Athena
“May peace surround you, dear,” I said when I walked into the kitchen of my good friend Karina.
Karina spun around with her baby Marita on her left hip and a bowl in her right hand. “Oh, what a lovely surprise, Athena, may peace surround you too.” Setting down the bowl, Karina held out her free arm to hug me before she saw Finn behind me and stiffened in an awkward position.
“It’s okay,” I assured her.
“Who is that, is he a…” Karina wasn’t able to finish the sentence. Her eyes were large and both her arms folded as a protective shield around her baby girl.
“Yes, Finn is an Nman, but I promise you that he won’t harm you or anyone in your family unit.”
Karina’s eyes darted from me to the two men behind me.
“Let me introduce you to Finn and Hans,” I said with a smile and took a step forward, scooping Marita from Karina, so she could greet Hans, who was reaching out his hands to her.
“May peace surround you,” Hans said and his kind energy seemed to calm Karina down a bit as they locked eyes. “I’m a mediator, and I’m Finn’s guide while he is visiting the Motherlands,” Hans explained.
With hesitation, Karina moved closer to Finn. She wasn’t a small woman, but she still had to lean her head back to meet his eyes. “May peace surround you,” she said and reached out her hands to him.
“Same to you, beautiful.” Finn’s voice was warm and flirtatious.
I knew Karina well enough to see that his words took her by surprise and she was too baffled to speak.
“Cut it out, Finn,” I reprimanded him. “Karina won’t be seduced by you, she’s too smart for that.”
Karina’s hand flew up to her collarbone. “Seduced?” she breathed in confusion as if the word was alien to her.
Finn shot her a charming smile. “Don’t worry, a man can tell when a woman is out of his league.”
“League?” Karina looked at me as if she needed a dictionary. “Athena, what is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said in a firm voice. “As you might’ve heard on the news, five representatives from the Northlands are visiting the Motherlands at the moment, and Finn is one of them.”
“But why is he here?”
“He’s staying with me for five days, and since Finn has never seen a baby in his life, I thought it would be educational for him to meet little Marita.”
Pointing at the baby in my arms, Finn asked Karina for permission to take an up-close look at her daughter.
With a small nod, Karina signaled that he could.
“How old is she?” Finn asked.
“Almost three months,” Karina said and came to stand next to us. “I named her Marita after my mother Rita and my grandmother Mary.”
“It’s a very pretty name,” Finn complimented her.
For a while we talked about babies and Karina slowly relaxed as Finn asked questions about the sleeping and eating habits of Marita.
“Finn is a physician,” I said.
“Oh, that’s nice.” Karina gave him a small smile. “I can understand why you would be curious about babies then.”
“I am.” He nodded. “I’ve read about them, but it’s still fascinating to think that a big bastard like me and all my friends at home were once this small and fragile.”
Karina gently lifted Marita from me and turned to Finn. “Try to let her hold your finger.”
When he did, Finn’s eyes expanded in wonder. “Wow, she’s much stronger than I thought.”
The little girl had a firm grip around his index finger and was studying him.
“Did I do something wrong?” Finn asked nervously when Marita’s eyebrows drew closely together and her mouth fell.
“No, that’s just her pooping face.” Karina lifted her daughter up and sniffed her behind. “Yes, we have a winner. Tell you what, while I change her, why don’t you three go out in the garden and see if you can find Charlotte and Samuel. I’m surprised they haven’t come to see you yet; they must’ve seen your drone.”
It didn’t take us long to find the twins, and Karina was right; they knew we were here.
Charlotte was a bit taller than Samuel, but while she was shy, he was talkative and happy to inform us how they had spied on us. “You didn’t even see us,” he said with mischief. “That’s because we are so good at being quiet as mice.”
“You really are,” I agreed. “Are the bigger kids in school?”
“Yes, all the others are in school, and soon Charlotte and I will be in school too.”
“You mean next year?” I asked.
Samuel shrugged. “Momma Karina says that’s soon.”
“How old are you two?” Finn asked.
Charlotte held up five fingers.
“You are five years old?” Finn asked to confirm it.
“That’s right,” Samuel said. “And I’m the oldest because Charlotte came seven minutes after me.”
