Orange Crush

Chapter 6 - Fins Que Arribi L'Alba

***JOSH***

The bandanna that's been in my hair since I left Phil's moves places as the wind picks up, blowing a little more sand into my face. Okay, that makes it sound like the bandanna's got a mind of its own, but no, it's not that smart. Or enchanted, like just about everything down here tends to be.

For the moment, there's actually no major sunshine on this place. Well, one sun mostly under the horizon, way out into the flatlands beyond this rocky little canyon town. And it looks like it's going down more and more with each second - like, I can actually watch it sink at a rate faster than that of any sun on any other world I've been on.

"S'beautiful, eh, man?" This guy next to me, following my line of sight, pronounces it more like "mang." Cuban accent. I turn to my right and see him reaching up to grab his own bandanna from his Afro. He's tall and lithe, with some of the darkest skin I've ever seen. I wonder if that's due to the suns of this place, though I'd be willing to bet he's always been rich in melanin. He's not dark enough, though, to fully camouflage the snake riding his left arm. A Black Glacier. I eyeball him warily until he offers his other hand to shake. "Jaedra Carlos," he says. Though his name is pronounced like "Hydra," I immediately render it in my head with Spanish spelling. Which gives me a reason to make a little joke when I introduce myself.

"Josh Christopher," I say. "We both JC's, huh?"

"Hey!" Jaedra throws his hands in the air, a great big smile exploding onto his face. "No one ever spells my name right the first time."

"Well, no one ever guesses my preferred language the first time either."

"I got a little help with that," he says. "I think." He points at his ear, where I see a small black device nestled tightly into place. Like a hearing aid, or...no, wait, it must be a translator. Does that mean he hears me speaking Spanish?

Nah, man, half the time this shit don't work. It's his voice in my head, weak but definitely there. I surreptitiously peek around his back and see, under his navy-blue tank, the deep black feathers of his wings. Not quite as dark as a dark scriv, but dark naturally. He must be an angel. So what the fuck is he doing here?

"I kinda crash-landed." He speaks out loud, probably because he realizes I don't have the strongest telepathy. "There was, uh...well, I got asked to help this elder god or whatever with her mission, I did it...and then my spaceship got knocked off course."

"Not...?" I'm about to ask if it was my dad before it really registers with me that Jaedra gave this god female pronouns.

"She ain't nobody in any mythology you or I ever heard of, man." He shakes his head. "Hell, I ain't even sure she's a she, you know? Maybe she just showed herself that way thinking it'd make me wanna work with her." He smiles to himself at the thought. "And she was right, 'cause even though she was an ocean girl, that chica was smokin'." And then that smile vanishes as quickly as it came. "Damn, I feel bad already thinking of some other girl when I'm still not over..."

"I wouldn't know what it's like to feel that way for a girl, but hey, man, it happens." Okay, not strictly speaking true. Mary Magdalene sure as hell knew the way to my heart. A rare example. Maybe she was touched by Venus? I'm still sure that explains it.

"Hmm," Jaedra says. "Don't like girls, huh?"

"I don't like anybody," I say a little too quickly. "I mean, uh, no. I-I-I love people. In general. But I just don't like people. Not like that."

He nods solemnly. "S'cool, man."

I'm tempted to make a joke about how strange it must seem to him, the idea that Jesus is queer as a three-dollar bill, but I'm not ready to unload that particular truth on him just yet. "So what're you doing here?" I ask. "Besides trying to find a way back home. Which I am too, though where I can call home, I couldn't tell you."