---Coffee---
---Emiko’s perspective---
“Coming…!” I announce as I make my way over to the door of my room.
I wave it open and look upwards.
More than a metre over my head, six colourful eyes stare down at me from above two glistening red fangs and below a head of metallic pink hair, flanked by bluish black horns, her head absent its thanatite diadem at the moment.
“Khr’kowan…!” I smile, warmly “…always a pleasure! Come in, come in!”
The regally beautiful woman crosses into my quarters, having to awkwardly narrow her legs a little to fit through the doorway, easily tall enough for her but decidedly not designed for species with such a wide sprawl to their gait.
Having made it through, she pauses, the fine, iridescent scutes of her face gleaming blue around her nose as they catch the light in an intrigued sniff.
“What’s that smell, Emiko?” she asks, casting around for the source.
“Oh, I was just brewing myself some coffee.” I smile, indicating the pot over on the side.
“It… smells… wonderful!” she pronounces, making her way over to the steadily filling flask of dark brown fluid, her boatshoed feet making *pwuck**pwuck**pwuck* sounds each time they meet the smooth floor “May I try some?”
“Oh, well…” I frown at the gorgeous Jorōgumo monarch “…I don’t mind sharing with you at all, Khr’kowan… but I do need to check the list if you haven’t had it before.”
“Of course, Emiko. I don’t want to be accidentally poisoned.” she says, not taking her rainbow of eyes from the aromatic container.
I nod and pull out my holo, quickly opening the Vrakhand nutrition app that I recently installed after Gato, Aerlyght, Olga, Twila and the Shings finished developing it.
I search ‘Coffee’ and it comes up.
Reading the advice, based on medical computer modelling, I’m surprised to find that “It… seems, Khr’kowan … like it will affect you the same way it affects Humans…”
“Really?” she asks, her interest piqued enough to turn from the pot to look at me “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“It is.” I confirm.
Vrakhandic biochemistry is so wildly unlike Terrans’ that finding something which affects both of us the same way is quite shocking!
“How does it affect Humans, if I may ask?” she queries.
“Well, there’s a component called ‘caffeine’ in it which affects our neurotransmission and acts as a stimulant for us… It makes us more alert and attentive… it can help us feel more motivated and put us in an elevated mood… it can even help us think more clearly and improve our physical performance…”
“Sounds too good to be true… What’s the catch?” she asks with cynicism befitting a fellow deathworlder.
“Well, too much will make you jittery, anxious and uncoordinated, it can cause insomnia and, if you use it long enough, could cause dependence, making withdrawal quite unpleasant.”
“Hmmm…” she frowns “…and it says all of that’s true for Vrakhand too?”
I roll my eyes and shake my head, turning my holo around for her to read the text as it reforms itself into the Amida-lotteryesque, laddered script of Vrakhandic “No… very unhelpfully, all it says is ‘Caffeine; nontoxic in normal quantities but affects neurotransmission. Not to be consumed in quantities greater than 3g/hr or 10g/day.’! Got to have a word with Twila about clearing up the wording on this thing!”
Mildly alarmed, Khr’kowan looks to the 1.5ltr pot and observes “That looks like a lot more than [3g]!? That’s… what? A little more than a 22nd the weight of an iron coin?!”
“Yes, Khr’kowan…” I reassure her with a smile “…but the caffeine only makes up a tiny, tiny part of it… 3g of caffeine would be several times the amount in that pot! It’s fine… If you still want to try it, I’m happy to let you.”
“Alright… If it’s definitely safe then I would love some.”
“Wonderful…” I beam, gesturing over to the sitting area “…why don’t you make yourself comfortable while I pour it out for us then?”
“Thank you, Emiko.” she acknowledges before making her way over to take a seat on the floor beside my coffee table, feet *pwuck**pwuck**pwuck*ing as she goes.
I pour out two mugs of the steaming black liquid, not offering her milk (as I know lactose will make her ill) or sugar (as I know she lacks the capacity to taste sweetness.)
I join her with the coffees and set them down on the coffeetable between us.
“I need to warn you, its hot right now and quite bitter in general, for Humans at least… I don’t know how it will taste for you. I advise not chugging it, though… Give it a few minutes to cool down, then try sipping.”
---several coffees later---
“Khr’kowan… you’re literally married to him!” I giggle hysterically.
“I know! I knooow!” she whines like an embarrassed schoolgirl.
“You already know he likes you!” I cackle.
