Jilk (Sequel to Eliza and Jilk)

The old-looking Naian stared upwards, aware of the impatient looks on the young human faces surrounding him. Finally, he spoke, "Sometimes, when you look up, into the sky on a clear night, you see something which you know you cannot tell anybody about." At this the teens nodded wearily; it was obviously an old story.

A human, a boy who was probably around 16 Earth years, frowned. "Jilk, we've heard this one so many times."

The old one grinned, his cat-like whiskers rearranging themselves as he did so. "No you haven't. This one's old, very old. None of you would know it unless Eliza told you, and she couldn't remember half the details by the time she..." A high-pitched cry broke out from the long tent behind Jilk, and he tiredly looked over his shoulder and murmured, "Another to be read to tonight."

The teenagers shifted uneasily, and the boy from before - let's call him Johane- spoke quietly yet fiercely. "Jilk, you - or anyone else for that matter - haven't told us where you come from. You don't look like one of us, not even our parents. You've been around since living memory, and you are pretty much the only adult like you, cause Andrew there doesn't count."

Andrew looked up from his drawing in the sand. "What?" He was a young-looking boy sitting in front of Jilk's roughly made oak chair, and who probably didn't belong with this group of teenagers. He had fur on the tips of his ears, and eyes like a cat's.

Johane glanced at Andrew and continued, "This Eliza you talk about. She was old in the stories my father passed down from his grandfather. She couldn't have told us. And you're -"

Here Jilk interrupted. "My good friend. Can you not leave these questions for when you are older?" he looked around. "It seems like none of you can, tonight. All of you, look upwards. Do you see anything?"

"Trees."

"Clouds."

"Stars."

"You." The last comment was from Andrew.

Jilk laughed, but said nothing.

Johane rolled his eyes. "Jilk, that's old. I've looked at that sky many times, and only seen the lights put there by the ones from the last era." Jilk nodded, refraining to mention that he had been in that era too, and the stars weren't put there then. Johane continued, "So there's nothing else, you see?" The boy gestured so as to include their planet, Enterprise, in his wave. "According to all I've been taught, we're only a small part of a small planet in a small system. But it's very possible that we're the only forms of life in the universe."

At this Jilk shook his head sadly, but refrained from saying anymore that night. Andrew took over stories instead. He was pretty good, but nervous, and so he stuttered. The next day, Jilk was nowhere to be found, and a piece of waxed paper, very old and creased, was next to Andrew's head in the sleeping tent. He read to the young ones of the tribes for many years to come, and Johane grew old and died under his constantly amused smile. A legend grew about Andrew; that he was son of Jilk and Eliza, for he had been young many years longer than others born at the same time as he. And so life passed, until one night Andrew sighed, and looked starwards. This group of teens reminded him very much of his father, and his son was the same age as he had been when Jilk had left.