Neya had curled up at his side and gone back to sleep fairly quickly. No such luck for Alex. He had gotten nearly seven hours of what turned out to be restful sleep and was now wide awake with entirely too much to think about.
He really didn’t want to think about any of it just yet. Alex was perfectly aware that he really should be getting his feelings in order, but as far he was concerned it was way down the list of things he wanted to be doing right now. More sleep was at the top, but he already knew that was a nonstarter.
What he needed was a break.
Everything had been happening at an absurd pace since he had come aboard. Some of it was intentional - Eleya had clearly intended to get him to agree to ‘protection’ so he would willingly become part of her plans, pending he passed her test. Carbon’s fury in response, the assassination attempt, finding out what Neya actually was, the incident that was awfully damn close to being an assassination attempt...
His legs stretched involuntarily, still aching but at a more manageable level. He’d give Neya that - she knew her way around muscles.
Alex sighed and threw the covers back, turned the lights on at ten percent. Sitting in the dim light, his mind was restless, eager to jump from one thing to the next. All he wanted to do was fly his little ships - he’d settle for any size ship at this point - and date Carbon. Even with all the Tsla’o weirdness, even dragging Neya and her infatuation along, he supposed, would be all right. The resignation turned to annoyance as he stood and remembered that everything had been put away. Everything. Not a single long strip of the daman remained out, nor was his bag anywhere to be found. He didn’t know what had happened to it.
Alex cast a glance back at Neya before he started rummaging. She was sprawled out with mouth agape, snoring quietly. Her ears aimed in different directions, twitching and swiveling like she was trying to listen to something that kept moving, though they never pointed towards him. Still kind of adorable, and very much asleep.
Top drawer on the dresser was sundries. That bag with the tin of powder and combs, the jar of salve, various grooming implements, the sword Carbon had almost killed her aunt with. The ones below it were largely filled with mostly unidentifiable Tsla’o clothes. Even if he thought he could pull off the shortest shorts in existence, he was sure they were too small.
“Oh, come on.” He muttered to himself as he found the bottom drawer was just accessories he didn’t even recognize.
Back to the bed. Wandering around naked was less daunting today than it had been just a day ago, which was good. Feeling more at home, despite everything. He crouched there by the foot and slid the drawer open as quietly as possible. “Jackpot. Maybe.” It was clearly his clothing, nobody else here was wearing t-shirts. A little more searching found the shorts he’d packed for sleeping in. Actual jackpot, nice.
Once again clothed, it was time for something to drink.
All the cupboards latched, which made sense on a spaceship. The detents holding the drawers closed were pretty significant as well. Two of the overhead cabinets were empty, which was a bit of a shock. Carbon’s worry about him having grown up poor and hungry stood out as strange with all these bare shelves. Though, they had not been expected - how much food did Neya need on hand when she was holding this place down on her own?
It let his mind wander onto the subject of how the Tsla’o handled food distribution, a welcome respite from the more personal matters that had been on hand.
The other two were dry goods in sealed containers or vacuum packed bags, some cleaning supplies, and a full setting of plates, bowls and cups for the four-seat table. Doing the dishes promptly after every meal, it seems. Alex plucked a cup from the tray it was resting on and decided to stick with tap water for the moment. Too early for coffee anyway - not that he expected to be able to find any onboard. Too early for tea, as well.
Next up, something to fill the time. The small stack of books that Neya had collected for him was sitting atop the headboard, next to the sex position manuals that Eleya had given him. They had a black cloth binding, the only markings on the outside being on the spine, labling them as Untranslateable One, Untranslatable Two, and Untranslatable Zeshen, now that he was looking at them with visual translation on.
Not a big surprise that they hadn’t included the title of their Kama Sutra in the language exchanges. That last one was a bit presumptuous, though. Eleya would know how Zeshen work, but to his knowledge Neya was still considering her options when it had been given to him. He grumbled, another thing that immediately struck him as suspicious. Eleya had seemed annoyed she hadn’t been notified of Neya’s acceptance of him, but that could have easily been a front. Zeshen were supposed to be outside of the Empress’ sphere of influence. That was how things had been. Not necessarily how they were now.
Or did she just know Neya well enough to predict that end? Family members were involved in the selection process. Would her station in life lend her more weight, and how would it be used? Was Neya chosen because she would be unwaveringly loyal - and loyal to who?
Alex missed never asking himself questions like this.
Curiosity got the better of him anyway and he slipped the little black book out from the bottom of the stack and flipped it open to find at least half of it was text. Dozens of pages. Translation filtered in and it turned out to be a series of essays about consent. Definitely going to come back around to this as a window into Tsla’o culture at the very least, but it was not exactly the thing he was looking to engage with right now.
