Challenge #00839-B108: Infodump
You know you’ve over explained something when you make a robot’s eyes go glassy.
“…and when he looks out the window, there’s this long shot that doesn’t make any sense? ‘Cause they’re in a left hand? But it’s a right hand? And that’s how you know that it’s another ship?”
T0B0r blinked. Dazed. “…this does not answer my question…” ze managed.
“And then when she escaped? You can clearly see she’s headed right for Canada?”
“…this does not answer my question…” T0B0r fought against an information-overload-related shutdown.
“Wait, was I talking too much?“
“Yes,” sighed T0B0r. “Shutdown recommended… System overload in twenty more information points…”
“What was your question again?”
“Who… is… Steven… Universe?”
“OH! Yeah he’s a character in a cartoon show.”
“Shutdown initiated. Please wait.”
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Challenge #00838-B107: Prêt à Porter
Creating accommodating clothing and furnishing and such for the possibility that the wearer/user is taller or shorter or fatter or thinner than the average human being seems difficult enough for most modern manufacturers…
…what if they suddenly had to accommodate customers possessing other outside-the-average features… like additional pairs of arms, a snake’s tail instead of legs, an extra head or two, wings of various types, centauric forms, or other formerly-just-mythic anatomy?
The familiar complaint, “Oh, they never have anything in my size,” drifted through the cloth-lined labyrinth.
Tracy headed towards the potential commission only to find a horse. Well. Eighty percent of a horse. The head of the horse had somehow been replaced by the torso of a human.
She was huge.
Not fat. Hardly fat at all. But she was gargantuan.
“Can I help you?” Tracy risked. Am I still sane?
“These maxi dresses are the right length, but none of them are the right width. Do you have anything like this in a triple-X L? Or larger?”
“Sorry,” said Tracy. Possibly on automatic. “We only stock the smaller sizes. There’s one specialty store closer to the food court… you could try there.”
“Thanks anyway.“ The centaur, and delicately picked her way out of the shop.
Tracy had no time to think, That was weird… because her next customer had batlike wings sprouting from her back.
“Hi, excuse me. Where are the hip-huggers and halter tops?”
“Those are out of season,” apologised Tracy, trying not to stare. “They’re for summer only.”
The bat-winged woman sighed and sashayed out of there. She had a spaded tail and hooves.
“excuse me,” said a tiny voice by her ankle. “do you anything in a super-petite?”
That was a Gnome. And she was staring. “…try Toys R Us,” she managed.
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The Telephone Game, Divine Edition
A religious organization (modern or fictional), after following their particular holy text (or at least it’s translated editions) for centuries/millenia, if given a drastic and alarming shock one day, when their deity appears to tell the vast majority of them, basically, “Who told you I said all this? I never asked you to act like this at all, most of it is your own ideas! You’ve got everything completely wrong!”
(#00837-B106)
The day of Festival was in full swing. The
Unwanted in the pyres had stopped screaming and the annual Cleansing was
well underway. Houses, bodies, and belongings scoured with harsh lye
and bleach. This Festival, the ten thousandth of its kind, celebrated
the much-heralded re-appearance of Loran, the one true god.
Tolris, skin freshly stinging from her own Cleansing, took down the new list of Unwanted Tomes and set about removing them from her shelves. They would go outside into a small pyre for the public to view.
Her shop had no lock, and it was no surprise to find a customer already inside. She was paging through the ever-popular Holy Writ and muttering to herself.
“I didn’t say that… He didn’t do that. Honestly… how could that one even work?”
Tolris paused in the act of fetching her tongs. “Are you… quite well, my friend?” She also made certain she had her Heretic’s Whistle, just in case one of the Unwanted had somehow escaped the Cleansing.
“This book,” sighed the stranger. “Most of it’s made up. I thought you would all be fine for ten thousand years, but look! I never, ever said one word about hurting a single living being.” Fingers tapped the paper in agitation. “And here’s entire chapters devoted to how to prepare children for the sacrifice.”
“Yae, though the innocent come to Loran, ere they sin,” recited Tolris. “Being Chosen for the sacrifice of innocents is the very highest of honours. I regret missing my chance.”
The stranger boggled at her. “YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO WANT TO DIE! And it’s Loren. That, I can easily accept as a typo or language drift, but the rest of this? It’s appalling…”
Tolris brought the whistle to her lips and blew hard on it. No sound came out.
