Rainbow Snippets is a group for LGBTQ+ authors, bloggers, and readers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation (no spoilers please!). Check out all the other awesome snippets by clicking on the picture above.
I’m still posting from Onyx Sun, a science fiction novel that is currently in revision. The revisions are turning out to be more complex than originally expected so the release date is, um, to be determined. (I’ve given up trying to predict one, but I have at least one more round of revisions which I’m hoping to finish this month.)
This snippet comes directly after last week’s in which Ayess was explaining a bit about Araxians and Araxian society.
“But you were asking about our families,” he said. “When our young are first hatched, they are tended to by the entire…” He frowned. “You do not have a word for it. It is not a family or tribe or clan or city… Group will have to do. Everyone tends to the needs of the youngest members. As they get older, they will form… bonds… with an adult. Not exactly friendship, but close. That adult will then take that young one into its household and take responsibility for it, see to it that it is educated and becomes a productive member of society.”
“I hate the word ‘it’.”
Novel Notes 
hmm, sounds…lonely?
Ha! I was thinking that last line as I was reading the end of the first paragraph.
Fascinating culture you’ve developed here.
Very interesting, how they refer to them as “it.” I liked the last line.
Huh. Interesting. Though I think if I were Ayess, I’d be pretty annoyed at the response, LOL.
Excellent bit of world building, followed by a statement I can emphasize with all too well.
Interesting world building.