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Laedo!

[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!

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.

Edited 2016-12-03 23:44 (UTC)

[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?

Thankfully not!

[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?

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.]

Tell me about them.

[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.

[Laedo listens with some quiet sense of satisfaction as Evan opens up. Maybe it's a matter of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, but he almost misses the days of denning up on their long trek across Zeta-12. Compared to this shanty town of fraught members struggling with moralistic breaking points...

Yes, this is much preferable, though Laedo is aware that he might be using Evan's tale as a crutch to avoid taking on the more difficult of this mission's latest developments. In old days he'd have charged right in, but experience and his loss of faith have made him ultimately prone to second-guessing his askan superiority to solve extremely delicate conflicts.

In any case, Evan's admission makes Laedo laugh.]

You haven't been practicing for sixty years. I'm sure if they were basket-sized they could forgive you. Did they sing back?

[Evan in turn grins, bright and amused.]

You know, funny you should ask. After I tried it out, they spent the next couple of days squawking at me while I tried to fall asleep. Maybe they were attempting reciprocity.

It sounds as though they did not stick to it. If they were not fully cognisant at the point... I can imagine the attention span did not help. I am impressed, frankly.

[His tail is swishing a sandy pile on either side, about a meter separate, behind him... though of course that is off-screen.]

I cannot imagine caring for more than one charge at a time. corralling six must have been an effort of will. Do you feel the more wizened for it?

I feel like I could use a, a spa day or several. [Evan gives a self-deprecating little laugh.] And I'm especially glad that humans don't have litters because you're absolutely right. Six was... interesting.

[But he's caught on a curious detail, and is peering thoughtfully at Laedo -- or rather, at Laedo's crest.]

Actually, they might have liked you. They were mostly covered in these, these scales... that sort of look a bit like the ones on your head, but smaller, softer. Younger, I suppose.

[Laedo's ears do that particular kind of swivel that often come with a question.] Oh?

Repeating patterns of scales? Thick? Protective?

[It's fascinating to Evan that the body language Laedo shows is... not dissimilar from the postures and attitudes his charges had taken from time to time. That ear swivel... that's so familiar, first from Laedo and then from the khipri.]

Repeating, from their foreheads all down their backs. But their tails were fluffy... and they had ears a bit like yours, too.

[The snort that Laedo gives is somehow made the worse by the way his head sinks, eyes closing.] So it would figure that the only creatures anything like my own kind would be removed to a far off corner of the multi-verse, poached to non-existence without intervention.

I always knew you had some punch in you, somewhere in there.

[Evan reddens again, embarrassed by the comparison he's made.]

I suppose the point was to make sure that they weren't poached into nonexistence! I honestly wish I'd been able to bring my, my litter back with me. They'd be so much safer with a whole team looking after them, at least till they're grown.

I'm sure their life paths are integral to their timeline, [Laedo sighs, looking away, almost like a dejected dog.]

That said, I've no idea where to tease out the integral creatures to this. I'm beginning to believe we're facing a situation similar in breadth and direness to that of Nalawi's fate. I'm not looking forward to provoking such a conflict.

Yeah... [Evan's mood, already a little morose with missing his charges, sobers further. He sighs and pushes his hair back again -- he badly needs a cut -- and looks through the little network interface with a slightly hangdog serious look to him.]

I admit, I haven't managed to catch myself up on... on the developments since I've been gone. The broad strokes, mainly, but... not much else.

At least there are no gods to argue about this time, huh. [The grin he pulls is not especially cheerful.]

No, but my healing talents are badly needed... yet moving my hand to help in this case, is it helping? Is finding yourself a blank slate any kind of an existence, once your mind is taken by that which invaded it? I'm not even sure that the remaining Qorral are fully sentient once the work is done, and that is from healers who have been practicing constantly from the moment they discovered it possible to 'save' lives.

[It's heavy stuff, and stuff Evan has only just begun to grapple with. It'd been a hell of a revelation that the deemers had been a case of parasitic infestation, much less anything else...

He grimaces, looking a touch harried, even.]

I suspect even a blank slate prefers that state to death. I can't see the attempt to help as being a bad thing by any stretch. Better that than, than just killing them.

And yet I have the chilling feeling that if I dare inquire further, I will be just as inconsolable as the human warrior who beats his shield against all our temples in the midst of this mess. [Laedo's tail is swishing faster, now, his little sand-piles toppled by the irritated twitching.]

But come, let us speak of other things for a while longer yet. Have you ever seen a floating city?

[The mention of Achilles draws another noise of dismay from Evan, who has caught the bare edge of the maelstrom of news surrounding the Greek god-spawn.

But Laedo's diversion works brilliantly, and Evan leans forward.] No! I mean, in movies -- stories -- but they're not really a thing that exists on my world. This was the place you were sent?

Ayim is a country, rather than a world... perhaps. There were more islands than I could count, and more than I could tour on a given mission... but yes. It was extraordinary in every sense of the word. Fascinating, buoyant crystals that could be ground down and pressed into the service of floating barges, though they were called differently.

Pirates were cutting off the trade between the islands my team was meant to oversee... we put a swift end to them.

[Evan makes a noise of pure fascination, and then when Laedo's done lets out a groan that is just as purely frustration.]

Good lord, every single one of the worlds we visit I think "you could spend a whole lifetime studying this place"... that never ends, does it? I would give my left foot to know what on earth compels a crystal to naturally float.

So you actually fought pirates from airships? Were you, I mean, you must have fought from the air yourself, right?

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asscan - 2016-12-08 02:30 (UTC) - Expand