---Emergence---
I sip at the fruit juice that the vulpine waitress brought me, after my situation was relayed to her.
We’re sat on the festoonlit deck of an outdoor bar with moonlight reflection making the ocean view visible.
My climate control field has been switched off as I was assured that the temperature had fallen to a ‘mere’ 27°C… which I can survive.
It’s somewhat surreal for me, darkness is so heavily associated with cool but this breeze, coming off the ocean, is as warm as any I ever felt on the hottest day on R’qal!
I look around at the nine Terrans sat at the table and the profusion of alcohol sat in front of them.
I am not the only one refraining… Sam, not at the table, is unable to have alcohol as, being a nonsapient, he is legally considered unable to consent to the risks of drinking and, being a carnivore by evolutionary history, his tolerance to alcohol is closer to a gardenworlder’s than a Human’s. He has been given some kibble and more sweet [coconut] water, instead.
Dr Saabir is also abstaining. It has been explained to me that this is for religious reasons… I had assumed that all Terrans were rampant alcoholics but, apparently, there are entire faiths that prohibit the consumption of alcohol.
“So! Sisi, here…” slurs Dr Zunberi, forcefully patting her brother’s arm “…he was supposed to go to uni, get qualified as a researcher, then he was supposed to take a *hiccup* posting in the Rainforest Zone like our parents did and like our grandparents did when they first settled this planet but…”
Here, Victor interrupts “Dr Zunberi, if you have hiccups, try straightenin’ your spine, closin’ your eyes, raisin’ your arms level with your shoulders and, very lightly, brushin’ your eyelids with the tips of your little fingers… it should get rid of ’em pretty instantly.”
She blinks at him a few times before doing as he suggests.
A few [seconds] pass… “That is fucking magic! How does it work?!”
Victor smiles “Stimulation of the vagus nerve, wigglin’ your fingers in your ears will do the same but, in my experience, takes longer and cuts off your auditory perception. Bad for conversin’.”
She smiles “I think you just earned the right to call me ‘Kas’, big man(!)” then notices Tuun’s clear distress “Relax, babes, I’m not trying to steal your man! He’s not my type and I’ve got my own! He also, very clearly, only has eyes for you! Chill! You can call me Kas, too!”
Tuun smiles at this and she and Victor pull closer. He gives her a brief but tender kiss on her cheek.
“Anyway… where was I…?” continues Dr Zunberi “Oh, yeah! Sisi waits until a week before he gets his doctorate before dropping the bombshell that he wants to go starbound! This is the first time I’ve seen him, in the flesh, in…” some quick finger maths “…six years!”
Msia smiles, showing a little discomfort “I try to call as often as I can, Kas. I’m sorry I didn’t follow in Mum and Dad’s footsteps like you and the others did… The galaxy called to me…”
Dr Zunberi’s face softens as she presses her hand against his shoulder “I know, Sisi, I just miss you, is all! I just wish you could still come to the family dinners. I miss not having to worry that, since I last spoke to you, your ship has blown up and your body is floating through space, 50 kilolights from home, never to be recovered. You know?”
He pats her shoulder in turn and says “I know, Kas. I’ll try to make you worry less, I didn’t realise twice a month was inadequate… If anything, I thought you were all bothered by that frequency.”
She scoffs “Don’t be stupid, stupid! We miss you and when you can’t make a call, because of solarwind or whatever, we’re always very disappointed! More! CALLS!! PLEASE!!!” she punctuates those last three words with drink-rattling pokes of her indexfinger, into the hard wood of the tabletop… Even with Humans’ metallic bones I’m surprised that she didn’t break the, comparatively delicate looking, digit!
Dr Gomes stands and glances at an archaic looking analogue wristwatch “It’s been a delight sharing these drinks and tender moments with all of you… but I’m afraid my husband is making me dinner and I need to be back for that, I shall have to say ‘tchau tchau’ for now!”
“Ciao!” says a smiling Victor, followed by a chorus of ‘bye-bye’s, ‘good night’s and wishes for him to enjoy dinner.
After he leaves, the conversation undergoes the satisfactory lull, not of people who have nothing to say but of people enjoying the tranquillity.
Roughly [3 minutes] pass before that tranquillity is shattered… by me… or, more accurately, by my holopad which is sounding a com request tone.
Apologetically, I unclip it from my sash (It would usually be clipped to my wing but, as I need the sash for welfare devices, it’s there today) and bring it to my ear.
