Aleph looked around at where everyone was sort of perched floating. The frog things were mostly just a glance ‘over’ and ‘down’ to see any of them. The twisted spiral letting her see a good chunk of thse seated in an uninterrupted glance

The only ones she had trouble with were the ones on at the absolute opposite end from her.

There was a mesh sort of material in between but all she could spot looking through it was flickers of light.

The hospitalitor spoke up.

“Is everything to your liking? The positioning is comfortable? You are breathing well? Pylo of Courtesan and Elszie the Custodial helpfully provided their expertise. There is no mucus or dry discomfort to your skin?”

What was their name again?

Tila something something?

Aleph felt pretty bad with all these aliens and how much of a mouthful she felt their names were.

And these were translations!

She was pretty sure she could not even MAKE the sounds they made when actually announcing themselves.

Not without some kind of musical instrument.

Still it was polite to nod and smile.

“This is all so beautiful and pretty.”

Aleph offered the words to Tila sum? No Tilalo dum?

Tilofali?

Ugh these names!

She turned to peer at the table again marveling over the intricate patterns etched into the center of it. It was a speckled pattern that seemed random until you swayed your head from side to side. And then it formed patterns and forms with how the light and shadow of the mesh overlapped.

It was a lot like a tree in some ways.

A Pylon?

Pillar?

Sculpture?

She was honestly not exactly sure what to call it.

But she also did not want to be rude and ask.

But then again.

“What is this?”

She gestured to the white shining not quite wood before her.

Tilafa- The Hospilator spoke up.

“It is the grand feasting Table of our Eldest Masters. Carved from the heartwood of the great beast Lafareimeirei accursed be its kind blessed be its bones. Who was slain by the warrior hunter Reidofalado with the rifle of his soul as told in the litany of heroes.”

The words rolled over her in translation and actual deep bone trembling audible sound.

“And whose flesh was strewn into the foundations and woven as the home kept of the people and the soils of all our fermentations to this very moment.”

There was a solemn nod and then another of the elders a bit down the curve spoke. Aleph had not even heard who they were.

“And when the flesh was rotted to soil and the sinews strung into twine to hold the great spring by the workings of the venerable and lost Order of Weavers and Twisters Honorable and Sterile. So was the deepest heart wood of the hardest and most durable kind chosen by the crafter of secrets Tedoeraefalo.”

The Hospilator nodded solemnly to Aleph who was a bit bewildered by the shift in discussion although a slight glance over to Omega showed she was absolutely delighted.

After the pause had almost become uncomfortable the massive braided/bearded frog began speaking again.

“Tedoeraefalo would spend the lives of three expert novices upon laying out the vision of this table in shallowest etching upon its impenetrable indominatibility. And in that completion did he then labor in the passing of his vision on to a Noble Guild of Carvers of Bone of Lafareimeirei. With his part done he was celebrated and entombed to be preserved if ever we should fell a beast of such like again as Lafareimeirei accursed be its kind.”

Aleph blinked a few times and then nodded, but before she could get another word in the voice boomed from the other side of the obscuring pillar.

“It was then the working of seventeen generations of novices under the tutelage of three generations of adepted apprentices that bore the dreamed light etchings of Tedoeraefalo into the unyielding resistance of the heartwood. And in the workings and labors so did the reality come to near completion.”

She had given up on getting a word in edgewise and assumed this was all going to just be more of the same.

A glance at Pylo got her a soft smile and a parted lips of understanding.

Her voice was soft and gentle but also with a hint of imposing will and might that Aleph had only heard from the better plays and productions back on Terra.

It was the kind of voice you expected from queens and empresses in productions about the ancient times of heroes and gods.

“Thank you most esteemed elders, for imparting this ballad of the making of your wonders. But we are all of us looking forward to the great feasts and exhultations of visceral delights and culinary masters? Let us elevate the prizes so won by the skills of those yet awakened and still living! Let us honor the efforts of Tedoeraefalo crafter and dreamer of this table’s wonder. And the Hero Reidofalado who had slain the beast that made it possible.”

Pylo sweeped one of those whip like arms in a gesture of encompassing all around.

“Let us honor the varnish works of Fareidofado who did travel in the darkest pits of the now long felled and gone tree of Brohqakahldun! And the legends that were wrought by the ambers found in that dead canopy’s secret road! That was laid into the deep flesh of not just this feasting Table but hundreds of more!”