“Thus should the miracle occur,” recited Loren. “The accuser will make no sound, though they truly will it so, and the innocent shall be thus spared.” Loren looked up from the book. “I told them before I left that I had other business. I can’t keep my awareness in all places and all times. How many thousands were presumed guilty just because I was pre-occupied?”
Tolris blew again. So hard that she almost passed out. Nothing. “You are meant to appear in the holiest of places… and make your will known to the people.”
“The wealth of knowledge is my holy ground, and those who share it, my advocates,” said Loren.
Tolris
shook her head. “The lust for knowledge is avarice and abhorrent,” she
corrected. “Those who keep knowledge must guard it, lest the unworthy
become corrupted.” Reminded, she urgently rushed to seize the newly
corrupted tomes and remove them from existence.
Loren sighed. “Well, that explains why your tech level is still at the hand-tool stage… Why are you taking away books with those tongs?“
“I’m freshly Cleansed. I cannot touch that which is unclean, lest I become unclean in your sight…“
*
Thusly, the corporeal manifestation of Loran came unto the steps of the Holiest Sepulcher. And the holy men knew him not, and barred his way. And Loran clapped his hands together and lo, the men of the Sepulcher found themselves in the midden-piles and the pig sties, outside the mighty walls of the holiest city.
The corporeal manifestation of Loran raised his sandalled foot unto the doors that protected the High Administrate. And kicked them with one mighty blow that sent them spinning off their hinges. The High Administrate beheld Loran, and the High Administrate knew him not.
The corporeal manifestation of Loran held high the Book of Holy Writ and spake thusly: “WHAT THE HELL KIND OF NONSENSE DO YOU CALL THIS, THEN?”
“How did you get in here alive? How dare you talk to me in that tone of voice,” blustered the High Administrate.
The Book of Holy Writ burned in bright flames before him. “The name is Loren, and I am your god,” she said. “And all of you have been wilfully ignorant for ten thousand years! That’s beyond sinful! What the heck do you have to say for yourselves?”
“We followed the Holy Writ,” offered the High Administrate.
“You followed bull crap,” spake Loren, the corporeal manifestation of the Divine. “And you called it holy. I never should have let men write things down… You always manage to tilt it so that you wind up in charge.”
“If you had not wished men to lead,” said the High Administrate in an exhibition of what not to say to a Divine Being, “you would have made them into women!”
The corporeal manifestation of Loren snapped her fingers, and lo, all of the men of the church were women. And more, the sins of their lives were written clear upon their flesh, for all to read.
“You were saying?” spake Loren. And the corporeal manifestation of the Divine went out unto the Great Terrace, and made herself known to the people. And she brought back from the fires, all who had succumbed to the flames.
And lo, the people were confused.
And Loren spake unto them, saying, “Look. I know last time was a bit of a mess. Let’s try and get it right, this time around. Okay?”
And the people knew not what to think.
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Elvis has left the building
It’s August 1977, news has spread that Elvis Presley has died. For Amy & Zerachiel this is a problem. Niether can find them. Their department heads are furious, the records show that the King has just dissappeared and if Amy and Zerachiel can’t come up with the goods they’re fired. Might be that he’s not even human, mortal or even subject to either of their departments.
Amy = plain clothes demon
Department = Hell, collection agency
Zerachiel = plain clothes angel
Department = Heaven, new admissions
How would a covert meeting between them to exchange information over coffee at a local 7-Eleven go?
(#00836-B105)
1977.
In a darkened hallway, in-between seconds and invisible to normal mortal eyes, two figures squared off. They were an angel and a demon, and only experts can really tell the difference. They squared off in the same way that cats squared off, namely by staring intensely at each other, followed closely by some intense ignoring of the opposite faction.
Minutes ticked by.
“He’s mine,” said the demon. Hir name was Amy[1].
“He’s mine,” said the angel, who answered to Zerachiel. “He has spread more love through the world than hatred.”
“Ah, but many believe that his music is the tool of my master,” countered Amy. “And belief is everything, no?”
“No,” said Zerachiel flatly. “And, because his soul is in the balance, we must wait the Final Adjudicator.”
More minutes ticked by. “Where is he?”
“He’s late.”
“He’s never late.”
“This is the appointed time and place…” said Zerachiel. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. Our masters wouldn’t send us, otherwise.”
“Then where is Azriel?”
“I AM EVERYWHERE,” said the dark shadow of Death. The one angel for everyone, guaranteed. “DO YOU NEED SOMETHING?”
“We’re here to collect a soul,” said Amy. “Elvis Aaron Presley? So-called King of rock and roll?”
