Apple

He stood up in the filtering dim blue light and swayed lightly on his toes.  There was no rustle of the once-flawless, immaculate fabrics of his clothing, for while he kept them in good repair they had become worn and shabby, like an old effigy to expensive attire that has fallen from grace.  

He was very fond of those clothes.  Replacements could be easily obtained, but he had no interest in those professionally rendered suits.  

Anyone could go out an buy clothing.


He moved quickly through the short hallway into the main chamber and there she was, stark and tall like a vicious artist's ink slash against the silver blue.  She turned, minutely, and tilted her head, the high, proud crest tipping gently as her eyes rolled to fix him.  She had never been shorter than him, not when she arrived, and now as he grew; they grew together for so long until he stopped, and she did not.  And when the set sail for the sky she only grew taller, in inches and in confidence, shedding even the relaxed crouch that once diminished her height.

His mouth was dry, but he held it out, and the alien uncoiled an overlong limb and accepted it from him.  Her fingers were so slender and deft, and they did not touch his malformed, flipperlike hands.  She accepted the fruit and eyed it, fastidiously taking in the pallor of its flesh: laced yellow and pink, not red, as the symbolism might have preferred.  She lifted it to her mouth and he tensed at the flash of her perfect little teeth, the lips peeling back before they pared into the flesh of it, a crisp, iconic sound, the first bite into an apple.

He felt his throat muscles contract, he swallowed as she ate it, grinding each bite before it passed down her gullet.  Juice rolled down the back of her hand, she did not feel it through the synthetic membrane of her glove, and he watched, silent, still, transfixed, while she meticulously devoured it.  She bit through the skin, and the ever so faintly off-white, greenish flesh, crisp and wet, indiscriminately into the undesirable core and through it, to the last bite, a mirror of the first.  It all disappeared into her mouth, the skin, the flesh, the core, and the seeds, leaving naught but the stem and the sharp, sweet scent of its passing.

It was the last physical tie to that old world; last but of course, for him.
Kokopoke's tongue sought the traces of taste, memorizing it, and she opened her mouth and inhaled, letting the airborne miasma of its after-flavor roll over her mouth, cataloging the memory of a ripe, fresh apple, storing it beside and in contrast to the common, ferocious tang of undiluted vinegar.  Its unmarred, untreated flavor was one she was unlikely to experience again.

"Thank you."

He didn't say anything, but then, he never had.

"I would have shared with you."

He shook his head.

When he held out his hand she reached out and placed, delicately, the unremarkable stem into his upturned, grotesque palm.  His digits curled around it, as if she had gifted him something sacrosanct.