I am bringing forward, a clip from the current story I am writing. The story is being written for my oldest grandson who has the name Devon. This isn’t the first story, nor will it be the last, that will use my grandchildren as characters. I have been telling them stories since they were each toddlers, stories that had them as heroes and heroines. Hopefully, it won’t be the last such story.
The selection below comes from Chapter 18. The story doesn’t have a title yet and is now at more than 45,000 words in length. The setting is in Saskatchewan, with side settings including a lunar base on the Earth’s moon, and a second lunar base on the moon called Europa, a moon circling Jupiter. Dev and his friends are aliens from the planet Azul. Their task is to somehow alter the current course of humanity so that it can eventually become a new member of the Interstellar community. Humans aren’t ready for contact with aliens from outer space.
The only normal human in this snippet, is Rita, an indigenous woman who is a professor of political science at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Dev is a new colleague in the department. Both are involved in a controversial bye-election that has the two main traditional parties acting badly. An attempted assassination of Dev who is the Independent candidate for the bye-election, is thwarted. Rita was injured and Dev got to spend a night in jail following his revelations that the front-running candidate was involved in the affair. It’s all complicated. With that said, let me know what you think?
~
“No, Rita. I’m not an ordinary human. Still, that doesn’t mean that I’m not Dev or that what we are doing isn’t important.”
“But you look like a human. You eat and drink like a human, and I imagine that you are more like a human than not. It’s all so confusing.”
“Rita, for the most part, we are biologically and physically and psychologically the same species. I am the man you see. Maybe the only difference is that I live longer than “normal” humans.”
“If I remember correctly, the Norse gods and goddesses weren’t all that fond of clothing either,” Rita commented, more to herself than to the others.
Dev didn’t respond to the comment, knowing that she was busy processing what had been said.
“Tell me the truth, Dev. Are you really a Nordic god?”
Dev hesitated only a moment before replying, “No, Rita. I’m not a Nordic god, nor a Celtic god, nor any kind of god. I’m not an ordinary human either. My roots are older than all of the gods and goddesses you have ever heard about. Humans have never been able to cope with the reality of people like me, so they invented names for us and placed us on pedestals as though we were gods. I am Dev. My real name is Devos Storm.”
“So why did Hunt tell me that you were Norse gods and goddesses?”
“Because that is what our superior, Freya Starfire told him to do. And yes, Freya is her real name,” Dev stated before Rita could ask.
No one else in the room said a word. They instinctively knew that Dev had likely salvaged the project telling Rita the truth, not the whole truth, but enough to create a possibility that Rita would accept it and allow the project to continue.
“One final question,” Rita stated. “In Norse mythology, Loki and Sigyn are mates. Are you and Maddie mates?”
Dev was caught up with that question. Maddie rushed in to answer for him. “Yes, Rita, we are mates. Well, that is not quite right. We were mates. We tend to move in and out of relationships, taking new mates. It is part of our way of coping with longer lifespans. Each of us are what humans would call bisexual. We experience love differently knowing that whether we remain in a relationship or move on to a new experience, the original love remains. To be more specific, Dev and I aren’t in a mate relationship at this time.”