“NOT HERE,” said Death. “NOT NOW.” And then its presence vanished from perception.
Amy and Zerachiel shared a Look. It said, Oh shit…
*
Now.
One slid the other coffee. They both nursed their disposable cups and glared at each other like cats.
“Da capo?” suggested Zerachiel.
Amy rolled hir eyes. “I’m not in the mood to go over decades of cold trails. News, thank you.”
“The tabloids have it wrong. Of course.”
“Of course,” sighed Amy. “And I was joking about them being right at all.”
“I’ve searched this entire orb. There is no sign or trace of him.”
“As have I. The only conclusion is that he no longer lives here.”
“If he lives.”
“He was supposed to have died decades ago!”
“I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY SAY,” said the passing shadow of Death, “I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.”
[1] Angels and demons do not, strictly speaking, have genders.
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Challenge #00835-B104: Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind
More encounters between the spider-people and humans, pre- or post-Amity
Ten weeks prior to Amity’s re-introduction to the Galactic Alliance…
Salvage spacers tended to have short names. Monosyllabic and easy to pronounce in an emergency. So it was with Mar and Dee. Both women had longer names, but such names were exclusively on their paperwork.
“I’ve been on this hulk before,” said Dee, pointing to a conglomerated wreck in their pathfinder screen. “There’s an enormous colony of BFS on there.”
“BFS,” repeated Mar. Knowing Dee as she did, she easily guessed the first two letters. “Big Flakkin’…?”
“Spiders. Huge. The size of dogs. Saint Bernard or bigger.”
Mar side-eyed her companion. “It’d be easier to say ‘pony’.”
“True.” Dee shrugged. “On the upside, there’s these crystals that grow in there? Twenty ounces gets us a Year, minimum. They’re super-rare in the upper gravity zones.”
“Are the spiders dangerous?”
“Uuuuuuuuhhhhhh…” the call sign of impending doom. “Dunno. Never hung around long enough to find out.“
Right. Presumed dangerous until proven otherwise. Which meant the extra electrical packs. “Any Oshits?“
“No, I’ve never seen an Oshit in there.”
“Just wondering why this hulk got labelled H’nuf’ruf, is all.”
“I looked up to see one of them crawling on me.“
“Ah.”
*
Precautions taken, they split up to find the rare crystals. Though the place was, as Dee put it, full of big flakkin’ spiders, it was astonishingly free of webs. What webs there were seemed to serve a different purpose. Mar noted that some seemed designed to corral a cloud of Fhitts into a room where flies bred on filth stuck to the walls.
Mar stared at it. That’s a farm. A low-g farm for Fhitts. Lit with the very crystals that she and Dee were looking for. Though these ones were also attached to webbing.
She turned to leave, and came face-to-palps with the farmer. Mar screamed her way into a defensive posture… only to watch in frightened confusion as the spider mimicked her with four of its legs.
It took her some hours to realise that the spider was wearing clothes. Woven spider-fibres. Made into some kind of socks, and a cloak-like arrangement over the abdomen.
But that was later. After she and a spider had freed Dee.
Mar was bouncing off the walls to get away from the farmer-spider when Dee’s call came.
“Uh. I’m experiencing some technical difficulties…”
“How big is your embuggerance?”
“Door-sized. I was going after some crystals and… the spider on the other side closed the door.”
“And…?” Mar called up the mini-map on her HUD and began bouncing in Dee’s general direction.
“I’m stuck halfway through. Every time I try to make a move, the spider lunges at me.”
“Stay still and survival breaths. On my way.”
By the time she got there, it was a Scene. Four or more spiders were clustered around the right half of Dee. Aiming to startle them away, Mar bounced towards them, arms flapping, and yelling, “YAAARRRGERRONOUTOVITYARUDDYGREATLUMPS!”
The spiders only sidled a little away. One of their number waved its front legs around in the same manner that Mar used her arms.
“That wasn’t effective,” said Dee.
“Yeah. These things don’t know how to be afraid of humans.”
“Wish I knew how to be not afraid of spiders.”
“Me too.”
Mar would not leave Dee. The spiders would not let Mar take her. There was plenty of time to analyse the situation.
The spiders wore clothes and seemed to communicate by some kind of palp semaphore. With emphasis coming from their two front limbs.
Mar tried to imitate their palp-movements with her hands.
Which got instant notice from the spiders.
It was a combination of pantomime and guesswork and charades, but understanding had a seed. The spiders also valued the delicate crystals and farmed them for light.