“Hel…”
“Tcakqaal, it’s time!” declares a panicked voice.
My eyes widen and I turn to Victor. He has his eyes trained on me from across the table, his body is poised in readiness for whatever might be asked of him.
“Victor, I need your help…”
---shortly after---
This speed!
I thought that riding Fluffy was intense but that run only lasted [30 seconds] or so!
Victor has been travelling this speed for [minutes]!
His limbs and head counterbalance eachother with precise, mechanical exactitude!
He would likely be even faster if not for my (very necessary) gravity field encompassing him and reducing his ability to gain traction from the ground!
My head is at the same level as his, over his shoulder, my talons grip his belt and my wingclaws hook into the collar of his shirt.
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If I stood on his shoulder, the way I did earlier, the wind resistance from this thick atmosphere would pluck me straight off him! I could, possibly anchor myself with my bionic but… aside from the possibility of hurting Victor again… there’s a nonzero chance that my bones would break from trying to stand up to the [galeforce] coming at us!
I’m forced to mount his back and have him act as my windbreak!
We come up on Dr Gomes… I’d be surprised if he actually heard us, given how silently Victor moves even at full tilt, but he seems to, somehow, sense us coming up behind him.
He turns and his visage is briefly one of terror, as he sees the enormity and speed of the one sprinting towards him, until the terror is replaced by recognition, then puzzlement.
We draw close and he raises his hand and opens his mouth.
“CAN’T TALK, EMERGENCY!!!” shouts Victor as we whip past.
I can’t help but feel a little bad for the [whirlwind] of emotions we’ve presumably just induced in the man.
[Minutes] pass as Victor dashes through the streets, past the alarmed faces of locals, who almost certainly weren’t expecting to see such a sight today!
He hasn’t needed to stop to reorient himself, or catch a breath, once! He was not familiar with this city before today, was he? From one pass through, he’s been able to build a comprehensive enough mental map to navigate us to where we need to be, seemingly without faltering at all!
I had always assumed that these would be sprinter speeds for his species but he’s managed to maintain them for what must be coming up on [20 minutes], by the time we get to the gates of Bahari ya Kaskazini!
If we had called a capsule, by the time we had made the call, relayed our location and waited for it to arrive, it might already have taken this long!
The guards start as they see Victor charging them.
He throws up his hands, in a gesture conveying his lack of armament, at [30m] out and shouts “CSS VICTOR TAYLOR AND CAPTAIN TCAKQAAL, COMIN’ THROUGH, DO NOT DETAIN US!”
“Erm… That’s fine…?” says the guard, as Victor races past him without breaking stride.
Qorak said he’d appraised them of the situation… I wonder if they would have been so startled as to shoot us if they hadn’t been!
We cross the barracks to the enormous hanger that currently houses the Bright Plume.
He tears through the gap in the hangar doors and up the boarding ramp.
There is a nauseating perspective shift as the clarity of the ramp removes my ability to visually discern the speed that my equilibrioception assures me we are still experiencing. I look up, lessening the nausea.
“TWILA!”
“I’m aware. I’ve brought the Portside lift down to Deck 0 for you.” answers Twila, her serious voice utterly absent the usual cheer she’s had since she was woken up.
“THANK YOU!”
I laugh internally that he still remembers his manners, despite the frantic circumstance!
We bolt through the Portside door, on the left of the loading bay and streak down Portside Deck 0 to the lifts, opposite the Dorm column.
He enters the open lift with such momentum that he is forced to absorb the shock, by throwing up his arms to catch himself against the back wall, in order to avoid full on impact. Without a moment to reset he wheels and hits the button for Deck 17… probably not necessary as Twila already knows where we’re going.
There follow a few moments of stillness, only broken by Victor’s heavy breathing… that’s reassuring… I was beginning to worry that he had secretly been an extremely lifelike droid the entire time I’d known him, just from that display of power and endurance(!) I know that endurance is their niche and, being deathworlders, no one does it quite like them but… knowing and experiencing are two different things! If he’s out of breath it means he’s definitely biological… or imitating being out of breath in order to make me think he’s biological(!)
The lift doors open on Deck 17 and Victor whips out, turning to sprint along the walkway.
We turn again and again before we are running down the Neck of the ship toward the Head where the Bridge and Command quarters are located. We don’t get that far though, as one more jink puts us on the stairs to my quarters.
