---Translator---
---Khr’kowan’s perspective---
*thudthudthudthudthudthudthudthud* is the sound my feet make as I walk through the hall in the sorcerers’ ship.
My feet are socked in boatshoes (like those I’ve had to wear whenever sailing down the K’rvakh by ship, to visit our Eastern vassals) that allow me to avoid damaging the deck.
They’re made of a durable, squashy substance unlike any I’ve ever encountered. However, what they’re made of is far less impactful than how they were made!
The day I woke up, after my battle with the wielders of the burning weapons, I was shown to a cubic cavity in a wall.
They reassured me as they shone sheets of red light over my feet. Several of them communicated in tongues that sounded nothing alike but, nonetheless, seemed to be easily, mutually understood while one worked on a glowing panel with her clawless, too many fingered hand.
After a few minutes, the cavity buzzed to life and spun these foot sheaths into existence from nothing! They were handed to me and, with slight hesitation, I began to put them on.
The most hilarious part of that was how fascinated they seemed to be by my contorting my hindlegs forward to be able to reach my back feet! As if they hadn’t just casually used magic that altered reality itself in front of me!
I’ve been confined aboard for days now… I really wish I could ask them to take me home but… well…
“Come come come!” beams the one called Yazmin, beckoning me to follow her.
She’s certainly the one who’s managed to learn the most of my language (and it is extremely impressive that she’s managed to get as far as she has in the time she’s been trying) but she still speaks like a small infant!
“Are we going to be ‘seeing my brain’ again today, Yazmin?” I ask, dryly, referring to their process of attaching small devices to my head, then having me describe pictures they show me, which she initially expressed as ‘for see head meat’… until I suggested the word ‘brain’ to her.
“Brain seeing finish! Today, talk you!” she jabbers, happily.
I don’t understand but… I’m sure I’ll see when I get there.
These Foreigner sorcerers have treated me extremely gently and kindly… considering that they are effectively holding me prisoner…
I have been plentifully fed and watered… even if none of the cooked meat they have offered me has been of any kind I can identify!
Yazmin stops by the door to the communal room and turns to me, smiling “Stand…”
She means ‘stop’ or ‘hold on a moment’, I can infer.
The door opens.
I’m greeted by the sight of six Vermin, all looking in my direction and embracing a large, dark furred, dozing predator, clearly having heard me coming.
The ‘Flaffi’ does not turn its enormous head to look to me but the Vermin all pull back their lips to snarl aggressively.
“Mrak na! Grriv, Lor, Tem, Mor, Yor, Viig! Mrak na!” says Yazmin with the tone of a male, chastising nursery children!
The Vermin close their lips but continue to scowl at me.
“Viktor…” she says, effortlessly switching languages as she turns her attention to the tall, bulky, copper headed one, locked in a sororal embrace with his comrade with blue skin and white hair “…it staim. Wii niid tu miit thiy athars. Skanzi haz thiy tranzleytor redi.”
The copper headed one purses his lips and presses them briefly against the other’s cheek as he gets up.
He comes to where we are in the hall and wordlessly begins walking.
Yazmin smiles back at me and beckons me to follow.
The pair of ‘Terans’ (as Yazmin tells me her category of Foreigner are called) lead me through the halls of the magical, metal ship that sails on the night sky like water.
We’re headed to the room where Yazmin and I speak.
Viktor is not normally with us for those sessions but, based on what she said earlier, it seems like they’ve got what they needed from their ‘brain seeing’, so we must be doing something else today?
We arrive and, as the door opens, I see the room more crowded than in any prior session.
The seat designed to support my underside is in its normal place against the table.
Sat directly across from there is Lhamoyeshekh, the woman that backed down the warriors who came to engage me on the day I woke up.
Next to her is the much taller man (almost as tall as I am when standing) who has large orange eyes and lacks a nose… I don’t know what his kind are called.
Also at the table are the very short, very broad, very deep chested Teran with the woolly orange hair, the black haired one with a white streak and purple eyes, the plump one with the short hair and grey eyes and the much smaller ones whose body shape is somewhat reminiscent of long legged [dragonbirds] but, other than that, I have no analogue for what to call their kind.
Not at the table is Skanzi, holding a small box.
She is the only one I’ve seen on this ship who, like me, apparently has her bones on the outside, encasing and armouring her flesh, as opposed to the vertebral arrangement shared by the Terans and the Vermin or the boneless arrangement of the tentacled ones and the one made of blue ooze.