Having humans barge in and steal some samples was… upsetting… for the spiders.
Negotiations had to break for Mar and Dee to get more air, but they returned to H’nuf’ruf with Glim lamps and adapters. And fuel.
The old engines still worked enough to run the doors. Dee pantomimed and walked the spiders through how to use the interface to add to their environment. Showed them some basic scavenging techniques. Like, for instance, bleeding just enough air out of a hulk to not set off an alarm; then using that air to fill a nearly-vacated add-on of their own.
Knowledge was worth a fortune, if you knew where to sell it.
The spiders showed them how to farm crystals in a low-g zone. And somehow, without nearly beginning to understand each other, they began to form a trade agreement.
Help us get crystals and we help you get things you need.
It would be years before any real communication was at all possible.
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Parents just don’t understand adventuring…
“You think because you killed a few dragons that you’re some kind of big man? Too big to show your elders respect? I’m your mother, I once wiped your poopy bum with my bare hands, so I’m not impressed by your antics, mister ‘vanquisher-of-armies’. Why don’t you ever visit, or at least write now and then?”
(#00834-B103)
Hrothgar the Mighty - Conquerer of All, Ruler of the Five Kingdoms, Dragonslayer, Master of the Mighty Voice - took off his skull helmet and hung it up. Wiped his boots, that had trodden on the faces of his enemies, on the mat provided, and placed his mighty sword in the hat-rack with all the umbrellas. “Sorry, mum. I got caught up in stuff.”
“Caught up in stuff,” his mother echoed. “Caught up in stuff.” She emerged from her work with the ever-present tea towel swirling around her hands. “You were hanging out with that gang, weren’t you?”
“Army, mother. I have armies now. And… um. I brought you some presents?”
She folded her arms. The tea towel took its perch on her shoulder. “Mm-hm.“
Hrothgar the Mighty - Conquerer of All, Ruler of the Five Kingdoms, Dragonslayer, Master of the Mighty Voice - urgently ushered some of his minions forwards. And rather more urgently signed that they should wipe their feet.
“Behold! I bring you the rarest of black pearls, the size of a man’s head! Wrenched from the grip of the Kraken at the bottom of the deadly seas. The prized Eye of The Goddess of Light, given as a boon in a battle for her favour. The fabled Sword of Kroesos the Conquerer, won by fighting it from his undead hands! Jewels from the furthest realms! The rarest of cloths! Everything you could dream of. And more!”
The mother of Hrothgar the Mighty - Conquerer of All, Ruler of the Five Kingdoms, Dragonslayer, Master of the Mighty Voice - pursed her lips. “You didn’t remember the dish soap at all, did you?”
Hrothgar the Mighty - Conquerer of All, Ruler of the Five Kingdoms, Dragonslayer, Master of the Mighty Voice - smacked his forehead and muttered, “D’oh!”
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Challenge #00833-B102: …Okay?
This post:
http://azzandra.tumblr.com/post/116731684146/fleshwater-matt-the-blind-cinnamon-roll
(list of weird things humans do like losing baby teeth to grow a second set, then:
“At some point, the aliens aren’t going to know anymore when we’re actually trolling them.
Us: Under certain circumstances, humans have been known to spontaneously develop the ability to breathe fire.
Alien: yeah, okay, that fits in with the other wacky bullshit you guys can do.”)
The humans walked out of the airlock, male and female. Each carrying two human infants.
Pa’rix looked them over. “Your crew manifest says two.”
“These aren’t crew, they’re passengers. Family,” clarified the female. “Remember last time we were here? You commented on my swollen abdomen?”
Oh. Right. Reproduction. “Of course they have galactic passports.”
There was a pocket in one of the infant-carrying harnesses. The male dug out four nearly-identical documents. The only difference was the names.
Even the DNA-scan was amazingly similar.
“Someone is deceptive. These are papers for one infant.”
“They’re identical quadruplets,” the parents said in resigned unison.
“We tattooed a letter into their left wrists so everyone could distinguish them,” said the male. “I have Amy and Dee. Lynn has Bel and Cordie.”
The human named Lynn displayed a tiny wrist with an ornate letter C on the fleshy underside.
“We were lucky we were at Rest Stop when they were due. Bel got stuck and they had to give me an emergency caesarian.”
“Birth surgery,” clarified the male. His documents declared him to be Sizwe.
“How could anyone– oh. Right. You’re Deathworlders.”
“We get that a lot,” they chorused.
*
The four small humans had been upgraded to crew. One wore a shirt that read, Ask us about our cloning program.