He bounds up the wide, shallow angle stairway (designed to be accessible to visitors of any species), definitely managing to take them multiple at a time, somehow!
I take my hand off his shoulder to wave the door open, revealing my lifemate standing by the incubator with my daughter in it.
“Has she…?” I start, breathlessly.
“You’re just in time!” Qorak interrupts.
Relieved, I hop down from Victor’s back.
He collapses against the wall and slides down it to rest on the floor, panting heavily and covered in sweat despite having been enveloped in my reactivated climate control field the entire way.
His hand moves to his belt and with a forward yank it breaks and comes loose. He holds it up to reveal an entirely destroyed section from where I gripped it with my right talons.
“I’m sorry, Victor.” I say, sincerely.
“’S’alright… *huff*…Cap… *huff*…I’ll… *huff*…throw… *huff*…’t’in … *huff*…the… *huff*…forge… *huff*…lat…*huff*…er… *huff*…just… *huff*…glad… *huff*…it… *huff*…wan’t… *huff*…my… *huff*…should…*huff*…er!”
I move to Qorak’s side and say “You’re sure you’re alright with Victor being here, sweetfruit?”
Traditionally, only parents are to be at a hatching. It felt right, with Victor’s godfatherhood, to include him as well but did take a little explaining before Qorak understood the concept!
He waves his wing “It’s fine, okla! He’s a dear friend of yours and, lately, mine… plus… in the event that something awful happens to both of us but not him or her… he’ll be her parent… right?”
That was a genuine question. He’s ensuring, for the thousandth time, that he has understood the arrangement properly.
“That’s the idea but… let us hope his role stays ceremonial and it never comes to that(!)” I chitter.
Having recovered, Victor kneels at my side to avoid looming.
“Captain…?” interjects Twila “…would you like me to record this?”
This is the one private room on the ship that she can view and speak into freely, a hangup from the Terran designers who valued the ability to rouse the Captain quickly in emergencies and keep them safe from [assassination] above silly things like privacy(!)
I think for a moment.
“Yes… please record this, Twila… is that alright Qorak?”
“Perfectly fine, my okla.” he smiles.
“Beginning recording.”
A [minute] or so passes as we watch cracks start to appear in the shell.
A fragment comes loose and I receive the first glimpse of my daughter’s beak… it’s wonderful!
I only saw it for a [second] but it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
There are a few moments of ceased activity as she appears to be regaining her strength to push on.
“Should we… help her?” asks Victor, uncertainly.
“Tradition dictates that she has to break out of the shell herself… obviously, we’ll help her if she can’t… but we should wait until she’s had a thorough try before we consider it…”
“That’s… unexpectedly morbid, for a gardenworlder tradition…” muses Victor.
“I suppose it is… if you consider that the likely origin was as a test to see if the child was strong enough to bother raising… of course, with modern medical intervention, her strength at birth matters much less! I also already love her [to death] so I’d not abandon her for her lack of strength… I just… would like her to have the pride of knowing she made it out of her shell without help.” I ponder.
My daughter renews her efforts and, after some [minutes] she has made a hatch, wide enough for her to pass through.
She emerges and I get the first proper look at my daughter.
Her downy, white feathers are slicked, by amniotic fluid, to such an extent that I can see her pink skin and make out the shape of her aural canals on the sides of her head.
Her four eyes are closed and her whole body quivers as she peeps, almost silently… she will get louder soon, I know…
I activate the incubator’s shower field and the amniotic fluid is stripped out of her feathers, puffing them into a white fuzz.
I reach out and lift the tender little ball of life into my wing claws.
I bring her close to my chest and her beak opens upwards in quiet, rasping chirps.
I feel my crop convulse…
I turn to Victor “You can look away, if you want…”
He shakes his head and says “If I’m here, I shouldn’t.” with finality.
I smile and turn back to my child before releasing my crop, allowing its contents to be pushed up my oesophagus.
I bring my beak to hers and disgorge my last meal, mixed with secretions from my crop. She swallows it, greedily.
Bringing my beak away, I get the aftertaste of pineapple… that was from the juice I drank and slices I snacked on, at the bar…
It should be safe… I saw the fennec barmaid decontaminate and detoxify them before she served them… but I really hope she doesn’t get spoiled by her first meal being deathworlder fruit!
I extend my wings and raise my daughter above the level of my head.
“Your name is Tcakak, 28th Daughter of Highspire Peak… and you are my child…”