He set it back on top of the stack and turned to the ones not tainted by Eleya’s hand. Several thick tomes on the bottom with titles like History of the First Age, Seasons of Schoen: A Historical View of the Heartlands, and 1100: Rise to the Second Age. They looked like college texts. Back in the sickbay he’d have probably loved any one of these. Even just thinking about cracking one open felt like work.
It turned out all the rest were textbooks as well, save for one well worn paperback novel that rested atop the pile. A lone red-furred Tsla’o male clad in more rugged looking pants and a plain brown vest, standing in a knee-high field of jade grasses, snow capped mountains in the background. Temptation of the Harvest Fields. Neya had said it was a semi-accurate historical fiction that included several Zeshen, right out of her own personal collection. Even had her name written on the inside of the cover. The more things change.
Fuck it, he’d read the romance novel. Historical fiction of any accuracy written by aliens was probably as close as he was getting to some actual escapism without poking around the electronics and hoping for the best. Or asking for help, again.
He turned from the stacks and the glint of black screens caught his attention. Speaking of electronics... One of those phones must be his. He picked up the one furthest from where Neya had been laying when she’d put her phone back, rewarded with a brief moment of blindness when the screen came on as his thumb hit a button on the bezel. Belonged to somebody named Alekese Sorenson, apparently. “I’ll be damned.” He was honestly surprised that Sorenson could be translated into written Tsla so smoothly, given how his first name got mangled.
He unlocked it, the circle with a thumbprint in it a pretty clear indication of what needed to be done. Alex returned to the kitchen, scrolling through the applications. Basic stuff, mostly. Mail, messaging, search functions, maps, calendar. He clicked his tongue, not a single game to be found. Sure enough, there was the group message from Carbon. He thought about replying as he eased into a chair, his back towards the little light over the stove.
Alex decided against it. She wanted some quiet time, she should get it. He was a grown up, he could deal with not having someone there with him at every moment. Plus he had no idea what these sounded like when they got a notification, or how to silence it. He might be annoyed with Neya right now, but not enough to be an asshole.
So that was how he spent the next hour, engrossed in what was - if he was being polite - a very tawdry novel. To its credit, the first few chapters actually went into running a farm with what seemed like realistic details that could at least pass for feeling historically accurate. Alex didn’t know anything about running a farm so it was all supposition, but the work aspects of such an endeavor was presented well.
This was not to say that the book forgot what it was. Even through a translator, the prose was floral and laden with what he assumed were euphemisms. Some of them were more obvious. Only one kind of field is getting plowed inside a barn, and the help that the main character had hired were making sure they had plowed every row.
Lots of paragraphs were taken up by describing the male lead - Aena - as he hefted tack for the Rakaro-pulled plow, muscles flexing like taut rope underneath his rich red fur that sparkled in the cold spring sun. That sort of thing. Despite all this physical prowess and stoic exterior, this particular pillar of the community really needed a family to run the farm. Despite that, he had never taken a spouse, or even a lover. Not exactly subtle.
Alex was unlikely to admit that his choice of book did manage to engross him enough to get him to stop reprocessing the last day. Not without a big list of caveats attached to that statement, at least. He was eager to find out what portion of this was actually historical, though. Particularly if the way that Aena was portrayed as an outlier for his running of the farm was accurate - this appeared to be uncommon at the time, but all the female relatives of his that might have taken that role had died tragically before the book started to set him up in this situation.
Across the room Neya stirred, stretching under the covers before sitting bolt upright with a panicked yelp.
“Y’all right?” He’d been affecting a cowboy-esqe voice for Aena in his head, which was likely completely wrong. It was still funny, and it slipped easily into his own speech patterns.
She panted, disoriented as her eyes cast around the room before landing on him, a soft sigh following. Neya grabbed her wireless and started fitting them on, starting to reply as she did. “I had thought everyone was gone. You have moved, but not as far as I had feared.”
“A-yup.” He flipped the page, the next chapter starting in a courtyard. Clearly not on the farm anymore. “Ah jus wasn’t tired after’n we spoke. Figured ah’d get started on all this here reading.”
“Why are you talking like that?” She smoothed her face out, more confused than anything before she spotted what was in his hands. “You are reading my book!”
He cleared his throat, putting aside his bad accent. “Yeah, the setting kind of reminds me of the ‘western’ genre. Slightly industrialized frontier sorta thing. I think that’s about to change, but time will tell.”
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“That is about when it takes place, just as industrialization is beginning in the cities.” She stretched again, padding softly to the dresser that her and Carbon seemed to share. “Have you enjoyed it so far?”
“It’s uh...” He had, though probably not from the same point of view of the intended audience. “Not what I normally read, but I think it's an interesting look into your culture. I will need a little help hashing out what’s accurate and what isn’t at some point.”
That was taken well, Neya brightening up as she tucked a bunch of clothes under her arm. “I look forward to doing so. Would you like to use the shower first?”
