Ch 44: Clever Little Things
Rhidi squinted at Ti’week, drumming her fingers on the cold steel table top.
She assumed that the Humans must have understood what the hell the little yellow goblin woman was talking about, but she couldn’t wrap her head around it, even with her Kafyan schooling.
“So… the drone ship was… a buoy?" Rhidi asked, wishing that Ti’week knew more English
Ti’week shimmied her shoulders again. “Yes! We wait’ded do’hn’on surface, an’ when’ded ready, drone ship give’ded signal! The, aye, uh, device’n paint’ded station, an’bwoosh! We arrive’ded in’an station at paint’ded point!”
“Oh… oh!” Rhidi said, snapping her fingers and lightly tapping her socked feet on the steel decking. “It’s a relay! You were using the drone as a relay so you could teleport onto the station!”
Pintrist gave a snort, muttering “teleport’ded” under her breath as she found the word rather funny, and Horpin giggled beside her.
“Yes!” Ti’week cried out, holding the tips of her ears as she laughed. “Relay! To receive’ded and pass’ded on information! We wait’ded on planet with one, ah… relay, and… uh… bounce’ded!”
Ti’week referred back to the drawing she had made with dry-erase marker, making hopping motions from the little circle she had drawn, the drone, and then the station while whispering “boop, boop, boop!” cheerfully.
“Fascinating.” Rhidi muttered to herself, her tail wagging behind her. “Where did you get such technology?”
To this, Ti’week pinched the tips of her ears again and beamed a bright smile past her blue lips. “Delga stole’ded!”
“Stole’ded-” Rhidi began, then blinked angrily at herself before starting again. “You stole it from the Doch?”
“Yes.” Horpin answered, pointing a fine clawed hand at Ti’week. “Moludon sent’ded Delgan to go steal’ded, allow’ded us all to escape’ded”
“Many Delga dead’ded, but we stole’ded Doch tech’nilogy!” Ti’week said, looking rather proud of herself and her people. “Two… sand… two’sand’and worth’ded the cost!”
Two thousand of them died just for one of the relays? Rhidi asked herself, and she leaned forward a little. “Did you lose two thousand for all the relays?”
“No no, just’ded for the one. For we’san… er… ours’an. Ours’an relay.” Ti’week said, still trying to find the words. “I say’ded… may’bee milyun’s Delga die’ded total!”
Rhidi swallowed at that prospect, that millions of one race fought to steal the relays just so the rest could get away however they could.
“The Doch, what happened to them?” Rhidi asked, having seen the question come across the wall.
Pintrist raised her hand, the plush pink pads of her fingers oddly glaring against her gray fur. “Doch run’ded once Delgan stold’ded re’ways.”
“Relays.” Rhidi corrected, and was honestly growing a pretty substantial headache from having to talk with these three.
“Relays.” Pintrist corrected herself, reaching up and covering her nose with her palm. “Soz’.”
Rhidi closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again to Ti’week. “How many of your people are out and about, again? And they all have relays?”
“Tensa’mil’yuns!” Ti’week crowed, opening her arms to another part of the wall where a solar map was. “We flee’ded! Mass runn’n! We spread’ded wide and far!”
Rhidi saw the phrase scroll across the wall, and stood, pushing her chair back with a foot. “Looks like my command has enough for now. They want you to go back to your holding cells and study more English. They have a lot of questions they are going to want answers to, and you are going to have to study hard to learn the answers. We’ll be sending by a few Void Navymen to assist you in your lessons. Are you all still promising to be compliant and non-violent?”
Hoprin, Pintrist, and Ti’week nodded their heads in unison, smiling all the same.
“Alright, good. Wait here for the MP’s to take you back.” Rhidi said, moving towards the door.
“Thank’ded you, Rheedee!” Pintrist called out, holding the tips of her ears much in the same way as Ti’week was. “You’so cool!”
Rhidi could actually hear the laughter, ever so faintly, through the one-way glass, and hung her head back, looking up at the ceiling as she hit the release for the door.
“Thank you, Pintrist.” Rhidi said as politely as she could, then exited the room, brushing past the MPs who immediately entered in after her.
Just the hour and change of time spent in the room had burned Rhidi right to the wick, and with all her workouts for the day done, she pulled up her data-slate and sent a message. Before she ran out of energy completely, Rhidi made a lap around the ship to make sure none of her Kafya were getting up to no good.
