Astraline was an exotic beauty. She had dark, ebony skin and deep red, dreadlocked hair. Her eyes were almond shaped and of the most beautiful amythest color, and her features were smooth as silk with no wrinkles on her forehead and no bags beneath her eyes. She wore no jewelry, as such was not custom for her race— no, her species. Astraline, you see, did not come from my planet. She was an alien… A beautiful, foreign creature… The sort that made men and women alike look back over their shoulders as she passed, in love with her though they didn’t even know her name. Her voice was like audible silk. It was alluring, like the call of a siren.

I know now that I loved her from the moment I first set eyes on her. We were both too young to realize what such an emotion was. I was seven, she was six… Or, as she had knowingly informed me, she was “six and 5/6ths”. Astraline and I grew up together. She lived several houses down. Her family was not the first of their kind to move into the neighborhood, and they were just as welcomed as the others that had. Our planets were allies, and we were an open culture. We lived in the land of the free, a varitable melting pot. The nelkivs (that’s what the alien’s called themselves) were always welcome to come and experience our world. To live with us. To breathe our air. We did not mind sharing our wealth, our streets, our restaurants, or our jobs with the other species. Yet… it had always been kind of assumed that our two kinds would not mix. After all, it was highly unlikely that a child would be created from our sexual union. I suppose people just didn’t see the point in being with an individual if an infant of our combined beings could not be produced.

Just the same… I knew that I had fallen madly in love with the girl that moved in a few houses away. We were always inseperable… connected at the hip, our parents would laugh. …A nervous laugh. As the years went by, I came to realize that my feelings were not at all one-sided. I would sometimes catch Astraline looking at me longingly while we were hanging out together. …And the way she’d say my name, with that slow, sweet smile… “Ren…” There was tension between us, and every little touch sent a shiver down my spine. It was true that both of us had suiters over the years. Women would flirt with me, and some would even bad-mouth Astraline. They’d accuse me of spending too much time with my dearest friend. I’d tell them to go fuck themselves. I imagine that’s why I never got into a relationship. I went through the years single… As did Astraline. She had far more potential candidates than even I, and she gracefully turned each and every one of them down before returning to my side.

The years carried on in much this fashion. After highschool, we decided to attend the same University. We even got an apartment together. Yet everything shared between us, despite the vast amount of tension and obvious feelings between us, was platonic. We had never kissed, nor discussed how we felt. Perhaps we were scared. After all, there was no such thing as inter-species relationships. They simply didn’t exist. It didn’t seem as if anyone else had the same problem I did. Sure, men of my species looked at Astraline longingly… but it was more out of curiosity than anything else, I think. For me it was genuine love. Our parents began to worry that something was going on. My mother often asked me why I hadn’t found a nice girl to settle down with. I told her that I was only in college, and I’d rather focus on school than bother dating someone. Astraline used the same excuse. It generally worked for a week or two before the pestering began again. We laughed it off with each other, though we both knew full and well why we weren’t dating.

Nothing happened until the final year at college. I had been taken by depression. The constant bickering between myself and my parents was becoming too much. I had hidden my feelings for the one woman I truly loved for my entire life… and though I knew she felt for me the same way I felt for her, there was this emptiness in my heart. It felt as though there was a hole in my soul, as if I had been torn apart. Even when she was there, in our apartment, I felt the biting loneliness of knowing our feelings were to be shunned forever. I felt the cold sting of reality sinking in. Either I would be alone for the rest of my life, or I would be trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman of my own species.

I stood on our balcony. It was raining that night, but I didn’t care. I let the water rush over me and ignored the near-freezing temperature outside. It was in this state that Astraline found me, freshly home from class. She spoke not a word, but took hold of my arm and led me back inside. I let her. She was warm… Inside, she wrapped a towel around my shoulders, and we both sat down on the couch in silence. It was a heavy silence. Time and time again, the question poked at my mind. Why can’t we just be together? I hadn’t realized it at the time… perhaps my lips were numb from the cold outside, but I had spoken this question out loud. Astraline’s hand found my cheek in a gentle touch, the warmth that radiated off her palm felt amazing.

“I wish I knew the answer, Ren…” Came my dear alien’s response.

I was startled, only now aware that those words had left my mouth to begin with. My eyes lifted to meet hers, and only now did I realize how close we were seated. She was an inch away, at most. I felt her thumb gently brushing the damp, chilly flesh of my face while her hand set nestled against my cheek. I lifted my hand to her chin, leaned in, and gave her the kiss we had wanted since we were aware of what kisses really were. We finally confessed our love for one another without speaking a single word. Our night was spent in an intimate dance of whispered secrets and promises, of ecstacy and passion, of lust and love. I found in her the other half of my soul. When her lips were locked on mine or I heard the murmured phrase “I love you, Ren”, I felt whole. At the end of the night, we lay together, our limbs tangled up in a mess of sheets. We smiled in blissful ignorance of the universe at large.