That being said, other than arthropodality, she and I have very little in common!
Her body is a completely different shape to mine; with four arms, two main legs and her hindbody, stretched out into a long tail, suspended from the floor by numerous, tiny legs.
Whatever her armour is made of and however much its colours may resemble mine, it is clearly not any great protection to her as it flexes and warps with her movement.
Most of all, the thing that sets us apart is that she just seems… so nervous all the time! Hunched over with her (normal except for their number) arms in front of her chest, twitching and swishing those long whiskers on top of her head all around.
It’s all I can do not to shout at her to be a woman already!
If one of my younger half sisters entered the barracks with such a manner, I would definitely be telling our broodfather that she was unsuited to soldiery and a place ought to be found for her elsewhere!
Including myself and the other two who just arrived, Terans make up just over half of the people in the room. They are definitely the single greatest minority aboard (with no kind having anything like a majority) and, just from observing the respect and deference they seem to command among the other kinds, I think it’s safe to assume that the Terans are atop this strange, Foreign hierarchy…
I take my seat, looking quizzically around.
Yazmin sits beside me.
Viktor remains standing by the door.
All eyes are on me.
Lhamoyeshekh turns to Skanzi and smiles “དེ་ཁོ་མོ་ལ་སྤྲོད་རོགས།, སི་ཁུན་ཙི།…” in words I have no hope of understanding!
The girl steps forward, clearly as nervous to approach as she was every time she put the devices to ‘see’ my brain on me.
Rather than attaching anything to my head, she simply lays the box onto the table in front of me.
Smiling toothlessly at Skanzi again, Lhamoyeshekh chuckles “གལ་ཏེ་ཁྱོད་འཐད་པ་ཡིན་ན། ཁྱོད་ཁ་བྲལ་ན་ཆོག, སྙིང་ཉེ་ལགས།…(!)”
“Rrr’ktn ummbrb’vk…” buzzes the nervous woman, apologetically, before skuttling from the room, increasing the Teran majority by her absence.
With her gone, all eyes return to me.
Lhamoyeshekh gestures from me to the box.
I pick it up and, fumbling slightly, since it was clearly designed for nimbler hands, open it.
Inside is a tiny, flat circle of metal.
I recognise it as the same kind that everyone aboard (with the sole exception of Yazmin) wears on their temples.
I reach inside and grip it between two claws, bringing it up to my face to examine it.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
They’re giving me this?… Why?… What does it do?… What is it for?… Is it… safe?
The Vermin started wearing them too, a few days ago… I haven’t noticed any… change…
Deciding to trust it, I reach to place it against my head.
It falls to the floor.
“그녀를 도와야 할 수도 있어요, 야스민.” smiles the grey eyed one to Yasmin.
She fetches the disc from the ground and stands to bring it back to the side of my forehead.
“Care care… movement!” she says, her tone that of a warning.
Whatever she’s warning me about, she decides to demonstrate by shuddering like she’s out in a blizzard, for a moment.
Is she trying to tell me it feels cold?
Deftly, she places the (not particularly cold) device against my temple… and activates it…
Immediately, my upper body collapses against the heavy table, shunting it a hand’s length away as I convulse.
“Khr’kowan? Khr’kowan? Are you alright?… Can you understand me?” comes a familiar voice, speaking, suddenly, comprehensible words at me from across the table.
Instantly, my head whips up in shock, despite my yet to subside shivers.
I stare in to the pair of elliptical eyes, white with brown rings encircling black points.
There is no doubt that Lhamoyeshekh is the one who just spoke but…
“You could speak my language!?… This whole time?!?!?!” I demand, enraged that I’ve been needlessly forced to be barely communicate for the whole time since I awoke.
She closes her eyes and wags her face back and forth, smiling “No, Ma’am… I cannot speak your language and never could. But, thanks to the device we just gave you, you should be hearing your language right now… or understanding your language at least…”
Narrowing all eight eyes at the woman, I tap a claw against the metal disc and ask “This thing lets one hear any language as one’s own?”
“Within certain limitations… yes…” she smiles.
“Certain limitations that you needed to spend days looking at my brain while I spoke to circumvent?”
“Exactly!” she beams with the encouraging tone of a nursery attendant male coddling a child who’s just shown some glimmer of intellect “So…” she continues “…I know you will have seen everyone here before but, now we can finally understand eachother, I think it might be best if we start by introducing ourselves. We can go first or you can? Whichever you prefer.”
Hmmm…
She’s offering me the choice of whether to adopt humility or arrogance… a test?
