Moo Moo was in my arms.
This was, I reflected, the most normal thing that had happened to me since I woke up in this world. A small green creature, weeping uncontrollably, clinging to me like I was the only solid thing in a universe that had decided to become liquid. This was familiar. This was comfortable. This was something I understood.
Everything else—the school, the family, the boy who pushed me and called me a piglet—was noise. This was signal.
Moo Moo cried for approximately seven minutes. This was a short cry by his standards. I counted.
"Moo," he finally managed, his voice muffled by my shoulder. "Moo moo moo moo Moo Moo moo."
"I missed you too," I said. "Now stop crying. You're getting my shirt wet."
"Moo." He did not stop crying. He cried harder.
I sighed. This was also familiar. Moo Moo cried when he was happy, sad, scared, confused, hungry, full, warm, cold, or experiencing any emotion that fell within the broad spectrum of existing. It was, I had long ago concluded, simply his natural state. Like breathing. Or being green.
We sat on my bed, the two of us, surrounded by the pink walls and the staring posters and the faint smell of the soup Dad had made for dinner. Moo Moo's sobs gradually subsided to hiccups, then to sniffles, then to the occasional wet shudder that made his whole body tremble.
"Moo," he said finally, pulling back to look at me. His eyes were swollen. His fur was matted. He looked like a dishrag that had been through a war.
"You look terrible," I told him.
"Moo."
"You always look terrible."
"Moo moo."
"That's not a compliment. That's an observation."
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been another sob. With Moo Moo, it was often difficult to tell.
We spent the next hour talking. Or rather, I talked, and Moo Moo provided interjections of "Moo" that I had spent years learning to translate. He told me about falling from the heavens—"Moo moo"—and landing in a garden—"Moo!"—and being found by a small human who had picked him up and squeezed him and never let go.
"Lily," I said.
"Moo." His ears drooped. His eyes filled again.
"She's sick."
"Moo moo moo."
"The doctors say she doesn't have long."
"Moo."
I looked at him. This small, green, perpetually terrified creature who had jumped into the void for me, who had landed in a world he didn't understand, who had been found by a dying girl and had decided, without hesitation, to love her.
"You need to go back to her," I said.
Moo Moo's head snapped up. "Moo?"
"You can't leave her alone. Not now. Not when she needs you."
"Moo moo moo—"
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm here. I'm not—" I stopped. Swallowed. "I'm not going to disappear. But she might. And she needs you with her. For whatever time she has left."
Moo Moo stared at me. His eyes were wide. His mouth was open. He looked, in that moment, like I had just handed him the secrets of the universe and told him to guard them with his life.
"Moo," he whispered.
"You can come here at night," I said. "When she's sleeping. If you need me. But during the day, you stay with her. You be with her. You make sure she's not alone."
"Moo." His voice was thick. His eyes were streaming. But he was nodding. Small, emphatic nods that made his ears flap.
"Good."
He launched himself at me again. More crying. More wetness on my shirt. I let him.
"Moo moo moo moo moo," he said into my neck.
"I'm different?" I pulled back to look at him. "What do you mean, I'm different?"
He looked at me. His eyes, still wet, still swollen, were doing something I had never seen before. They were looking. Not just seeing. Looking. Like he was trying to find something he hadn't known was missing.
"Moo," he said softly. "Moo moo moo moo."
I stared at him. "I smiled? So what? I've smiled before."
"Moo."
"That was different? That was—" I paused. He was right. I had smiled at Mum. In the hospital waiting room. I had smiled at her, and she had cried, and Dad had pretended not to notice, and I had felt something in my chest that I hadn't felt before. Something warm. Something that was not power or fear or the cold satisfaction of watching lesser beings struggle.
Something that might have been love.
"This family," I said slowly, "is getting into me."
Moo Moo tilted his head.
"I don't know how to explain it. They're—" I gestured vaguely at the room, at the house beyond, at the world I was still trying to understand. "—they're loud. They bicker about dishes and laundry and who left the cap off the toothpaste. They throw slippers at people who call them peasants. They cry about programs and fish and daughters who don't remember them." I paused. "And they love. Fiercely. Without reason. Without condition. They just—love."
Moo Moo's eyes were very round.
"I didn't know humans could do that," I said. "I watched them for centuries. I saw them fight and kill and destroy each other over things that didn't matter. I saw them at their worst. I never saw—" I stopped. Swallowed. "I never saw this."
Moo Moo reached up and patted my cheek. His paw was small. Wet. Gentle.
"I'm learning," I said. "Slowly. But I'm learning."
He smiled. It was a small smile, wobbly and tearful, but it was there. And then his face grew serious. Very serious. The kind of serious that Moo Moo only got when something important was about to be said.
"Moo," he said. "Moo moo moo moo moo moo moo Moo Moo moo."
I felt my blood go cold. "What?"
"Moo moo moo moo. Moo moo Moo Moo moo. Moo."
"The Celestial Tribunal," I repeated slowly. "They said something else. When I fell. Something you heard."
"Moo." He nodded vigorously. His antennae quivered. "Moo moo moo moo moo moo. Moo moo moo moo Moo Moo. Moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo."
I translated his words in my head, each "Moo" clicking into place like a key turning in a lock. You will return when you understand humanity. You will learn their love, their joy, their happiness, their grief. You will become one of them. And only then—only when you have truly become human—will you become what you were always meant to be.
The words settled into my chest like stones dropped into still water.
"To get back my powers," I said slowly, "I have to learn to be human. Truly human. To feel what they feel. To love. To grieve. To—" I stopped. The word was too big. Too heavy. "—to become one of them."
"Moo."
"And only then will I become what I was always meant to be."
"Moo."
I stared at him. He stared at me. His eyes were streaming again, but he wasn't crying. Not really. He was watching. Waiting. Seeing what I would do with this information.
"That's torture," I said. "Absolute torture. I got beaten up today, Moo Moo. By a girl named Yuna. With expensive shoes and very sharp friends. I got beaten up, and I couldn't fight back. I couldn't do anything. I just—" My voice cracked. "—I just lay there."
"Moo moo moo moo." His voice was fierce. His little body was trembling.
I looked at him. At this small, green creature who had followed me through the void, who had found a dying girl and loved her, who was sitting on my bed telling me that I had to become human to become myself again.
"You're right," I said. "To hell with the Celestial Tribunal."
Moo Moo blinked. "Moo?"
"To hell with them. To hell with their rules and their judgments and their stupid tests. I don't care about getting my powers back. I don't care about becoming what I was always meant to be." I looked around my room. At the pink walls. At the staring posters. At the door that led to a house where Mum was probably making tea and Dad was probably pretending to read and Mina was probably drawing pictures of me with banana faces. "This family has been good to me. They've fed me and clothed me and thrown slippers at my head when I was rude. They've looked at me with hope in their eyes even when I couldn't remember who they were. They've loved me. Without condition. Without reason. They've just—loved."
Moo Moo's eyes were very, very wide.
"I will not let that fall apart. I will help this Human Sera—" I looked up at the space imagining human Sera was standing there, "—to find your way. To make amends with your family. To do what you need to do before you come back. And I will protect this family. With everything I have. With everything I am. "
I looked down at Moo Moo. At his tear-streaked face and his trembling body and his enormous, hopeful eyes.
"Moo Moo," I said. "I'm going to need your help."