“I suppose that makes you her big brother and protector?” Finn concluded.
Samuel furrowed his brow. “Who are you?”
I leaned down and spoke in a soft voice. “My apologies for not introducing you to my friend, Finn. He’s visiting from the Northlands and he was curious to see a family unit.”
“Why?” Samuel asked. “What’s so special about that?”
“What’s special is that it’s very different for children to grow up in the Northlands. Finn has never seen a family unit before.”
“That’s right.” Finn nodded and squatted down in front of the two children. “So, I was hoping you two experts could tell me about what it’s like to grow up in one.”
Samuel and Charlotte exchanged a smile, flattered to be called experts.
“Why don’t you start by telling Finn how many people live in this family unit,” I suggested.
“All right, there’s me and Charlotte, and then there’s Deshaun, Kate, Holly, Teri Lynn, Reva, and Tristan.” Samuel listed.
“You forgot Marita,” Charlotte reminded him.
Using the back of his hand to wipe his nose, Samuel shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s just because she’s so little.”
“She still counts,” Charlotte insisted.
“So that makes nine children,” Finn summed up.
Samuel counted on his fingers and we patiently waited for him to get to nine before he nodded his head in agreement. “But that’s just us kids, you know, we also have five parents living here.” With the help of Charlotte, he named all five parents living in the family unit. “Karina is the only one who stays home to watch us while the others go to work.”
“And is Karina your mom?” Finn asked.
“We’ve got four moms and Martin is our dad,” Charlotte said in a soft voice.
Finn gave a small whistle. “Four moms – wow, that’s a lot. You know, where I come from most of us don’t even have one mom and most of us don’t have sisters or brothers either.”
Samuel tilted his head. “Then who is in your family?”
Finn threw out his hands. “That’s just the thing; most of us don’t have families.”
“But then who sings to you?” Charlotte asked with a troubled look. “And who celebrates your birthday with you?”
Finn brushed his hair back and shook his head. “No one does. Why? What happens on your birthday?”
Samuel took it upon himself to explain the tradition of getting presents for your birthday.
“And you also get a cake with your name on it,” Charlotte added.
“No way!” Finn narrowed his eyes. “Now you two are just making up stories to make me jealous. No one gets both a cake and presents just because it’s the day they were born.”
“We do,” Charlotte and Samuel insisted with their heads bobbing to underline that they were telling the truth.
Finn turned to me. “Are they messing with me?”
“No, celebrating your birthday is very common here.”
“Huh, you guys come up with the craziest things.”
I laughed. “It’s not something we came up with, it’s an old tradition that runs back hundreds of years if not thousands. Surely you have heard about it.”
Finn looked to the side and rubbed his shoulder. “I might have seen something like that in old movies; it looked…” He thought about it. “It looked nice.”
“It is nice!” Samuel exclaimed and waved his hand in a come-along gesture. “I can show you some of the toys that Charlotte and I got for our last birthday.”
Finn, Hans, and I followed along when the two children ran back into the house, passing Karina, who was coming out at that moment.
“The twins want to show Finn their toys,” I explained to her when she gave me a questioning look. “You go ahead, I’ll stay here and talk to Karina,” I called after Hans and Finn.
“You could’ve warned me,” Karina said when they were out of sight. “I almost had a heart attack seeing that man in my kitchen. “
“Finn is the one who held me hostage in the Northlands,” I told her in a low voice. “He has come to apologize to me.”
“And you forgave him?” Karina asked.
“Wouldn’t you?”
Karina sucked in a deep breath and untangled Marita’s little hand from her curly hair. “Probably, but I’m not sure I would be as amicable around him as you are. Aren’t you mad at him?” Before I could answer, Karina sighed and added. “Don’t answer that. I already know you’re going to tell me that you don’t carry anger in your heart.”
I smiled.
“All I’m saying,” Karina breathed, “is that we can’t all be as enlightened as you are and that I admire you for being so gracious about the whole thing.”
“Finn has a lot to learn about empathy and I can’t explain why, but I feel like our paths are connected for a reason.”
“What do you mean? Are you talking about destiny?” she asked.
Karina had been one of the first friends I met when I moved to this area four years ago. Back then she had been pregnant with the twins, and a newcomer too. The old mill had been empty for more than fifteen years and all the locals had been excited that a new priestess was moving in.