Thankfully they were all lounging around the ship or snoozing, letting their bodies recover from their own workouts and flushing what fatigue they had from their system.
When Rhidi finally made it back to her room, she opened the door and promptly fell into the awaiting arms of Morris, letting out a long, drawn out moan into his chest.
“That bad?” Morris asked, hugging Rhidi close to him as the door shut behind her.
Rhidi let out another annoyed moan and talked mutedly into his chest, tail wagging and ears slack.
“They kept talking weird, how weird?” Morris asked, having become rather fluent in Rhidi’chestese.
After more mumbling into his chest, Morris clicked his teeth.
“Ah, they were saying words weird and kept adding ‘ded’ to the end, eh?” Morris asked down at Rhidi’s ears, giving the small of her back a little scritch.
More mumbles came from Rhidi, along with a little flail of the hands.
“Yes, we can ‘watch’ded’ a movie after I go and get some snacks. Anything you want from the shop?”
Rhidi pointed back towards her door, her face never leaving Morris’s chest as she spoke.
“Pizza rolls and cherry cola, yeah I can make that happen.” Morris chuckled, nuzzling his nose in between Rhidi’s ears and kissing her head. “You just relax in here, I’ll be back in a matter of minutes and we can watch a movie for a while, okay?”
A single grunt from Rhidi made him laugh, and he pulled her away from his chest to kiss her on the lips.
Rhidi’s tail immediately started wagging back and forth with more speed as she tilted her head just enough to strengthen their lock, placing her hands against Morris’s arms.
Morris parted the kiss with a light click of their flesh leaving, then patted Rhidi on the rump as he passed by her towards the door. “Find something to watch while I’m gone, I bet I can get one of the cooks to heat these things up in an oven for us.”
Due to the mood she was in. Rhidi drummed up an old horror movie well known by the Humans, a classic piece called “Shaun of the Dead”. The Cornetto Trilogy was still making the rounds through a lot of the other races due to the absolutely impossible to follow logic and humor, as those who finally understood the movies themselves also found they had a deeper understanding of Human thinking.
Rhidi was still quite worried about the possibility of these “zombie” things that a lot of Humans referenced in their movies, though the slower ones were more of a curiosity than the absolute horror of the others.
Slow zombies? Rhidi believed she would do well against them and survive quite easily. The most they could do is shamble about and moan, with the only real threat being their mass numbers somehow cornering you and removing the means of escape.
That or, apparently, twisting your ankle, but Rhidi wagered she could crawl faster than a shambler.
Fast zombies? Like the ones in “28 Days Later”? Those filled Rhidi with a kind of spine tingling dread that made her throat go dry.
The thought took her again as she brought up the movie, smiling brightly at the face of a long passed Human actor named Simon. It was one of his other movies though, not the one she was after.
Humans denied the existence of zombies, as well as a lot of other monsters from their folklore… but there were others that they were rather cagey about.
Werewolves were well known, and were what one could call a “beloved” monster of Human folklore due to how weird they were. Scientists from all over found them actually rather funny due to how they completely flew against the laws of science, from how they not only changed from one being to another, but also gained height and weight.
Werewolves alone had caused multiple shouting matches at the top schools of higher learning on multiple planets, as there were some who believed such a thing was possible through the application of a fictional device called a “re-mattering array”.
The arguments then always boiled down to such a device not existing, but then fingers were normally pointed back at Humans.
There were other mysterious creatures of folklore that the Humans were nervous about, such as the woodland stalking, behorned wendigo, the ever elusive Big Foot, or the beguiling vampires.
Due to Humanity's unease around such creatures, as well as their fear of them, there was not a single child of the stars that doubted their existence. This was doubly reinforced by survey teams going missing while on Earth trying to track them down, or from rogue scientists playing around with an infection known as “rabies”.
Rhidi could still remember the hysteria during the war as hopeful pirate-technicians and scholars stole themselves down to Earth, and picked up a raccoon with the disease present. They had not only managed to isolate rabies, and confirm that there was still no cure to it, but they suffered an internal civil war that saw their advanced rabies weapon become lost.
An advanced rabies known as “The Staggering”.
The threat of the The Staggering sent shock waves through every race, including the Ur, with Humanity enraged that someone was “stupid enough to play around with such a fatal disease”.
Humans saying that did not help with the panic, which caused planets to completely shut down travel if they could manage it during wartime.
