Page 16 of Riv's Sanctuary

It could be argued that such places were sanctuaries for some on Earth.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but damn, she wanted to choose.

She would ask Geblit but it felt as if even mentioning it would make it true, so she kept her mouth shut instead and waited, praying they would leave this section of town quickly.

It seemed Geblit wanted the same, for as soon as a large, flabby alien hailed them from across the street, Geblit's four eyes widened even more and the hovercar sped up, shooting down the narrow road and leaving dust in its wake.

In a few minutes, the bottle-shaped houses faded into the background and they were on a flat plain leading to an open savanna.

Here, tall yellow-orange grass swayed in the wind for as far as she could see.

Lauren's eyes widened as she took in the view, sitting up in her box just so she could see better.

Off in the distance, there were large grazing animals that looked like cows. She knew they weren't cows, of course, they just looked like cows because of their mannerisms. They took no note of the hovercar, too busy chewing slowly, their heads dipping to the grass as they pulled the blades into their huge maws.

This was so different from being in the zoo that her mouth fell open in awe.

Out here, the world felt free.

The hovercar passed one of the animals close by and she realized it looked like a very chubby brown hippo, except it had large, oval protrusions running down its back. It had no tail either.

Leaning over the hovercar, she let her hand brush against the tall grass as the vessel flew over the savanna.

She was pretty sure she looked like a dog with its head out the window, enjoying the cool breeze. Maybe she was becoming a pet. But, for the moment, she allowed herself to enjoy it.

She’d been trapped in a glass box for a year. She deserved this.

And it was nice.

With such an amazingly beautiful scene in front of her, she could almost forget her circumstances.

If this Riv lived in a nice place like this, he was bound to be a lovely fellow. And it seemed he lived quite far out on this plain.

They'd been traveling for a while now and she hadn't seen any houses or bits of civilization. She could only assume this Riv was a country boy—or country-whatever species Geblit was.

"So, tell me about this Riv," she said, bringing her hand back into the vessel. Touching the grass had been nice at first but the constant brush of the blades against her hand was beginning to sting.

"I do not know much about him. But he owes me a favor," Geblit replied.

Not the answer she was looking for. Not the answer she was looking for at all.

"You don't know much about him?"

Just perfect, she shouldn’t have expected more.

"Is he a good person at least?"

Geblit only glanced at her, his four eyes blinking before he refocused ahead. The action made her want to close her hands around his skinny little neck and shake him.

"Nice? Is he nice?" she pressed.

Geblit glanced at her again and blinked away.

“Riv is…” But he stopped there.

His hesitation was doing wonders for her adrenal gland.

It was suddenly getting great exercise, meaning that it was pumping adrenaline into her endocrine system as if his hesitation was steroids.