[If he doesn't entirely buy that something's not wrong, it's only because he's been hard-pressed to even find Sieg around in the past few weeks, and Evan's not wholly unobservant. But he's not a prier.]
[She texted rather than use her preferred voice or video for a reason, after all. No dejected and doubting (was she so useless here that she'd be selected for this?) tones in text.]
Team Squirrel Fucker has wrecked havoc on the library and I have been selected to oversee its reconstruction.
[okay, whatever else he's lightly worried about... gets put aside for a moment in the face of that.]
Team Squirrel Fucker.
Now there's a team name that aptly demonstrates how a democratic naming process can go terribly wrong. Is that seriously their name or are you exasperated that they seem to be living up to it in spirit?
Well, I mean, mainly that I'd be thoroughly surprised if anyone on
that team was actually thinking fornicating with the local rodent
population was going to be part of their mandate.
I've returned from my time with Team Ebonhawks and have been meaning to catch up with the rest of you. The dossiers for this mission are... somehow more complicated even than infiltrating the zepplins of the pirates threatening our portion of the timeline.
You keep your eye out for the subtler details. Are there complications that a new arrival should be aware of before embarking with the natives?
[Evan is as delighted to see his nacrene friend as been to see most of his Audentes teammates. How odd to see this group of people as a kind of home... but here he is. He grins at the asandus, but as his ask parses Evan's expression shifts to an apologetic grimace.]
I'm sure there are, but in this case I'm not the person to ask. [Though he's flattered Laedo thought of him.] I've been back less than a day myself. I didn't realize you had gone too!
Be sure to sufficiently shame them if they're just being a bunch of immature dicks.
[Poor thing]
With a name like Team Squirrel Fucker and the mandate that you're being sent home to fulfill, it rather sounds like we're both going to be on babysitting duty for the next little while.
Back? You weren't with the other t... [The asandus stops himself. Of course ALASTAIR is a large organization, with many offshoot teams. It is not unlikely that Evan would be shunted to a completely different one, if he were needed elsewhere, would it?]
Right. Well, this puts things in a rather awkward position. Fill me in on your being away, in that case. I've no doubt that exchanging notes will benefit Audentes in some way.
[Even if that happens to be a pair of returnees who are equally grateful not to be the only one watching this world burn down with confusion and regret.]
[Evan's nose wrinkles in something that is dubiously a grin. He pushes his bangs back, long as they've gotten, and shrugs.]
Or if it doesn't benefit them... I mean, zeppelins of pirates? I'd want to know the story there in any case.
Ah, I suspect my extracurriculars have been significantly less, um, noteworthy. I was... helping take care of some alien orphans. Putting my Zeta-12 experience to good use, I suppose.
[Laedo's ears swivel, first forward, then askew.] It would seem that the fate of a timeline rests in a child's arms more often than it does not. Well, were they as high-pitched as our charges? Were you forced to make another grand slog?
[Evan laughs, a kind of relieved laugh. It covers a certain moroseness that he's sure will pass -- he's missing his charges, but then, they're healthy and well and exactly where they should be, aren't they?]
No, for babies they were quiet. And I spent most of the time denned up, honestly. They weren't... I mean, they weren't communicative or, or sapient as the squidges were, and there were poachers about. Mostly I just kept them hidden. It was a bit like trying to take care of a very large basket of kittens...
I'm afraid they're not, [Laedo replies, settling into a comfortable position out back of the current Audentes headquarters, now that the saloon's burned down, in a tent field outside of town. Behind him it's still possible to pick out the remains of a fracking station or two, too small in the distance to be certain if it's functioning or not.]
However, anyone's young that can be described as carried in baskets does paint a colourful enough picture. Non-sapient... like the dumb mounts that live in Oska, then?
I think somewhere between that and the squidges, honestly.
[There's some loyalty in him for the khipri kits, who had seemed preternaturally clever in his opinion... although that may just have been how much trouble they had been able to find even in the simplest of dens. Evan's holed up in his tent, so his background is canvas. It had been a ride to set it up again... and it had been a bit sat, in a way, as his usual camp-mate had apparently left while he'd been gone.]
They were... well, they were kind of this big, [he pantomimes something a little less than pitbull-sized, roundish,] so certainly not kittens exactly. But they were... they were something. Cuddly little things.
[Laedo gives a rumble of amused empathy. Even now he still misses Ulale's tiny company... he can understand that Evan might be suffering a bit of separation anxiety, of all things.]
[Evan stares for a moment, and then looks down and flushes. But then, it's not shame exactly that suffuses him, but a kind of gratitude. Alright, so people who were on the Zera-12 mission might understand... Laedo in particular.]
They were... there were six of them, and they grew a lot while I was there, I mean, they stared out little more than an armful and by the time I left I couldn't easily pick any of them up except Sequoia. At first they were really clingy, I think they... they missed their mother. [Evan grimaces. The loss of the adult khipri is a worry still, even with his charges more grown.]
They really liked warmth, which is why I was send, really... any time I put the heat on they'd all pile in and make it impossible to move. [He chuckles, sweet and sheepish.] And they loved being talked to, even if they couldn't talk themselves.