Thankfully The Staggering did not resurface during the war, or during the current peace time, but the looming threat was still around. Just the threat of The Staggering was enough to make blood run cold due to the disease being amplified, not even PEP inoculations enough to stop the newest brand of terrifying that was this meddled-with-rabies… and rumors were that a planet or two on the outer rim had gone dark.
The thought made Rhidi’s fur stand on end as she thought about an entire world dead, except for the endless, roving waves of bodies infected by the virus, a body of a planet that still moved but contained no life.
In her opinion, a Big Foot or wendigo was preferable to a monster that she could not see with her naked eye, and she at least had a chance to outrun a vampire if she had enough of a head start.
As she scrolled through the movies trying to find the one she wanted, all of them playing a small snippet of the film themselves when she lingered on them, one came up that caused her breath to catch in her throat.
Rhidi had no idea what “The Silence of the Lambs” was about, yet the man’s face, smiling maliciously out of the screen, made her heart strangle in her chest.
She had seen a face like that before, a face that held such unbridled, unapologetic savagery as he stared down at her.
Rhidi reflexively bared her teeth at the screen and took a single step back, her nose wrinkling and heart hammering in her chest as that same, old fear crawled its way down her arms like the cold fingers of ghosts.
It hadn’t been long enough to forget that man, the Older Brother who had found her in the ruined depths of the Doch’s base, less than a year, but she could still smell the lingering stank of death, blood, and entrails in her nostrils.
“That’s right.” The lingering memory echoed in her brain, the dull red light of his Lilgaran butcher talons filling her mind as if they were a pair of blazing suns. “I am the Older Brother.”
The man on the screen grinned down at her as the face of the Older Brother burned across her mind. Her stomach quavered as she remembered the feeling of his hands on her fur, the look of his gray eyes as he smiled at her, and his dusky-red, tangled locks of hair that held as much blood as they did true color.
The face of the killer that was her rescuer.
“You are brave. Most would have flown away by now, and I would have had to chase them.” The memory echoed, her thoughts curling and twisting like panicked snakes as tears began to fuzz her eyes. Just the old memory of his boots were enough to make the bile of her stomach rise in her throat, and she let out a gasp of horror as she took two more steps backwards. “But I already knew that. I can smell us on your soul, Tyr’s dóttur.”
The stank of raw flesh, torn muscle, burnt skin, sweat, and blood assaulted her mind as the ghostly hand of the memory reached out for her, and she let out a scream as she flinched backwards, the back of her knees catching the edge of her bed and causing her to fall backwards.
She toppled to the ground in a tangle of her blanket and thrashing limbs, coming to a rest on her back after thudding off of her bed with a pang of her shoulder. Her chest pumped up and down like a startled bird, her mouth open and panting as the memory refused to fade away, the panic attack only beginning to crescendo.
“That is good. Tyr desires those who refuse to give up, even in the face of fear. Are you a believer, Private Rhidi?”
Rhidi gasped out a scream as her door opened, Morris stepping in with a box of piping hot pizza rolls and a case of cherry cola.
Morris blinked his eyes as Rhidi skittered back into the corner of her barracks room, fur standing on end, tail brush-bottled, and fangs bared as if she was a cornered animal. Sweat poured off of her in streams, and her chest was moving so quickly that it looked as if she was drowning and fighting for breath.
“Rhidi…” Morris said quietly, setting down the box and the cola before holding up his hands. “Rhidi, it’s me, Morris.”
Rhidi shunted out four, harsh breaths, her panic attack now fully gripping her. All she could smell was the Older Brother, the stench of his skin, the smell of his fingers as he ran a thumb along the cut on her cheek, the musk of his breath…
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“M-Morris!” Rhidi heaved, her hands clutching at her chest. “Morris!”
Morris was across the room in only a few steps as the door closed behind him, scooping Rhidi up into his arms and holding her closely to his chest.
Rhidi’s nails dug into him so sharply that they drew blood through his shirt, clinging to the Human and attempting to anchor herself in the current reality. She breathed in deep through her nose, fighting back the old scents of the Older Brother with the comforting aroma of Morris, his skin, his hair, his clothing, his favorite tooth paste…
Rhidi’s heart finally began to slow as she buried her nose into Morris’s neck, letting out a pitiful cry as she clung to him like a startled child.
Morris glanced to her Edition 5 data-display screen, saw the movie trailer that was idly playing across the screen, and connected the dots rather quickly. Wiggling a hand free, he tapped along the screen and shifted the selection over to older animated movies, ridding the room of Hannibal Lector’s insidious grin.