There was a sound like a siren and clarion call. Like a horn and the bellowing of a beast.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

It took Aleph a moment to realize it, or perhaps the idea of it was coming from Pylo!

And the noise was echoed back from all around them, from all the other tables that were nestled floating like a cloud of branches in an enveloping enfolding expanse of these People.

And then voices chanted out other names, other meanings, other legends and titles.

They swelled in echoes and waves.

Memories and honors.

Too many names.

Too many syllables.

Aleph was never going to remember all of them.

Even translated.

In fact. Why was that?

She gave a pleading glance to Pylo and was about to whisper conspiratorially before the Shipmistress responded softly.

"You can just glance at me really deliberately to tell me to read your mind Aleph. Or any other cue you think signifies a message intended for me for that matter. And if you intend to it'll be handled as keeping it secret from even the rest of me."

Aleph blinked at the rapid unphysical whisper of pylos voice somehow having a very clear 'just inside her head and yet distinct’ quality that she was not entirely sure it ever had before. Then she shot her a grateful glanch trying to push a message into it.

~Oh neat, thanks. Yes, do that. So, why- ~

“Not like that, you’re using the soul bits and making it all garbled.”

Oh that was. That was actually kinda odd, so she just had to Look and-

The siren nodded before she even was fully sure what she was going to say.

“To answer your question, Why are the names hard?”

Her head was just beginning to tilt in a nod-

“You're not supposed to remember them completely when you first meet them. You just are supposed to get most of the melody kinda right and use eye contact. Only close friends, peers and family can hold and speak the full name of a peer in themselves among the people. A name is a song, and it is only yours.”

There was a bit of a laugh.

“It also would not even fit in the time given if I said the full version to you that each of them are using, so these are just close enough for the amount of time we are expected to be here. And the number of the People you could meet before we leave.”

Aleph blinked a bit and looked down at the table. That seemed to catch Pylo by surprise.

“Huh? ‘Are we not supposed to talk to the people that are uh... seated through the ‘table’ from us?’ Why would you think that?”

The young terran waved down at the intricate spongey mesh obscuring her view to the opposite side of the table. It was getting easier to only just intend the words without feeling like Pylo was having to co-opt the conversation before she actually said them or sent them via choir.

“Because there is a lot of stuff in the way? Or am I supposed to like lean around the edge? That’s a bit awkward. This thing is Huge!”

Pylo stared at her for several seconds. Then scowled and gave off a titanic bone rattling huff that filled the air with a metallic smelling cloud of steam.

“You can’t SEE through it?! Ugh I’m so sorry I missed that. I apologize for this but it’s far too late to make them replace the table seating. It would insult literally everyone by this point.”

And then Aleph had to blink and stare back down at the table. It looked the same and yet.

She leaned her head from one side to the next and for the life of her could not tell how she ever was thinking the view of the thing obscured her ability to tell what was on the other side.

It was only...

Slightly distracting unless she only focused ON it.

Then.

Huh?

Omega and Quarti jolted as one with her.

Quarti however immediately laughed.

Aleph’s mentor gave Pylo a pained expression.

“Pylo! Could you warn us before you mess with our visual perceptions or whatever that was? Okay?”

Elsie and Squidgie seemed equally surprised before Elsie abruptly intoned in that nearly flat, nearly emotionless voice.

“Oh! I see, yes Terran visual cortices and pattern recognition would be insufficient to track pertinent details through that kind of obscurement. I apologize, I had not realized it was culturally important. A good catch Ship mistress Pylo.”

Glancing back to the rest of the massive cloud around them Aleph found things a bit MORE disorienting and OVERWHELMING.

Where as before it seemed like everything was a close obscuring canopy now it seemed a lot more...

Obvious just how incredibly massive and dense the crowd was.

The ones immediately closest no longer seeming to cause her to lose track of those further back.

There were for one a whole lot more eyes on her then she had properly apprehended before.

And they could all SEE her.

Especially if she was as obvious to them as they now were to her.

Here.

In the absolute center of attention. Aleph was the center of attention for an entire world.

She was starting to feel the familiar sensation of panic.

She was having to muster the lessons learned being tossed off a cliff and trapped in a bag full of spiders.

They could SEE HER.

[https://i.imgur.com/WXZDTQq.png]

She glanced down at her dress and was extremely thankful she had not gone with the sweater.

It would have been as obvious to this crowd as netting.

Thank Terra it seemed the food was about to arrive!

At least she hoped that’s what all of that stuff streaming towards them like multiple parades was!