Page 251 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

I stand at the counter with a ceremonial tea knife in my hand and an old Vakutan spice tin beside the kettle, trying to remember whether my mother used two pinches of redroot or three when she made karreth before winter trials. The memory is clear in sensation and uncertain in detail. Steam against my face. My mother’s hands, scarred and broad, grinding spice with the patience of a siege engine. The smoky, sharp scent of redroot clinging to the kitchen beams. My father pretending the tea was not too strong and failing because his eyes watered.

I have not made karreth in years.

Not because I disliked it. Because it belonged to a life I folded away under armor, orders, and then disillusionment. It belonged to a culture I have spent the last weeks walking around like a ruin whose floors may not hold.

I open the spice tin.

The smell hits me with such force that my eyes close.

Redroot, bitter cedar powder, sun-dried mineral salt, and the dark peppery heat of crushed thava seed. Not sacred. Not universal. Not evidence of a Grand Design. Only my people’s tea blend, carried from world to world by stubborn immigrants, soldiers, mothers, exiles, and old men who argued that anything weaker was “warm leaf water for diplomats.”

My chest tightens.

The grief comes, but it is not the abyss I expect. It is smaller, more precise. A blade thin enough to handle.

Behind me, Anita says, “Please tell me that is edible.”

I open my eyes. “It is tea.”

“That did not answer the question.”

“It is Vakutan tea.”

“Still dodging.”

I turn.

She stands by the cooking unit in sleep-rumpled trousers and one of my dark shirts, sleeves rolled to her elbows, curls pinned up with what appears to be a writing stylus. A smear of flour marks one cheek. The cooking unit behind her displays an error message in three languages and a tone of deep institutional disappointment. On the counter beside it rests a skillet containing several uneven rounds of something browned at the edges and pale in the middle.

I look from the skillet to her face.

She lifts the spatula defensively. “Do not judge before tasting.”

“I was not judging.”

“You looked like you were calculating casualty projections.”

“I was evaluating structural integrity.”

“Of breakfast?”

“Yes.”

She points the spatula at me. “You are one insult away from making your own food.”

“I am making tea.”

“Tea is not food.”

“In Vakutan field campaigns, tea was frequently the most reliable food-adjacent substance available.”

“That is the saddest cultural fact you have ever shared, and you have a lot of competition.”

I turn back to the kettle so she does not see how much I enjoy her. “What are you making?”

“Pancakes.”

I pause. “Are they intended to be that shape?”