“Nah, you go on ahead.” He made note of the page and set the book down. If she was up, it was time for some... tea. It would do.
The kettle was in the lower cabinets with the pots and pans, and he had it boiling in no time. The tea pot, on the other hand, was tucked away with the dishes. Everything in with the food was labeled clearly, and he had tea brewing before Neya was even out of the shower. Measurements were approximate, but it looked right from when Carbon had made tea yesterday.
He was, for a moment, proud of this accomplishment. Then the fact this was over a pot of tea caught up with him before he fought back that inner voice. This wasn’t Human tea, despite many similarities. This was his first time making an honest to goodness alien tea. The first pour looked right. Dark amber, as the few times he’d had it served.
It tasted awful. Strikingly bitter, it dried his mouth out with just a little splash of liquid.
“What-” Neya had returned just in time to watch his face implode.
“I made the tea wrong.” Alex coughed in response.
“How could you have made it wrong?” She asked, lifting the cup out of his hand and getting it almost to her mouth before recoiling from it. “It is not wrong, it is incomplete. You did not put the sugar and bicarbonate in?”
Well, that did explain it. “No I did not.”
“I will finish that, if you would like to use the shower?”
Alex agreed and they switched tasks.
It felt good to be clean, and that little scrubby pad he’d pinched from the kitchen the night before did an excellent job of exfoliating everything. Maybe a little too well for daily use. His legs appreciated the heat, their misery ebbing further away. Neya confirmed that all his clothes had ended up in the drawers under the bed, and while it wasn’t the organizational system he would have used, everything was easy enough to locate.
“It looks fine, right? Right?” Alex held his arms out, showing off his outfit to Neya. He’d opted for human clothing today, a black t-shirt over black pants. They would not be getting him back into formal clothing. Ever, if he had his way. “Toss the jacket on over this. Done. Easy.”
“It looks... Strange. Discomforting. The collar is too high and sleeves too low.” She wrinkled her slender muzzle at him, eyebrows pulled low. She may have been holding a slight grudge. Carbon had messaged them while he was in the shower, requesting that he come and dine with her back near Engineering.
“Ah, what do you know.” He sat on the bed and slipped his shoes on. He had expected that Neya would go too, but Carbon had explained there were protocols to be followed when dining with your Zeshen in public. This wasn’t one of those times.
Neya leaned back in her chair, looking away from him with a dismissive flip of her hand. “I have studied fashion and aesthetics extensively for two decades.”
“You’d both have to do that, huh?” Alex muttered under his breath as he seated his heel and pulled the laces tight. Real arch support felt incredible. “Look, I’ll pick something up for you on the way back. Actually, I’ll have Carbon do it because I don’t know where anything is or what you’d like.”
“It is not the same,” she huffed. Despite the act she was putting up, Neya sounded amused by the exchange.
“Then we won’t get anything and she can just get up early tomorrow and make breakfast.” He stood and picked a few stray hairs off his pants. “How’s that sound?”
“Perhaps you should get me something and she can still cook tomorrow. After such a disappointment, it is the least that will soothe my feelings.” Neya smiled wide, having given up the pretense of being put off entirely and slipping back into her normal warm countenance. She picked his phone off the table and held it out to him, “the map is set to take you directly to the restaurant. I do not think Carbon will appreciate it if you dally.”
“No, I don’t think she would either.” Alex tucked it into a pocket and gave her a wave as he closed the door to the foyer. His jacket fit just fine over the t-shirt and he didn’t particularly care if it didn’t show the appropriate amount of neck and shoulder. It’d probably be better anyway, bare skin seemed to unsettle many of the locals.
He slapped the controls and the heavy door started to retract into the wall. He double checked the map - turn left into the hall, proceed forward 112.3 meters - and followed its instructions after the door closed behind him.
He hadn’t made it to the first junction before he heard a shout behind him and rapid footsteps. “Lord Sorenson!”
The first thing he thought was that he was going to get stabbed again. Maybe shot this time. They would have learned from the first try and waited until he was properly alone before giving killing him another go. By the time he had turned his head to look at his impending death, he had realized the voice was fairly familiar. It didn't even sound angry at all, actually, and hadn’t been translated.
“Sir. Are you all right?” Sergeant Zenshen pulled up short of him, surprise turning to concern as she looked him over.
“Yeah.” Alex managed a nervous laugh. The look of terror on his face twisted into a half-crazed smile, heart still pounding in his chest. He was gripping the phone like it could have been used as a weapon, arms shaking from adrenaline. “Can you never, ever run up behind me like that again?”
She was slow to respond, words laced with confusion as she slid a foot back, easing further away from him. “Yes sir, of course. I will not.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was going to be a problem.” Alex exhaled hard, composing himself further. “But yeah, don’t do that again.”
That seemed to settle her well enough. She squared her feet and relaxed, tucking a small black case under her arm. “As I said, it will not happen again. If you have a moment, sir, I do have something to discuss with you.”