Oh, I took a leaf out of your book, actually. [That sheepishness peaks, and he laughs.] I tried singing to them. Turns out I'm not much of, er, a singer.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I know this is from six million years ago but I'm finally getting back to Futuro tags
Date: 2016-11-26 05:56 pm (UTC)/welcomes it!
Date: 2016-11-26 06:48 pm (UTC)Everything is fine.
I am simply being called back to oversee something, it seems.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-27 02:33 am (UTC)[If he doesn't entirely buy that something's not wrong, it's only because he's been hard-pressed to even find Sieg around in the past few weeks, and Evan's not wholly unobservant. But he's not a prier.]
no subject
Date: 2016-11-27 02:43 am (UTC)Team Squirrel Fucker has wrecked havoc on the library and I have been selected to oversee its reconstruction.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-27 05:43 pm (UTC)Team Squirrel Fucker.
Now there's a team name that aptly demonstrates how a democratic naming process can go terribly wrong. Is that seriously their name or are you exasperated that they seem to be living up to it in spirit?
no subject
Date: 2016-11-27 11:29 pm (UTC)Is something amiss with it?
[He wasn't the only one to act strangely... and she only knows "fuck" as a curse word not... a verb...]
no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 01:47 am (UTC)Well, it does rather raise the question of what exactly they think they should be doing with the local wildlife.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 03:59 am (UTC)Well if you want to go with the purely colloquial, sure.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 04:30 am (UTC)I suppose?
Are you implying something?
no subject
Date: 2016-12-02 01:20 am (UTC)[down to 75% sure]
Well, I mean, mainly that I'd be thoroughly surprised if anyone on that team was actually thinking fornicating with the local rodent population was going to be part of their mandate.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-02 09:22 am (UTC)You mean to say the name implies sexual congress with beasts and not condemnation???
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 05:52 am (UTC)Well...
I am suspecting and deeply hoping that it's being used facetiously. Or that they are, themselves, a team of squirrels.
Well, hey, it sounds like you're going to get the opportunity to ask them what the hell they were thinking.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 08:18 pm (UTC)I shall make ascertaining that my first priority.
Video L . L
Date: 2016-12-03 11:24 pm (UTC)You keep your eye out for the subtler details. Are there complications that a new arrival should be aware of before embarking with the natives?
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:28 pm (UTC)[Evan is as delighted to see his nacrene friend as been to see most of his Audentes teammates. How odd to see this group of people as a kind of home... but here he is. He grins at the asandus, but as his ask parses Evan's expression shifts to an apologetic grimace.]
I'm sure there are, but in this case I'm not the person to ask. [Though he's flattered Laedo thought of him.] I've been back less than a day myself. I didn't realize you had gone too!
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:33 pm (UTC)[Poor thing]
With a name like Team Squirrel Fucker and the mandate that you're being sent home to fulfill, it rather sounds like we're both going to be on babysitting duty for the next little while.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:34 pm (UTC)Right. Well, this puts things in a rather awkward position. Fill me in on your being away, in that case. I've no doubt that exchanging notes will benefit Audentes in some way.
[Even if that happens to be a pair of returnees who are equally grateful not to be the only one watching this world burn down with confusion and regret.]
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:44 pm (UTC)Or if it doesn't benefit them... I mean, zeppelins of pirates? I'd want to know the story there in any case.
Ah, I suspect my extracurriculars have been significantly less, um, noteworthy. I was... helping take care of some alien orphans. Putting my Zeta-12 experience to good use, I suppose.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:50 pm (UTC)[Evan laughs, a kind of relieved laugh. It covers a certain moroseness that he's sure will pass -- he's missing his charges, but then, they're healthy and well and exactly where they should be, aren't they?]
No, for babies they were quiet. And I spent most of the time denned up, honestly. They weren't... I mean, they weren't communicative or, or sapient as the squidges were, and there were poachers about. Mostly I just kept them hidden. It was a bit like trying to take care of a very large basket of kittens...
Ahh. Are kittens a thing on, on your world?
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:55 pm (UTC)However, anyone's young that can be described as carried in baskets does paint a colourful enough picture. Non-sapient... like the dumb mounts that live in Oska, then?
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 11:59 pm (UTC)[There's some loyalty in him for the khipri kits, who had seemed preternaturally clever in his opinion... although that may just have been how much trouble they had been able to find even in the simplest of dens. Evan's holed up in his tent, so his background is canvas. It had been a ride to set it up again... and it had been a bit sat, in a way, as his usual camp-mate had apparently left while he'd been gone.]
They were... well, they were kind of this big, [he pantomimes something a little less than pitbull-sized, roundish,] so certainly not kittens exactly. But they were... they were something. Cuddly little things.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 12:02 am (UTC)Tell me about them.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 12:09 am (UTC)They were... there were six of them, and they grew a lot while I was there, I mean, they stared out little more than an armful and by the time I left I couldn't easily pick any of them up except Sequoia. At first they were really clingy, I think they... they missed their mother. [Evan grimaces. The loss of the adult khipri is a worry still, even with his charges more grown.]
They really liked warmth, which is why I was send, really... any time I put the heat on they'd all pile in and make it impossible to move. [He chuckles, sweet and sheepish.] And they loved being talked to, even if they couldn't talk themselves.
Oh, I took a leaf out of your book, actually. [That sheepishness peaks, and he laughs.] I tried singing to them. Turns out I'm not much of, er, a singer.