Ch. 28: Disco Fever  

A few hours later found them sharing another gondola ride, this one rising over the chapparel dotted slopes of Integrity on their way to Grove Plaza. The first leg of their journey had been in a boxy, antique-looking trolley on wheels, one with wide glassless windows and cream accents over a shiny coral red paint job. Because she was Tsarkeh, they'd ridden in a private compartment in the back as the trolley traversed the snaking coastal road from Two Harbors up to Sullivan's Beach, where they'd transfer to the gondolas, giving them a splendid cliffside view of the sea. The trolley wasn't very full, but there had been a few people obviously headed up to the rink themselves, which made Quar feel less silly about her own dress.

The outfit she'd chosen was a two-piece pantsuit with low shoulders. The body of the suit was a satiny spandex blend in shimmering tarnished gold, but flared to dramatic ruffled bells at her knees and elbows. Where the flares began the gold faded into wavy bands of pale warm colors that thickened and thinned along their oscillating lengths, tending toward golds and oranges with the occasional thread of black or brown worked into the pattern. The bottom hem of her shirt draped loosely over her hips and was held round her middle with a black-sequined cinch belt that clasped in front, but the pants of the suit hugged her hips and thighs like a bodystocking.

The skates she'd ordered were a pale gold to match, with black wheels and laces, but she wasn't wearing them yet; they sat beside her on the seat. They were clearly modeled after human roller skates with a stopper in front and would cover her paw all the way to the heel, like boots. She'd also picked out a pair of golden crescent-drop hoop “earrings” for the lowest piercings on her crest. They hung down to bump against the jaw fluff in front of her ears, which sort of gave the impression of human earrings. There had been options for clip-ons to be worn on her actual ears, but Quar already had the crest piercings and thought something dangling off her ears might have been annoying.

Grove Plaza was so named because it was tucked away in a thin smattering of young oaks and conifers and a variety of eucalyptus. All of those trees had been imported to speed up the forestation of some parts of Santa Catalina, but all were species that could survive there with minimal intervention. The locals frequently referred to this park as the Crop Circle, though, because that's what Grove Plaza vaguely resembled when seen from above.

The central area was a broad circle of mosaic tiles arranged around a fountain. The tiles formed no particular picture, only knots and braided ribbons in pale reds and browns. Nearby were other, smaller circles, each connected to one or two of the others by similarly tiled walkways. Twin lines of eucalyptus trees bordered the path from the largest circle to the second largest, their bark peeling like ancient sunblanched paper. The lights strung up in their branches, from tree to tree and crisscrossing over the path, were small faux paper lanterns the size of a human fist, mostly white but with the odd pastel colored bulb thrown into the mix – usually a soft pink or blue. The paths between circles often formed little triangular slices of empty space, and these were frequently filled with succulent gardens or stone benches.

That fountain in the central ring was the most notable feature of Grove Plaza. A trio of Rriigkhan males carved from limestone stood with their backs to the pillar of the fountain, underneath the spray of water fanning out over their heads and above a medallion-shaped basin. They looked as though they were sheltering under a ledge during a storm; one had hunched his shoulders and gripped the pillar behind himself, while the other two leaned forward with their heads ducked and muzzles angled up, cautiously peeking out from under the ledge to watch the rain fall. Those two were holding hands. One clutched at his chest with his free hand, while the other's fingers trailed on the pillar, reluctant to part from it. All three were clothed in asymmetrical robes that bared one side of the chest and clung to their bodies as if wet.

The Crop Circle was not the highest point in those bluffs, but it was the final stop on this particular gondola tour, which was the easiest way to get up those hills. The view from that large, central plaza was open to the Northeast, impeded by few trees, and let one look down the slopes and valleys, down past little islands of imported, carefully husbanded greenery that were the yards and private parks of the residents, toward Emerald Bay. Roofs were visible in the hillsides, but most of these were almost flush with the land so they did not obstruct much of the view. The structures here were built into hillsides, sunk partially or wholly below ground, a warren of subterranean homes hidden beneath the chaparral.

The forest, and beyond that the rising bluffs, occluded the view to the Southwest. If one were to walk through the forest and take the steps tucked away behind hedges of juniper they would eventually find their path barred by fields demarcating private property. Tiled paths from the central plaza lead to smaller circles enclosed by these trees, intimate little spaces carved out of nature away from the music and the food carts set up on the grass around some of the larger circles.

The gondolas were depositing their riders on an open tiled area. At one end was a long shed-style concession stand with two windows, one for ordering food and one for renting skates. Quar noticed right away when she stepped off the gondola onto the tile that something wasn't quite right; the ground under her pads was considerably smoother than the rough, grippy texture she'd been expecting. A field had been placed millimeters above the tiled ground to allow skates to roll. In times past the field had been combined with a hologram to give the appearance of a waxed hardwood floor, but the consensus among Dotta's staff had been that it looked tacky, so now she left the field transparent instead. It could be a little disconcerting to new skaters who expected a bumpier ride, or for their wheels to get caught in the cracks between the tiles, but most people quickly learned to trust that their ride would be smooth.

So close to the concession stand, the air smelled tantalizing of hot dogs and fresh warm pretzels, of grilled meatballs and Khanto fu’ah and beef short ribs. Humans and Rriigkhans were using the umbrella-shaded picnic benches in front of the concession shack, or the stone benches at the periphery of the plaza, to lace up their skates. All of the skating, though, was taking place in the other circles, where there was no furniture to disrupt the one-way flow of traffic. The bulk of the skaters were in the biggest circle skating around that fountain.

Several tile paths branched out from the concession/entry area to other rings. A sign marked “Beginner's Slow Skate” pointed down the path nearest the shed. It led to a smaller circle enclosed by a copse of smooth-barked white gum eucalyptus trees obviously older than Integrity; they had to be transplants. Lights were strung up between their fractaling branches, too, although this early in the evening the effect wasn't as pretty as it would be when the sun set. This circle differed from the others in that stucco planters about as tall as Quar's waist ringed the perimeter, perfect for newbie skaters to grope their way along.

It was a lot of activity for Quar to take in. She scanned the area, wide-eyed and a little bewildered, holding both skates by their laces in one hand when she stood up from the gondola. The plaza wasn't so crowded that voices would drown out conversation, and neither would the music. Just now, spherical speakers hanging from tree branches filled the plaza with Arpeggio's Love and Desire. It was the kind of music Quar might have found annoying four years ago, until she'd learned to stop immediately dismissing human art as inferior. When she actually paid attention to what she was experiencing she could usually find some aspect worth appreciating.

“So we are meant to... skate in circles? This does not seem very challenging,” Quar said doubtfully, one side of her muzzle crinkling up as she moved off toward an empty picnic table. Dotta hadn't mentioned where in the Plaza she wanted to meet up. Quar figured she'd message the other Rriigkhan after her skates were on. She was going to need Ray's help with that.

–

There was so much to say about Integrity. Nobody was really confined to one place at the resort – gondola operators one day might watch the main gate the next; since there were no minimum-wage or part-time employees, cross-training and long-term job satisfaction was closely attended to – but Ray’s work saw him crossing more of the northern quarter of the island than most, considering that just about every building required either air service, running water, or both. In the eight or nine months that he’d been there, Ray had accumulated stories about just about everywhere he looked – the glittersticks sold along the midway were actually controlled substances since they were filled with nanites tasked with keeping the glitter in the air for a few minutes to create that magical effect, then auto-degrade it afterward; that little non-descript hut was actually the entrance to his master pump room and lead to massive underground caverns filled with catwalks and pipes big enough around to swim through – but now he had someone to share them with.

He had to remind himself not to natter incessantly – he was talking so much because he was so happy to be with Quar, but he could be happy (and probably keep her happy) if he kept his mouth shut a little more often. In those few moments of intervening silence, he realized that he was proud of Integrity. Always, he’d been quick to take pride in his work – Ray was the sort to look over a swept stockroom and congratulate himself – but more than that, Integrity itself was something he wanted to show off. Obviously it wasn’t his, but he felt a connection to it, or that it was connected to him. Dotta had never come out and said it, but either he imagined or read between the lines that the idea had been formulated as a result of their trip to the Antlic Isles. He belonged here.

It was about him, in a way. Such thoughts of belonging, of satisfaction, had been forestalled as long as Oranda occupied his mind, but with her so successful, and maybe forgiven him or at least forgotten what she was so mad about, with his ICG service on the verge of completion, all that weight seemed to slip away.

How perfect it was that he could stay here! He belonged with Quar even more than he did with Integrity— Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. Almost everything but Quar herself seemed to be conspiring against their being together, but he wanted her more than he belonged at Integrity. It was so hard not to just reach over and squeeze her paw at that thought.

- - -

Sparkly pantsuits and skin-tight silver bellbottoms should have drawn every pair of eyes they passed (and they did, for a second or two), but Disco Night wasn’t the only evening attraction on Integrity. Halloween seemed to come a few evenings every week at the resort, as there was usually something going on, frequently multiple something, and often enough somethings significant enough to draw crowds over from Los Angeles on hydrofoil or flying van. Tonight, some black-tie, mostly-human affair was taking place at the amphitheater cut into the eastern shoreline, or at least tuxedos and evening dresses littered much of the Midway and defined a line for the other gondola track. Vaguely, Ray could recall there was some symphonic concert with a girl-band from when he was teenager, Popchar, or something like that.

The eyes that lingered on them from the evening dress crowd, he though, had more to do with the way he and Quar walked right up to their gondola and got on, rather than standing around with narrow champagne glasses on the lazy steps leading up to the gondola launch. Maybe, maybe, some of the eyes lingered on his ass. He did look good in silver.

Of those couple of hours in the cottage, Ray had spent almost forty-five minutes on his hair. Parted down the middle, it now feathered back past his temples to cover the upper half of his ears and fluff out from the back of his neck. He’d spent that time in nothing but his underwear, eyes flicking between the instructional video on the tablet and the mirror. His arm kept wrapping around his head to hold a comb or pricklebrush just so as he used a handblower and spritzed something chemically from a squirt bottle, but the end result got a big grin from him, even if it only looked moderately different (part an inch or so different, more fluffy and less shiny) than his typical do.

Only once that was done had Ray pulled on the loose, white shirt (material thin enough to show a hint of his peachy flesh color where the seams weren’t doubled over) with big lapels and buttoned it only to the bottom of his ribs, and then fix the tiny twist-on clasp of the gold chain at the back of his neck. As far as he understood, the gold was real, and hadn’t added any significant cost to the outfit. Gold was considerably less rare than it had been before he was born, apparently – even if the necklace was probably just plated, it was because the metal beneath was stronger, rather than less valuable, than the gold. He’d worried about needing help with the silvery pants, as he expected the material to be taut and unforgiving, but that wasn’t the case. They went on easier than a full-body wetsuit (especially since his feet slipped through the wide bottoms) but still creased and folded like the material wasn’t stretchy.

In a rare show of vanity, Ray spent another five minutes turning and admiring himself in front of the mirror once he had his shoes on.

It hadn’t occurred to him to buy bespoke skates. The outfit wasn’t a rental, but it was understood that he’d return it when done; why would he keep it? The skates, from both a material and manufacturing cost, were probably double the rest of the outfit, so it just made sense to boot up with the basic templates offered to him when he arrived. Budget-consciousness was baked into his thoughts; he didn’t mention money or paying for it, but simply chose the way he would have if he was paying for himself. Thus, he strutted up to the gondola in polished black shoes, bearing Quar’s skates tucked under his arm.

He'd told Quar several times how much he liked her costume before they left and anyone might overhear, but once the gondola had lifted them away from the crowd and the skates were between them, he leaned over to add, “The gold hoops are the perfect touch, by the way. I really like them.”

- - -

Quar’s presence might have been recorded when the gondola touched down, but without his employee badge, Ray would have to check in at the booth that stood in front of shelves full of rows and rows of skate lowers, just waiting for uppers to be printed and affixed. He glanced that way, but seeing Tam and Francis and Kheeharr working the table, he knew he’d be stuck in a five-minute conversation once he got there.

“Mostly, yeah! I’m guessing, anyway.” He looked past her the other way to one of the other circles and nodded, placing both hands on his hips. He wore a broad, generally contented smile; he might not have been to one of these parties before, but it all felt so familiar. “Unless you’re a lot better at it than I was, skating in circles is challenge enough – and fun enough – to start. It’s just the movement, the gliding, trying something different. But I bet people will be skate-dancing in some of the other circles if you want to watch, and there might be a demonstration or some competition. Skate limbo, or cones, or I don’t know what. Here, let me help you get into your skates, and then I’ll go pick up mine, too. Sit here?”

