The Human Pet: A Sci-Fi Romance

Part 31

Tarak

One thing that has been constant about my pet is that she vocalizes a lot. With the translator, I've since learned that she's not just peeping like a bird when she makes these sounds. No, she is communicating.

Since I've returned from work, she's been quiet, so it bothers me. As her owner, it's my job to make her feel happy and safe, so I try to distract her by dangling a berry in front of her. She bats at the berries for a bit but does not eat them.

I pull her into my lap and gaze into her eyes. "Pet, are you alright?"

She gazes away from me.

I catch her chin so that she looks at me. "Is anything wrong?"

She blinks a few times and does not speak.

"Are you... scared?" I ask.

"Nothing is wrong. I'm alright." She says she is fine, but her heart still does that too fast, too rapid thump-thump-thump, which makes me wonder why. Is she lying? Or maybe I do scare her, and she does not want to tell me?

I must fix this. I stroke her hair. "You can tell me anything, pet."

She makes her chirping noises and a moment later, the wall unit speaks for her. "Do not call me a pet. I am a human with a name."

"Not a pet? But you said the word Thoth. You invoked our ancient custom, which means..."

She pats my chest. "That means I did what I thought was necessary for my people to survive. Humans are not pets, though. In fact, on Earth, my home, we even keep pets."

Is she saying she is not my pet? I growl. "You are mine!"

"I... I like being yours, and you... you are also mine," she says. Her bright green eyes have a possessive spark. "That does not mean I am your pet, though," she says, leaning against my chest.

I want to be angry with her for declaring that she is not my pet, but... I am hers? I am hers! I hug her, folding my arms around her. She sinks into me. Her breaths become long and normalized and soon, her heartbeat follows. She is falling asleep on my chest. These are the moments that give me pride as her owner; the fact that she trusts me enough to fall asleep on me.

I kiss the top of her head. She is and will always be my pet, no matter what she says.

This communication thing is strange because it's helping me name and understand what is inside of me. Previously, I thought Thoth was the most powerful word. The moment she uttered the word, she invoked a spell, chaining my heart and soul to her. Now that she tells me these new words—I am hers—do I learn the most powerful words in the universe.

I am hers.

She huffs soft breaths against my chest and dozes. I ask my wall unit to help me run queries about humans. Most of the material I find is about how to care for human pets: how to bathe them, feed them, water them, groom them, and even train them. The Zon is helpful, giving me more lists of products that I can buy for these delicate pets. Then there are booklets full of rules and regulations that apply to all pets, including humans.

Then I try something new, which is to ask my wall unit to show me human words.

"What type of words?" answers my wall unit.

How would I know? It is when I gaze at my pet's collar that I have a new idea.

I ask the wise wall unit to help me. "Pet words in the human language."

That is when I make a discovery. Humans do keep pets and have so many words for them: horses, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, tarantulas, hamsters, and mice.

She shifts against me and mumbles in her sleep. I am not ready to admit it to her, but I think this conversation and query made me realize something... Maybe it's wrong for us to label everything we conquer with our own words because when we do that, we lose the richness of how they might define themselves.