It was time!

Aleph had been smelling the most wonderful things since she woke up! Omega and Quarti were working in shifts on managing the mixing and baking and various strange mixing and stirring and more!

She thought she had learned how to cook before. But what Omega had started doing was something else entirely. She had BUILT things in order to cook and bake and so many other things. One corner of the habitat she was pretty sure would have turned into a splattered mess of batter, sauce, juice, milk and many other things besides.

But of course the ‘clouds’ stayed as pristine and perfect as it had before. Because Pylo had apparently used some kind of random filtering alien magic fluff. And of course and they could not be permanently sullied by something as mundane and simple as terran cooking.

Aleph had never seen something requiring this many steps in anything cooked back at home. There were tools that her mentor had forged, crafted or improvised for each step out of the tools available. There were shapes and forms she had asked Pylo to get her specifically that were almost as arcane and bizarre as anything she had seen wandering Tunie’s seemingly endless corridors and holds.

But she was certain it was all going to be incredibly delicious.

Her nose would not let her forget it, her mouth was constantly filling with spit whenever she returned from one of the errands around the ship and fresh new wonders assaulted her senses.

Breakfast and lunch this day had been sparse. Some sweet fruits and porridge for both meals.

But everything was filled with that wonderful smell of fresh mountain air and fresh cooking. Mixing in ways that were at once deeply reminiscent of home and yet wondrously new.

It made even the sparse meals that much more delicious in anticipation.

“You're almost ready right? I think I almost choked twice on my own drool here Omega!”

Quarti laughed and flicked some sudsy water at Aleph from where she was cleaning up after the latest crazed flurry of activity Omega had entered in preparation for the ‘party’. It had been like disturbing dance watching her close friend ride a skill share so deep. She MOVED like a different person, a stranger in familiar skin.

“Last bits o clean-the-way lassarangle! Then we waefor the guests. ana quickie of speech by til fin stuffingob ona wan burst glee!”

Aleph shook her head, Omega waved a hand.

“It will be ready in about twenty minutes, should be fine and there is no rush, more time to chill won’t hurt anything”

She took a breath and swallowed hard. That was fine, she could wait that long right?

A chill wind blew through the habitat, carrying the harsh metallic tang and spicy hints that Aleph was never going to forget. Even before the lock finished turning to reveal the Siren she knew it was Pylo.

It lasted only for a moment but the mix with the scents of cooking was momentarily disorienting.

She gave her head a quick shake then looked over where Pylo was crawling out of the lock like a pile of ambulatory spinal columns lashed together, followed by the unfolding mechanical marvel of Elsie..

The contrast in grace and familiarity with moving under gravity could hardly be more extreme between the two.

Pylo flounced and stumbled, tripped and seemed to constantly be part way towards somehow still not expecting that she would start falling after trying to push herself off of things. She was half the time dragging or wrestling with the ground and fluffy hillocks of clouds as much as she was ever moving forward.

It looked painful, like an invalid struggling. The only indication she was not a spasming animal is that she usually was moving forward.

Elsie by contrast was a sweeping graceful unfolding whirl of interlocking blocks that always found solid footing exactly where it was needed. It made Elsie look like she was more floating across the terrain then actually walking on it.

Bringing Pylo’s attention to her struggles however seemed to only upset her. In so much as Aleph was sure of what the Siren was saying was honest rather than trying to play up what she wanted to hear.

“Pylo! Elsie! Welcome to the party! The cake should be done chilling soon, and as long as Squidgie finishes whatever he is doing we can-”

“I am fully prepared Miss Aleph, no Need to wait, none of the other clerks were interested in attending unless we paid them, I am sorry for their rudeness.”

Squidgie made a little squeaking wheeze chirp that was possibly the most adorable noise Aleph had ever heard. The first time it happened she was pretty sure had been an accident while the Clerk was crawling over a box left out to get to a counter, but ever since she had laughed so delightedly at the sound had found its way into everyday conversation.

