"Definitions"

“Describe what it is to love, for your people,” they ask.

“It is hard to say,” I reply, as I cannot explain a concept that is so unconventional to us.

To my people, what others describe as 'love' is often a natural state of being. It is how you treat those around you, how you share what little you have with one another or how you fulfill the weakness of your sister with your own strength.
The concept of a person 'belonging' to another is as alien to us as those who would ask us such things. We are all our own, as we are all part of everyone else. We may have a preference for the presence of another, as certain affinities between people are stronger than others...but to the point of wanting to be solely with that other forever? No, that rarely happens.

And yet...

That is what I felt. It is the reason I feel so empty now.

I admit, I would have wanted the past seventy years to have gone on longer. Forever? I couldn't say...but yes, longer is certain. I learned that with so much time dedicated to one being, the lines between them and yourself become blurred. You learn to communicate in ways other than words and a simple glance can be enough to say almost anything.
I miss Iorol deeply. I have learned that Erir people do not nurture friendships very often. What spurred him to let me onto his ship and allow me to stay, I don't know. My wanderlust must have appealed to him. It is what pushes them to seek out the furthest reaches of the stars in solitude. They are incredibly introspective, even if they may not give off that impression from the stories you often hear of them.

They live life with gusto, faced-paced and adventurously...but there are quiet moments as well, in the spaces between the stars. That is where I learned to know Iorol. Where we became friends and where he taught me to think outside of my flower pot.
He was younger than I when we met, but still had quite a few years of spacer experience. He had stopped on my home world for fuel, as many of his kind do. Though, he decided to stay longer than any of the others had before him. At first I saw him as a way out, an excuse to leave. It isn't that I was unhappy, but I was restless. Two-hundred and thirty years is a long time to have your roots in one place. His concept of living appealed to me.
Eternity is a long time to live. My people do not die as others do, and somehow that seems as terrifying as the concept of a limited number of years. I think it is why many of my kind choose to return home after traveling, they do not want to face the impermanence of the outside world.
Iorol offered a solution. Accidents waiting to happen, excitement, an unpredictable fate. I wanted that badly, at the time. I went with him, I was happy.

What I hadn't expected in that unpredictable future was to wake up one morning and be alone. Time catches everyone in the end. Of all the things he could of died from, I had never guessed... He would have been angry, had he known. Exploding in a blaze of glory would have been more fitting, to him.
I wish the feeling of solitude I experienced flying his ship back to port on no one. It was like a void had opened up inside me. I remember crying. I didn't have the credits to offer him a funeral. A nearby Erir nest was contacted to retrieve his vessel. I am ashamed to say I don't know what happened to his body. I suppose I wanted to pretend he was still with me, in a way.

Seventy years is a lifetime to some, it was certainly one to me. I changed in many ways, my home world no longer felt welcoming to me. The itch to keep moving was still deep in my veins. I wanted to run from the pain of loss, work until it dulled or I forgot.

How foolish.

So here I am, answering questions about love. I wish I could answer. I don't know what love is to my people, but Iorol was love for me...and how could you possibly describe that? It isn't the answer they're looking for.