The Lily and the Crown by Roslyn Sinclair

Author:Roslyn Sinclair [Sinclair, Roslyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Published: 2017-10-04T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

As it turned out, it would take a while to get in some hummingbirds. They weren’t exactly native to a mining planet, and they would need to be shipped from halfway across the system on the next carrier that could support animal life. Then they’d have to sit in quarantine for a month before they were allowed inside the station.

“How long do hummingbirds even live?” Assistant asked when Ari told her the news.

Ari bit her lip as she re-read the datapedia entry. “A few years in captivity if they’re properly cared for. More in the wild. I only want two to start with.” Better to start small. She could just imagine a score of dead hummingbirds lying all over the place because she hadn’t known what she was doing.

Assistant peered over her shoulder. “Sounds like we better not get too attached to them.”

“I’m trying it anyway.” Ari slid her finger over the touchpad, taking in the pictures of all the lovely birds. “I’ll do my best. And even if they don’t, um, do well…” A snippet of something flashed into her mind and she quoted it.

The experience is better lived than not / better the bones than the untilled grave.

No response. Ari glanced up to see Assistant staring down at her.

“Well. That was suitably grim,” Assistant said.

Ari blushed and looked back down at the datapad. “It’s part of a, uh, poem I know.” It had been one of the famous ones she’d downloaded. No wonder Assistant hadn’t heard of it, even if it was well-known. Pirates weren’t known for being poetry lovers. “I guess it sounded kind of morbid, but that’s not what the whole poem’s about. It’s about—um—”

It was about love. About how it was better to know love, and lose it, than never to have known it at all. Even if the loss was painful. It was the sort of thought Ari would never have agreed with before, but now that Assistant was in her life, she couldn’t imagine not having known her—even if she was freed someday. Even if she left.

“Poetry, hmm.” Assistant backed away from Ari’s chair as if it had caught fire. “Can’t say I know much about that. I’m going to go check on those cuttings.”

Ari couldn’t help a chuckle. It figured. Even if Assistant did know about poetry somehow, it probably wouldn’t be her favorite thing, especially sappy love poetry. It hadn’t been Ari’s thing before, either. “Sure.”

She didn’t stop smiling even after Assistant had fled from poetry into the thick of the garden. Assistant had changed everything. Ari hadn’t wanted her here, but now her life before seemed sterile and lonely. She didn’t ever want to go back to that.

It was true that Ari didn’t know much about the world, as Assistant had said over and over again. But she did know that having Assistant around made her happy—happier than anything else ever had. Happy enough that she wouldn’t trade anything for the experience.

A feeling like that had a name.

And it

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