I decide that I had better be humble with these people so much more manifestly powerful than mine “Please introduce yourselves first.”
She smiles and wobbles her face up and down this time. She’s pleased?
“My name is Ambassador Lhamo ‘Crane’ Yeshe and this…” she gestures to the large, noseless man “…is my [untranslatable term: ‘husband’. Nearest approx.: broodhusband] Ambassador Ngngomg Ong. She…” she indicates the purple eyed woman “…is [untranslatable title: ‘Doctor’. Meaning: learned one] Emiko ‘Smiles’ Miyazaki, expedition coordinator, and her bodyguard, Ms Thran ‘Gimli’ Hunter. She…” she gestures to the plump, grey eyed woman holding a glowing panel and a thin implement in her hands who smiles and waves “…is [Dr] Jae ‘Peach’ Stone, our [untranslatable term: ‘sociologist’. Meaning: one who studies societies]. She…” she points out one of the beaked women “… is Captain Tcakqaal, 27th Daughter of Highspire Peak and the owner and operator of the ship we’re aboard. She…” gesturing the other “…is Waqa’arc, 15th Daughter of Highspire Peak, the expedition’s Compliance Officer… here to make sure everything is above board. He…” she points over to the large Teran man standing by the door “…is Mr Victor ‘Cuddles’ Taylor, Chief Security Specialist … he’s in charge of safeguarding everyone’s wellbeing aboard…”
He raises one hand from his arms, crossed at his chest, but otherwise does not react.
I was right then that he is, in fact, a man and a warrior of some kind… The Foreigners have strange customs!
“…and then, of course, beside you is [Dr] Yasmin ‘Gold Tongue’ Soltani, the expedition’s [untranslatable term: ‘linguist’. Meaning: one who studies languages], whom you’ll know from your sessions with her and Sknz’h.”
With all of them introduced, I take my cue “My name is [General] Khr’kowan of the Khawekhan Realm, Daughter of Broodking Aghogh of the Khawekhan Realm and [General] Kvehak of the Wokhashan Realm… Do you consider me to be your prisoner?”
“We do not.” responds… Lhamo, kindly “I apologise for your prolonged stay and our inability to receive your consent to be here. If you say the word we will take you home immediately but I would personally like to request that you talk with us first.”
“I agree! I have many questions for you!” I answer, straight away.
Smiling encouragingly, the woman invites “Ask.” extending her arms as if to indicate that she considers nothing to be off limits.
I spend a while prioritising my queries before deciding on my most burning one “Have you come here from the Warm Lands?”
Her eyebrows dance for a few moments before rising up her forehead. Her mouth hangs open in apparent surprise as she answers “Based on the gist of that concept that my translator has just given me, I’m going to quite firmly say no… we are not… Though I think you should talk to [Drs] Morningstar and Taan about these [Warm Lands]… I’m sure they will be very interested!”
“If you are not from the Warm Lands, where have you come from?”
She thinks for a moment before responding “Are you aware that your sun is a star?”
“Of course…” I scoff.
“Good…” she smiles “…that saves time… We are from other worlds, around other stars, distances away from yours that it’s not really possible for anyone to truly grasp the sheer scale of but, suffice it to say, very, very, very, very, very far away…”
“So why have you come here?” I ask, dreading the answers I might receive.
“Well…” she extends her five fingered palms across the table “…we came here for you of course!”
My worst fear realised, I ask “You seek to conquer my people!?… I assure you, we have nothing you would value! If you seek to make slaves of us…!”
“No no! No NO, no no!” Lhamo interrupts hurriedly, while the Stone woman scrabbles her stylus against the panel she holds “We aren’t here to conquer you, enslave you or extract any wealth from you!… We’re here to befriend you!”
I spend some long moments processing that before asking “So… when you said you and your broodhusband were… ‘ambassadors’, you meant… to us?”
She shrugs her shoulders “If you’ll have us… yes!”
I narrow my eyes, contemplating “And… if we refuse…? What then?”
Bobbing her head slowly up and down she answers “If your people want nothing to do with us, we will leave you completely alone. There is no compulsion here… but…”
“But?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
“Well… it’s just… your situation with the Twigg… it’s completely… unprecedented!”
“I’m sorry…?” I ask, extremely confused “…our situation with the what?”
Mirroring my puzzlement she answers “…the Twigg?… the other sapient species on your planet… the ones against whom you fought the battle, in which you were so injured that we needed to bring you aboard for medical treatment?”