“I saw his face…” Rhidi panted into Morris’s neck, releasing her claws and instead wrapping her arms around the Human properly. “I could smell him, I could hear him…”
Morris ran a hand along her hair and over her ears, softly pressing his face into the top of her head. “I know, but it’s alright. He can’t get you here. It’s just an old memory.”
“I could smell it…” Rhidi sobbed, her ears shaking and tail tucked between her thighs.
“I know…” Morris said soothingly, patting her on the back with a knowing, unhappy sigh. “I know.”
He knew that Rhidi had been reminded of her old memories a few times now, triggering panic attacks or causing her to have nightmares in her sleep. She had told him as much, and he knew very few aliens could handle a movie subject such as The Silence of the Lambs without a dash of post traumatic stress disorder.
When he eventually died, Morris was going to have words with Anthony Hopkins.
When Rhidi had finally calmed down and Morris had cleaned the tears from the fur of her face, he retrieved their snacks and took charge of finding the movie Rhidi was after while she sat in his lap, facing him and resting her head on his shoulder.
Morris couldn’t help but snort when Rhidi reached for something on her bed, and then filled his ears with the crunch of pizza rolls meeting teeth.
“Let the traumatized Kafya eat her pizza rolls, Human.” Rhidi muttered, her tail lashing behind her a few times as Morris put on Shaun of the Dead.
With the threat of Anthony Hopkin’s face far and away from her, she turned around and sat in Morris’s lap properly, wiggling her feet back and forth from the space in between his legs as the movie started.
Several pizza rolls and a can of cherry cola in, Rhidi was giggling along with Morris as the low-angle of the zombie apocalypse began. She couldn’t fully explain it, but the aspect of a horror movie mixed with a comedy was a delightful clash of positions that made her smile.
Rhidi sighed out happily, now recovered, and looked up at Morris as he cracked open another can of cola.
“What is your preferred kind of zombie?” Rhidi asked, idle fingers reaching over to snag another pizza roll.
Morris took a drink from his can in thought, then snapped his fingers as he remembered what reference he was looking for. “iZombies.”
“What the hell is an iZombie?” Rhidi asked, having been expecting the Human to say some insane shit like ‘sprinters’ or ‘hulks’.
“They’re a Human who drank an infected energy soda and became infected with a zombie virus.” Morris said with a grin, popping his legs to make Rhidi wiggle back and forth. “After being infected, the zombies have to eat brains in order to stay alive, but resemble just really pale Humans with white hair if they stay fed. Plus they get to relive memories that reside in their brain dinner!”
Rhidi narrowed her eyes up at Morris as he set down his can, slowly chewing as she watched him, then swallowed before reaching up and placing a padded finger on his nose. “This is why you Humans freak the rest of us out. Seriously, how do you even come up with something like that? It sounds like something that actually happened and got covered up.”
“Oh please, zombies aren’t real.” Morris chided playfully, scritching at Rhidi’s cheeks with his fingers as she growled in her throat. “That’s like saying the Swamp Thing is real or something.”
“Right, and vampires aren’t real either, right?” Rhidi fussed, though she was enjoying the cheek scratches.
Morris looked a little worried as he glanced back up at the screen, his hands smoothing back Rhidi’s hair. “Yeah, of course.”
“... I find that answer vague and unconvincing.” Rhidi said lowly with narrowed eyes, the hair on her neck raising in response. “Vampires are fake, right? Like werewolves and Big Foot?”
Morris stared at her for a heart beat too long, then went back to scritching her cheeks. “Yeah, just like werewolves.”
“And Big Foot.” Rhidi added, her eyebrows coming together above her narrowed eyes. “And the wendigo.”
Morris cleared his throat, nodding his head back towards the movie. “Your favorite part is coming up.”
Rhidi had learned quite a few of Morris’s facial ticks, as well as his scents for when he was telling a fib, and the way his eyes darted from her to the screen made her stomach do a flip.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN VAMPIRES ARE REAL?!” Rhidi screamed, her fur prickling all over her body and standing on end. She whirled around in his embrace, coming up onto her knees as she gripped his face. “THEY EAT PEOPLE, MORRIS! SAY ‘SIKE’ RIGHT NOW! SAY THE MAGIC HUMAN WORD!”
Morris held up his hands, sweat prickling at his forehead. He had shown Rhidi a few of the more classic vampire movies during their nights alone, and Rhidi found the concept so creepy and unsettling that she had to hide her face multiple times in a pillow.