“Nooooooo…! I’ss not that shimple thouuugh!” she slurs a little, floppily moving her upper body in a way I would have thought having plate armour instead of skin would make impossible.
“How is it not that simple? You like him, he likes you… you have complementary ‘over-there’s’ that will feel good when they become ‘over-here’s’(!)… I really don’t see the issue!”
“But…!” she objects “…what if he doesn’t… like, like me like me!?”
I cackle and answer “Empress Khr’kowan! You’ve led armies! You’ve fought monsters! You’ve been made the first female leader of your entire species!… And you’re insecure about a boy!? Really?!?!?!… What hope is there for the rest of us(!?)… If he doesn’t like you like you, why did he agree to marry you?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“I dooon’t knooow…” she answers, woozily “…maybe ’cause I was the second most powerful Vrakhand alive at the time, only after my father? Maybe ’cause I am the shingle shtrongest and most feminine Vrakhand… Like, the fact that we wooed so quickly didn’t give us much time to really get to knooow eachother!”
“Why did you rush things then?” I query.
“Because…” she starts, overly forcefully “…I thought we’d have more time! I really liked him and I didn’t know about the [caesharean] process or [condoms] then so I thought it’d be yearsh before we could think about actually doing it! That’s a lot of time we’d have had to find out if we actually wanted to and, if we didn’t, we could shimply annul our marriage and he could go back to Nhirmor!… Now, i’ss getting harder and harder for ush to come up with excuses for why we can’t! We’re shleeping together in the same room, night after night, complete privashy, we could have condomsh printend and, if I do get preganant… I… I… I… I can just get my babies cut out of me without having to die!”
Here, she stops to down the remainder of her half full cup of coffee.
“Hmmm… It would be too late to annul your marriage after you’d done it, I take it?” I ask.
“Mmm-hmmm…*gulp*” she confirms, swallowing the mouthful “…too late!”
Considering the honour bound culture this honour bound woman comes from, I elect not to suggest that she and Kurkhuw might do anything so underhanded as simply lying… saying they hadn’t done it when they had.
“Then it sounds like you do need to be a little careful…” I concede.
“There’s… something elshe…” she admits with the look of a guilty child about to admit to having broken something expensive.
“What’s that?” I smile.
“My tastes… they’re… unushual…”
I chuckle “Yes, I know that but… isn’t Kurkhuw a man very much to your tastes?”
She frowns and sloppily waves a three fingered hand in negation “Nooo!… That’sh not what I mean!… I mean… like, the things I want to do to him… shexually…”
“Oh… right!” I say, surprised by how forthcoming she’s being right now “And what’re they?”
“Like… I want to…” she agonises, her iridescent cheeks flushing even bluer with embarrassment as she looks at the floor between her pedipalps “…tie him… with ropes… I want to bully him… even… hurt him…” she panics here slightly and clarifies “Not much! I don’t want to crack hish armour or rip bits off him or anything! I just…! He’s sho cute it makes me… I don’t know… aggreshive!”
“OK, so you’re a sadist and a rigger…?” I shrug.
That immediately catches her attention and she stares at me, blinking her main eyes slowly.
“There… are. words. for. these. things?” she asks, speaking slowly and deliberately.
“Sure there are…” I smile “…in my language at least… BDSM, altogether, is probably the second most common type of kink for a Human to have after only feet! I don’t know if there are words for them in Vrakhandic. If you don’t know them, I’d guess not… but that doesn’t necessarily mean your species don’t have them as well.”
“I… I thought I was alone!” she answers, shellshocked.
“Why did you think that?” I smile, kindly.
“Well… when I wash taught what was… expected of me… no one mentioned it! They made it shound like wanting it to be fun wash… I don’t know… shelfish… improper!”
“Close your eyes and think of Khawekh, huh(?)” I tease “I think that might have a little less to do with yours being uncommon desires and a little more to do with your culture being… don’t take this the wrong way but… I think the word is prudish!”
“You were taught about theshe things?” she asks, curiously.
I frown “Actually, no… not in SexEd, anyway… I guess, I just had the internet and got to discover I wasn’t alone that way!… There’s no Vrakhand internet and it sounds like having frank discussions about your sexual preferences (like this one we’re having now) isn’t really a feature of your culture… so you never got to know how acceptable it is.”
“Until now… until you!” she says, gesturing at me with her left hand.