The field over the tiles meant Ray’s smooth-soled, Saturday-Night-Feverish dancing shoes slipped a bit and didn’t get the traction he was used to from workboots, but it also meant he could kneel without any concern for the thin fabric stretched over his knees. He went down to both knees while he worked open the laces, and spread the sheath of the boot for her to push her paw into, while he chocked the wheels on the meat of his thighs. Still, he couldn’t help beaming up at her while she pushed in, but when it came to the laces, his brows drew together and his lips became a thin line. Not that knots or laces were that complicated, but they weren’t common, and his fingers weren’t trained to do it without thinking.

While he was still tightening the laces up through the slender part below her heels, a big whoosh announced Dotta rolling in to a controlled, well-executed curving stop behind him. Several less-controlled, clacking sounds announced the males she was trying on for the night, who hadn’t yet mastered rolling in quite the same way. “Quar!” She said happily, and loud enough to be heard. “I’m so glad you could make it. And you brought Ray. Wonderful!”

There was just the right hint in her tone to suggest that Ray had attended Quar, rather than attending with her.

–

Quar was beaming back at him while Ray helped her into her skates, her tail thumping against a leg of the picnic table's bench while it wagged. She would have liked to reach down and run her palm over his head, but at the moment, she really didn't feel like propriety had yoked her, as she had down in Cat Harbor. Rather, she felt as though she was getting away with something, like a sneaky little girl flouting a rule right under the noses of her parents. Dotta's arrival yanked her attention away from the top of Ray's head, and she lifted her muzzle to incline her crest toward Dotta and then the pair of males that accompanied her.

Even though she'd seen Dotta just a few days before, in Quar's mind she still envisioned her as she'd been at Ghijariis and Stahvren's marriage ceremony: stormcloud purple with short curly fur like lamb's wool. Now she was a desaturated wine red, the curls were gone, and thick splotches of lighter pink marbling ran down a ruff much sleeker than Quar's own to disappear below the collar of her mini dress. The dress was a pearlescent pink so light that it was nearly white, with bell-shaped sleeves similar to Quar's except that they ended at her elbows rather than extending to her wrists. Her neckerchief and skates were that same pinkish white, though Dotta's skates closed with a magstrip along the insides. (Of course, Quar thought. Dotta was hardly the type to keep a body servant around to dress her.)

Tottering uncertainly behind her was a male whose fur was a dark charcoal gray with white ticking. He clutched at their companion, who was standing upright on his own but glancing worriedly at the ground while he licked his nose. His colors were an ombre fade of pastel blue at his paws up to white at his head, and he wore minimal clothing to show it off – only loose, silky, single-legged peach-colored trousers that gathered at the knee of the one leg they covered, with only a ruffle above the opposite thigh. Even his skates were a transparent material that let everyone view his dainty blue toes. His pads, when Quar caught a glimpse of them, were a bright pastel orange. He wore several necklaces of painted beads that hung down across his chest.

The charcoal male had chosen to dress according to theme: he wore a black, rainbow-sequined shirt similar to Ray's but less gauzy, and tight black trousers long enough that the flaring bottoms slightly overlapped the top of his black skates. His crest was enameled the same dark gray as his fur, but the outer edges were painted with a stunning rainbow chrome effect. The colors shifted with the movements of his head.

It didn't matter that Dotta already knew about her feelings for Ray or that she approved of it – Quar's ears burned when her eyes first met Dotta's, and she wondered what the other Rriigkhan knew. She squashed down the desire to glance away, and instead let her gaze shift naturally between the two males.

“Jhoru –“ Dotta began an introduction, but as she turned and saw the gray male clutching at the other, she broke into a purring pant of laughter and reached out to clasp his hands and remove him from the blue male. “Jhoru, you are going to knock Fhelthaus over if you keep hanging onto him like that! Tilt your toe stop down against the ground and you won't move. Yes, like that. If you lose your balance you mustn't grab anyone else or you'll take them down with you.”

Formal introductions did not matter to Rriigkhans, not when everyone could see each other's name and caste in AR just by looking at them, but Dotta was in the habit because of the amount of time she spent around humans. Still holding Jhoru by one hand, who no longer tottered because he'd set his stopper against the floor, she turned partially back to Quar and gestured to her with the other hand. “Quar Delfhan Nrahu, Tsarkeh of Narrgharitha. These are horth Jhoru Khinitouhrs and Fhelthaus Grahn Ghirrol. Both are competitive Lahk players, on the Sathay team. Like you, they are visiting Integrity for only a while, but perhaps planning to relocate. I hope I have impressed you enough for you to stay.” The last was obviously meant for Jhoru, because Dotta leaned in to tap him on the nose with her fingerpad. Horth was the politest way of denoting members of a subordinate caste, still of Hohntotah but without specifying the caste exactly. Quar acknowledged them both with a touch of her two fingers to the rim of her crest above an ear.

“And this is Ray Tanner, my chief Flow Manager. He keeps all of my lovely fountains running, among so many other things.” Dotta explained his role with pride while her tail curled and uncurled behind her. She spoke as though his work was no less important than the males' athletic accomplishments, or that Quar belonged to a particularly prestigious House.

“We spend much of our time in Valais,” Fhelthaus added, pronouncing the name as Faahly. Although he stood levelly, he held his arms and tail stiffly out a bit from his body, like he expected to have to use them to help balance himself at any moment. “The climate here is quite a change. I am still shedding my coat.”

–

“Let me know if it’s too tight,” Ray was saying just as Dotta arrived, momentarily glancing up at Quar for her feedback. Now and again he saw Rriigkhan wearing things on their feet – some of the sportier hill-sprinters who made a game of running Catalina’s 20-mile peakline wore cleated, open-toed ‘shoes’ that gave them an almost opposable grip with their claws, even on bare boulders, and of course Ray had fitted dozens of pairs of flippers (and defitted a good portion of those a few minutes later). But these ‘boots’ lace past Quar’s ankles, attractive as they were (he thought they gave her a sleek look that fit will with the rest of her costume), were likely to be a bit of an adjustment for her. He glanced back over his shoulder, but waited until his fingers had made a big bow of the double-knotted lace on that first foot before he turned the whole way around, straightened up to his full height, and touched his thumb and forefinger to his temple the way Dotta had taught him, when he wasn’t intentionally being down-casted.

While Fhelthaus acknowledged Quar, his ankles moved slightly back and forth, as all that stiffness translated every little wiggle and shift into a correction on his skates, exacerbating the problem by making all the more likely his skates would simply fly out from beneath him at any given moment. It was a strange look for him, as lithe and obviously body-tuned as he was, and contrasted with Dotta’s ease on the skates. He wasn’t quite as tall as Dotta, but he was lanky and long-armed for a male, all the better for sneaking the shuttlecock-like, eponymous lahk through the scrums of males when they played. As they were competitive, though, both he and Jhoru were probably used to the tight clothing; bodysuits were almost necessary to keep males from grabbing at ruffs or loose tail-flags in the confusion of a scrum. His eyes flicked at Ray at the introduction, but his attention largely returned to Quar with just the appropriate level of interest. As Dotta’s companion at the moment, it would hardly do to incite some jealous display between two females with abutting territories (socially speaking, at least at the moment). However, he was only a companion of interest, and it was better to keep his options open. One didn’t go through the trouble of modulating fur and pad colors to the fashion if they didn’t intend to be noticed.

“There are tufts of fur everywhere,” Jhoru replied, sliding his tongue out between his teeth in jest, as if Fhelthaus was shedding into his mouth. He, by contrast, had made the appropriately polite gesture that downcasted himself, tipping his crest forward (and sending glints and sparkles from the edge of his crest, reflecting off the multitude of lights surrounding the open circles). He, on the other hand, spared a glance for Quar, but seemed to have a particular interest in watching Ray.

.

Ray was used to that kind of dichotomy. Even if he interacted with few males who weren’t like Vern, and seemed to fall outside the typical social dynamics, he’d become used to this sort of dichotomy between being invisible or an object of curiosity. As he understood it (which was to say, poorly, and based more on anecdote than anything reliable), males were often the casual ‘ambassadors’ between standoffish females, or between those of incompatible castes or even houses. Males might jockey for attention or particular appointments or stewardships they wanted, but the social expectations of male Rriigkhan were that they would likely get along with anyone.

But did that include humans? Humans were chelhautah at best… Right up until when Dotta seemed to treat her guests as equals, and her human works as artisans. Rumors had it that human males acted as though they were female, which might make it difficult for someone like Jhoru to know whether he would find Ray standoffish or immediately accepting, but tonight, given how Ray was dressed much like the rest of them, it made it easier to see him as a ‘real’ male. Potentially.

“You are in charge of the fountains! How stimulating! I have been admiring the sculpture in the large rink, but I cannot place it with certainty. In some ways it reminds me of Quin, Haaran, and Tensatosh from the romance of Langoorr. Do you know—”

.

Ray kept his grin to his eyes alone, which met Jhoru’s but didn’t linger, as he was still feeling the male out; he did, however, interrupt. “I actually just make sure the fountain always has desalinated water pressure. But I always wondered about it, too! I really like that one in particular.”

“Very much,” Jhoru agreed, with no sign of judgment as he understood Ray’s less exalted status. Fhelthaus, on the other hand, seemed to be patiently waiting for the conversation to finish, or maybe slightly less than patient as Jhoru and Ray’s mutual glance toward each of the Tsarkehs - in particularly notable unison on the part of the two males – seemed poised to drag it on.

But Ray returned to his knees once more, propping the second skate on his thigh, with tongue held wide for her. “Actually—” He closed the tongue and touched her foot. “When I first skated as a kid, they gave me one skate to try on first, to get used to it while I still had one foot for stability. Do you want to give that a whirl, or just go ‘gung-ho’,” (he used the English word, instead of the bland Cant equivalent) “and commit to both at once?”

–

“Keen eye,” Dotta said to Jhoru with a gentle wag. Quar's brows lifted only minimally to Ray – she'd noticed the fountain, but hadn't gone close enough to inspect it. “The statue is from the romance of Langoorr, one of my favorite stories. There is a bust of Langoorr herself in one of the more secluded rinks, with notches in her tines for every year she was forced to be apart from her loves. It faces the fountain. This park evokes a romantic mood, does it not? That was my intention, anyway, when I created so many intimate areas half-hidden among the trees.” She gestured vaguely toward another, smaller rink that could be partially seen through the thin forest of eucalyptus, where only a few people skated. “Or at least, that is the mood when the Plaza is not being used as a rink. This field is only in place two days out of the month.”

“The real Langoorr died in the very war that kept them all apart, if my memory is correct. How strangely germane,” Fhelthaus murmured, looking off into the forest with his ears tucked back rather than at any of them. Jhoru sighed through his nose, but cocked his head in a way that seemed to convey only mock exasperation rather than annoyance. Dotta's eyes were lidded for a moment as she cast her gaze down, but her posture did not change and a moment later she was her normal self.

“Langoorr was never a real person, but an amalgamation of several members the old Tsarueff caste who lived hundreds of years apart,” Quar interjected, totally oblivious to what had almost dampened the mood and proud of the fact that she knew so much about that particular subject. The war didn't concern her at all; it was going to be an annoyance, but it wasn't as if any Rriigkhan would die in modern warfare.

While Ray laced her first skate, Quar had leaned back against the picnic table to rest her elbows on the tabletop, so her arms jutted out over the edges and her paws hung down in a relaxed half-curl. With one foot snug inside its skate, she experimentally rolled it back and forth on the floor right beside Ray's knee and thought, I can see how it could be fun to glide around like this. She set her toe stop against the ground to listen to the wheels spin. At his question she stopped though, and snorted, ears flicking back and swiveling forward again. Her head wobbled cockily, just a little. One hand twitched, but she didn't change her position.

“I will be fine with both. It can't be that difficult.” She curled the toes of her naked paw inward to wriggle down into the smaller gap he'd created, then uncurled them to push impatiently against the tongue, urging him to let her entire paw in.

“...It is actually quite difficult if you have never been roller skating before,” Dotta said. With her hands on her hips her knees parted and her ankles came together to roll herself back. Seemingly without effort, she rolled forward again to her original position. Her tail was curled up loosely behind her and her jaws had parted slightly, broadcasting slight amusement, although her tone had been purely practical. Fhelthaus chuffed dryly.

