Michael

I'm treated well and get to see some of my friends I’ve been travelling with as we are accommodated in a large lounge/dining room with multiple tables strewn together around the place. There are dozens of people present most of whom I have yet to meet officially. From large barefooted half-naked men that bring Jonah to mind with their rough dignity to elegant women with beautiful face paints and flowing dresses in a contrast that doesn't contradict itself, and Saya, sitting beside me calls all these vastly different people family.

Our table has most of our travelling group with a spatter of women and young men that I don't know or I know to be Saya's sisters beside them. None of us seem to be too badly injured as even John who I suspected was a goner now sits across from me eating some sort of bird and talking to the young woman besides him with an easy smile.

Max is beside Saya's cousin Andrew recounting the fight again in minute detail, my friend only seems to have acknowledged me with a wink as i took my seat before continuing with whatever he was saying. There is another long table occupied by all strangers except for Shea Saya's father and Wes our travelling companion, another by another group of people and another two by kids. I actually haven't seen so many kids in the same place since coming to Gaia, and there is something about the sight of kids laughing, giggling, crying, fighting, conversing that seems to make the place more real to me something affirms to me again that yes i really am here, yes this is really a place that exists in the wide universe and yes I’m alive on an alien planet.

We eat sweet vegetables, meats and fruit along with grasses and fruit all at the same time, in a single sitting. None of our plates seem to have been full but i find myself feeling completely satisfied and energies as I take the last forkful into my mouth.

"And that over there is my little brother, barely seven years old but you can already tell he will be a huge dick when he is all grown up. I think he once walked in on da and Shea having sex with Mira, the kid hasn’t been right since.’’ Saya says besides me confusing me even further than I’ve been previously confused by everything I have witnessed about this family so far.

‘’So if Shea isn’t your da, which one in that table is actually this Sachi I’ve heard so much about?’’ I ask trying to sort out how a single family could be this big and how a happy tavern atmosphere is created in this room dominated by women and children.

Witnessing this family is like watching some sort of play or strange creatures in their natural habitat on the Geographic’s channel back on Earth. The women are all exquisitely beautiful as most women seem to be on this planet, some bare chested with high breasts that stand taunt and plump without even threatening to sag as they defy gravity very proudly.

One black woman in particular with a curly afro and the most beautiful smile I’ve seen in a while sits with her naked chest towards me and I can’t not keep looking. The necklaces she has flowing across her beautiful chest do little to hide how enticing and ripe it seems to be but instead attract the eye to her chest as a nipple peaks out between the beads or the rock pearls or the gems.

‘’Shea only wishes he were my father, but to be honest I wish it too sometimes. Da is a complete embarrassment as a Barbarian sometimes, you wouldn’t believe the fights mama Mira and I have fought defending his name and reputation in the longhouses and other places." Saya says almost to herself before pointing about something else that one of her younger siblings is getting ready to do.

As I’m about to stand and say something her arm yanks me back down and I watched in fascinated dread as one of the kids sneaks up on another with fork and stabs her at the back of the neck with all her strength and all viciousness and a fight quickly ensuing before being stopped by some of the older kids with stern eyes and sharp threats. None of the adults seem to have even noticed ’’that’s kind of a harsh way to grow up,’’ I say as everything goes back to ‘normal’.

Saya just snorts and takes another drink as a woman that’s almost an exact lookalike of her walks towards us from what I have dubbed ‘the main table’ in my head. She smiles at Saya, scowls at Mirabilis, smiles at Andrew and Max before reaching Saya and I ruffling her daughter’s hair familiarly. Looking at them it is at this very moment that I truly understand the miracle of agelessness and beauty that this world allows.

‘’You must be Michael, I’m Mira, this ones mother.’’ She says holding her arm out.

I take the arm and clasp it tightly forearm to forearm as she looks directly into my eyes and I stare back at her, standing. She and Saya could be sisters and that’s not even a joke or me being polite, they really could be sisters but there is no way on earth I would have assumed she was anyone’s mother in the shape she is in and the way she looks.

She is wearing lose grey sweat-pants with the elastic waist band seeming to have collected at the curves of her hips giving visibility to her conditioned abs and chiselled lines of her oblique and the lines pointing to her groin area. Her feet are bare on the wooden floor and pretty with black nail polish on both her toes and fingers. She clearly has an ass and her figure is an hourglass shaped like a Brazilian dancer’s or a full-body health model. Yet she is slender, almost slight of torso and her light red hair and little hint of freckles on her face make her look cute as well as beautiful.

Her comfortable woollen looking top is loose around her shoulders letting one peak out of the neck. I can’t not stare and my heart rate is picking up but I’m also fully aware that this is Saya’s birth mother and Saya herself is sitting right next to me. There are differences in their appearance of course even though they look so similar, and feel so similar.

She smiles at me showing teeth, beautiful perfect teeth. ‘’I like this one, if my men didn’t look at me like this every day I may even be tempted.’’

Saya snorts at her mother’s antics as though unconcerned at all by my obvious attraction to someone I shouldn’t be attracted to. ‘’I will make sure to keep him away from you.’’ She says nonchalantly and the woman saunters away towards the kids.

I’m so confused and distracted right now but people are getting up and socialising more readily now, by some unspoken signal dinner has officially ended.

‘’Go be with your friends, explore the city. My little brother Orochi will be your guide, I think you will enjoy Paradisum.’’ Saya says pushing me towards Max who grins at how I’m being handled by Saya’s mother and then Saya herself, I may not live this moment down.