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to sit beside our assigned culture partner. Shadus sits across from me, white shirt sleeves rolled up and showing the delicate skin of his wrist. He leafs through a book, sunlight reflecting in his ruby eyes.
    “Ms. Gianca said you guys don’t have good smelling,” I say. Shadus doesn’t even look up.
    “Ms. Gianca is a liar.”
    “Why would she lie?”
    “Because they’ve been told to lie by the sotho . Humans must never know what we’re truly capable of. Otherwise, we’d be in danger. We’d be locked behind more bars than just the reservation.” 
    “So why did you tell me? I could tell someone and get you guys in trouble.”
    “Don’t be dense. I’ve studied your history. No one believes a teenage human’s word.”
    I laugh for the first time in this place - a warm, true laugh. Shadus looks alarmed.
    “Is something humorous?”
    “Yeah,” I wipe my eyes. “It’s hilarious, because it’s absolutely true. And shitty. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hilarious.”
    He frowns and turns the page of his book.
    “Something wrong, Creeps?”
    He blinks. “Creeps?”
    “Yeah, it’s a nickname. Ever heard of them?”
    “Nicknames are something humans give to those they feel affection for.”
    “Well, yeah. But that’s obviously not the case here.”
    “Obviously,” he drawls.
    “If you don’t wanna say their real name, nicknames are viable.”
    “ Viable ?” Shadus looks up, a bare wisp of a smirk pulling at his mouth. It’s the first positive emotion I’ve seen him express. “Look who’s using big words now.”
    I bury the laugh threatening to come out in my notebook. I can’t believe he and I are having a civil conversation. We watch the librarian move between shelves, the sun catching his wild hair.
    “ Sha ,” Shadus says finally. “In our language, it means ‘herald’. Dus - ‘light of a new day’.”
    “I thought you said you used smell-language?”
    “We use both vocalizations and scents, but rely much more on scents, with vocalizations as modifiers.”
    “So, you’re the herald of the sun-”
    “- Sunrise.” He finishes, nodding.
    “Victoria’s easier. Victor - you know that word, right?”
    “Old English for ‘he who wins’,” Shadus says automatically.
    “Right. Slap an ‘a’ on it and it becomes a girl’s name.”
    “ She who wins ,” He tries. I nod.
    “Most people call me Vic.”
    “Names are the same everywhere in the universe, I think,” He muses. “They always have strange yet hopeful meanings. Every parent wishes for a child to be prosperous and happy, so they give them such names.”
    I nod. “My Mom named me.”
    “My mother named me as well.”
    “Where is she? Back on the reservation?”
    “Dead,” He flips a page in his book. “She died in our crash to Earth. She died shielding me.”  
    His red eyes dull to a dark wine color, and the stiff posture he always has loosens, as though something heavy is on his shoulders. His honesty jolts me down to my core, down to my EVE organ. Being honest deserves honesty in return.
    “My mom’s dead, too. Stampede during a Gutter protest.”
    He looks up, eyes briefly flickering with something I can’t pinpoint. Relief?
    “She died protecting you then, as well.”
    “What?” I wrinkle my nose. “No. She died because of you. Because of your people.”
    “She was protesting us. She was protesting the danger we represented. Any mother would want to protect her children – you - from unknown, strange newcomers.”
    It’s been years. But this new way of looking at it snaps something hard and bitter in my decade-old armor, and I don’t know if I like it. Shadus’s eyes burn into mine.
    “Yes, she died because of us. But she died protecting you. Never doubt that.”  
    There’s a silence as I try to piece together my broken voice.
    “Great. It’s real great you think you can just waltz in here and tell me why my own Mom died. That’s a great fucking way to make friends.”
    “I’m not