Engineer’s Log Day 153.1

I do believe this is the first early morning log I’ve made since I got back to the base aaaaaalll the way back then and hopefully the only one I need to make. I kind of doubt that though and fully expect a repeat in the future. Bayfur was excited for today and made sure to make it everyone’s problem. It’s currently still a little dark outside and I feel like someone microwaved my brain and then decided to drop it into a coronal mass ejection. Just absolutely brain leaking out ears status for me.

Yawn

I suppose I’ve been getting up earlier these past few weeks but this still feels like cruel and unusual punishment. To make it worse, Darana seemed to have gotten up early also and when she saw me walking to the restroom she decided to hit me with a full barrage of questions. It’s a bit of a rat bastard strategy where she start with stuff like “Are you awake?” and “What are your plans for today?” and then just keep the question ball rolling. Fun fact, you can use this method to slowly but surely wake another person’s brain all the way up until they can’t go back to sleep. If I was a little more awake, I’d accuse them of a coordinated attack. Right now, I just want an a double strength coffee

All that said, I’m not actually recording this to complain. After I was interrogated into wakefulness, Darana filled me in on some of the plans for later today. From what she said, the trading and crafts stuff isn’t happening until much later in the afternoon. Most of the day is actually basic competitions and carnival games with a few performances mixed in. Kinda carnival vibes but more personalized. Anyways, Ms. Doctor has apparently signed me up for a few events and performances. She’s telling me that it’s going be “interesting” and “fun” and other such trap words often employed by art majors. I mean I’m gonna go and she is probably right that I’ll enjoy the shows but I absolutely must maintain an air of aloofness lest she think that I might possibly be a cultured individual. Hehehe. I’m kind of excited. Darana usually has pretty good taste in movies so I’m somewhat intrigued by the things she’s chosen.

You know, in spite of what I said earlier about art majors, I was in the band for most of high school and college which does make me something of an artist myself. It was nothing super high-level mind you but still enough to have a strong appreciation for musical technique. I’m curious how the xythans go about making their music and what genres they do have. I was in the tuba section if anyone is curious. I know, truely a shocking development nobody could have guessed.

Engineer’s Log Day 153.2

I don’t really know where my expectations were but frankly they were too low. That music SLAPPED.

So with human music, we have a lot of ways of making a pretty good variety of songs but generally, we have what I’d say are three main ways that we use instruments. Firstly is percussion where we can slap stuff to make it vibrate like in drums or things like pianos. Secondly, the strings where we vibrate strings other strings like on violins or with one’s fingers on guitars. Then lastly the winds, we have my preferred method of just causing the instrument to vibrate by pushing air through some sort of reed or by doing the vibrating yourself by buzzing your lips. Now, this all is a bit of an oversimplification but bear with me here. The core concept for all of these is to make your instrument of choice vibrate pleasantly.

With Xythans, percussion style instruments and string instruments are set up almost the exact same ways ours are. Those only really need hands to work so basically any sentient race should be able to use them. The real question is if they have an equivalent of brass instruments. Xythan faces are somewhat similar to our own but their noses extend far more and their mouths are a good bit wider. In theory, this means they possibly could play wind instruments but they would struggle a lot more than we do. So how exactly would their wind work you may ask? Well, they make their songs by sort of howling singing through their instruments. These guys have much more powerful singing voices than I gave them credit for and they use that to vibrate their instruments. The resulting sounds are unironically so cool.

Breezing past the music performances, the rest of the morning time was spent watching a play. Honesty, can’t say as much about it one way or the other because I fell asleep about halfway through. In my defense, the play lost a little bit of its value to me as some of the acting and older references went over my head. I suppose I did enjoy the bits I was awake to watch but I did miss pretty significant chunks. I do have an excuse. Maybe not a good one but an excuse nevertheless. Bayfur was kinda being squirmy initially so I was holding onto him in my lap and then next thing you know, he was quietly snoozing away. Naturally I was trying to sit still to not wake him and I did that a little too well and fell asleep myself. That position was kinda weird to sleep in and has been doing my back no favors.

After the concert, everyone scattered for independent lunch breaks. Darana, Bayfur, and I went back to the base to eat. The early afternoon is going to be game time with a lot of different competitions. Some basic stuff like baking contests and trivia stuff but apparently they have stuff like races and other competitions. Now initially, I wasn’t going to participate, wasn’t in the original plans after all, but then Darana appeared with that dangerous toothy grin and I agree with everything she says because I’m definitely afraid. She’d made a short list of games I should try competing in that I’d have better than even odds of winning. Now I may seem like a little bit of a competitive person but that’s just not me. I’m a very competitive person and I fully intend on stomping out the competition where I can. It’s on like motherfuckin' Donkey Kong.

Engineer’s Log Day 153.3

Currently working on grilling up some steaks as dinner seems to be a joint effort thing for the village. I don’t know how many folks are going to want food for the human but grilling up a storm regardless. I figure that even in the worst case scenario, I’ll just have a bunch of extra steak to eat so in the end it's really no harm no foul. Those poor bastards have been forced to eat that food paste and I really can’t condone eating that at a festival of all places. The one downside is that this endeavor is eating through a good portion of the meat I have in vac-storage but I’ll still have plenty left over after this. Storage was for like 100+ people and there weren’t that many vegetarians. Besides, it might not even matter in like 4 to 6 months depending on how things go so I might as well make the most of what I have. I want to make sure I get this cooked perfectly, for both my pride and the sake of doing Momma Mason’s cooking recipes right.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Concerning the contests, it was essentially a wash. Most of the stuff I joined in on was either a bit disfavored towards me and most of the stuff Darana recommended was strongly in my favor. I absolutely stomped at the throwing contests and distance running contests. I don’t think I’m particularly good at throwing balls and the such but I still was able to beat out most of the competition. For the running, I was a bit concerned initially as everyone just absolutely took off at the beginning and I think that in a head-to-head sprinting contest, I’d lose like 100% of the time. Xythans are more of ambush predators than humans and can take off at obscene speeds at the drop of a hat. However, they don’t sweat nearly as well as I do and their muscles aren’t built for sustained exertion. So after a few laps around the track, I was starting to pretty steadily pass them.