“We should have thought to do that,” he said, glancing slyly aside at his fellow male. “You might have had fewer falls, Jhoru.”

“I am not the one whose knees smell of crushed succulents.” Jhoru answered dryly and with a slow sweep of his tail without returning that look. He kept a serious face pointed forward, his gaze languidly alternating between all of the others, but the tilt of his ears said this was only some playful ribbing.

Quar made a sniffy sound that clearly meant psh and waited for her laces to be tied.

“Perhaps it was selfish of me to invite you, Quar,” Dotta said. She was idly walking in place with a scissoring motion of her legs. “I suspected you had never skated before, but skating has recently become favorite activity of mine, and I did hope you might enjoy it enough to join me again once we become neighbors. There is also a competitive sport performed on skates that may interest you, though you won't see that here, tonight.”

“Hr?” It was a sound of only mild interest because Quar was distracted by the logistics of standing. When her laces were tied, she waited for Ray to move out from in front of her, then leaned forward to look down over her knees while she once again experimentally rolled both skates back and forth across the ground to feel the way the boots constricted the movement of her ankle just a little, and to sense the movement of the wheels under her pads. Distantly she could smell alarm but of course was determined to ignore it; unthinkingly, she reached out a hand to Ray so he could steady her, and she set the toe stop of both skates against the ground. She stood up slowly, awkwardly on her toes, thighs quivering because they were doing all of the work lifting the bulk of her body instead of her calves. The grip of one hand almost crushed Ray's while she held the other arm away from her body for balance.

“Good! Now you'll –“ Dotta started, but as soon as Quar lowered the wheels of one foot against the ground, that skate shot out from under her and she sat down hard on the bench, unintentionally. Her hand tugged against Ray's, but the fall was short enough that being tugged wouldn't yank him around. She exhaled noisily in surprise when she sat and immediately a flush of shame burned in her ears, which snapped back under her crest. Her tail whipped several times under the table, bumping against the underside, before it calmed down. Jhoru winced in sympathy; Fhelthaus politely averted his gaze. Quar's muzzle was ducked so she wasn't looking at any of them.

“You'll fall a lot worse than that,” Dotta said lightly. “That's how you learn to skate.”

–

“Whoopsidaisy!” The word just slipped out of Ray’s mouth before he could catch himself, and he didn’t really have time to consider it. Surrounded by his co-workers, he likely would have been teased about being from Minnesota (‘Okiedokie!’, ‘Cheese and Crackers!’ and ‘Golly!’ were some of their favorite joking rejoinders); among the Rriigkhan they weren’t likely to understand it as anything more than a random human word. In any case, he’d gone wincing through Quar’s grip on his hand (if her hand was human, she might have cracked a bone or two, but there were some benefits to her big mitt and tall fingers) to bracing his feet to keep from ending up in her lap at the sudden surprise of the tug.

It wasn’t really necessary, and she likely would have caught him if he did fall forward that far, but Ray still checked himself as he straightened, drawing his shoulders up and square. His brows lowered in thought – Dotta was probably going to be a far better teacher than he was. He never even successfully taught Oranda to ride a bike. Still he added a nod of agreement to Dotta’s advice. “Falling a lot is part of it. You’re lucky that it doesn’t hurt! Learning to ice-skate, I came home covered in bruises. Okay, let’s try something different. Don’t put your toe-stops down, or you’re going to crush my toes, Ghara.” That last word had a provisional sound to it; he still wasn’t entirely sure of Dotta’s goal, but he heard other Rriigkhan employees use it with her often enough.

The toes of each of his shiny black dancing shoes (which would promptly be recycled when the night was over) tapped in against the front of her wheels, offering her an alternative to the toe stops. Offering her both hands, Ray leaned back – though it would still take mostly Quar’s strength to raise her – and then retreated a half-step, so he wasn’t pressed up against her. The palms of both hands were warm inside hers, and a bit of color had risen to his face, but he kept her eyes on her, watching for wobbling. “You can use the bench against your legs until you’re ready. Try not to use the toe stops too much, though – just lean on me.”

Slowly Ray backed away, still holding his hands up for her to hold onto, or grip if she needed sudden support, so she could roll after him without doing anything. “The wheels will angle a bit if your feet lean. That’s the best way to do gentle turns, or control your speed. Like the way Ghara Dotta made herself move by cutting her skates further and closer apart – that’s a good way to practice, and a good way to control your speed…”

He kept walking backward, only glancing back when he heard skaters go whooshing by behind him, cutting around them as though they were in the way (they weren’t, but some people!), and after a few more steps, he let go of one hand so she could describe a wide half-circle back toward the table. That was likely to be the more disastrous maneuver, but he had to remind himself that the only thing on Quar that would get hurt by a tumble was her pride – and maybe her bellbottoms. “You are so tall in skates! It’s just a few inches, but I don’t even come up to your shoulders.”

Back at the bench, Jhoru seemed to have become distracted by another group of skaters, and was clomping around in a circle to watch them go by. While the majority of skaters had the typical 2+2 roller skates (and a bare majority had the basic brown skates with glittery red wheels like Ray would be picking up shortly), a group of human men and women wearing brightly-colored spandex were whizzing about on everything but the usual. Ray recognized roller-blades, since the hockey players in Minnesota would wear them in the off-season, but these only had two wheels, front and back, on hinged, springy extension that seemed to absorb impact or maybe give them a boost. The woman wearing those had her feet cutting back and forth so fast it looked like a dance. One man had his feet through a pair of rings about nine inches in diameter, with a wheel fitted into each ring, and while he wasn’t as acrobatic, his sinuating, sidewinding motion was hypnotic to watch. The most intriguing alternative wasn’t really a skate at all, but a sort of ‘puck’ that seemed to interact with the field and must have required tremendous balance, even if the rider made it look easy. He couldn’t do any tricks beside spinning like a top while traveling in a line, but even subtle leaning would send him curving off in a different direction mid-pass.

Ray didn’t notice any of this; he was too busy watching Quar and grinning at her. “I hope you’re a quick learner, though. In a few minutes when I get skates on, I’m going to be the one leaning on you to keep from falling over.”

–

Holding onto Ray while she stood made it easier, and after a moment of standing with her thighs against the bench Quar nodded for Ray to tug her along. She still wobbled, but her fingers tightening on his was enough to stop her leaning too far to one side or the other. She stared intently down between their hands at her feet for the first several seconds that he pulled her along, her hoop crest-rings resting in her ruff and her back-facing ears rapidly twitching and turning like they could keep her balance for her. The heat of embarrassment faded quickly. She was too busy concentrating to chastise herself for being so cocky.

“Keep your eyes up. You'll distract yourself if you only watch your own paws,” Dotta suggested, moving fluidly back again on her skates to give Quar room to make her circuit. “And don't move your legs like you're walking – shift your weight between your legs instead.”

When he first let go of her hand Quar almost did tumble; she swayed at the waist, but pulled herself upright with her core muscles while her tail whipped out behind to balance herself. (Their tails were one of the reasons that, generally, Rriigkhans tended to master skating faster than humans.)

“I can't turn!” she exclaimed, on the verge of laughing at how ludicrous that was. She'd heard his advice, but she was afraid of her skates shooting out from under her again if she moved them too much. Her resulting path was much straighter than she'd intended.

“Shift just a little more of your weight to the left... good.” Dotta's half-curled tail wagged a little faster, and her tongue poked out into the part between her upper and lower teeth. Fhelthaus was watching all of this, too, but silently, with eyes narrowed just a little while he glanced between Quar, Ray, and Dotta. His tail swished in soft, sinuous curlicues down near his ankles. Quar didn't notice that – she was busy trying to lean, trying to shift her weight like they were telling her, until she'd completed her janky circle and come back around to the picnic table, where she wedged one leg against the bench and stopped the other foot with her toe against the ground. She could already tell this activity would work their leg muscles quite a bit, and felt a little guilty she'd kept Ray out in the water for so long. He had warned her about that.

“You'll have your inches back in a moment,” Quar said, briefly squeezing his hand before releasing his fingers. Then her tongue flicked nervously out over her lips just below her nose, and she laughed while her ears tilted back. “I hope I am a quick learner. I feel like a kit learning to walk, and already I've made an ass of myself.” She glanced aside at Dotta and Fhelthaus to include them in that conversation, though most of her focus was on Ray.

Dotta sidled up next to Fhelthaus and slipped her arm through his to loosely clasp his hand. He wobbled a little as he looked up at her, but he already had one stopper against the ground. The thoughtful curlicues he traced with his tail transitioned to a wagging motion instead. He covered their clasped paws with his free hand, to stroke the fur of her wrist.

“Do you boys want more time in the learning rink?” Dotta asked, lifting her muzzle to look at Jhoru after first meeting Fhelthaus' eyes. The charcoal male had turned to face the rest of the group with perky ears and a high tail. He, like Quar, had his calf braced against the bench to steady himself.

“We must accompany your friends, of course,” Jhoru said, reaching out to touch the tabletop with his fingertips so he could gesture with his other hand without throwing himself off balance. “And I would benefit from more practice.” Fhelthaus hummed his agreement.

“Ray, we'll keep an eye on Quar if you'd like to fetch your skates,” Dotta said. “There is a low wall in the beginner rink that you can hold onto while you make your way around. Both of you should find that helpful.”

Unease prickled down Quar's spine. She loathed to be left alone with two strangers and a female she still did not know very well, but after a glance at all that empty space between the table and the line at the window she decided not to embarrass herself any further trying to tag along with him. She would need to be tugged to cover that much distance right now.

“Go on,” she said to Ray, lifting a hand because she was going to touch his shoulder, but Quar checked herself; that hand balled into a loose fist which she pulled in against her chest instead. Her jaw cracked open in a tiny smile for his benefit. “We'll be wobbly kits together! I'm a little worried about crushing you, though, if I fall.”

–

One convenient feature of this feathered hair – or whatever the mousse was he’d combed into it – was that locks of it didn’t fall forward into Ray’s eyes whenever he glanced down. Somehow, the bellbottoms didn’t become a problem, either; he’d worried they’d tangle up in the skates or he’d end up stepping on them and tripping, but they never quite swept the ground, no matter how they swept out from beneath his calves. For all that these shiny pants felt like they’d been sprayed on, they weren’t actually uncomfortable or clumsy. Yet. They did swish around his ankles as he walked with Quar, and the thin material of his shirt tended to flutter at the slightest gust.

“Beside leaning, if you turn your foot a little so you’re pushing …not parallel to the wheels – yeah. I didn’t know if that would make sense. That’s a good way to turn. Lean on one leg, push with the other foot—yeah!” Too much congratulation would just come off as patronizing, he thought, but Quar did have a better sense of balance than most humans who hadn’t been regularly practicing, so the majority of Ray’s enthusiasm was legitimate, unforced, as he realized she didn’t need his help. Naturally, he wanted her to succeed, he wanted her to enjoy herself; even if he hadn’t been the one to invite her, he felt a responsibility for this outing that really probably shouldn’t have been on his shoulders, as if he were the human representative for skating. No… no, it was more than that, or different. Because it was Quar, because of his feelings for her, he wanted everything to be puppies and golden sunshine, without difficulty or struggle. It wasn’t healthy; he knew it. Trying to pin her happiness on the revometer would only put her in a position to feel forced to fake a response.

At least Ray could use the semi-fiction of his position as nwohl to retreat into in correction. He had to be more cognizant of appearances.

“Honestly, anyone who didn’t fall a few times would be a little suspect. Anyway, everyone feels like ass, but nobody really looks like one. Or at least, I hope you don’t think of me that way when I end up on mine.” Right. Cognizant of appearances. Why would Quar care what he looked like? He glanced Dotta’s way, but since he hadn’t noticed any admonishing glances so far, he let it slide instead of correcting.

A moment later, after a last touch of Ray’s fingertips to the back of Quar’s hands, he was striding off along the walkway, bottom and thighs glinting through silvery creases and blunted reflections in the disco lighting as he made his way toward the table. Fhelthaus and Jhoru each had one of Dotta’s arms now, and were slowly windmilling around her hub in the center, practicing their shaky, wobbly turns. Fhelthaus in particular seemed to catch on to the idea of simpler, longer movements, and the way that pushing with the outside leg could tilt his hips and extend the line of his thigh in an appealing way, and was eager to show Jhoru so he could match him.