“Yes, Khr’kowan. I fully accept you and I’d be an utter hypocrite not to but… it’s not my acceptance you need, now is it! There’s only one person whose acceptance you need and he’s not here, is he! He’s probably down on Deck 1, in your quarters! There’s no way to know how he’s going to feel about this besides asking him, is there?… I’d say, you need to go and have a frank discussion with him and work out whether his tastes are compatible with yours!… First though, you need to work out what you’re going to do if it turns out they aren’t… Would it be a dealbreaker for you if he says he’s never going to be interested in letting you tie him up? If he’s not even a tiny bit masochistic?”
“No… but… what if i’sh a dealbreaker for him that I even want to!?” she asks, desolately.
I cock an eyebrow and ask “So, you’re happy to keep this a secret from him for the rest of your life then? Considering that you don’t need to die giving birth to his kids, that could be an awfully long time…”
Her stunningly colourful eyes flick back and forth as she stares at the floor, considering my words.
“I… need more [coffee]…” she finally announces, making to stand.
She doesn’t manage to get all the way to her feet before she loses her footing and keels over, crashing through my coffeetable, reducing it to splinters and hitting the floor with an impact that (were it not for the fact that it was reinforced for deathworlders) would have had her plunge straight through into Ziva’s room below us!
Alarmed, I quickly bring my feet onto my seat and spring backwards over it to protect myself from the many uncovered sharp points of her twelve flailing limbs!
“Khr’kowan, stay still!” I demand, authoritatively, causing her writhing to stop and her long legs to fall limp as she lies on my floor, panting.
Cautiously, I make my way out from behind my cover to approach her.
She’s not injured, that I can see, her armoured exterior having protected her against the jagged pieces of wood.
“Are you alright, Khr’kowan…?” I ask, as I approach her head.
“Yeah… Pride’sh the only thing hurt(!)” she chuckles.
I bend down and press my hand to her cheek.
This is the first time I’ve touched a Vrakhand’s face but she feels hotter than the infrared imaging I’ve seen would suggest is normal.
“Focus on my finger.” I instruct, holding it over her face.
Blearily, she struggles to actually keep her eyes pointed at it.
“Give me the Vrakhandic alphabet backwards, go!”
“Oh… uhm… Wha… Rha… Bha… Nha…” she starts, listing off the aspirated letters, backloaded at the end of her script’s inventory.
“You missed Zha, Khr’kowan… You’re drunk!”
“I’m. not. drunk!” she denies, only making me surer that she is “[Alcohol] doesn’t effect Vrakhand… and besides, I’ve not had any!”
She’s right about both of those things… and I’m pretty sure she was sober when she came in here!
The only thing she’s had was…
“*sigh*… It was the coffee.” I realise.
“Whuh? But didn’t…?”
“Caffeine ‘affects neurotransmission’. It’s a stimulant to Humans but, apparently, it’s a depressant to Vrakhand!” I state, furious at Twila for the ambiguity of the wording!
“So…?”
“So no more coffee for you right now! I’m taking you to the medical ward to be double checked for caffeine poisoning and, once you’re cleared, you’re going back to your quarters to sleep it off! You will almost certainly have a hangover tomorrow… as far as I’m aware, there’s nothing we can give you to prevent that… I’m sorry Khr’kowan… this is my fault… I should have gone to clarify things with Twila or one of the Doctors…”
She smiles up at me and answers “Don’t be shorry Emiko…! You’re a really goooood friend!”
“I appreciate it Khr’kowan… Now, let’s get you up to see if you can still walk…”
---Twila’s perspective---
My body is sitting in the Commonroom of Triple M while I’m enjoying having a ship’s worth of dataspace to run around in again, when a very unusual sight staggers out of Emiko’s room in the corridor outside where my body is.
A… rather merry looking Khr’kowan, holding a rather exasperated Emiko to her chest, her feet 93.7cm from the floor, stumbles chaotically into the range of my cameras.
The arachnoid woman has her pedipalps wrapped around the Japanese one’s legs, her arms around her chest and is resting her chin on the top of her head as she makes her way towards the Dorm’s exit.
“Erm… everything alright there, Emiko?” I ask, through the speakers in the hall.
Her purple eyes snap unnecessarily upwards to address me “Everything’s fine, Twila(!) This arrangement is simply the result of me observing that, if I walked alongside Empress Khr’kowan in her current state, she would be quite likely to accidently stab me in the side with the spines on her legs… Would you, as a matter of some priority, add ‘neurodepressant intoxicant’ to the entry on caffeine in the app and alert some of the medical staff that they are needed to attend to the empress here!”