“Can you walk while we do that? Carbon’s waiting for me.”
She nodded, dipping close to bow territory. “Of course, my Lord.”
“Good.” He ignored the title as he double checked that he was facing the right way before setting off down the corridor. “Go on, what’s up?”
The Sergeant fell in next to him, footsteps all but silent as she matched his speed. “The Empress appointed me as your military liaison, until you are able to take a command yourself.”
Alex chewed on that for a minute, parsing out exactly what Eleya’s actual intentions might have been. “Why?”
“So that you can be a proper member of the royal family.” There was no ease in her voice, her words sounding more like something she had been coached to say.
That didn’t make this little tidbit of news any easier to digest. “You’re going to be teaching me how to be a... commander?”
“There is no rank for a Prince other than Prince.” She hesitated, conflicted for a moment. “I don't know if the word 'teaching' is correct for what I am supposed to do.”
“Qualify that statement, Sergeant.” He did his best impression of the handful of officers that he’d worked with.
“Permission to speak freely?”
“Yeah, of course.”
A handful of steps went by as she picked her words. “I am here more to keep you from offending anyone important while you are adjusting to your new position, than to train you to do anything.”
“Because you already know how to deal with Humans.” At least, that made sense to him.
She confirmed his assumption with a nod. “It helps. You may find that some will not be as easy to work with, and part of my duty is to ensure everyone’s safety as they adjust.”
“Great.” The corridor widened into a maglev tram stop and he cut across the small plaza to the port side, which ran aft on the loop it took around the ship “That’s great. So that big old target painted on my back is actually for everyone?”
Stana shook her head this time. “That is not entirely correct. Some merely deny your right to command, or to hold a noble title.”
Alex shrugged as the timer clicked by. “So? I think I kind of suck at Prince things. I’d probably be a bad commander too.”
“No. You may be a novice, but you are a Prince. People may think and say what they will.” Her eyes darkened, voice hard and clear as she underscored her point. “But when you tell them to jump, they will ask you how high. Do you understand?”
He straightened, rebuked. “Uh, yeah. I guess I do.”
“You guess?” Not the answer she wanted.
“Yes. I understand.” He panicked just a little bit, not sure exactly what he was getting or what had happened to the pleasant sergeant from last night. The maglev arrived with a soft chime and he hustled inside as soon as the doors opened.
“Good.” She sounded doubtful but eased up, following him into the car. “Did I use that saying correctly?”
“The jump one? Yeah.” Alex sat across from the door, checking the map again to be sure he wouldn’t miss his stop. He had been hoping she’d stay on the platform and that would be that, but as long as she didn’t turn into the drill sergeant again he would deal.
She smiled and chuckled to herself as she sat down next to him. “Excellent. Your military training methods are similar to ours, so I imagine I will be able to bring you up to speed quickly as far as acting the part is concerned. I think it would be wise to continue your training beyond that, so you are fully familiar with a wide aspect of the experiences of those you will command.”
“Sure.” He sighed, feeling a distinct lack of enthusiasm for this endeavor. Alex had more than enough training from learning to be a scoutship pilot. This just sounded like entirely more work than he wanted to be involved in. Though, he didn’t particularly relish the idea of being seen as a slacker or out of touch even if the situation wasn’t one he’d asked for. More allies were better. “That sounds good. If I am gonna do this, I will need to be learning, and not just how to avoid offending someone.”
Stana handed him the package she had been carrying, gesturing for him to open it. “I feel much more comfortable giving you these, knowing that you are willing.”
Alex untied the thin cords that held the bundle closed, surprised at the weight of it as he set it in his lap and unrolled the flaps. A pair of gloves gleamed back at him, silver plate trimmed with gold and set on dark brown leather. “Nice. A little anachronistic, but nice. What do they mean?”
“The gauntlets for a noble’s armor.” Stana intimated he should try them on. “The Empress wanted you to have them now, if you were willing, even though they are unfinished.”
“What’s missing?” He turned them over and then slipped one on, unable to find any sort of indication it needed work. The leather was snug and stiff, no doubt cut to his measurements so it would be his size when it was broken in. The leather ran halfway up his forearm laced to the wrist, the metal plate bolted to the back of the glove extended past his knuckles, nearly to the first joint of his fingers. He made a fist, the protective metal clearly meant to cut should he punch someone while wearing it.
The soldier that had attacked him had been wearing something similar - that explained how he’d done so much damage to Tashen so fast.
“They need your family insignia and you do not currently have one. An appointment has been made this afternoon for you and the Princess to see a designer about that.”
“Huh. Well, all right. Let Neya know and she’ll give us the details.” Alex slid the gloves back into their wrap as the maglev decelerated, springing to his feet when the doors chimed and opened. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t think either of us wants me to be late for this appointment.”