Chapter 2.5: Surprises

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From Luna's diary

Maybe we should consider putting up a sign saying: "Beware the cat!" at the door, Mango keeps attacking our neighbours even when they just knock at our door asking for some sugar. Sometimes she can be really territorial... 

But this will be another day's problem, we have more urgent things to worry about: this morning we woke up to find leaking water from almost any sink and shower in the house. What could have caused it, a spike in water pressure? 

It wasn't a great start for the day, we barely had the time to repair everything before rushing to work, so we weren't able to investigate properly.

*Pretending nothing happened...*

All the aliens finally seem to be settling well, we hadn't to erase any memory because of questionable disguises for months. Both the official and the unofficial news haven't reported anything about those self-proclaimed pirates in about a year, and everyone seems to be doing their best for integrating among the earthlings. 

A lot of alien babies are also being born, some of them are children already, actually. This is seen as a great achievement for our people, considering that until one generation ago our genetic asset was not stable enough for reproducing without exploiting humans and pollinating them, which is how most of us were born. By integrating the earthlings' genome into ours, however, the new generation has acquired the ability to reproduce exactly as humans do, making abductions and pollination completely superfluous.

Despite this, however, official sources continue to say that we aliens and humans are still genetically too different to have children, and that thus we should ignore them. I have never focused on this topic, but I would really like to delve into it and find out the biological reason which could justify those conclusions...

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Returning home, I almost tripped into the next surprise of the day when walking up the stairs: Daisy just had two kittens! She seemed a bit slower than usual, but we were too busy to investigate and the long fur hid the rest.

I think they resemble a bit Milo's cat, Pedro, don't you agree, my dear diary? In either case, we have decided to keep the kitten on the right, Papaia, while the kitten on the left, Coco, will go to Milo, Noemi and Celine's place.

After having prepared a more comfortable spot for Daisy and her kittens, I heard Hermes returning back from his work. He surprised me a bit, he usually works until much later than this, but for sure I didn't complain.

Luna: (surprised) Are you cooking tonight?
Hermes: Well, I'm trying to. 

Luna: How is it?

Hermes: It could be better, probably.

Albeit his comment, I took a plate and sat at the other side of the table to have dinner together. We are both terrible at cooking and too often we just have a sandwich or a salad, so I found his attempt very sweet.

Luna: How was your workday?

Hermes: Bah, I was given a new assignment. Now I have to write about official announcements and integration statistics.

Luna: Is it as boring as the name would suggest?

Hermes: Maybe even worse... But that kind of information remains quite important, someone has to write about it.

Luna: ...

After saying so he returned to focus on his plate, with an even more thoughtful expression than usual. He almost seemed anxious about something, and I understood what was going through his head a few minutes later, when he finally decided to speak it out: 

Hermes: Luna, I would like to ask you something...

Hermes: will you marry me?

It is often difficult to understand what is going through Hermes's head, but deep down I should have expected it. Between us, he has always been the most romantic and the one who cares the most about traditions, after all.

We've known each other since we were teens and we started to fight for allowing the coexistence of humans and aliens, I could never imagine my life without him. How could I ever tell him no?

My dear diary, I suspect that many humans would not expect that an alien like me could ever write pages like this last one. The Elder's Council and their official news always draw a net line between us and the earthlings, but there really is such a substantial difference between us and them? Is our lifestyle and what we aspire for really so unlike what humans such as my brother Milo experience? The more time passes, the hardest it is for me to keep believing so...

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