That very morning, I was awoken by a knocking at the door. It was loud. Agitated. I felt the pressure of Astraline pressed against me, her head on my chest. Her voice aleviated my concern that she might still be asleep. My love urged me, tiredly, to go answer the door and begone with whoever dared disturb our bliss. I kissed her atop the head, then lifted her chin and stole another, lingering brush of lips. With a smile, I slid from the bed and pulled on some clothes. Astraline watched as I vacated the room and wandered to the door. Whoever was there continued to knock, the sound becoming frustrated.

“I’m coming! Chill the fuck out!” I growled at the door, just a few seconds before unlocking and opening it. Only then did I realize I was using choice words in the direction of what appeared to be intergalactic police. A slightly portly man with a red face stood in the front, his fist raised to punch at my front door a couple more times. He was dressed in a fine black suit and held a briefcase in his free hand. Behind him stood the police, their uniforms all alike. They wore masks, so it would never be possible to tell them apart. I felt a pang of nervousness. I wondered why men of such stature would show up at my door.

“Is Astraline Malae at this residence?” It was the chubby man up front making the inquiry. Dumbly, I nodded.

“Yeah… But she’s asleep, man… It’s really early, you know?”

He hardly waited for the words to leave my mouth before pushing into the room. I protested strongly, but the police were there to back him up. Terror for Astraline’s well-being rushed through my body. I tried to ask what they were here for, but no one would answer. They just started running through the house in search of Astraline, who was up by now, getting dressed in a hurry. She could hear the commotion, and didn’t want to be caught without any clothes on. Just as soon as a shirt had been pulled over her head, the police broke into her room. Just like that, the furious shuffle was over. Cordial as he hadn’t been with me, the well-dressed man stepped up to her and informed her of the following:

Astraline was an illegal alien. She had not been born on this planet, and had never recieved citizenship. Her younger brother had gotten into some trouble with the law, and thus caused the rest of his family the same hardships. He could not be deported without his parents… and if his parents were being deported, then Astraline was not allowed to stay. She was to pack up this very instant, in fact, and leave. A portion of her college debt for the semester would be refunded, and they would help to transfer her to whatever University she desired back on her own planet. Yet, despite all these kindnesses, she was still not allowed to stay here… with me.

They left so she could pack up her things, but informed us they would be back within an hour. We were abandoned in silent shock. It didn’t feel real. Could they really do that? Was that right? I pulled Astraline into my arms and just held her. There was no way that this would be the end of us. We had only just begun what would have surely been a vast, wonderful relationship. It didn’t matter to me if we had to hide it from the rest of the world. I wanted her— no, I needed her. She was my other half and Astraline felt the same. She cried in my arms and the sound broke my heart. There was nothing we could do about it. In the city, there was nowhere to hide. Astraline and myself would be caught before too long. Our only hope was knowing that someday, some way, we would meet again. I brushed back her hair and kissed her deeply… Then I helped her pack her belongings. Just like that. We accepted it for what it was.

Astraline and I wrote letters to one another. It took a week or so for the message to be recieved. It didn’t matter, so long as we had contact with one another. As time went on, we both began to notice the same thing: Our planets were slowly but surely emptying of the other species. Nelkivs became more and more scarce on the streets until they were gone completely. None of us knew what was going on, of course. The government managed to keep it quiet. Of course we all realized the sudden disappearance of the other culture. All of them had gone the same way Astraline had… and we began to grow wary. Communications between our planets began to grow hostile. How much longer would we be able to recieve letters from one another? I sent Astraline one last letter, telling her to meet me on a the planet neighboring us both - a neutral land. It was considered neutral due to the fact that the creatures were not yet advanced enough to have discovered the rest of us. It was a rule that until their technology matched our own, we were not to meddle.

Three days after my letter was sent, our planets went to war with one another.

I never got a response back from Astraline.

I had told her that if something happened, she should look for the word ‘love’, written in my planet’s language. I would engrave it on the very surface of the other planet if I had to. So I went, and I searched that world until I found a suitable place for my message. My sign. I wrote love on the surface of the planet.

I waited for a week straight for Astraline to come, but she never did. I worried that she hadn’t been able to find it… Desperate, I wrote another message. This time, it read ‘soulmates’.

I split my time between my two signs, hoping I’d catch her waiting for me at one of them. Again, she never came. It never crossed my mind that perhaps my letter had never arrived. Surely she had recieved it. I had to see her again, I had to. My life would not be complete again until she was in my arms. I needed her, my sweet and beautiful Astraline. I wrote again.