Karina had been one of the most welcoming, and had helped me clean the mill and get me settled in. We have been best friends ever since.
“Destiny is a big word, but yes, I think there is a higher meaning in our paths crossing twice like this. I learned a lot about myself when I spent those five days with Finn.” I thought about it. “It was a hard lesson on patience, tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness.”
“Yes, I’ll bet it was.” Karina gave me Marita and went back into the kitchen to find some treats for us. “What did he mean about seducing me?” she asked with a smile tugging at her lips.
I kissed Marita on the hair and went to sit down by the huge table in the kitchen. “Finn is just very interested in women and he’s right; you are beautiful.”
Karina snorted. “Ha, then he should’ve seen me before I had children. Now everything seems to be bigger and looser on my body.” She laughed and threw her hands up in the air.
With my elbow on the table, I rested my chin in my hand and pondered out loud. “Finn seems different than the other Nmen I know about; I wonder why that is.”
“Different how?” Karina said and took a big bite of a cookie.
“Well…” I tilted my head to the side and thought about what had until then been foggy thoughts in the back of my head. “Remember I told you that there was a woman in the Northlands that I spent some time with? Christina, the archaeologist who was also a Motlander?”
“Yes, I remember you talking about her.”
“According to Christina, the Nmen fight to the death in tournaments to be with one of the few women that grow up there.”
“It’s so brutal,” Karina commented. “But go on.”
“The thing is that if it’s so highly prestigious for them to have a wife, and Christina made it sound like they were all focused on finding one woman, then why is Finn different?”
“I don’t know.” Karina picked up another cookie without taking her eyes off me. “What’s your theory?”
“My theory is that either Christina was wrong, or Finn is an anomaly,” I concluded. “He’s not interested in finding just one woman. I suspect that he wants to be with as many as he possibly can.”
“Are you saying that just because he called me beautiful?” Karina asked while chewing on her last bite of cookie. “Please tell me, this doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he came on to me and not you?” she asked. “You shouldn’t take it personally. Maybe I’m just more his type then you are.”
I grinned. “I wish it was that simple, but he comes on to me plenty. If you and I wanted to have sex with him, I guarantee you that Finn wouldn’t care which one of us he had it with.”
Karina licked crumbs off her lips and leaned in. “I suppose his interest is kind of flattering, but it’s also strange that he thinks about us sexually. I mean who does that, and even worse – admits to it?”
I laughed. “Nmen are just different from us and they still have this old-fashioned idea that women and men should have sex together.”
“Why? Don’t they have sex-bots?”
“Yes, they do, but Finn explained to me that they only use them because they don’t have access to real women.”
Karina waved a dismissive hand. “That’s what he thinks, but you can just tell him that he’s wrong. I mean, if sex between men and women was better, people in the Motherlands would be having sex with each other, right?”
I frowned and nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”
“We have access to humans and we still prefer robots; that should tell you something.”
“True.” I nodded my head. “But do you know anyone who has actually had sex with a man?”
A slow smile grew on Karina’s face. “Yes, and she wasn’t impressed. The man got tired of giving her oral sex and stopped before she gave him permission to.”
“Who was it?” I asked, but Karina wouldn’t tell.
“I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone. She’s embarrassed about it and doesn’t want people to think she’s some kind of naturephile. It was just a youthful experiment and we shouldn’t judge her for it.” Karina tilted her head. “Not that you would ever judge anyone, of course.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I confirmed.
“The point is just that my friend didn’t enjoy it much and she said it was messy in the end.”
“Messy?”
“I think she used the words wet and slimy.”
I pulled my head back and frowned in confusion. “Why would it be wet and slimy?”
“I’m not sure. I should have asked for more details,” Karina said with a shrug. “But I’m confident that Finn is wrong if he thinks sex with a woman is better than with a sex-bot.”
I thought about bringing up the fact that Finn had spent some time in the Motherlands recently and been with five women. Apparently, there were still plenty of naturephiles who weren’t disgusted by the idea of sleeping with a human.
“I’d better go and check up on Finn and Hans,” I suggested.
