Aleph frowned at what she had concluded from her translation. She had double checked after breakfast and a good sleep on it. A habit she found helped give clarity instead of the slightly manic sleep deprived impression she tended to come when she should have been asleep hours ago. But the translation she had just done after waking up and eating failed to resolve into anything else, although she had gotten some trajectory tenses wrong that did not change the meaning.

Which was why she was directing the walker to Pylo and whatever she was doing with Elsie.

It was hard to follow a conversation when neither party used a language you could even notice without special instruments let alone read the alien body language.

The explanation she had gotten from the floating cube swarm when she asked what they were doing was honestly a confusing blend that sounded like two parts counseling/psychotherapy and three parts remedial linguistics?

Pylo had not provided many more details on the topic. She talked a lot less to them directly then she used too. Which Aleph honestly was starting to miss, yeah it was embarrassing and kinda disturbingly fascinating in a way that made her skin crawl sometimes. But she had gotten USED to it damn it. It was just part of speaking ot Pylo that you were left considering things a lot more sensually then you would have before.

She missed talking to her weirdly lewd friend/host/ship captain.

Which was one of the many reasons that she sought out Pylo in her self imposed social exile. The other reasons were all to do with the content of her conversation. Before she had settled in for bed cuddling Von Squidgie (Honestly these clerks were some of the best and friendly aliens Aleph had met) Tunie had appeared to say something disturbing.

She was getting distracted! Omega and Quarti were busy with something to do with souls and crystals and meditation so they would not miss the walker right now. But she should get back before they finished in case they wanted something around the ship.

She needed to talk to Pylo about this without dithering anymore.

“h-Hey! Pylo?”

Even if she was getting skin crawling tingles up and down her spine and a disturbing wiggle in her symbiotes about it.

Her friend turned to face her and tilted a questioningly neutral expression to the side. Staying mute.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt your uh... Time with Elsie, but Tunie said something kinda strange to me before bed... She said we were going to go rescue a city, or farm, or something from uh... wolves? Ants? Some kind of predator anyway... I’m not really sure if I can follow the translation there... but she didn't seem to think much of them... But uh... the courses she described... they are awfully fast and dangerous looking”

Pylo’s face seemed to light up with comprehension and a bit of an amused smirk followed by nods of agreement. It got a lot across honestly, but it still rankled Aleph. Especially because it was quite likely she was half the reason their host was so upset about her ‘accent’ and thus refused to speak.

“So... you knew? Uh... Why didn't you tell us? And Well... isn't that going to be kinda dangerous? I mean she’s going to be slamming into the things at well over the speed of so-”

Pylo pressed a ‘finger’ from one of those ropey-vine arms over Aleph’s lips. The bizarre soft and rough texture distracting her entirely. How did she? Oh apparently just slipped it into the bubble from below. The digit slipped silently back out into vacuum as Pylo waited for Aleph to turn her gaze back to her. Then the still mute creature began shaking her head.

Aleph sighed, maybe that was just going to be that. A silent admonishment that she was not to worry and everything was under control? It got the point across sure but Aleph had wanted to TALK to Pylo, not speak at her and be mimed at.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She was just about ready to turn the walker around when she was struck by a sensation. A feeling like silk running over the inside of her skull and yet nowhere near as unpleasant as that SHOULD have been. And in that silk there were ‘words’ and a husky voice.

“You are succulent and sweetly safe as serene soft suckling grubs in a shell of snugglefucks”

Pylo offered a bright pearly smile that all this time later still honestly made Aleph wonder just what Pylo’s ancestry was that she had teeth so like a Terran. But whatever the reason the expression was so blatant the girl could practically taste the intensity of Pylo’s anticipation for a confirmation she had done ‘better’ with how she spoke to Aleph.

Aleph grinned and tried to put every ounce of honesty and true positive feeling into it. Pylo could taste a lie whether good intentioned or otherwise.

“Ah! Okay, so nothing to worry about? I’ll go let Omega and Quarti know then... Uh have a good... uh... session? Bye!”

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

She directed the walker away before she lost her grip on her own feelings. Trying not to think about how intimate and tantalizing the siren’s attempts to be less intrusive still were.

At least until she got out of the estimates she had for Pylo’s ‘reading range’.

Which to be fair was a guess that consisted mostly of ‘within a quarter kilometer’.

She honestly WAS fine, she really was! But apparently their host had the emotional maturity of a toddler when it came to her self confidence about ‘translation’. Or something, no one who actually knew what was going on had been able to explain it to her.

Tunie apparently was barely able to recognize emotions as Pylo and the Terrans understood it. She only talked about it as some kind of super broad vector value that badly averaged everything. Honestly the terran girl was a bit in the dark on precisely what had upset her host so badly. But she got the impression from everyone involved that it was something she instigated.

Not strictly her fault, apparently Pylo had something going on that Elsie was concerned over. But whatever old wound or trauma or whatever strange alien social thing Aleph had stumbled over and ripped the scab off of it was HER that did it. And Pylo seemed really sensitive over it.

So Aleph tried to be encouraging, but more importantly honest in her own thoughts whenever Pylo ‘said’ anything instead of miming it. Happy and delighted.

The sweet fresh mountain air of their ‘habitat’ cleared her mood and helped with the stress of the interaction. It was still a marvel even after she had woken up hundreds of times in the place! A heavenly vista of seemingly endless expanse (it was a big room but Pylo had done some kind of trick to make the place seem even bigger then it was).

Of course her friends and fellow terrans were waiting for her.

“So wotchja got dear singlet-lass all knicker-twisted? Share sum gritty seek-lings wit ole granny forther!”

Aleph refused to acknowledge Quarti’s current accent, it just encouraged her to dip even deeper into ancient dialects/jargon or invent entirely new slang and references. Or both, Honestly Aleph had learned her lesson trying to untangle the primordial seer when she had started stumbling on etymology lectures discussing theoretical mother tongues to try and clarify one of Quarti’s euphemisms.

Of course it had ended up being perfectly appropriate and an entirely daft and raunchy triple pun you needed to read a doctoral level linguistic thesis to understand.

Omega simply raised a brow.

Well no point in holding this in anymore. Aleph rushed into her explanation.

“So, you know how I talk with Tunie most shifts now? Well before bed she said something kinda strange...”