Mid-laughter, and broken a few times with the wobble that went right from his hips, up through his core and into his voice, Fhelthaus spoke to Quar as he passed. “Ghara Dotta had mentioned that your kheri was once your nwohl. Humans mystify me, though Dotta says I will see they are not so complicated. But this one seemed quite devoted. A good fit for the role.”

“Humans,” Jhoru opined, while he practiced those long, confident strokes from the opposite side, “might just teach women how to share.” His ears winked, one up, one down, and his tail flipped through amused circles, but he hooked his arm, holding it for Quar so she could join their train and practice her turns, too, even if it put him in the unusual place between two females.

- - -

Queuing might have still existed in impromptu settings, when a customer wait wasn’t expected, but at the table, Ray merely had to sidle up beside some others waiting for their skates and – in lieu of tapping his id or syncing an internal identifier, speak his guild number loud enough for the machine to hear. Francis and Kheehar were talking with a gaggle of humans in their late twenties about the later itinerary – Sweetheart Skates and Disco Fever and Midnight Madness, when holo projectors would take over and turn the Grove into a fantasy land for the lasts hour – but Tam took the little templastic chit the computer printed out and slid it to Ray, so he could claim his skates when the dot on it buzzed and flashed green.

“Ray!” Kheehar was probably the most outgoing Rriigkhan working for Dotta, and that was a high bar to pass. He had a black ‘cowl’ of fur that covered his face and back, wrapped over his shoulders and hips and the base of his tale, but beneath it a band of cinnamon-colored fur gave way to buff and then an almost-white. The piecing holes in his little crest had been filled with spangly stars on springs that wobbled whenever he moved, and provided quite a bit more pizzazz than his tight Integrity uniform tunic. “You are getting basic skates? I thought you were an expert! Francis told me you used to play Horkee!”

Ray laughed and shook his head. “Well, if you knew what hockey was and then looked at me, you wouldn’t have believed her. But, no – I haven’t skated in at least 20 years. I’ve already prebooked a bed at the medic for when this is over.”

“Pffaah! Kesh,” he said, covering his mouth and then glancing to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. “You will be fine. It is just like dancing, and I know you can do that.” When Ray’s little chit dinged, Kheehar swept it out of his fingers, huffed a laugh, and fed it to the machine on the end of the shelves behind him, which had finished producing the uppers and matching them to the wheel platform that matched. “Do you need help putting them on? My knots are quite good.”

“Nah, thanks.” Ray glanced back over his shoulder, looking for Quar at the bench. “I’ll catch up with you soon, though. See you later?”

–

As Quar turned to watch Ray head over to the skate exchange, her gaze naturally lingered on his bottom for a moment... until a new, sharper awareness of her surroundings bled into her perceptions and she quickly averted her gaze while a replay of the last several minutes flashed through her mind. Was she behaving appropriately? Was her treatment of Ray significantly different from the way she might act toward Cal? Her khar vitra was comfortable enough with Quar to “jay kay” her, (A human expression which meant to trick or joke, although Quar never had understood its origins.) Quar wouldn't have flinched away from Cal plucking a speck of debris out of the fluff in her ears, or pressing on her pad to make her spread her toes so she could get dirt out of her claws with a pick. (Quar noticed that was something all of her human groomers had done, and wondered if it was part of a training manual until Cal explained, “Nah, that's just how you get a cat to spread its paw out.” Quar suspected that ought to have offended her, but she was only amused.) Now that Ray was gone and she was alone with strangers, a security blanket had been stripped away and Quar felt their scrutiny more intently, even if it was only imagined.

“Yes, he is quite devoted,” Quar agreed, her attention snapping eagerly to Fhelthaus as an avenue of escape from her inner thoughts. She looked down at her paws and tried to rock herself forward, arms and tail all stretching out a little, then forced her muzzle up so she wouldn't be staring at the floor. It was hard to get herself rolling, but then once she was, it was easy to keep going by shifting her weight from side to side. She planned to roll in another circle near the table, this time without Ray's support. Her gaze was trained intently on the path ahead of herself, but she frequently glanced up at the people skating quickly along the perimeter of the neighboring rink. They weren't close, but she could see them past the trees that lined the connecting walkway and over a hedge of juniper.

“Humans fit quite naturally into Rriigkhan life with little need to modify their innate behavior,” she continued. “They thrive within hierarchies, although many of them are wasted as Chelhautah – his daughter, for example, is a surgeon. A Rriigkhan surgeon. I have been her patient.” The last was added with a touch of smugness, and Quar's neck crested with a pride she was unaware of. “I would like to see humans integrated more fully into our culture. Not just here on Earth, but on a galactic scale. It is unfortunate they are only allowed off-world under limited conditions.”

As Quar slowly rolled up to Jhoru, she linked her arm with his, and huffed laughter both at his joke and at the silly sight they must have provided. Many styles of Rriigkhan dance involved multiple males chaining their arms to weave patterns around a female in this way. If this had been a dance, Quar now occupied a male's position. Dotta's turning slowed to accommodate the shaky toddler they'd added to their strange configuration of dancers.

“Humans share far worse than we do,” Quar said. “Their Tsarkehs give back nothing to those in their spheres.”

“Their Tsarkehs?” Jhoru asked, head tilting to look at Quar from an angle while the ear closest to her perked with curiosity.

“She refers to their wealthiest individuals,” Dotta said mildly. She did not explain further. Jhoru and Fhelthaus both had lived on Earth long enough that, if they had any interest in those topics, they would already know the basics of human governance and class systems. If they did not already know she was likely to bore them explaining.

“Humans act as if they've no responsibilities to one another or to their planet,” Quar pressed on. “They were sorely in need of stewards when we arrived.”

“Hn, responsibilities,” Fhelthaus echoed thoughtfully, lifting his head to look past Dotta's shoulders and across Jhoru at Quar. “I don't envy the two of you. In the coming days your responsibilities will be many. My sister is quite upset about the proclamation – she is also here on Earth, but thinks she will be recalled to Nandrevigh. We are Fthorr, and she is a linguist; she has limited knowledge of the Graghas' language, if one can even call it that. They rarely speak person-to-person, and instead speak mind-to-mind in the same constructed language they use to speak to their machines. We still understand it poorly.”

“These Tsarkehs don't want to think about that tonight, Fhel!” Jhoru chided him with a waggle and snap of his tail. (A gentle snap, to interfere less with his balance.) He also leaned forward to see his friend beyond Dotta. “You mustn't say too much around the human, either. Extrasolar Stewardship believes they must still be coddled.” That was added derisively; he already knew that Dotta likely supported a free exchange of information.

Quar had checked out of the conversation a little. Jhoru's tail snap hadn't affected her at all, but she'd tensed up believing it would. Now she tottered on her skates, torso swaying like a hula hooper, which caused her to tug on his arm. Jhoru's grip on her tightened, too, and before she knew what was happening one of Quar's skates was slipping out from under her, this time behind, and she went down hard on one knee while yanking him backward. Jhoru's skates clacked noisily while he scrambled for purchase he would never find, but before he could thud down on his butt Dotta caught him under the armpits. She'd had to release Fhelthaus, who flew away on his own, wobbling but correcting before he could fall, too.

Jhoru burst into startled laughter first, still hanging there in Dotta's hands with his knees bent as if he were sitting and his skates on the ground, but none of his weight on them. Quar and Dotta exchanged glances and began laughing too, and by the time Fhelthaus curved back around to rejoin them all four were huffing like steam engines.

“Ligkkh, Ghara Quar!” Jhoru finally managed to blurt out as Dotta picked him up with an arm around his back.

“It was my fault,” Quar said mirthfully, her tail thumping rapidly on the ground while she watched them with bright eyes and waited for Jhoru to move away. She didn't want to get up while he was nearby and risk grabbing him if she lost her balance again.

–

While Quar was still on the ground, Ray came whizzing from the direction of the concession shack. Following his own advice – sort of – he had on only one skate, and held up his socked foot like a silver flamingo. For all his unsteadiness, he was moving quite quickly. Limited as a human as he was, instead of the springlike structure of a Rriigkhan leg, his was a near-rigid pillar, which meant all the wobbling was passed directly up to his hips, and his balance checks were made in the hips and shoulders, and what should have been flailing arms. He looked a bit like a block tower, where the smallest teetering at a lower level would exaggerate into toppling at the top level. His skate had some feature in the bearings that actually made that whizzing, buzzing sound at this speed, though without seeming to slow him down in the process.

Under one arm, Ray held his other brown skate, laces tucked against the tongue, and occasionally that came flying out as a counterweight, and would have made quite the bludgeoning weapon if anyone had been close. Under the other, he held a tray full of pouch waters. They were after the Rriigkhan fashion, meant to be punctured by the teeth and gulped down rather than supped from, though a human concession had been added to the design in a corner that could be popped open or snapped shut. The water was naturally full of the Rriigkhan biota that open-air Catalina was so lacking in (and to which Ray was now well-accustomed), but little tabs, along the side, when pinched, would add additional flavors.

Ray’s eyes were wide, a bit wild with the thrill of the speed and the uncertainty of his arrival. “Meep meep!” He veered wide enough to be entirely clear of Quar’s hand, but arrived at the bench of the picnic table with a barely controlled crash, socked foot absorbing his speed before he flopped to a sitting position to soak up the rest. The tray with waters he protected like it was full of raw eggs, but the loose skate tumbled from his hand and the table clanked against its moorings. “Skating is thirsty business, so I got some water in case anyone was already parched,” he announced generally, before he twisted to go fishing under the table for the other skate. “Anybody want some?”

He'd extended the tray for them, but with his head under the table, it bobbed until he straightened again and held it out for each of them. For his own part, he used his thumb and a forefinger (and a healthy dose of grimacing) to pinch a little red-purple berry symbol on his pouch to release into the water. He didn’t know what it was called – the flavor didn’t have a name in Cant that he was aware of – but Dotta had turned him onto it during one of their breakfast meetings a month or so back. It was bitter, earthy – all the components of a flavor he didn’t think he’d like – but his tongue kept wanting to explore the taste anyway, and it did seem to quench thirst in a way that sugar drinks or some of the other Rriigkhan options did not.

“I still have to practice falling a bit,” he suggested as he stamped his socked foot down into the boot of the skate, and then pulled the tongue and uppers into place so he could concentrate on lacing, “But if the rest of you are ready to go hug some walls and skate in circles at the learner’s circle, I don’t mind doing it there.”

==

Quar chocked the toe of one skate against the ground while she got her other foot underneath herself again, then steadied herself with hands on the floor while rising slowly until she couldn't reach the floor anymore. Standing was a lengthy, wobbly process, but when she was up her tail rippled with pleasure. She was learning how to correct her balance with her legs so that her tail could move more freely.

Jhoru leaned into Dotta's chest perhaps a little more than he really needed to while she set him up on his feet again, his tail wagging shyly down near his feet.

“Thank you, Ray!” Dotta said, muzzle swiveling toward him even as she still held Jhoru. She lifted her cupped hands away from his sides slowly, to catch him if he slipped again, but as she saw that he was standing under his own power she rolled toward the table. Her path toward him curved and brought her close enough to comfortably pluck a water off his tray without stopping as she went past, although she once again executed a sideways brake not far from him to give others room.

“I have been practicing my own falls,” Quar said, coasting along to the table herself. She wasn't comfortable braking with her skates, and wasn't sure how to do it, exactly. If she suddenly put the stopper against the floor she could see herself being jolted off balance very easily. Instead she stretched out her hands and leaned forward to catch the edge of the table and brake that way. She looked at the bench, thinking of sitting beside Ray, but then thought better of it and helped herself to a water while standing with a leg against the bench instead. She drank hers unflavored, emptying the pouch bottom-up into her raised muzzle while the others popped flavor tabs.

There was a lot of activity happening around them as more people arrived from the gondolas, many of them heading to the picnic tables first to lace up their skates. At the table next to the one their group had claimed a mixed group of Rriigkhans and humans had brought food. It was hard to tell without checking their profiles in AR, but the humans looked like teenagers and Quar guessed the Rriigkhans were also, based on their neon-lighted wrist bands and playful energy. There was some shoulder-jostling and tail-tugging going on, and a mist of glitter twinkling in the air above the table.