“I hope you have time to stay. Tristan will be horribly disappointed if he doesn’t get to meet Finn. With all the stories on the news about the children from the Northlands, he’s very interested in them.
“What time will Tristan be back?”
Karina looked at her wristband and bit her lip. “He won’t be back until two-thirty, and it’s not even nine o’clock yet.” She lifted her head to meet my eyes. “How about you take Finn for an educational visit to the local school?”
I smiled. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, but you’d better call the principal and prepare her. And don’t forget to mention that Finn is peaceful and escorted by a mediator and me, or she’ll just barricade the school.”
Karina shook her head. “Not at all. Hannah might be the new principal, but she’s always going on about famous people and the Nmen are the hottest things on the news now. She’ll be thrilled to meet Finn in person. They all will!”
When I walked in to fetch Finn and Hans, Finn sat on the floor surrounded by toys. The sight of the large Nman in the children’s room made me smile a little. His long hair was tied in a bun on his head and his beard was trimmed shorter than yesterday. Seeing him in this setting made it hard to understand why I’d been so afraid of him that first night.
Finn was a gentle giant with Charlotte and Samuel, attentively listening to them as they showed him their toys. A tingling sensation in my belly spread into warmth in my chest. I had felt the same buzzing feeling when Finn and I meditated earlier today. Normally when I did this kind of bonding meditation, I had no problem closing off from all bodily sensations to focus on the energy flow between me and my meditation partner. But with Finn it was like my body was reacting to him in a heightened alertness and every touch, stroke, or smile affected me in this new and mysterious way.
I told myself that it was my highly developed empathy that caused me to always look up when he was looking at me. But that didn’t explain why Finn also raised his eyes every time I was looking at him first. Maybe our five days together in the Northlands had linked us somehow, and maybe that explained why I had felt called to venture into another five days with him.
Despite the unusual situation, I was happier than I had been in a long time. And standing quietly in the doorway, I found pleasure in watching Finn and the children a while longer.
“How high can it go?” Finn asked Samuel and curiously turned a small model drone over in the air, investigating it closely.
Charlotte looked up at me. “Finn says that he never had a toy of his own. Isn’t that sad?”
“As a child,” Finn quickly added with a quick glance at me. “Now as an adult, I have everything I need.” He held up the mini drone. “In fact, I have a toy like this, only it’s much bigger and incredibly fast compared to your drones.”
“Why didn’t you have a toy when you were a child?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The school had toys, but obviously with so many children, it was hard to get your hands on the most popular things.”
Charlotte quietly went over to a shelf, picking up a fist-sized device that was oval-shaped. “I want you to have this,” she said and brought it back to Finn.
He looks stunned as she showed him her favorite toy. “When you press here, it opens up.” Quickly turning off the light, Charlotte demonstrated how the small device would light up the walls and ceiling, creating the illusion of being out in space. “Look, you can zoom in on the part of the Milky Way you want to visit, and it plays really nice music too.”
“No wonder this is your favorite toy,” Finn said, impressed. “But I can’t take this, Charlotte.”
“Maybe you can bring it to the Northlands and give it to a child who doesn’t have his own toy,” Charlotte said with a serious expression. “And if you do, will you tell him that it was me who gave it to you?”
Finn sat up on his knees holding the device between himself and Charlotte. “If you are sure about this, then I will be honored to bring this to the Northlands and tell everyone about your generosity.”
Her small chin lifted and she looked up at me.
“That was very nice of you, Charlotte,” I said and smiled at her.
“You can have one of my toys too,” Samuel chimed in and after rummaging through a box of toys, he pulled out a small unicorn.
“Thank you,” Finn said and looked a bit unsure when he took the multicolored unicorn from the boy.
Charlotte placed her hands on her hips, and scolded her brother. “You never liked that, and the horn is broken off.”
“I know, that’s why I’m giving it to him,” Samuel said without shame.
Finn got up from the floor and tousled the boy’s hair. “I shall cherish your gifts dearly.” Turning to Hans he said, “And I’ll give you the honor of carrying this fine purple horse for me.”
Hans took the toy that was handed to him. “It’s not a horse, it’s a unicorn.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Finn said seriously and walked out of the room. “We don’t have them in the Northlands.”