Normally, the whole ordeal would have been quite uncomfortable for Serix. Cassie had caught him staring at her while she was asleep, and then shoved him to the ground in a startled frenzy. He wasn’t even sure how he would explain his logic to her. Somehow ‘I wanted to look at your hair’ didn’t sound like the best thing to say to defend himself.

But instead, something else had caught his attention.

During the short period of time where they had been close enough to share breaths, Serix had noticed something odd. It might have just been his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw flecks of violet in Cassie’s blue eyes. But that wasn’t possible, was it? She had said violet wasn’t a color in the spectrum of human eyes. It was probably just wishful thinking. Maybe he was getting homesick. There was no way Cassie could have purple in her eyes.

Serix suddenly recalled something she had said back when they first met: that human-sympathetic Lunairan female. Cassie had said she spent a lot of time with her father. Could the Lunairan have been…? He pushed the thought away. No. That was impossible. They were of two different species. Interracial breeding couldn’t happen. The human beings looked similar to his people, but their genetics couldn’t be so alike that they could have offspring together, right? Cassie’s father was probably just a human that the Lunairan communicated with. Nothing more.

Serix looked up at Cassie from where he sat on the floor after she had pushed him. Her face seemed to have a bit more color to it than before. Refusing to meet his gaze, she said something about getting ‘breakfast’ and left the room, heading down the hallway to the nearby storage room.

Serix clambered to his feet and trailed after her. In the storage room, he took another container of food, using the same tool to open it. The contents were fruit bits again, but this time the pieces were yellow squares. He ate slower than the night before, enjoying the sugary taste of the food. He also used the time to sneak glances at Cassie, trying to catch a glimpse of the violet color he thought he saw in her eyes before. But of course, after a few tries he saw nothing different, so he gave up. It was just his imagination after all.

“So,” Serix said, putting an end to the silent tension that dragged on between them. “Where is this wire you need to find?”