She watched a human boy with a soft pretzel toasted golden brown, easily the size of Ray's head, tear off a piece and offer it to the Rriigkhan sitting next to him. The young male accepted it without hesitation and popped it into his mouth. Quar flicked on AR long enough to note that the Rriigkhan children were all from various castes of Chelhautah. Perhaps their parents worked alongside the humans' parents. The one who had taken the bite of pretzel was fifteen. He must have grown up here on Earth, alongside humans, and perhaps saw them as ordinary people rather than aliens. Maybe even his near-equal. That was the future Quar wanted for their species – humans on the Ssaarian worlds, working alongside Rriigkhans. They would be low-casters, yes, but they would be casted, and would be owed the privileges of those castes. She did not think it was likely to happen, but here on Earth she could pretend such a future was possible.

“Look!” Jhoru exclaimed, pointing at a short conga train of Rriigkhans passing through the area on their way to a larger rink. They were a nesting doll all laid out: a larger female in front, and holding onto her tail was most likely her husband, and tightly clutching his tail were twin boys around eight years old. One followed the other, both so natural on their skates, both with pale brown rosettes over tawny fur. The rosettes were likely going to deepen in color to match their mother's bold markings when they got older, if one of them didn't decide to stop being a genetic twin before then.

“Ready to hug some walls?” Dotta asked. She coasted just past Jhoru, dropping her emptied water pouch onto the tray as she passed. She slapped her tail up on Jhoru's chest while looking back over her shoulder at him, ears high and eyes filled with a playful light. He chuffed and took hold of her tail, and Fhelthaus maneuvered himself into place to take Jhoru's.

“It's awfully forward of me, Ghara Quar, but you may grab my tail,” Fhelthaus joked, elegantly lifting it in an inverted arch. He and Quar both laughed a little awkwardly, but with a backward glance at Ray and a tilt of her head to ask if he wanted to join in, she clacked over on her toes to take hold of that feathery blue tail. Her own tail stretched out toward Ray after first wagging back and forth in a sinuous S-shape.

“All aboard! Woo-woo!” Dotta called, scissoring in place on her skates again while miming the motion of a steam locomotive's pistons with her arms. She shot Quar and Ray a toothless smile over her shoulder. “I'll go slowly. All ready?”

After waiting for each of them to check in, Dotta was off, moving in a wide arc around the tables until she was out in open ground and heading for the path that lead to the beginner's area. They'd begun bunched together but soon spread out in a long train, separated by the distance of their tails, although Quar clutched Fhelthaus' tail with both hands at about the midpoint. Quar's heart leapt with excitement, even though they were moving slowly just as Dotta promised. A few times they went swaying off to one side, but Dotta rolled to a gradual stop to let them get themselves under control.

On the path, lights crisscrossed overhead. As the train passed underneath those lights, the pinks and blues and whites gleamed on the satiny gold cloth of Quar's pantsuit, and on the shiny hoops danging from her crest. The metallic colors worked into the wavy pattern on her sleeves glinted when the light caught them at just the right angle, too, and so did Jhoru's rainbow sequins. The lights and the steady beat of that music had a sort of hypnotic quality, Quar thought. The bright glittery colors seen everywhere she looked was a thrill to her eyes. Everything was movement, from the skaters themselves to the highlights sliding across their bodies.

Well, there was much less movement here in the slow rink. Adults and children alike groped along a low stucco “wall” that was actually a series of raised planters, with occasional gaps between them so people could exit out to the grass. The planters were embedded in Earth that sloped up so the plants inside were more visible from within the circle. The ledge of those planters were broad enough for a person to sit on, and beyond the ledge they were filled with mulch and a variety of California succulents, from colorful whorls of Echeveria to the giant lace aloes those whorls formed around. They were surrounded by more smooth-barked eucalyptus trees, but it was a thin forest, not one that would provide a lot of shade, and all of them were strung with lights. A circular bench around one of those trees in the very center of the rink provided another place for skaters to stop themselves and rest.

–

For Ray, the sight of Humans and Rriigkhan mingling had become second nature, and didn’t really merit a second glance. Visitors to Integrity who had to take a second glance when saw both species in the same uniform barking at the same joke reminded him of an ancient life where he’d agitated and written letters to his state representatives (hah! He’d signed his name to templates distributed by email at best), and the occasional faux pas or misstep reminded him that they were all still trying, but how many times could you bump into someone in a hallway or wait in a food line each holding trays before they just became people. There was still an obvious, palpable distinction between them – it reminded Ray in many ways of going to lesbian clubs with Michelle and her friends after she closed the shop for the night, where everyone was welcome and validated, but he and Michelle (or so he thought!) were the wrong polarity, chemically inert. Human/Rriigkhan interaction was so easily and naturally platonic that it went without saying.

That, if anything, was what Ray noticed: just how obvious and automatic the romantic dismissal between human and Rriigkhan were. Was something wrong with him? With Quar? (No! Obviously.) Were the two of them oddities, or simply groundbreakers? He thought he was being subtle about it, but lacing up the second skate was delayed as his eyes kept flicking up to her, watching the shape of her body through that getup. Their costumes were silly, but that didn’t mean they weren’t sexy, too. As much as he liked the shape her fur gave her, the leggings-tight look teased his mind into imagining his hands running over her, squeezing her bottom. The costume might belong to last-century humans, but it did things to ‘package’ her Mother’s Nest in a flattering way, too. Had they both been human, it still wouldn’t have been appropriate for him to get all handsy with her at Disco Party night, but it didn’t stop him from thinking about it.

.

With a bit of forced focus, Ray pushed himself through slaloming both laces back and forth across the bit of boot above his ankle and lacing the last eyelets so he could yank it all tight. Finally he could let the bellbottom fall back in the way to cover the laces without worrying about it, and test both feet on the ground. A few quick swoops with both skates confirmed that both made that whirring sound, but in slightly different pitches. With a heavy breath, he prepared to stand. “Tomorrow Ray is going to envy the way you don’t feel pain.” His tone was for nobody in particular, but his eyes flicked one last time to Quar before he stood, now fully appreciating just how easily his feet could come out from beneath him (it had all seemed rather harmless last night), and wobbled his way to his feet.

Almost immediately, his stance changed to the that human learner basic – pitched forward, arms spread to either side - and his skates sent him creeping forward as though of their own accord. A few practice pushes gave him the confidence to straighten up a bit, though, and make a practice loop around Quar. He, too, glanced in the direction Jhoru pointed (and it almost cost him a spill when he wobbled); rather than rely on his toe stops, his skates came back so the back wheels angled against each other in a V-shape.

“I do make a natural …caboose.” Ray shuffled to line up behind Quar and take hold of her tail; he had to pause while he tried to find the right word in Cant and give up. ‘Train’ was easy enough to translate, but ‘final train car’ lacked all the context he was looking for. “Do you know that word?” Possibly, that was answered when Dotta went full 1800’s with her train imitation.

.

At first, Ray pushed off to keep from dragging on Quar’s trail, but once they were underway, he slid back toward the end of it and kept both skates out at shoulder-with, giving him more stable mobility and the ability to swing wider, playing more the part of the back driver on a hook and ladder truck than anything that was on tracks. He needed more practice. Understeering meant dragging Quar (and the rest of the line) out dangerously wide of Dotta, but the extra speed and momentum from whipping the tail was almost worth it. Not that the speed was enough to ruffle his bell-bottoms, much less his hair, but it didn’t take all that much to plaster a massive grin across Ray’s face.

At the slow rink, Ray let go early, shooting a teasing smile toward Quar while he kept the momentum to slide by her and turn it into a curve around the circle, clattering with the outside skate to keep pushing him around the ring, and cutting a wobbly line with the inside with the inside, as his ankles hadn’t quite realized what their role was and were overcorrecting. Still, he made it once around the rink in something like a tear-drop shape before choosing a point on the planter near the other Rriigkhan and bee-lining toward it, so he could stop himself with a controlled crash and hang onto it.

.

“You have done this before!” Jhoru crowed, but before Ray could explain, Fhelthaus took each of them by a wrist to pull them away from the wall.

“We are better as a group than each on our own! Come, come, we will do this circle together.” Once they’d straightened out and were making the loop together, Ray on the inside, Fhelthaus murmured for the two of them to hear, “Ray, you must tell us if the Ng’ghara are watching. Dotta has not flagging the air with her signals for us. I think she will invite us to home tonight; Jhoru says she is cold to us. You know her; how do you read her? Or has she brought us here to meet your Tsarkeh?”

“Agggh.” Jhoru’s sound was close to the sound of coughing up a hairball. “You have let your coloring go to your mouth, Fhelt! It has no subtlety!”

--

Quar didn't know that word. She stared at Ray over her shoulder awaiting an explanation, ears swiveling toward him to show her interest, but it was Dotta who supplied the answer.

"The last train car. I learned that the first time I saw humans forming a train. As far as I know, there's no special word for it in Plenitongue. An historian might know one."

"Ah, is that what we're supposed to be? A train?" Fhelthaus asked. “I would have called us a snake.”

They weren't actually very snakelike because the train only swayed slightly left to right as it rolled along, and when Dotta brought them in close to the wall so her passengers could disembark, Quar felt more like one of several drones peeling away from a carrier ship. She lifted her muzzle and her lips parted when she caught Ray's eye as he passed, but she didn't trust herself to chase after him. She rolled alongside the planters instead, not quite groping the stucco ledge but keeping one arm outstretched so her fingers almost touched it, to catch herself when she wobbled and to push off from it when she needed to. Changing direction on her own was still difficult.

She wished that she wasn't so slow – Fhelthaus and Jhoru were already so far ahead, and Dotta had outpaced them all. The other female tucked down into a knee-hugging crouch while she zoomed along the inside of the rink to avoid the newbies clinging to the wall. Quar glanced up to see Ray across from her on the other side of their rink, and her tail curled up against her back to waggle gently.

That one is mine, she thought, her shoulders squaring with a cocky pride that she knew was silly. It probably matched her dopey expression. She wasn't even sure what she was proud of... but her heart ached with the depth of the emotions she felt now. They hadn't separated for more than a few minutes at a time in days, and still he drew her eye like a magnet. She was pretty sure her pupils dilated every time she looked at him. The world brightened when he was in it.

Quar twitched in startlement when Dotta suddenly appeared at her elbow. The other Rriigkhan was upright now. She curved about to roll backward, keeping pace just in front of Quar and toward the inside of the rink with her hands on her hips and her knees slightly bent. They were already moving slowly to begin with, but Dotta angled her muzzle so that one eye had a bit of a view over her shoulder just in case. That allowed her to watch her dates swoop Ray up and away – she twirled herself slowly around to watch it happen, and ended up facing Quar again. Both females laughed lightly at the sight before their eyes met.

“If I'd known Ray could skate I would have invited him sooner,” Dotta said, smiling in that human way at Quar. She did it so much that those expressions came naturally now, often when speaking to other Rriigkhans. Quar glanced down at Dotta's feet, mesmerized by the twin sine waves she traced with her skates, and with a prickle of jealousy for Dotta's skill. Her gaze returned to Dotta's face, and Quar's brows pulled subtly together in scrutiny.

She still did not understand Dotta. Dotta was Tsarkeh, and she owned Integrity; she could be misting pheromones now, directing all of their moods while asserting her authority and normalizing her scent for the other females in the area. It would have been a rude thing for just any female to do in public, but in this situation it would be appropriate for Dotta. (If Dotta had not been present, it would be Quar fulfilling that role.) And yet Dotta seemed to have no interest in asserting herself in that way. Nor did she mind Quar's aberrant behavior. There was absolutely no judgment.

“Dotta,” Quar said suddenly, touching her palm to the low wall to help her roll to a stop. The rough stucco scraped at her pad until she'd stopped, and then Quar left her hand there, gripping the ledge. Quar glanced away and up again, feeling awkward, forcing her ears to an upright position even though they wanted to flatten out. Dotta brought her heels together so she stopped, too, and waited with a mildly expectant expression for Quar to continue.

“I appreciate all that you've done for us. Allowing me to build here. Inviting us out.” Quar gestured at the park with her free hand. Her tail had sunk down to sway slowly near her ankles with an uncertain right-left motion, but now it curled up almost to her back again. Dotta answered Quar's smile with a wagging tail of her own, and lips that almost lifted off her teeth.