“Ah okay, So I guess we are ready to get started for all of this, Omega are you sure we can’t jus-”

Quarti gave a sudden clearing of her throat and fixed Aleph and then the three aliens with a look before nodding them over to the ‘seating’ area around a wide ‘wooden’ table Elsie had dragged together from somewhere. It looked old and well loved.

Probably made it the same as they had the books as soon as it was requested.

“Right then we do this one proper for prosterity! Guests and honored Friends! Our host and Shipmistress Pylo”

Quarti had a lot of tones and voices, ways of holding herself and her bearing. She used hundreds of them in a day, she could be as far as Aleph was concerned almost anything or anyone when telling a tale. She bent and twisted her voice and body into metaphors that could be mountains, rivers, winds as well as old historical or fantastical characters.

She had once heard Quarti dance and sing as the very embodiment of youthful happiness.

This though was a new voice, it was a sombre voice, it had a timbre of tradition, a depth of tone that spoke to knowing the roots and foundations of civilization. It was what Aleph imagined elders in her home village were trying to be. It is the kind of voice and bearing she expected the esteemed leaders and representatives of the Terran alliance would speak to teeming crowds of hundreds of thousands with.

And Pylo who had floundered like a lost bag of rats across the habitat was suddenly poised in a furled sense of ‘poise’ and refinement and nodding with all the grace of a some foreign and strange goddess to her introduction, lips subtly pleased and melancholy all at once.

Honestly it was throwing Aleph for a loop.

“Our Noble Instructor Elsie, Teacher and Caregiver of the Clerks”

In a slightly less graceful transition the assemblage of blocks arranged and coiled itself until it created something almost like an abstract sculpture of a flower bloom. The screen held perched by limbs and connective segments over an empty void that its other components walled like a vague fortress. The screen followed suit with its own nod of acknowledgement.

“Colonial Cadet and Ship Liason Aleph”

Aleph was caught gawking and immediately straightened her back and tried to put on a serious face in response to the rapid shift in tone. Quarti gave her a smirk and nod which she returned.

“And finally Chef, Chief and Mistress Shaman Supreme Omega.”

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Omega was just coming out of a fogged expression when Quarti called attention to her. But of course the prep came through and then she was suddenly striding over in her food splattered apron and work clothes as if it was the height of finery. Sparing Quarti a bit of a raised brow that was returned with a subtle widening of a regal smirk.

Aleph would bet her second slice of cake that the two of them probably had a private channel on the choir they were grilling each other over this for.

Quarti continued like the ringing of a great bell, solemn and officious as possible. Like this was a tradition that had been passed down to her from time immemorial.

“By the journey of her sacred tranquility Terra, once Gaia and home and mother of us Terrans who stand before you now and carry her name out to stars beyond.”

Omega, Squidgie, Elsie and Pylo all nodded solemnly as if they choreographed this before hand, Aleph however frowned as she tried to keep up and ended up notably bobbing out of sync with everyone.

“Two years ago did we begin this journey with Tunie and Pylo our most gracious hosts.”

This time only Pylo and Aleph were nodding on point, which Aleph felt maybe she was not supposed to? No one would tell her!

How did the ALIENS some how read this situation better than her?! Why did Quarti decide to suddenly push the pomp of what was going to be a light hearted get together to the upper heights of the rim wall?!

“Now We gather here and now to Celebrate!”

Everyone but Aleph apparently realized that it was appropriate to bang a limb on the table in a resounding thunderous percussion.

“We celebrate our time Together!”

She caught up with the rest and just looked around confused.

“We celebrate our lives Together!”

Aleph could feel the tone of voice and the actions together making her chest feel full and light. She felt a slight twinge in her cheeks from smiling.

“We celebrate the bond that will see us through the future Together”

She was right on time with everyone else and she felt a rush in her ears all of a sudden.

“On This Journey We Celebrate the path we will sail Together for Providence!”

Aleph found herself standing as the aliens straightened to mirror the sentiment.

“But most of all today we celebrate a most precious and wonderful of things!”