Now as for most of the rest of the contests, namely the ones I thought I could do well in, I forgot to take a few things into account, namely the fact that most xythans have me slightly out-massed and out-lengthed in the limb department. Pound for pound, I’m a bit more efficient in the terms of muscle but when your opponent can generate about the same amount of force and has an extra 6 to 8 inches of reach in addition, well… lets just say the odds ended up very much not in my favor. Not much to be done about that besides getting fucking tossed on the wrestling mat.

I did also sign up for a bit of actual sparring and that was pretty fun. By no means am I an expert but I did take a few self-defense classes back in my college days and got a bit more when I joined up for the trip. It was scored by how many light touches you could get against vital spots. Technically in their favor, since they have a bit more reach and impulse speed but I had just enough training to help circumvent some of that. Actually made it to quarterfinals before facing Glysia and having my hopes and dreams dashed. Still, it was much farther than I ever actually expected to get. They call me Henry “Rocky Balboa” Mason now.

Ok, so maybe they don’t but still!

The last bits left for today are the trading, the dinner, and some other ominous thing Darana keeps making vague references about. Probably the family part of the family festival. Probably will retire for an early night then since I don’t exactly have much reason to be there.

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Henry was a little bit nervous. Darana had left Bayfur in the care of Glysia and had asked him to follow her out from the festival grounds into the forest. Now they were walking away from everyone and she’d not said anything since they left. Being alone in the forest on its own didn’t concern him overly much as he trusted her but the ominous silence that seemed to fill the air as they walked spoke greater volumes to him than any concern ever had. He considered asking her what she had in mind but couldn’t quite find the right words to ask.

The walk took them a little distance from the village on the far side from his compound in the forest. The forest was backlit by the late afternoon sun tossing golden rays all around the path and Henry could hear the sounds of alien birds calling out in the distance. It was the picture of tranquility. Ahead of him, Henry could see a clearing in the forest. All the foliage in the area was trimmed down except for a few small, scattered saplings in a uniform pattern.

Darana approached one of the saplings, performing a small gesture Henry had learned was the equivalent to follow me. Quietly following, he moved to stand beside her quietly.

“These trees are called Itroframs. Any planet we want to live on ideally can support them,” Darana whispered, “They’re a hearty plant that we use in remembrance of the dead. It’s a long standing tradition since our people left home long ago.”

Henry looked down at the sapling. It was a decent bit bigger than the rest in the clearing and had evidently received no small amount of car. He stopped for a second, collecting the right words, “Who…Is this tree in remembrance of someone you knew?”

The xythan nodded somberly, “My late husband. His name was Trovaz and he was an engineer like you. He was always so full of life and always looking for something to fix or make. He would have loved it here. Hells, you two would have been close friends if you had met. A shame you couldn’t. He… he…” Darana tried to continue as tears began to well up.

Henry reached an arm around his distressed companion, “It’s fine you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“NO! No… I should have said something about this earlier but I didn’t. It’s why I froze up on you a while back and why I need to talk to you now! He died a few years ago back when we were working to get our colony ships ready. He was working hard. So very hard. He wanted us to be able to see the new planet. He kept pushing, more and more, with his work trying to squeeze every last ounce of productivity he could out of himself. It caught up with him, Henry. It caught up and it killed him. A moment of carelessness when he would have otherwise paid attention. I don’t want to see the same happen to you, I care about you too much, even in the short time we’ve known each other.”

Henry opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to process those words. The weight of what she was saying felt like a punch to the face and felt ashamed to look at her. “I just…. I don’t…everyone else I knew on the voyage is dead. Maybe they aren’t but we’ve not heard anything and the pirates and they’re just… dead? I don’t know!” Tears began welling up in the corners of his vision, “Why did I live when they didn’t? I gotta make sure I stay ahead or it’s like they all died for no reason. I can’t be a stain on their memory. So what if I dro-”

Henry felt an arm wrap around his shoulder as Darana pulled him into a hug, “Stop. I don’t want to hear such hurtful and undeserving words about you. You’ve done a magnificent job and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

It was as if a dam had broken and tears began to flow freely from both the human and xythan. The two sat there holding each other as the afternoon light began to slowly fade.

Henry blinked hard and tried rubbing the last of the tears from his eyes, “I’ll try and take it a bit easier. I’m sorry for scaring you like that.”

“No, I’m sorry. I should have voiced my concerns sooner and shouldn’t be laying those expectations on you.”

Laughing weakly, Henry pulled out a little out of the embrace “We can’t both be sorry. That’ll cancel things out!”

It wasn’t a particularly good joke but it did the trick. A chuckle started in Darana’s chest and was quickly picked up by Henry. It bubbled forth and soon became impossible to ignore and soon the faint sound of both xythan and human laughter could be heard throughout the clearing. Two species united in both laughter and tears.