thousand Years Later

Vlor Consular Mission in Airydew, Terra Two, July 2nd, 3245 Beloved Lelia, My eyes well up with joy seeing you all grown up and ready to set out on your own path. Many centuries passed me by, they brought me challenges and successes, knowledge, wisdom and occasional silliness, and they opened my eyes to the universe, this strange and wonderfully complex, multi-layered reality I could never have dreamed existed. Of all the precious gifts this unbelievable dream ever gave me, you are the greatest, my child, for I can’t even fathom what you are, or how you fit into our limited understanding of existence, half real, half thought and gifted with the perception of a lot more dimensions than us humans can grasp.

Letters to Lelia - Foreword

"My Principal Progenitors have always had a flair for the dramatic," Humon reflected out loud after reading Tagas Cloud's letter, in the same even tone of voice Lily had become accustomed to. "What do they mean, Humon? What does all of this mean?" Lily started tentatively, her voice overcome by an instinctive indescribable panic. Humon didn't answer, he just waved, annoyed, trying to chase away the aggravation with the brusque gesture one would use to shoo away a fly. "Procedure," he uttered eventually. "I swear, if our world really ran according to procedure we'd all be long gone by now. It took them seven planetary rotations to answer my request, seven! And now they expect me to rush to attention in less than ten gyrations! Good grief, my progenitors really know how to dish administrative bulk three layers thick! Do your parents push your buttons too?"