Chulteka slid off his shoulder without ceremony, finding her feet on the crater stone, her nakedness immediately aware of the void-cold that lived here. No air exactly, but something that filled the lungs anyway, something thicker than vacuum and thinner than atmosphere, laced with a faint electrical charge that moved through her white hair and made it rise slightly at the ends.
Her nipples stiffened from the cold instantly, pebbled and dark against her pale skin, her thighs pressing together against the temperature.
She crossed her arms over her chest on instinct.
Looked at him.
He was looking at the stars.
His hands loosely at his sides. His expression — that same expression she'd been cataloguing and failing to fully categorize since the garden. Not wonder. Not ambition. Something quieter and more unsettling.
'Familiar recognition.'
'He's looking at them like he already owns them and is just taking inventory.'