“They don’t exist, I swear!” Morris said with an awkward smile, trying to play it off as a prank. “I mean honestly, Humans that drink blood? That’s absurd!”
Rhidi breathed in deep through her nose, and her eyes widened with a terrified peaking of her ears, enough to force them straight up and down past their helmet-crease.
She flexed her fingers into Morris’s cheeks, touching her nose roughly to his. “You LIE!”
—
Liaison Carmine let out a satisfied sigh as he wiped a bit of his drink from his lips, setting the can of cold Big Red back into the cupholder of his truck.
He had always preferred older vehicles, and had been one of the first in line when the 1961 International Harvester Travelette had been reproduced.
It had a modern engine and transmission, allowing it to get over a hundred and sixty miles to a single gallon of liquid fuel, but she still held all the old lines and vibes of the classic truck’s soul.
He had thought it would be rather funny to get the truck painted goldenrod yellow, the color so offensive that he could never not laugh when people saw him coming down the road and made a wide selection of faces at the truck.
Liaison Carmine’s left earlobe began to softly buzz, and he clicked his tongue against his left canine. “Carmine.”
“You driving around that stupid fucking truck again?” Liaison Kindred asked, the beef jerky audible in her mouth as she spoke. “I thought I saw a reflection off the horizon.”
Carmine chuckled, flicking on his turn signal as he came to a stop sign, waiting for a series of cattle cars hauling recruits to clear the road. “I’m on my way to check in on Lirya, make sure she has been studying that little bible that Tyllia made for her. How’s Kohan doing?”
“His injuries are fully healed, we’re currently drinking beer and eating jerky at his new house.” Kindred chuckled, and Carmine could hear her idly flicking the tab to her can in the background. “He’s been showing me all the jerky flavors he has been creating, but had to run to the little wolf’s room so I figured I’d check in with you.”
Carmine raised a brow at that, watching the last cattle car roll forward. “Aren’t they more like… cats?”
“If you ask me they’re more like fennec foxes.”
“Fennec fox? Nonsense, they aren’t that fine boned. A regular fox perhaps…”
“Whatever. I briefed him on what our plan was for Rhidi. His only condition is that we are on sight and able to offer her assistance.”
Carmine blinked at his windshield as he trundled past the stop sign, the engine rumbling and growling to speed. “Assistance?”
“He says that he knows the other Kafya is going to cheat, and he doesn’t want his daughter to die due to foul play when she brings that hidden shiv out to the party.” Kindred replied airily, Carmine having to suffer the sounds of her then drinking her beer through their literal inner-ear microphones.
“We can make something work, but we gotta use our usual theatrics.” Carmine replied, turning his wheel with a single palm to enter the base housing area. “We’ll have to allow her to aura farm the hell out of it, but you still have that throwing arm of yours, right?”
“Haven’t missed yet.” Kindred replied smugly.
Carmine rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we can make that work. He knows she’ll take a battering, right?”
“He knows, and he believes that she can live up to her actual potential as a Kholihl and lead their people to the life they believe they deserve.” Kindred said, and Carmine could hear her turn and look over her shoulder, checking for Kohan. “His only stipulation is that he gets to tell her directly about the attempt on his life, and that she cannot die. If his daughter dies, he’s going to be quite cross at us.”
“Duly noted.” Carmine murmured, his truck chugging down the roads gamely. “We’ll do what we always do, minus the clean-up job.”
Kindred let out a cackle of laughter, lowering into a dry chuckle as she checked over her shoulder again. “Those Void Squids were rather unhappy with the mess we left, did you know they actually sent a letter of complaint to our head offices? Apparently it was put on the wall of fame.”
“Carmine and Kindred, out taking the world by storm.” Carmine said with a huff of a laugh, spinning his wheel slowly around a long curve. “Where did you stick Hasha? She got cleared through S1 and S5 right?”
“She cleared all the shops, had a little talk with some of the political folk in headquarters, then I escorted her to the little VIP lodgings in the bigwig hotel.” Kindred said, then lowered her voice to a level only Carmine could hear. “Kohan is coming down the hallway, let me know how Lirya is.”