Realisation dawning, I ask “You mean the Vermin?”
There is a brief instant of every eye in the room widening slightly and every torso leaning away from me a miniscule amount in clear stunned silence, concluded by the grey eyed one leaning over her glowing tile and feverishly scrawling into it with the device in her other hand.
“…Uhm…” hesitates Lhamo “…the ‘Twigg’ is their name for themselves…”
Not really having the patience to be told that I need to refer to the Vermin politely (as it seems like they’re trying to imply), I bypass the issue, asking “What’s so unusual about us and them and why does that have a baring on my people’s ability to refuse your friendship?”
“Ah… well, it’s just that… there are only four known, genuine instances of multiple, intelligent, societal species, naturally arising on the same planet…” she turns to the orange haired woman “…if you look at Ms Hunter here, you can see that she looks quite different to me, [Dr] Miyazaki, [Dr] Soltani and Mr Taylor, right?”
I examine the woman who is failing to meet my eyes, her cheeks turning red.
“I can…” I state.
“Well, her ancestors and ours diverged between 600,000-800,000 years ago… but if you look at [Dr] Stone…” the grey eyed woman pauses from her scratching to look up at me and give a cheerful wave “…one of her parents was a Sapiens, like us, and the other was from a different lineage, as far from ours as is Ms Hunter’s… It isn’t uncommon to hear people refer to there being ‘different species’ of Human but, technically, that’s not correct… the fact that we can still interbreed with one another means that our different lineages are really only subspecies of Human… Three of the four genuine multispecies planets have situations much like ours (only slightly more extreme), where some ancestral population of protosentients became split apart an isolated from eachother for long enough that, when reunited, they were no longer able to interbreed… but… the different species still easily recognised the others as people… There’s only one instance of two species both evolving sentience in parallel, completely independent of one another, on the same world, the way that you and the Twigg have; the Jlo and the Mvam of Jloton-paMvak, in the Nbar-Bjod System…”
Struggling to understand, I point out “Alright, then it isn’t unprecedented… is it?
Wagging her face from side to side she responds “The difference is, when it came to their First Contact, even though so different from one another, they were already fully integrated into a mixed species society… They weren’t at war with one another.”
I scoff “We’re not at war with eachother!”
“That weren’t how it looked to me…” speaks the redheaded man, leaning on the wall by the door, sneering slightly “…Don’t seem to be how they see it neither!”
“Yes… Thank you, Mr Taylor.” chastises Lhamo with a pointed tone before turning her attention back to me “Regardless of what we call it, I don’t think you can deny that your peoples seem to be highly adverse to one another… and that’s a problem… You see, if they say they want contact and you say you don’t, or vice versa… Obviously one party is going to be disappointed by whatever we do in that scenario… aaaaand… because this has never happened before… we aren’t quite sure what to… do about it.”
“You would give priority to the wishes of Vermin over those of my people!?” I ask, disgusted.
The woman looks down and tents her fingers, clearly thinking about the most diplomatic way to phrase her answer.
“Ideally… no… Ideally from our perspective, both of your peoples would wish for contact with us… If both of you reject our overtures, that will be immensely disappointing to us… but it will at least make things simpler… The Twigg, however, seem to be quite enthusiastically in favour of opening a dialogue with the Galactic Union, our polity … which puts us in an uncomfortable position regarding your overlapping sovereignties… We do not wish to be coming and going from this planet to conduct our business with the Twigg in violation of your people’s wishes.”
I scowl “So what do you suggest?”
She smiles “I would suggest… peace talks… Twigg representatives and representatives of your side meeting and talking out your differences… I would suggest holding these peace talks here, aboard this ship, since it’s a neutral location with no preexisting significance to either side and we, as your hosts, will act as disinterested third party mediators… Our only interests are peace between you and contact with both of you… We have no reason to favour one side over the other.”
I gesture firmly in the negative and answer “I could not agree to such on my own authority!… Even my broodfather would not be free to undertake what you have suggested without consulting his vassals…”
She makes a conceding gesture “Of course, of course… but do you foresee this being something your father and his… vassals might be willing to entertain?”
Choosing my words carefully, I answer “That… rather… depends…”
“Depends on what?” she asks.
“On what exactly my people stand to gain and lose by opening contact with you and your [Galactic] Union… Why do you consider it worth your while to come here, to us, when you already have access to such power as I have seen while aboard?”
She sways her face up and down “Quite reasonable… you wish to know more about us.”
“I do.” I answer.
“Alright then… where to start…?”