We spent so much time together- we had to of course. I often laid with my head in Peter's long lap, gazing out the panoramic window, like a moth drawn to the azure and brilliantly gold light display.

Peter spent what felt like days going over the physics and knowledge he knew about time and life. He told me that humans were almost at the brink of discovering it- that scientists simply hadn't the means to prove it just yet, but he knew the fact- time and space were-are- composed of lines and strings, invisible, and understood as such. They stretch and bend according to the relative motions they are in contact with.

He said we control those motions, and by balancing purpose nearly all time could be controlled via the proper 'bending' technology. His people were born with that ability and we- us humans, simply were not.

I was half between drifting to sleep while studying the black sky from afar, he had just finished trying to explain how he had bent my biology so that I wouldn't have to eat or drink water until we were on his planet. It went entirely over my head, and I yawned loudly, a thought stirring in me. I could hear him tinkering around his control panel behind my back.

"Peter, is there anything humans have that you don't, aside from organs and the wildlife on earth? Are we more spiritual, or something? Anything, or do we just overall suck?" I heard the note of almost whine in my voice and cringed at it, but didn't try to cover up my maturity error. He said he knew everything about me anyway, he had to know I sometimes put my foot in my mouth.

It had occurred to me in this long stretch of time we spent together, that everything about him seemed so much more intense and interesting. Given, he was an entirely different species, but it made me feel like something was off. I was raised to know humans are the most intelligent beings in existence, and then he suddenly shattered my world. I wanted a movie plotline, to know I had something on him and his race, some kind of genuine and heart-warming difference. Like them lacking souls or compassion- anything.

I heard him approaching me, and waited until he sat in his rigid and awkward pretzel-legged position mimicking me, or trying to with his angular limbs.

He exhaled loudly, and caught my eyes, "The only difference is," his eyes flicked down my body in a fairly clinical glance, "our forms," he closed his eyes and smiled, his super-white teeth straight and shining, "I remember the very first time I saw a human, and the complexity by which your bodies operate was so surreal- your neurons and organs- the whole thing is pointless, yet capturing in it's intricacy. We are so boring- our composition, a simple electrically charged water base and some currents. Also, we do not have to eat, which is quite beneficial as you would imagine."

Throughout his small speech, he had let his huge eyes run over certain parts of me, and flicker back to my face periodically, leaving a somewhat flustered and disturbed me to try and figure out what he had just told me.

When I let it all sink in, I flushed with a touch of annoyance, "Boring? Are you kidding me? Being wicked smart and not susceptible to hunger pains is boring?" I let my sarcasm seep into my tone, and he instantly responded, unaware of my humor.

"Quite. There is an artistry to humans that we simply are fascinated with. I remember the first time we operated on a live human, and I saw how the adrenalin moves when-"

"Wait. What?" My mind had been spinning to make a quick joking remark about how cramps and heart attacks were not artful, when his unaffected slip on live human operations suddenly slammed into focus. A gory image of a man laying cut open, and screaming in pain while surrounded by sharp, tall, bug-like creatures filled my vision.

He paused, his face obviously showing his unintended information slip, "In the beginning we… well, we were curious and operated on live humans we abducted. It is outlawed now, but before, we would keep them awake for study by behavioral specialists during the process." He stared openly back at me, waiting.

The absolute revulsion to such inhumanity made me nearly choke- how could people, aliens, like him who are so honest and eager to please have been so horrendously cruel?

"You watched stuff like that happen?" I felt my eyes widen, and shifted just the smallest bit away from him, suddenly feeling uneasy, even more so than normal. I had come to learn, he would never lie to me, as if it violated some part of who he was. Regardless of how I would react, had reacted to some things he told me, he never stopped telling me the truth.

His hair angled down just the slightest. I had come to notice the wild and feathery texture would react with his emotions, almost in the same way a cat's ears do. His shock of white hair was his give away. I was making him ashamed, and the fact that he felt guilty for it, made me even more concerned about who I was next to. Just how much had he seen, and done? How far had his cruelty, or knowledge of it gone?

A long pause drifted between us around the silver cabin, his silence saying something very hard to hear at the time. For what to me had felt like months, he was the only 'person' with me, and this changed the hesitant almost-bond we had begun to form. I knew he was taking so long to respond, because it had to have been very bad.

"It was," he fidgeted loudly, his big body in the corner of my eye as I turned to watch the glowing stars out the window while he spoke, "different at the time. Humans were just beginning to take form, still ape-like and primal- it was not the same as if we took live species today, while you are fully developed intellectually sound. We were different then too, under the influence of a different research leader. I was considered quite young, I had been in a sense, born only four weeks hence. I found all things the be a process of study and engagement, I was not at the stage of understanding ethics yet. Do not judge me Story, I have not judged you." He stood, raising his lanky body up, and then turned abruptly back to his control board, to fiddle with the small spots of color, controlling speed and angle of the ship.

I stayed there, pondering his oddly tragic, and defining tale. His last words struck me quite hardly, as I realized their weight. He had watched me my whole life, through years of adolescence, teenage hood, and the beginnings of womanhood as well. The times I committed wrongs against friends, or acted out badly towards my mother. He had seen every bit of what I had been, and was currently up until that very point when he retold something he found obviously disturbing about his own story.

He made my emotion seem so petty, and still, what he had just told me was a bombshell. He had been alive since humanoids had first evolved. He had to be over a billion years old. And, during all of that inconceivable time, he had some rights to having low points as well.

I wasn't able to come up with something to say, so I stood, and walked over to him haltingly, awkwardly unsure of myself. He kept his back to me, though I knew he knew I was there. After a few breaths, I just let my hand rest on his shoulder, reaching up to it, unable to fully grasp it. I hoped I conveyed my apology, without saying I thought it was OK.

He stiffened, and the relaxed before I felt that cool sensation of him being inside my mind, "We will arrive on my planet within a few hours."

I shuddered involuntarily, something seemed to change in the air, and I withdrew my hand.

AN: Well, it has certainly been a long freaking time since I last posted! Also, though I've technically been on this site browsing for a long time, I'm still somewhat unaware of how to work it properly, hence all the bolded chapters. It annoys me as much as I'm sure it annoys those reading it. I'm trying to fix technical errors, but well, I figure you'd rather read the next bit of the story then have to wait forever for my technologically inept self to get it together. Also:

All of your reviews are simply lovely. I mean that, they make my day. I feel so much more able creatively speaking, just from all the kindness. Even something as simple as 'can you post some more?' is exciting! Lol

So, thank you to the reviewers, you make my insecure self nearly beam with confidence. The fact that you give a flip about things that I make up is just so freaking cool. Anywho, I'm cranking out some more stuff already, but I want to make it more edited before I let you guys read it, so- until next time! Have an awesome day!