“I take it things are going well between the two of you?” Dotta asked. She was probing, but very gently. The last time they'd spoke, Quar denied that she and Ray would ever be more than friends. Quar's reaction now was to flush with shame and some measure of hostility, which she felt as a prickling across her hackles and a very slight swelling in her howrfs. Her nostrils twitched, her jaw stiffened, and she held Dotta's gaze, unwilling to look away from the female who provoked those emotions. She knew Dotta was not her enemy, but –

It was complicated. So complicated. When she was alone with Ray it all felt so perfect. She wasn't ashamed, then. But knowing that Dotta knew, somehow, filled Quar with disgust for herself, and she deflected that disgust with anger at the one who had found her out.

Dotta was the first to break their stare. She glided ahead of Quar and swiveled to face the rink. With the backs of her hands against her rear she pressed her fingertips and tail to the wall of the planter. Her toes pointed inward to stop herself rolling. Though she glanced at Quar again, she turned her gaze out to watch the rest of their party. Inexperienced skaters were wobbling past them because they were blocking the path along the wall, but they were hardly the only ones to do so – there were others, mostly children, clacking along while hugging the wall that the older or slightly steadier skaters had to go around.

“I will not pry, then. But Ray seems happy, and I am grateful to you for that. I hope you are happy, too. Ah!” They both glanced up as one because the lights strung along the trees had changed. Before they had been solid white or pastel colors. Now, as the color of the sky slowly edged from blue toward a bruised gray, the lights switched to their nighttime mode. Now the lights pulsed along the strings in step with the rhythm of the music. The end of Dotta's tail, which was curled over her own ankle, thumped against her skate while she faced Quar with another smile. “I love it when that happens. This forest gets so pretty when full night falls.”

Quar wished that she could say something meaningful. She wished that she could gush about just how happy she was, but those words were locked away inside herself and she didn't know how to free them. She settled on irrelevant chit-chat instead.

“It is beautiful,” Quar agreed, making a show of looking around so she wouldn't have to look directly at Dotta. The hand on the ledge relaxed its grip. “This entire island is beautiful. This skate happens bi-weekly? I might like to come again next time, if I'm free that day.”

==

“If Ghara Dotta invited you here and didn’t tell you otherwise,” Ray began carefully, finding a tone better suited to an Integrity employee than a co-equal, “I think the safe assumption is that she wants your company.” A pang of jealousy had struck him when Fhelthaus mentioned the possibility that they were being set up with his Quar, even though he immediately knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t think those kinds of emotions produced scents as strong as the ones he and Quar left on each other, but it was better to deflect than dwell on it.

The three of them made for a wobbly line, but Ray’s tendency to pitch forward and the Rriigkhan sideways top-heaviness did balance each other out a bit when he was between them.

“She is trying to persuade us to domicile here,” Jhoru chimed in, to which Fhelthaus nodded consideringly.

“Possibly, though, because she wishes the island to have its own Lahk squad.” Fhelthaus seemed inclined toward pessimism, or worry, though with his ears up and his tail making tentative circles, his constant half-glances back at Dotta didn’t match his words.

“He wants to crawl into Dotta’s howrftubes,” Jhoru explained in a murmur intentionally just loud enough for Fhelthaus to overhear, along with his deep-throated hrrrfing chortle.

But that teasing just rolled off Fhelthaus’s spoke-tined crest; if anything, he held his head higher, like he was lifting his nose to scent the air. “I practice Schorr Haufuur. It’s the subliming of the conscious mind to the commands of the howrf. There is no human equivalent.”

That last was just a little bit haughty, enough to raise Ray’s brows and glance sidelong at the taller Rriigk. “Yeah. I guess the human equivalent isn’t… well, isn’t equivalent.”

Fhelthaus continued, while Jhoru, on the opposite side, rolled his ears to turn away, and let his tail swish in annoyance. “It is a quite ancient secular religion, and devotees, always male, are quite desirable.” That, Ray though, was more important to the Rriigkhan than were the moments of ecstatic bliss. “And what is desirable to us is the control Ghara Dotta has over her howrfs. She who can prevent painting the air with every thought usually has the most potent gris. It is a saying.”

“It’s a made-up saying—” Jhoru began to argue before Ray intervened.

“Earlier, when you called Dotta’s train a snake—We could do that. If you want to attract her attention, that would be a good way. Here…” Cautiously, core muscles trembling to prevent the wobble again, Ray steered them toward an empty spot on the wall, though when the other two let go of his wrists, he promptly fell smack on his bottom. Eyes watering, Ray laughed it off (though neither of the Rriigkhan males seemed to consider the pain aspect of it, and dragged himself back up by the planter wall to regain his feet again. “Okay, you take my waist – right there, hands on my hips, and then Fhelthuas, you take his, instead of his tail. We are going to skate just by leaning, left and right, but out of sequence, so I will lean right, then Jhoru, then Fhelthaus, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, like that, right? But slowly, until we get the hang of it.”

.

In Ray’s mind, it had worked better, but once Jhoru had them counting together (using Rriigkhan words Ray didn’t know, rather than Cant), and they spread out just a bit more to the length of the pair’s longer arms, Ray added a little bit of a sideways kick with it, too, and they picked up speed (at least compared to the rest of the learner’s circle). “Not so Fast!” Jhoru protested, but through a squeal of happiness, and it was Fhelthaus behind them pushing. All three of them were laughing, even when a pair of human women stumbled into a heap in front of them, and their little snake-line went ditching into the smooth field to prevent running them over.

“Ghara Dotta!” Fhelthaus was already saying while still trying to get back on his skates and move in her direction at the same time. “Try with your hands here.” He touched his own waistline, before adding with a calculated demureness. “If that is not too forward. Come, Jhoru, you are dawdling!”

Now that he had gotten a couple of falls in, Ray felt a little more comfortable about how to lean on his skates – the ache in his thighs and ass were a familiar part of the old balance equation. Dotta’s field wasn’t quite as unforgiving as a waxed wooden floor – somehow, it could be rigid for skates while allowing the occasional fallen leaf through to the tiles beneath, and it similarly understood when it was a human crashing into it and offered a bit of thin cushioning – but it still beat him up. It was, though, a pleasant ache.

Ray rolled up to Quar, stopping himself with an arc that turned his forward momentum into angular just past her. “Ghara Quar. We have discovered that we are more stable with a little more body contact. If it is not too forward…”

Jhoru, overhearing, burst out with throaty laughter.

==

“Right. I'd have to consult the calendar, but I believe the next skate, in two weeks time, will be Yehish themed,” Dotta said, referring to one of the first off-world Rriigkhan colonies, which had developed its own distinctive culture. At the height of its relevancy, clothing styles and even clothing colors were strictly gated according to caste, but through the course of history ideas about fashion had morphed so much that dressing as a Yehish Chelhautah wouldn't be demeaning to any modern person. There were dances, music, and cuisine also strongly associated with Yehish, and Quar just knew the concession stand would be serving fried tthonka skin on such a night. Her mouth watered a little thinking about that.

Dotta interrupted Quar's thought by exclaiming, “Oh, they've had a tumble!” She pushed off from the wall to weave deftly between a couple of slow skaters until she was stopped at Fhelthaus' side. He was already mostly to his own feet by then, but Dotta offered a paw anyway while asking “You're all right, Ray? Good.” She could see that they were all laughing, though, and her curled up tailed wagged sympathetically with their good humor.

Quar was a few moments behind, rolling much more smoothly than she had been, but with her knees bent slightly to lower her center of gravity and the occasional shaky totter. The trip from the wall over to the rest of them had been the farthest she'd moved on her own, and the fastest.. and it was fun. She tried to stop herself by turning one skate inward the way she'd seen others do, while clomping the other foot down very ungracefully. Still, although she pivoted on one skate and rocked forward a little before she caught her balance, it worked!

The shame from earlier lingered, and that meant Quar hesitated at Ray's request. Her hands rose like she was going to reach for him, then curled into loose fists that she held at her ribs instead. She held them there only another moment before a throaty purr rolled out from her parted jaws, punctuated by an amused huff of air. She straightened the foot currently turned inward so she could roll even closer to Ray and settle her paws over his hips, thumbs stroking at that glossy material. Glancing up, she saw that Fhelthaus was already leading the other Rriigkhans off around the middle of the rink, this time with Jhoru as the “caboose” and Dotta happily sandwiched between the two males. Patrick Hernandez's Born to Be Alive was the perfect music for that left-right bobbing dance they were doing now. It looked immensely fun.

Although the music was not as loud as it might be in a human-only venue, it did mask distant conversation, and the traffic in the little rink was low enough that there was no one immediately nearby. Quar bent to bring her muzzle closer to Ray's ear, so she could husk playfully into it.

“I have been waiting all night for a chance to get my hands on your ass. I love how it fills these silver pants,” she purred, although she didn't really grab his ass. That would have been too much. Her heart was already racing at the danger of what she was doing. She did, however, splay her fingers out a little to grip more of his hips when she gave him a discreet squeeze, thumbs pressing into the fleshy bit just where his buttocks joined his back. Her tail naturally wanted to curl up when it wagged, she was finding, because it would interfere with her balance less when it was closer to her back. Now it wagged with wild glee.

==

That little hesitation on Quar’s part – the paws-up pause – was just the right amount of time for Ray’s head to cock subtly, tipping to the side, and for his brows to notch up as if to say, ‘No?’ His hips nudged to the left, keeping time with the driving bass, intending to tempt her, and his shoulders joined in while spread his arms in time to the chorus, channeling some image of a dancer he couldn’t place. Once Quar had her hands in place, though, his waggling settled down to something a little more manageable even when he didn’t have the wall for support. Syncing his feet in time with the music was a little more difficult than the upper half of his body – it had always been that way – but soon they were slowly wagging off to loop around the fountain once more. The twilight colors of the primary lights turned to brightened the thin spray of mist coming off the foundation, and diffused the subtle pinks and purples that filtered in through the eucalyptus, still pulsing at some even fraction of 132 beats per minute.

Though Ray had the sense to keep from flashing both rows of teeth when he made out Quar’s words, but he couldn’t help but grin ear-to-ear. In his head, he responded, When we get back to the cottage, you can take them off with your teeth, or maybe a more subdued, Should we keep them, then?, but he didn’t trust himself to say either quietly enough, and simply half-turned over his shoulder that direction so the corner of his eye nearly met hers, and put a little bit more bounce into his hips so she’d have to hold on.

They weren’t the only example of skaters taking advantage of the beat of the music to approximate dance, but intentionally rhythmic movement was in short supply in the Beginner’s circle. Down the corridors that connected other circles, Ray could see big poofs of curly hair bouncing to the music, skates separating into half-splits, and – maybe it was their lights flashing overhead, but it almost seemed a proper dancefloor, especially with the spots of light moving about against the field. He and Quar were doing okay, weren’t they? They hadn’t fallen yet, and with more people pouring in, they were going to need to make room around the fountain anyway. Right?

Convinced in his own mind, Ray re-angled as the came around the fountain, wobbled, and nearly caused a crash with Dotta and Jhoru, but with one arm windmilling for balance, he pointed down the path to the ‘cool’ circle. “Are you okay with stepping it up a notch?” he asked over his shoulder, when they were already angled in that direction.

Ray was going to be out of his depth in that circle, no doubt – somehow he could both be brimming with confidence and certain of that at the same time. But in the beginner’s circle, the ability to skate a few circles without wobbling back to the wall was enough to make them stand out; there they could probably disappear behind skaters more exciting. As they transitioned to the straight path, Ray was able to not really pick up speed, but transition to a more natural skating stride, pushing with his feet in long, even strokes that weren’t meant to race them anywhere, but felt smooth and cool and artistic, especially as the quick rhythm of Born to be alive transitioned to the dulcet tones of ‘Boogie Oogie Oogie’.

The Alternative Skates team swooshed by at easily double their speed, and close enough due to an attempt to thread the needle between them and oncoming traffic that the blader flipped around to skate backward and ensure herself that she hadn’t tripped them up. Ray, once he’d waved them on, decided to follow suit and risk a backwards skate for a few moments. Slipping out of Quar’s hands, he rotated (almost to the point of flipping back onto his bottom again) and then skated with opposite oscillations of his feet, out-in-out. “I’m really glad Dotta invited us to this. This is great! You must have had something like this when you were a kit – rocket boots or a hoverboard or something like that? All Rriigkhan seem so athletic! Except Vern, Ghara Vern – I never saw him move quickly, but maybe I just didn’t give him the chance.”