“Roj.” Carmine answered, then clicked his tongue against his canine tooth again to end the call. He felt a rumble inside of him and let out a more annoyed sigh, rolling his neck with a crack. “I hate this stupid organ so much. There has to be a better solution by now…”
Reaching across the truck and opening a small cooler on the floor board, he pulled out a small, chilled flat-pack. To the passerby it looked like nothing more than the sealed package of a cherry jello slab, Carmine opening it with his sharp teeth. Tilting the package towards his mouth, he sucked the slab of jelly into his mouth, chewing it roughly before swallowing and sucking whatever juice was left in the bag.
Carmine winced at the flavor as he tossed the empty package back into the cooler, smacking his lips and reaching for his can of Big Red. “Someone wasn’t living right.”
Clearing his mouth with the citrus-infused red cream soda, he smacked his lips again and turned his wheel onto Lirya’s street, the engine of his truck rumbling happily.
—
“Someone’s at the door!” Lirya called out over her shoulder, rubbing at her tired eyes with a free hand, the other clasping her data-slate.
She felt as if she had been reading for years at this point, and couldn’t remember when she had first started. The more Lirya read, the more the weight on her shoulders felt like it was increasing.
Discovering things was fun at first, combing through the information being given to her by Tyllia, but it required Tyllia giving her a more structured form of the data to actually keep her on track.
Her people’s old customs, the old ways, the mysticism that had once been a cornerstone of Kafya society… it had been reduced to fragments of information, missing sentences, fragmented histories, and old stories that were a mixture of Kafya-hi and dead languages from longer-dead civilizations… and now it was up to her to use it all to bring her people back to their true nature.
“It’s Liaison Carmine!” Mohki called out to Lirya through the house. “Want me to let him in?”
“Yeah!” Lirya called out, setting down the data-slate and standing up to greet her guest.
She was wearing a trial pair of religious garb pants given to her by the Religious Affairs office, as they had also been going through the data to figure out what her people had worn so long ago.
They were comfortable, a mixture of black leather panels, brown leather tassels down the sides of her thighs, all sewn to a comfortable combat trouser made from cotton, spandex, and ripstop.
Lirya came out of her study, which was a mess of papers, drawings, hard media of the data-cache, and smiled tiredly at Liaison Carmine’s own bright smile. “Liaison Carmine, how good to see you again!”
“Good to see you too, Lirya.” Liaison Carmine replied, holding out his hand and giving Lirya’s a shake after she took it. “Busy as ever I assume?”
Lirya nodded with a deep inhale, running her fingers through her cheek fur. “Tyllia and Mohki have me reading new things every day, it feels like.”
“Are you ready for your lunch?” Mohki asked, leaning back into view from the portal into the kitchen. “I can make you that egg-toast stuff you like.”
Lirya smiled at that, nodding, which made Mohki duck back into the kitchen with a clatter of pans.
“She’s been making sure you eat, I take it?” Liaison Carmine asked, gesturing to the living room where they could sit.
Lirya nodded, sitting down onto her favorite couch and leaning back onto the soft pillows. “I forgot to eat for an entire day, now it is no longer my choice when I get my food.”
Liaison Carmine smiled with crinkled eyes at Lirya as she let out a long yawn, her maw stretching wide before relaxing again. “There is a lot of pressure on you, so I’m trying to stop by on occasion and make sure you aren’t getting burned out.”
“I’m doing alright.” Lirya replied, giving him a weak thumbs up from her position of rest.
Liaison Carmine’s eyebrow twitched upwards for a moment, idly scratching at his chin as he looked towards the door. “So, you’ve been trying to get back into the hospital for a checkup?”
“They keep saying I don’t need one.” Lirya mumbled ruefully, glaring at the ceiling.
Carmine leaned forward to say something, but leaned backwards as Tyllia stormed out of her own room, yelling into a data-slate in one hand with another in her other hand.
“I don’t care if everyone just has one kind of uniform, Lirya needs at least five!... What the hell does that even matter? She needs one for when she is preaching, one for combat, one fo-... Who cares about the uniforms being redundant, she can’t just run around in her official one the entire time!” Tyllia barked into the data-slate, idly scrolling through the new designs from private contractors working underneath the Religious Affairs office. She turned her narrowed, angry lilac eyes to the innocent looking Liaison Carmine. “Oh good, you’re here. What is with these constraints around her uniforms?! I can’t have her running around in just the standardized outfit!”
Liaison Carmine looked to Lirya for help, but found none as the white furred Kafya had fallen asleep at the wheel and was lightly snoring. “I uh… I don’t handle that kind of… stuff.”