Each filed up to Pa’rix to hand her their documents and have their markings scanned and their DNA files updated.
“I lotht a toof,” said Amy, showing Pa’rix the gap in her incisors. She seemed happy about this.
“I got a loose tooth,” said Cordie. And proceeded to show her how it wriggled.
“I’m already growing a new one,” Dee showed off a ragged line of white in the middle of a blank space of gumline.
Bel just pouted her way through.
“This is normal for you humans?”
“Yes, our children have deciduous teeth. They’ve just started growing their adult set.” Lynn handed across her papers and submitted to the scans.
Pa’rix spent a boggling hour scouring the Wikipedia Galactica for human medical information. What she got was a bizarre list of traits that spoke of millenia’s worth of multiple near-extinction events. And baffling mutations.
And it was in the resultant cloud of confusion that Pa’rix sought out the six humans for verification.
The answers to all her questions were, “Yes.”
“Some of you can bleed for five days and live?” Yes. “Some of you are born hermaphrodites?” Yes. “Some of you are born with mismatched bodies to identities?” Yes. “Some of you can survive, relatively sane, without ever mating?” Yes. “Some of you are born without limbs?” Yes. “Or organs?” Yes.
And finally, “What else are you bizarre apes capable of?”
“Well,” said Sizwe with a straight face, “some of us have been known to spontaneously breathe fire.”
“…Okay?” quavered Pa’rix. She swore nothing more would startle her for the rest of her life.
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Challenge #00832-B101: Picnic in the Park
The final holiday on Earth prompt - Author’s choice as to what the human shows their friend again, but this time everything is finally perfect.
[AN: This story happens somewhere in the middle of #00830-B099]
What bothered Rael the most about travelling the Earth with Shayde was how easily she switched languages and habits to match her environment.
For instance, as they marched steadily and almost silently through the Australian wilderness, she was singing an ancient song. Thousands of years old before she even left this planet. And she sung it in praise of, and to honour, the people who once lived here[1].
She had lived here when they lived here, and learned it from them. And she sung it as automatically as she breathed.
And there, in the middle of the scrubby bush, was a hidden spring. Like something out of a fantasy book where children discover another plane of reality. And in this sudden and unexpected pocket of lush green in the middle of dingy khaki… Rael could easily believe that he had stepped into a different universe.
Shayde grinned as she spread out a blanket. “I used tae come here wi’ all the local kids. Me standin’ oot like a sore thumb o’ course. One wee white kiddie in t’ middle of all the others. We’d go yabbie-ing a coupl’a ponds over. Swimmin’ here. The ole tree branch is gone. Long gone…” But it was almost as it was, and that was the point. So much of the cityscapes had changed. None of her former landmarks existed, any more.
But this place, barely touched by the hands of adult humans, remained.
Everything else in her pack was travelling food. “You brought me all the way here for a picnic?”
Her face twisted as she evidently struggled not to blurt out some ancient and crude Australian saying. “Aye,” she said eventually. “We can even go swimmin’.”
“We don’t have our -er- ‘togs’.”
An even wider grin. “And who’s goin’ tae see that?”
He wasn’t quite sure if she was trying to tempt him or trying to pull his leg.
But the food was excellent, and the quiet noise of nature was restful. And he could almost ignore the way Shayde seemed so comfortable with herself, even without a stitch of clothing on.
He often wondered what it was like to grow up without a constant atmosphere of self-consciousness. Or why, even here and now, he insisted on at least keeping his Skins on as he gingerly explored the water.
Shayde didn’t say a word about his choices. Just showed him how to tickle the local fish and named some of the native birds.
They
shared an impossible four hours in that little spot. Before time,
available light, and the scarcity of food demanded that they hike back.
But it had been, all in all, a surprisingly lovely day.
[1] Don’t worry. They left voluntarily to found their own planet. Nobody’s going to steal their land this time.
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Challenge #00831-B100: Fun Park a la Deathworld
Holiday prompt the third! Author’s choice what the human shows their companion, as long as it goes pear-shaped
[AN: This story precedes yesterday’s]
Deathworlder entertainments are not advised for non-Deathworlders, said the Wikipedia Galactica, only the native life forms of a Deathworld can withstand even the most allegedly gentle of their entertainment vehicles. Though the Deathworlders insist that these entertainments are safe, be advised that they are only safe for Deathworlders.