–

“Yes!” Quar agreed, partly because the slow skaters in the beginner rink were quickly becoming a trip hazard for herself as they bumbled across the rink. With Ray steering, Quar found it incredibly easy to skate along after. She saw that, unlike cycling or swimming, it really would take minimal effort to go very fast, and she was so excited to try that out. When he pulled away to skate backward she was pleased to see that she coasted smoothly along all on her own, although her muscles tensed up to restrain her movements. She had to be vigilant about her speed so she wouldn't bowl him over, and her focus had to narrow down to what was directly in front of her – Ray, and a short distance beyond him, while the lights and all the skaters cutting their way across the rinks blurred into the background. It was startling sometimes to hear skates whrrring up behind her, invading this intimate little bubble of attention, forcing her to wonder if she was about to be crashed into. That didn't happen, though. Not yet. She did notice a small pile-up in the big rink that others were skating around.

Quar barked a laugh at the idea of Vern on skates, or participating in any sport, really.

“Vern's interests are... sedate,” She agreed, curled tail wagging gently. Her tail lifted both the hem of her shirt in back and the short ruffle that covered the tail hole on her pants. As her weight shifted from left to right her glutes tensed alternately, which stretched and morphed the shiny highlights on the pale, tarnished gold fabric that clung so tightly to her muscles. The ruffled bells of her pant sleeves and arm sleeves fluttered very slightly when another skater whizzed by in the corridor. Quar didn't think she was a particularly graceful figure, but in those flowing sleeves, and gliding along so smoothly on her skates, she felt graceful now.

“He sings in a choir, and plays kheklek.. hrr, a strategy game similar to your chess. Myself, I never had anything quite like skates. Hover boots, yes. And sticky paws – they allow you to walk on ceilings and walls –“ Quar was confident enough of her balance now that she could lift her arm like she was palming a low ceiling. “– but that was only as a very young child. When I became large enough to smash things when I fell, I recall that they disappeared from my closet. OH, and transparent bubble balls that we would walk inside down the river.” Her gaze lengthened, softened as she retreated to happy childhood memories, but their environment demanded that she return quickly, and her focus shifted to his face again.

Experimentally, Quar began to shift her weight even more to one side and then the other, and to stretch out her inside leg more than the other until she was weaving side to side. Just a little at first, testing the waters, her legs sometimes trembling when she drew herself back to the center, and then with more confidence when she realized she could do it. She definitely wasn't ready to twirl around or skate backward like Ray was, but she could see herself easily picking up little tricks like that in time.

The largest rink was a chaotic flurry of activity at first glance, but in actuality it wasn't hard to avoid other skaters. The multiple paths leading out from the South and Western ends of the rink meant that if one spotted a crash up ahead, it was easy to depart if skating around the crash wasn't going to be possible. Everyone was skating in one direction, and skaters had spread out to the other rinks so that none of them were very crowded. Though there were no markings on the floor, there were several ad hoc “lanes” that skaters tended to stay within. The fastest skaters occupied the middle and inside lanes, which required more skill for the tighter turns, while the less confident skaters stuck to the outside where they could stop themselves by rolling onto the border of a garden.

This big rink overlooked the Northeastern slopes on one side. The landscape was all dark outlines as it receded, but the glassy water at the foot of the island reflected wispy blues clouds with pinkish underbellies that stood out against the fading gold near the horizon. The dying day created a light show as pretty as the one twinkling and pulsing all around the rink.

When Ray turned around again, Quar set her hands on his waist rather than his hips, just so she could sweep her palms down his flanks before settling on the correct spot. The speed at which they moved, the energy in the music, the electric charge she felt from touching her lover – all those sensations gelled into a high that buzzed like static on the inside of her skin. She could lose herself in the rhythmic movements of their legs and hips, mentally disengage to flow with the music and the other skaters schooling like fish on either side of them.

–

A quick flash of teeth in his grin was quickly covered by Ray tightening his lips over them – self-conscious, but not because he was ashamed of his smile, or imagined Quar would be threatened by it. After a couple of days immersed in just her company, it was good to be around other Rriigkhan again, to remind himself that she, too, had their same expectations and was merely extending him grace. Still, it was gratifyingly grin-worthy that he’d gotten Vern right. Even though at the time he’d been let go he’d laid a good piece of the blame (emotionally, there was no logic behind it) at Vern’s paws, he didn’t bear the guy ill will, and would have been happy to see him skating here—now that he worked for Dotta.

“Hover boots sound both like they’d be a blast and a great way to break your neck.” Of course, immediately after saying that, Ray was reminded of Quar’s ringworld story of leaping against the gravity; hoverboots were probably tame. “That sounds like Spiderman – the sticky palms, I mean.” Instead of miming his own hands sticking to anything, he flipped his hand over and brought the two middle fingers toward his wrist, while making a sound like, THHPT!, but that moved downstream in the conversation when he exclaimed, “Oh, we have those! I mean, we have those on Earth, but we have those at Integrity! Not for rivers here – they’re inflatable, so they’re bouncy and cushioning and slow you down a bit, and people race in them down one of the dry runs to the ocean. It’s kind of crazy to watch. We call them hamster balls. Don’t know why, though.”

In the big ring, Ray steered into the flow of traffic while Boogie Oogie Oogie played out. Naturally, aside from the Integrity staff and regulars, the skaters tended to cluster in little knots who already knew each other, but the shared new experience, the swirling and bumping and little moments clutching the stucco planter wall to gather a second wind encouraged mingling, forging of new little groups, even momentarily. Since Quar seemed to be stretching, he picked up the pace, merging into a middle ‘lane’ that wasn’t full of speedskaters or stunters, but left him feeling just a little closer to the edge of control, where keeping the pace was within his grasp, but he’d be more likely to fall than stop or turn sharply if he needed to. Fhelthaus had led their little trio after them, so this time it was Quar and Ray who went whizzing by, Ray’s skates announcing them coming. Ray laughed and winked at Dotta; on the next pass, Jhoru had broken off and was trying his own paws at skating faster and catching them up, while Fhelthaus was attempting to monopolize both of Dotta’s paws by having her hold his while he skated backward.

Almost subconsciously, Ray touched Quar’s paws at his waist, to ensure they were there and she wasn’t going to let them go. Glowy, muted pinks, blues, and purples went gauzy in his eyes as he breathed deeply and enjoyed what felt the closest to what flying should be, and in the company of his favorite person.

He might not have remembered the BeeGee’s by name, but the first few bars of You Should be Dancing - the driving bass, the bongos, the first wha-wha peals of the guitar – and of course he knew the kid’s arm dance that went with it, along with the hip-thrusts that might not have been entirely safe. A cheer went up from twenty-odd humans around the rings, and seeing that he wasn’t the only one, Ray began circling his fists around each other, folding his arms in time to the music, pointing up in each direction while tapping his hips in the other, all choreographed to the other humans around several of the circles. “Point, point!” Ray laughed back over his shoulder, talking Quar through the steps, even if it would mean she’d have to let go of him to do so.

The moment that it happened was unmistakable. Mid-song, with no announcement, nearly every Rriigkhan face around Ray went flat – ears were pressed back though their crest-gaps; tails stilled. Forty-seven Rriigkhans within Ray’s line of sight all stopped or coasted toward one. For a few seconds, most humans skated on, still deep in the song and light show, but others glanced about them as if they were worried that some fabled signal had been sent – like the rumors had gone when Rriigkhan first arrived – and the scary alien dinosaur-cats were all going to turn as one on their helpless human prey.

Ray, more curious and confused than worried, was still half-sky-pointing when he glanced back to look at Quar.

<GAARGKH RING LOST>

<GRAGHAS FAIRE REPORTS ALL MINDS SEIZED AND LIBERATED. REPORTS UNCONFIRMED>

Gaargkh was on the other side of the galaxy, part of the first expansion. A planetary ring rather than a proper world, it was one of the first successful attempts not at terraforming, but terrafacting, taking the raw materials from the planet below to build a paradisial Ssaarian recreation in ‘pearl-necklace’ nodes loosely interlinked in a stable orbit. Of course, the planet had been terraformed after, and all of that was ancient history, thousands of years ago. The Ring had no tactical or war-making significance, and while several million Rriigkhan still lived there, largely Jhioghra and their managers, it had mostly followed the pattern of other early Rriigkhan establishments, and the various species that thrived under their supervision and in their shadow had become the abundant population. Gaargkh might have had historical meaning to the Rriighkhan, but aside from a few spheres that overlapped there, it was even exempted from the tithes that made those worlds profitable holdings for the Hohntotah.

It made little sense for the Graghas to attack there: it wasn’t near the border they’d defined, and if they were merely looking for targets with large populations to assimilate into their Faire, a thousand other poorly-protected colonies would have recommended themselves. Still, it was a gut-punch.

Two other targets were listed in the AR dispatch, but those were still being contested by open fighting, and made sense – systems with platinum-rich asteroid belts closer to their own borders, which the Graghas would mine with their ‘liberated’ mind-driven bots, who worked through an interface that apparently gamified the labor to create a market for performance improvement.

<RING 12 ARRIVING TO LOCAL CONVENTION POINT:> The coordinates that followed put it just off the coast of Integrity – indeed, the massive ring could already be seen in the air. When the Rriigkhan had first arrived, their eighteen colonizing ships were of the standard interstellar lightring design. Halos about a thousand meters across, the centers were perfectly smooth, gray-white rings, which rippled the space in the middle as it caught the coherent light beamed at it and converted it to thrust or whatever else it needed power for it. Outside the smooth ring, the ship had a rough, uneven shape like the horizon on a tinyworld image – various towers and moorings, storage bays and domiciles jutted out hundreds of meters each, districted by whatever family or house owned or leased that much of the ring. The eighteen rings had long-since settled from high orbit on the spires constructed in various wildernesses around Earth and were the defacto Rriigkhan administrative cities on the planet. From time to time one might travel back to a Rriigkhan hub when a large enough ship was needed, or for service, but that they were lifting off now to arrive at population-weighted convergence points was unprecedented, at least on Earth.

The ship was following it’s hyperbolic flight out of the Sonora desert, light gleaming out of the ring at its center, rapidly growing until it was half the size of old Avalon while it came to hover over the channel. Now the human skaters had stopped, too, some to point (like idiots – everyone could see it) but mostly to stare.

<EXECUTIVE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE FOLLOWING SPHERES TO ATTEND CONVOCATION BY SUMMONS OF KJARRR SHANSHI SHERR> It wasn’t that unlikely for a member of the Kjarrla Naughk-arr to be on Earth – it might not have been a popular destination, but traditional Rriigkhan often sought out such wilderness resorts – but it was unusual for one to swing her weight around so directly while here. Then again, open war with the Graghas was unusual.

“Quar, what’s going on?”

–

Neck craned back, Quar peered down her snout at Ray's funny dance over his shoulder. She did release him and attempted to copy his moves, although she lagged behind him and the other humans. It didn't matter, though. Enough of the other Rriigkhans were flailing their arms about a bit randomly that Quar certainly didn't stand out. Soon Quar was rocking her hips as much as being on skates allowed while stabbing a claw into the sky. Her curled tail jerkily flapped from side to side in counterpoint.

“This is such fun!” she called up to him. She'd drifted such that she was behind one elbow more than directly behind him, but she couldn't skate by Ray's side without moving too close to skaters in the next lane. She was still laughing when the announcement popped up in her AR, but just like all the other Rriigkhans her joy bled quickly away as she comprehended what she was reading. Quar stumbled and nearly trampled Ray, her skates clattering down several times before she corrected and let herself coast.

Quar didn't need to wait for the rest of the announcement to know that she would read her own name. Like any Tsarkeh female, coming of age had meant assuming her place as the center of a new Sphere, and formally accepting the rights and responsibilities associated with that. Mothers of House Narrgharitha traditionally bequeathed at least 3% of their own Sphere to each daughter, though Fhahnith, disinterested as she was in more children after fulfilling her duty to produce a female heir, had parted with a generous 12% of her wealth and influence. Thus, on her twenty-third birthday, the Sphere of Quar Delfhan Nrahu had been born.

Though her own heart pattered wildly against her breastbone, after a glance around herself in a slack-mouthed, wide eyed daze, Quar's jaw tightened and she began to stream the earthy musk of <CALM> from her howrfs.