“Do you people do anything besides talk? All I have seen of you is you coming here and talking, talk talk ta-” Tyllia’s ears perked as the voice angrily yelled out from the data-slate, and she barred her fangs at it. “I can talk to whoever I damn well please! Do you have any idea who my father is?!”
Liaison Carmine slowly watched Tyllia stomp into the kitchen, yelling into her data-slate the entire way until she disappeared from view.
Mohki looked over her shoulder as she stepped out of the kitchen with a fresh plate of french toast and bacon, a grin breaking across her lips. “Jeeze, I almost feel sorry for the people she is always talking to. Do you want anything to eat, Liaison Carmine?”
“I ate before I arrived.” Carmine replied, remembering the wonky tasting jelly that didn’t normally taste so… weird. “Though I think the quality is slipping…”
Mohki waved a hand at him. “You Humans need more food than any creature I have ever come across. I’ll grab you some after Tyllia gets her-”
“The best you can do is three outfits?! I said five! F. I. V. E., five!” Tyllia bellowed, marching out of the kitchen with one data-slate pressed between her shoulder and cheek, plate of french toast in the now free hand, and the other data-slate still clenched in her offhand. “Do I need to come down to that foul smelling building again?! I will slap that cigar right out of your damn mouth if I have to!”
The noise cut away as she kicked her door shut with a slam, snapping Lirya awake with a shout of surprise.
“Good grief…” Mohki sighed, setting the plate down in front of Lirya. “She’s been on a tear all day when they wouldn’t approve her wardrobe budget for Lirya.”
Lirya blinked her tired eyes, then breathed in deep while leaning forward. “French toooassst…”
Liaison Carmine saw that her toast had both strawberries, powdered sugar, and maple syrup, feeling his stomach curl at all the sugar. He shot his eyes towards Mohki. “I uh…”
“I won’t make hers like yours, don’t worry.” Mohki said, stepping back towards the kitchen. “I’ll put it on the side so it’s there if you want it.”
Liaison Carmine made a mental note to go for a long jog when he finally got home, but accepted the plate from Mohki with a smile.
He let a laugh burst past his lips as he watched Lirya shove an entire triangle of french toast into her mouth, chewing groggily as Mohki set down a glass of milk with her own snort of amusement.
Carmine took a bite of his toast, then gave Mohki a thumbs up as she sat down on the couch and ate her lunch as well.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, Carmine finishing off his plate with military speed before setting it down onto the coffee table.
“So, Lirya, do you think you’ll be ready to address Kafyan troops this week? There are a few bodies coming back from a scuffle on a station that need to be buried.” Carmine said quietly, gesturing with a hand towards the general area of the cemetery. “I think it would be a good time to see what feels right to you, from all you’ve learned.”
Lirya let out a low groan as she idly chewed on a strip of bacon, the glass of milk sitting in the other hand. “I sh’pose…”
“She has been working herself into fits trying to rebuild the other rituals.” Mohki said, chewing on her own bacon. “I told her that she may have to create some new ones on her own, but she has been reluctant.”
“There’s nothing wrong with making something new.” Carmine agreed, nodding his head towards Lirya. “From what I have been briefed on, there is a lot missing from the data-cache and there is plenty of freedom to do what you… feel is right, really. According to what some folks have read, it will even come naturally.”
Lirya groaned past her bacon, closing her eyes.
“Besides, I believe you need to get a medical clearance before entering duty officially as a religious official.” Carmine said calmly, and his lips quirked into an odd smile as Lirya’s eyes shot open.
“I need a checkup?” Lirya said quickly past her bacon, coming to a raised-ear alertness. “At the hosh’pital?!”
Carmine raised his brows, now more curious than ever to find out why the little Kafya wanted to go to the hospital so badly. “Yes, I can take you now-”
He was cut off by Lirya jumping to her feet, throwing the half eaten bacon onto her plate as she did a long side skip towards the door.
“We can go now!” Lirya cried out happily, already pulling on her Kafyan paw-boots.
Carmine stood up from his seat, bewildered, then turned towards Mohki as she held up her hand.
“Can I come?” Mohki asked, the ever watchful guardian to Lirya.
Before Lirya could turn around and deny the request, Carmine shrugged.
“Of course you can, leaves Tyllia alone to yell at whatever victim is on the other side of her data-slate. Plus you are her bodyguard, afterall.” Carmine replied, then blinked around to Lirya as he heard the dull thud of her forehead making contact with the door, her shoulders slumped in defeat.