And again.

I couldn’t stop.

I split my time between each sign. I couldn’t find her. The war raged on.

I was writing her a message.

A message of love.

A plea.

But no matter how many signs I wrote, she never came. A year passed. I wrote more messages in the surface of this planet. I cut my time so I’d be able to travel between the signs equally. Then, on my way from one to the other, I saw something. A message on the planet’s surface… Only, it wasn’t mine. No, it was similar, but it was not my own. It read ‘love’. All at once, I felt as if everything in the universe had been brought back to unity. There was no chance this sign belonged to anyone other than my beloved Astraline. Yet, she was no where nearby. I still hadn’t a clue where to look. So, rather than leave the spot, I decided to stay there. She had left it in hopes I would find it, and I had found it… so she was sure to return. So I waited.

And I waited.

And waited.

But she never came. I began to lose hope. Had something happened to her? After a month, I decided to actually land on the planet, for the first time, and search the ground for her. I wandered around the sign, marveling in it’s beauty. It was hers, without a doubt. I knew my beloved’s writing. Astraline… Where could she be? I found not a trace of her down there… yet I found I couldn’t part myself from the symbol of our love. So I curled up in the tall stalks surrounding the sign and fell asleep. For the first time since I began my search, it felt as if we were together.

It was not the sun that woke me up that morning. It was the startled, gumbled cry of the planet’s native sentient species. I woke up in shock, my own cries mixing with the human’s. I had been seen by a primitive sentient being - I had broken a law. If word of this got out, I’d never find Astraline. I would be put in prison and, depending on the result of my appearance, I might be executed. I couldn’t let that happen.

I knocked the human out, trusting his word wouldn’t be taken as serious. What primitive creatures would believe the word of just one? Quickly, I returned to my ship… only to find that it wasn’t where I’d left it. I saw strange prints on the ground leading away from it, and I could only assume that the human’s had taken it in one of their ground vehicles. I doubted I’d be able to retrieve it now. None of this felt real. I was literally trapped on the human’s planet. Earth. I didn’t know where my beloved Astraline was, and my ship was gone now, too. In order to take care of that problem, I lifted the ship’s controls out of my pocket and input the emergency code. I heard the explosion a few miles away, and even saw chunks of metal as they were launched into the sky. I bitterly hoped some of the humans were hurt, or even killed, in the destruction of the ship.

I was depressed and tired. I felt as if I was so close, yet so far. She had been here. She had fucking been here. So where the hell was she now? Had the humans gotten ahold of her, much as they had tried with me? Was she being disected, my beautiful Astraline? Did they not realize, those foolish primitive animals, that she was an intelligent, sentient being? Could they not sense her desperation? Did they ignore her pleas, her cries, just because they were spoken in a language so unlike their own? Were they scared of her, my beautiful alien? She who could never hurt another creature? Had they killed her out of that fear? Did they treat that goddess-like body of hers as an experiment now? Was she behind bars? Did she live at all? In terrified frustration, I screamed. I put my hands on top of my head and fell to my knees, crying. I was so distraught, so distracted, that I did not hear the crunch of the stalks behind me. Not at first. The second and third ruffle of crops caught my attention. I smelled her. Astraline, I smelled my beloved Astraline. I pulled myself to my feet and spun around to embrace my—

“It wasn’t human, whatever it was… No, I don’t know what it was trying to say. It didn’t speak English. …Huh? Oh. Actually, no. I saw it about ten minutes before, too. This was the second encounter. …Yeah. …Yeah. …Mhm. Well, I think it heard me. It got up and faced me. …I mean, maybe it smelled the other one. Yeah, you know the black-skinned one? …Well, I had the same gloves on… Yeah, a little blood. …No, that’s sick! Of course I fuckin’ washed ‘em. …Yeah, well blood fucking stains, okay? Fuck. They’re my favorite gloves, I’m not fuckin’ getting rid— Yeah, it could have been, but I’m not sick or anything, am I? Exactly. …No. I mean, it was comin’ at me. What’d you want me to do? The gun was in my hands, it meant to kill me. …Gimme a fuckin’ break. You don’t know what the fuck you’d do in that situation. It’s a fuckin’ alien. …Uh-huh. Well if you don’t fuckin’ believe me, come see the damn thing yourself. …Yeah I still got it. It’s with the other one. …Yeah, I just put them in the stable. …I don’t know. I don’t think so. Government would probably do some weird shit to me if they found out I knew. I mean, you’ve seen the fucking movies. Hey, man. Swear you ain’t gonna tell anyone. …Yeah, I just fucking said you could come see ‘em. …Alright, then. …Yeah. …Bye.”

I knew I was close.