“It's all right,” she said firmly to Ray as they coasted to a stop, reaching out to take his hand in her paw, to close it in an equally firm grip. She licked her lips. Her throat felt too dry, constricted. She did not look at him. With her chin high, her eyes rapidly flicked through the long version of the dispatch. Fighting in Quirel and Jhargh Ellhorr. Places far from Ssaar, far from Yaughnarr-krith or Waah-fluh. Deep creases appeared in the fur above her tight-drawn brows as she imagined the horror of Rriigkhan minds ripped from bodies, the flesh discarded like garbage, or perhaps not discarded after all –

Quar tugged gently at his wrist to ask Ray to follow before she released him. She angled herself toward the inside of the rink so she could stop herself on the ledge of the fountain. That was much lower than the planter wall, low enough to sit on easily. She turned herself around to plop heavily onto it, her gaze still distant and distracted. Her hands automatically gripped the ledge of the fountain on either side of her thighs. She felt... she felt that this couldn't be real. The lights were making her dizzy.

She looked up past the clutter of text, which blurred when her focus shifted, to see movement: Dotta was threading her way through the crowd toward them. Jhoru and Fhelthaus followed distantly, one after the other, neither really attempting to catch up with her. They exchanged worried glances when they rolled to a stop just behind Dotta, whose hands had curled into fists at her side. The other female was misting calming pheromones as well. She held her ears high but her face was grave.

<My personal aircraft will be landing on one of the smaller rinks in approximately two minutes. You may ride with me,> Dotta sent over AR, her eyes locking on Quar's. Quar nodded minimally, a small, sharp downward twitch of her head.

The music played on, but for a moment, it was eerily quiet – no normal chatter, only hushed voices. Many Rriigkhans were speaking to each other, but in AR.

“What do you mean you can't tell us? I thought we were friends!” someone shrieked on the other side of the fountain. Quar rapidly twisted around to see those same teenagers from earlier standing in the middle of the rink. The human boy gesticulated wildly at the lightring filling the sky. His Rriigkhan friend shook his head sadly and murmured some reply that Quar couldn't hear. There were other children their age nearby, just watching or whispering among themselves.

–

Ray, too, had twisted to see those teenagers, not because he’d noticed them before, but because someone was practically screaming what he was sure many people were thinking. Integrity was so focused on blurring the lines between Rriigkhan and human, on demonstrating the similarities while airbrushing out the differences, that the sudden wedge between their experience here – between all Rriigkhan suddenly tuning into another channel of thought, and all humans acting like nervous flock animals. It would be easy for Ray to let that wedge settle between him and Quar, unconsidered, for the relationship to grow around like a tree swallowing a fence and forever deformed because of it, but he looked between Quar and Dotta as they shared their glance, and realized that out of everyone he knew, he trusted them more than anyone else.

He settled on the bench a bit closer to Quar than was probably appropriate for a simple nwohl (maybe? Who could say? A nwohl was devoted, weren’t they? Wasn’t that actually the root of the word in Plenitongue?), so his shoulder pressed against her arm. Subtly (he hoped), his fingers first found the flimsy frill of her sleeve, and then the back of her paw to give it a hidden squeeze. She’d said it was all right, but he could see all the females howrfs were out, and he didn’t recognize the scent, but the males were all bunching up to huddle around them, electrons each finding their nucleus. “You seem worried, though.” he murmured.

Repeating the sentiment of that young man was tempting, but instead he pressed his head against her shoulder, turned past ninety degrees so her arm hid most of his face in front of her temple, and whispered for her ears, “I love you.”

Then he pulled back, put both of his hands in his lap, and watched as that immense ship came down through the atmosphere. It whistled as it did, and backlit vapor rolled out of that circle inside the ring, as it used the invisible laser beamed at it from some orbital platform to slow its descent.

The things were familiar from TV, of course. He’d grown up seeing them the same way one might see the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon, but knowing they were almost a mile wide from the tips of their outermost spars (like a wagon wheel with spokes broken off at different lengths) was not the same as seeing this massive, glowing halo come roiling down from the upper atmosphere, shedding clouds around it like an alkaseltzer dropped into water, completely otherworldly but probably completely natural for Quar.

“Are they making you leave?”

–

Quar was rigid to his touch. It wasn't that she stiffened in response, but she did not yield to him, did not lean against him in return or relax her arm at all. A flick of the ear nearest Ray was the only indication that she'd heard him speak.

“I will follow you in a moment, Dotta,” Quar said just as stiffly. Jhoru and Fhelthaus were both looking in her direction, but from the movement of their eyes it seemed that their focus was partially in AR as well. Dotta glanced over Ray, her ears tucking back apologetically. Her lips moved as if she would speak, but then her eyes returned to Quar and she nodded, understanding the request that Quar implied.

“Will you boys walk with me to the edge of the park?” Dotta asked as she turned away.

“Jhangri, Ray,” Jhoru offered awkwardly with his ears down. He flashed his palm with fingers curled in a minimal wave before he turned away, too. As the three Rriigkhans skated slowly across the rink toward one of the walkways, Quar shifted her weight onto one thigh so she could face Ray, but her hands settled into her lap rather than reaching for him, one palm nestled over the other fist. She felt this... horrible paralyzing stiffness in her muscles. She was unable to fold him into her arms, to pet his hair, to reassure him physically that they would all be okay. It was likely that the people around her were too busy with their own private worries to notice something inappropriate occurring between a Rriigkhan and a human, but any Rriigkhan would know that she was Tsarkeh, and they might look to her out of curiosity.

She could, however, answer his question.

“No,” she said firmly, and then her brows lifted over a softening gaze. Her shoulders lowered as they lost some of their stiffness. She continued in a gentler voice, “Something has occurred in a place very far from here, and we Tsarkeh must convene to discuss it. This does not involve Earth in any way. You are in no danger.” That, at least, would always be true; Earth was not close to the Ssaarian worlds, or the Graghas Faire, or any other galactic civilization. Humans were quite alone in their “neck of the woods.”

Part of her wished to be frank with him – what point was there in hiding this information from humans? It did not affect them at all. Concealing the truth would only frighten them more than necessary... but to tell Ray would be to burden him with a secret he could never share with his own people, and there was nothing fair in that. Her gaze swept down the length of his body to his hands. Her own fist curled even tighter in her lap, and the paw encasing it squeezed. That paralyzing force still held her arms rigid... but she pushed, and reached out to grasp his hands in hers again, holding him with her fingers curled under his own and her thumbs resting on top of his knuckles while imaginary eyes burned through her fur.

“Go back to the cottage. I think I will join you by morning, but if I am delayed, I will send a message.” She gave his hands a little reassuring shake, and then cracked her jaws in a smile that reached up into her brows and ears; they unfurled from alongside her crest. It was a genuine smile, but a worried one. “Now come, unlace these skates of mine. I must be a dignified Tsarkeh when I enter the Ring, not one who wobbles about on wheeled shoes.”

==

Ray raised his own hand, fingers splayed, in response. “Sath-Nghahr, Jhoru. Sath-Nghahr Fhelthaus.” Under better circumstances, he would have summoned their last names from his memory. It didn’t seem to matter as much to Rriigkhan, who were used to simply consulting their AR for details like names, but it meant something to him. But, though he was trying to remain calm and not add to sense of panic among his fellow humans, he could feel his pulse in his ears and his breath short, and remembering formal Plenitongue at all was a stretch. The last thing he wanted to do was leave them remembering him for a botched formality. (As if they’d remember him at all.) He dipped his head to Dotta as well to include her, but he would certainly see her again, soon. Someone was going to have to address the staff soon.

He was in no danger she said, as if that was really in question. Possibly it was among other humans; the scent of fear might be overwhelming their collective anxiety. “An accident,” he suggested, since that fit all the details. Some big accident. Maybe a sun went supernova or something. He’d read that was what had led Rriigkhan to Earth – when studying/mining the aftermath of Betelgeuse, which had faded to a dim cloud in the night sky, some stray sensor a few hundred light years distant had picked up really old neutrino waves from Earth: evidence of nuclear explosions. Everyone knew that a supernova like Betelgeuse could wipe out any life with fifty or so light-years, which could have been hundreds of systems. Who knew what sort of devastation that might wreak where life where life was more dense?

.

He didn’t push it, though – the suggestion was really only to give her an easy answer he was ready to accept. It was a another test – the sort of thing that would separate them, that forced her to remember that nobody thought of him as her equal – and he wasn’t going to make it any harder for her. Nodding, he answered, “Can you tell the cottage to let me in without you? I can do it with my staff ID, if you’re too busy, though.”

“Oh. Ahh. Yeah, of course!” Without hesitation, Ray slipped from the fountain’s edge to kneel and tug open the knots of her laces, picking at the double knots he’d made with short fingernails. That took the longest – once those were out, the laces slipped free. “For what it’s worth, I thought even your wobbling was dignified.” Glancing up past her knees, he winked, then hooked his finger around the skate trucks so she could wrest her paws free. “I’ll see you soon, Ghara Quar. Don’t fret on my behalf.”

- - -

None of the Rriigkhan remained, even those of the lowest castes who were employees; staff and visitor alike found excuses to depart, or – more likely – simply left as though no excuse was necessary. Plenty of the humans present thought there was no reason for the aliens’ bad manners to spoil their party, but Ray didn’t linger to see how it limped along, or even to see the Grove lit up with the post-midnight fantasy holograms that had sounded so interesting. There would be plenty of opportunities in the future, when he could experience it for the first time with Quar.

Because the line for the skate return and the gondolas was so long, Ray simply took off his skates and socks, hiked his bell bottoms up with a pinch-fold, and walked barefoot over the ridgeline in the direction of Two Harbors and Quar’s cottage. There wasn’t any need for gondolas to come single file in a pinch, of course – they could land anywhere and the resort computer could handle directing hundreds of them at a time if needed – but there were only so many places they could touch down safely to allow visitors, and Dotta’s ship took up quite a bit of that. Unlike Quar’s smooth lozenge, Dotta’s was an intersection of arches – four upside-down “U’s, with the two long ones opposite each other, and the two narrow at front and back, making something like a bent-back X-shape – each with big balls at the feet of the arches (apparently where the flying bits were, however they worked) and an all-glass capsule slung beneath, large enough for a dozen or so Rriigkhan without crowding.

Ray stood where the walkway crested the hill, watching it touch down, watching one corner light up as the glass went transparent to show the requisite pilot at their station, and the rest light up so Dotta and several others could board. Quar’s golden shape was easy to pick out of the bunch; probably, Dotta had a printer on-board already busy spitting out more ‘distinguished’ clothes for them. Once the glass capsule went opaque and the aircraft lifted off again, Ray continued on toward the cottage, both their pairs of skates under his arms.

- - -

Because the printers in Quar’s cottage could handle anything she wanted, there wasn’t any benefit to preparing food or drink for her to come back to. He tried to talk the cottage’s computer through making a welcoming holographic display for her, but there were too many options to choose from – it was too overwhelming to choose when every facet had hundreds of categories of options, and he didn’t know the names of any basic displays. He did get the cottage to leave a message only for her eyes, though, so if she and only she came in the door, lit candles would display all around the cottage (that was fun – he probably placed two or three hundred of them, all a ghostly off-white, in various tapers and pillars and tea lights, in clusters and singles, with a path between them leading back toward her room) and a little note that would read in Cant, <I’m sleeping in the servant’s room, just in case. But if you want me, I want you.>

==

Quar made a low, noncommittal humming sound to the suggestion of an accident, her features tensing again as her eyes dodged his, guiltily lifting to watch the sky instead. If he had an AR implant she might have said more, privately, but it was probably best that he did not.

“You are already on the access list for the door and all of the amenities inside,” she said. She leaned forward so she could use her hands to help tug her paws free of the skates, then rose. She was too much in shock to think about it now, but later Quar would reflect on Ray's behavior and realize he was acting as a Rriigkhan male ought to act in an emergency: calmly, with total trust in her judgment and without prying into what was not necessary for him to know. That resulted in another surge of pride while aboard Dotta's ship.

Now, though, she stood rigidly staring at him, her hands curled into awkward fists at her side, not knowing what to do with her face or her body. She wanted to say that she loved him, too, but those words froze in her throat while her stiff lower jaw shifted very minutely from side to side. Finally her tail curled up and her ears tilted toward him reassuringly.

“I will return soon. I promise.” She stepped closer to him with a formal incline of her crest, and brought her hand up to run her pads along the side of his jaw. This was no lover's touch. If anything, it was done robotically, and without lingering, but it was a mark of great respect and familiarity to rub her scent along his face. For a fellow Hohntotah it would be appropriate to return the gesture, but in his case it was not. Then she turned, and moved briskly in the direction Dotta had gone, already pinging her in AR to find the exact location. Although part of her wanted to glance back at Ray, she did not.

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