Aleph hung on the words, everyone waited and she found herself stilled in anticipation.

“Ta Eat and drink ourselves sick and sillah on CAKE and BOOZE!”

Which made it all the more jarring when Quarti belted out the last line with all the grace and candor of a raving lunatic and proceeded to rush for the cooler where the cake waited. Aleph was only just barely realizing that the mad prophet had setup the entire heroic traditional enterprise in a gambit for getting at the cake all to herself again far too late to act.

Fortunately the demon witch was already being tackled by Omega and the two of them were rolling over one another in a not entirely uncontrolled dervish across the habitat.

Aleph shook her head only for the sudden sweet lilting ‘nuance’ of Pylo to wash over her head and proverbial ears.

“Well then, now that the formalities are out of the way! Dear and beautiful Aleph, I and El-sie have been toiling on a gift for you and yours. Tunie has spoken often that she regrets you having a poor grasp of your place in these travels”

The blocky sculpture currently imitating something like a fantastical Terran fortress nodded its screen to Aleph when she glanced its way at the words.

“Yeah, she’s said some things about that. It made our first conversations kind of awkward but I started to get a hang of how to sketch out the journey of my life with Terra and then kinda tie the rest to her since then, helps how I haven’t been very many places as far as ships are concerned”

Pylo winced at her word choice and the smile got a little strained.

“Ye-ess... That is certainly a very limbre way to overcome that limitation.”

Aleph raised a brow at Pylo, she knew for a fact that the Siren could have said that any number of ways but she had picked to say it THAT way.

“Considering that and other things we have put forth the effort to procure you and the other terrans a more visceral and intimate way to experience our travels through the reef. To taste the light of other suns as we pass. To know the lay of the reef as you have been long denied. To give you some context of where we are.”

Pylo’s jaws split open, then peeled further and further. The line kept going, down and down the sides of her neck, like the petals of a flower or some great tongue unfurling down. Aleph just stared, Pylo had done something like this before but never gone this FAR before, at least not that she had seen.

The impression at the end was that the alien was a fleshy plush coat that had been undone along the sides.

There was thick humidity and a scent of rich thriving earth and every animal Aleph had ever caught a whiff of.

[https://i.imgur.com/k5QCOoa.png]

Mingled with the stinging strange harshness of dry land finally touched by a heavy rain. Pylo’s insides were slimy and glistening in a way that she honestly could barely turn away from. And then the whole thing convulsed and ‘spat’ up with a wet slimy scrape a black orb as big around as she was tall.

It landed and stuck to the table with a heavy thunk and did not roll even though she was certain it could not have been balanced there.

And then Pylo was all zipped up and entirely back to normal, leaving Aleph with her hair lightly stuck in a blown back position from the feintly sticky humidity.

“So We have built you a Window which shall show you beyond Tunie’s flesh and feathers, and explain the wonders beyond”

Aleph blinked and slowly turned to stare at the black marble that apparently Pylo had carried down her gullet?

Aleph was going to think and believe very strongly the alien had merely swallowed and then spat up for them.

She would not think of any of the other ways that whole experience could have been interpreted.

“Uh... Thanks Pylo. That is very thoughtful”

There was a scream of alarm from Omega behind her as Quarti finally broke free.

“Quarti! You can’t eat all of it I made half of it for Pylo! Get Back here!”

And with that dire warning of impending cake related betrayal the behemoth was suddenly sailing across and over her like a heaving building of flesh and bone and whorls of curled patterned skin. Blotting out the sky on a trajectory to Quarti.

Truly it would have been a wondrous horror to behold such a thing tackling the terran.

But the siren fell short, failing to compensate for Tunie’s Acceleration and crashed into the cushioning clouds with a hot scream of anguish.

“Quarti! You Have to share! Omega Promised me this would taste better then ALL of the cakes I’ve already tried!”

Aleph blinked at the black orb named a Window then turned to Elsie.

The Screen offered nothing but just how equally confused they were over all of this as well.

This Party was shaping up to be nothing like she expected it would be.