Rael could easily believe, and understand those words, now. Especially ones he looked over the tallest peaks of a ride calling itself The Bone Bruiser. And very much especially you once he saw the look on Shayde’s face. It was a decidedly unholy and Deathworlder expression of anticipatory glee.
The same look, he recalled, she got when she saw the Space Elevator.
“No. Absolutely not. No way. I am not riding that with you.“
“Come on, yer the toughest thing there is next tae me! There’s no way it could hurt you. Yer vacuum-rated, and impact-proof. Ye could take a swim in lava, parkour around asteroids, and finish it up with a dip in liquid nitrogen.”
It was times like this, Rael regretted telling her that his species’ specs were publicly available. “One: just because I can, doesn’t mean I want to. Two: I am alpha-test. I do not want to find out where my factory flaws are the painful way. Three: there’s very little that you could offer to convince me.”
She took this as a challenge. “They do deep-fried chocolate cake…”
Curse her for knowing exactly how to bribe him. “Slices or whole?”
“How aboot a slice afore, an’ a whole one after?“
*
People were staring. He couldn’t really blame them, it wasn’t every day that a cogniscent turned completely silver in front of their eyes.
The memory of the ride, and their escape haunted him in flashes of vivid detail. The moment he knew that Shayde knew he was in trouble. The way that her face dropped from enthusiastic joy too worried terror as her eyes swirled from cheerful gold to a sickly chartreuse.
Her immediate reaction was to grab him and pull them both through their own shadows.
There was a moment of absolute darkness. Absolute cold. And somehow, terrifying voices demanding that they take his place.
And then, the blistering burst of genuine sunlight. Repeated impacts against the soft, cushioning walls of the bouncy castle. And her arms, tight around him, as she wept tearful apologies into his shoulder.
It took four medtechs just to get her away from him.
You need to visit a visit to the Med Bay, but it was a close thing. Some mis-assigned instinct to regurgitate had battled furiously with his designed desire to hang on to every last calorie he got.
Thankfully, she had calmed down once they announced he would be fine.
And once the medtechs cleared away, he could see that she had fetched him a Double-Dog Dare Platter from Deep-Fried Everything. With spray cream, and spray cheese, and chocolate sprinkles.
Now, he sat quietly, clinging to his reflective blanket and picking gingerly at the feast before him. Shayde sat opposite the bench, primed and ready to dash for anything he desired. And snivelling quietly into handkerchief.
“I thought ye’d be awreet,” she repeated intermittently. “I’m sorrah. I’m reet sorrah…”
This felt worse than a trip through a wormhole. At least going through Hyperspace included the need to eat. “How silver was I?“
“Fall-blown smooth mirror.“
She was right to be terrified for him. As he recalled, the next stage up in hazard signs was complete torpor with flashing, luminous spots at regular intervals. “Next time, assuming I consent to a next time… we work our way up.”
“Babbie Funland it is, then,” she agreed. “After ye get yer calories in.”
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Challenge #00830-B099: Comfort Food
The holiday continues, introducing the friend to things like non-irradiated cheese, actual lemons, and real dumplings
It started small. Well, comparatively small. A steaming curry at a van vendor, swimming in grease and overloaded with turmeric rice.
What followed was a tour of all the places that still sold unsuitable or unexportable food. Haggis, Casu marzu, Lutefisk. Pizza cones. Powdered doughnut pancake surprise. Death By Chocolate cake.
And now it finished here.
If it wasn’t the birthplace of Unsuitable Food Eat, it was certainly its shrine. A temple of carbohydrates, sugar, theobromine, and all the toxic, acidic, enzyme and biota-loaded consumables that Earth had to offer.
For Rael, it was the closest thing his atheistic soul could equate to holy ground. And then, only because he needed calories like most other life forms needed air.
Shayde pulled a Five Year note out of her wallet and said, “Me friend, here, is goin’ tae try eatin’ yer menu.”
The Gyik behind the counter sized up Rael’s slim build and laughed. “And you, dear lady?”
“Just gi’ me a sharin’ fork. I’ll be fine.”
*
On the trip back to Amalgam Station, almost torpid with an overload of calories, he asked her. “Why did you do that?”
“Mudita,” she shrugged. “Vicarious glee.” A sigh. “It’s no’ a good holiday ‘less someone goes home happy. Good food an’ loads of it… pretty much gets you there.”
One of the more baffling human phrases crossed his mind. Those who hurt the most, heal the most. He could almost understand it. “So. You gave up on your holiday… and made it mine?”
“Aye.” Her smile came back. Cheeky and playing hide-and-seek on her face. “It was worth it.”
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