Chapter Twenty-Two

Fauve, I guess you could say, was a less than fastidious girl. Oh, she kept clean right enough, but she differed from her mother, spending no time on the face paint humans referred to as ‘makeup’, never wore red waxy stuff on her lips, and while she could be a little vain about how her hair was styled, she seldom did much more than brush it or braid it down the middle of her back. On this occasion, I opened the door to find her slender, serious face looking up at me. I wish I could say something clearer than ‘serious’, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t because she might as well have had her face carved out of ivory, as she wasn’t the most outdoorsy of humans, her naturally light skin ran toward the pale, with light brown eyes that matched her hair, she still somehow managed to look ‘imperious’.

“You didn’t come up for coffee tonight.” She said, and it was not a question, it was a statement, almost an accusation. “You haven’t come up for the last two nights.” She said and stepped inside my room when I moved out of the way.

As we both shared a fondness for the stuff, and she tended to be a night owl, remaining up late into the night almost every day, it was a now established routine that I would join her at the table for a cup. I know she did the same with her father, usually with snacks of some sort.

But since the incident, we almost always had a cup when I was up late at night taking my notes from the events of the day. Human children are a very curious lot, I said before and say again, they’re a naturally scientific species, or at least they ‘can’ be.

Fauve, being the pragmatic and bluntly put, proud girl that she was, epitomized both a scientific mind and directness that would make a dlamisa say ‘could you be a little gentler with your words?’ These were some of her finest qualities in my opinion.

Most of the time.

Now that this bluntness was directed at me… I wished she was more like most other humans. I sat on the bed with my shoulders slumped, setting aside my datapad, I folded my hands together in my lap and waited.

I felt her look me over, and knew she was looking at my tail, there was no wag to be had. I couldn’t even fake it.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” She said matter of factly, “For more than the last two days, ever since your professor showed up, really, but even more now.” She said, and looking down the way I was, I saw the slight bulge in her sneakers, her toes scrunched against the inner surface.

Avoiding Fauve was one thing. Lying to her was another. But I still couldn’t speak.

So I just nodded.

“Are you mad at me?” She asked, “I mean, you stopped drinking coffee, and even you don’t take that many showers or for that long.”

I shook my head a little.

“Did I offend you? Did I violate some dlamisan taboo and now you can’t even look at me?” Her voice rose an octave higher, I hadn’t heard her voice do that since the Wolfbeard incident when she told him to let go of her.

I really, really wanted to speak, but it felt like hands grabbed all three of my hearts and squeezed.

So all I could do was shake my head several times in rapid succession to deny her charges.

“Bailey… you’re my- my friend still, aren’t you? Is that it? Did I- did I mess up somehow and ruin that? I’m sorry if I did! Forgive me… I don’t have a lot of in person friends… I’m not really a people person so maybe I don’t always act like people expect, if I messed up, tell me how to fix it!” She exclaimed, her brown eyes became large as her pent up emotions began to get to her, overriding her reason…

It was so hard to remember that she is just a human child, according to my previous research, human children held themselves responsible for a lot of things they shouldn’t have. Chronic main character syndrome until they become adults, even for the ones who are older than their years.

I reacted as quickly as I could and violently shook my head, her distress snapped the grip on my hearts and I finally found a voice to speak. I could have done a much better job of it, no ‘gently breaking the news’ it was closer to what humans call ‘ripping the bandaid off’. “They’re going to make me leave!”

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Fauve was stunned into silence, her slender hands balled into little fists at her side, but no tears fell, I don’t think she knew quite what to say, so I expanded on what I’d said, cursing my inept presentation of the circumstances.

“Unless I can come up with some research to justify the risk in keeping me here, the University wants to recall me. That’s why my professor and fellow students came to see me that day. To explain my options, I have a few months at most. He promised to sign off on any project I thought had merit and to support any request to stay, but it’s out of his hands.” My face drifted away from the floor so that I was raising my eyes up to her, I could see the reality settling in on her face.

“But- But all that was settled, our world and your world were okay with it all! It’s that guy that was bad!” She snapped as if I didn’t know that myself.

“I know, but students at that school, well we’re subject to their rules, they can recall me to explain myself, and if I go back, even if they judge my actions favorably they might not let me come back here for another few decades. If they even do at all.” I explained, and Fauve turned around to shut the door.

She took a deep breath, “Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, it was kinder now, the way she spoke, though she paused to wipe her eyes, realizing that she wasn’t at fault clearly made her feel better.

Humans it seems, have a highly developed capacity to feel ‘guilt’, and it frequently serves as a motivation to action, tied closely to their general sense of fairness and justice, the idea of ‘writing wrongs’ is a major feature of many of their arts and stories.

“I didn’t know how to. This is all strange to me, I’m not as good a student as I thought I was?” My own voice’s pitch went up a little and I shrugged to go with it, a little self effacing mockery at my own expense seemed fitting at the moment.

“So, if I understand you right… Mr. not-so-good-a-student… if you come up with a study, or experiment or something that demonstrates a clear value to your school, you can stay?” Fauve asked, and I gave a very slow nod to her.

“Yes, the University’s purpose, its mission, is education that will promote peace among the galaxy’s many races. That’s why they’re the only university to take students from anywhere. Peace in the galaxy is in everyone’s interests. But war is always a possibility. Violence by one of their students, however justified, while on a student visa?” I gave a contemptuous sneeze, “No, they’re not going to tolerate that, just because the human and dlamisan worlds are willing to overlook an incident, that doesn’t mean the school will.”

“So then… there’s no problem, is there, Bailey?” Fauve asked, her fists opened and she gave a broad shrug that was almost a half flail of her arms as if she were completely clueless.

“Of…course there is.” I answered.

“No, there isn’t.” She retorted and approached me. She wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans and crouched down so that I didn’t have to look up at her, instead I was looking down and she grabbed my own wringing palms to stop the nervous motion I didn’t even know I’d been making until she made it stop.

“All you have to do is that. Come up with something valuable to the peace of the galaxy, study it, publish your findings, and convince them it is worth their while to put up with a few extra risks.” She gave me a reassuring smile, and if I could have laughed like a human, I would have.

“Sure, just change the state of galactic knowledge, that’s not that hard, right?” I asked, and her smile got a little bit bigger.

“Bailey, are you mastering the noble art of sarcasm?” She asked, and I didn’t even pretend to deny it.

“I have ample time to practice around you.” I replied, and she pushed herself up to a standing position, her right hand went to my head and scratched the top… it felt soooooo good after all the stress, that I tilted my head and leaned into the blessing of the scratch.

“Come on, come up for coffee, you’ll come up with something, big dummy. You made me worry.” She said and then took my hand to take me upstairs. “Maybe we’ll come up with something, I mean they want something valuable to interspecies peace, I’m a species, you’re a species, let’s put our heads together, and if nothing else, well even I can’t finish that whole pot by myself.” She gave me a gentle smile over her shoulder, and I stood up to follow her.

It had been hard to say that much to her, and I thought she still underestimated the probability of failure, but at least it was out, and if I were to be honest, what I imagined was worse than the reality even if that was tempered by unfounded optimism.

A little optimism goes a long way sometimes, especially with bad news. Bad news and a cup of coffee, that is.