---Warren---

---Bonheh’s perspective---

The door opens and I hurry in to the quiet, low ceilinged district, out of the busy corridor.

As soon as I enter, the sound of delighted squealing draws my attention to the floor in the middle of the Warren.

I see Lagomeer, rolling over himself, absolutely hysterical with laughter.

He’s not alone…

The one he’s with isn’t Huch (recently returned to work after several [months] of time off he had to take to deal with the emotional trauma of a particularly nasty robbery.)

Neither is he with any of our neighbours.

I’ve never met the woman causing my son such amusement but, nonetheless, I recognise her…

The other day, while I was out making a delivery, I saw her staring down Officer Bzhort and two other security men (all much larger than her) while some of her compatriots dug through piles of trash.

I didn’t get the chance to glean the whole story (since sticking around for it would have made me late) but the Threndian looked annoyed…

“Do it again!” giggles my son at the unfamiliar woman.

She smiles and, the next instant, I’m not looking at her face anymore but her legs as she springs into the air and slams into the ceiling, bracing her impact with her arms before throwing herself back to the ground to land with a *thud* that suggests her body to be far more dense than I took it for!

I’m stopped in my tracks as my son rolls over himself, spasming in laughter at the shocking physical display the girl just put on for him!

Jumping high enough to touch the Warren’s ceiling is no great feat… most people who live here can jump that high… Doing so like she just did though… was alarming!

From the lightning fast way she sprang from her standing start to the sound of the impacts to the way she completely trusted in her ability to keep from slamming her own head into the ceiling, it’s clear that this girl is far from ordinary!

With that jump, I dare say she could have gone as high as Bzhort’s head if the mood had struck her the other day!

“You wanna see something even better than that, Laggy?” grins the woman, baring her teeth like a Terran as the nearby speakers translate her words into Hjopian for him.

“Mmmm! Mmmm!!!” he confirms.

She takes a moment to prepare herself before springing upwards again but, this time, doing so in such a way as only her feet contact the ceiling, her head ending up lower than it was and facing away from us. Then (actually taking a few upside down steps to run on the ceiling, momentarily pinned there by the momentum of her jump!) she flips back down, once again facing towards us, no part of her body besides her feet having contacted anything in the entire process.

My son utterly shrieks in pleasure at the display.

Coming up behind him, I cautiously announce myself “Hey Laggy…? Who’s your friend?”

The woman’s attention snaps to me.

Her green skin is hairless, with the exception of eyebrows and a head of spiked, honey brown hair.

Her ears are long, pointed, mobile and mounted on the sides of her skull.

A piercing pair of bright yellow eyes with vertical pupils sit flanking the sides of a long, downward facing nose and above a mouth with (what look like) claw scars passing over it.

With my temporal resolution higher than most, I’m able to tell she spends a brief moment assessing me, calculating, and then relaxes.

It’s quite unnerving!

“You’re another ‘Hjopian’, like Laggy right?” she smiles, now utterly at ease “I’m Viig… it’s nice to meet you…”

“She’s amazing, Mummy!” observes my son, enthusiastically “She can do all kinds of crazy tricks!”

“I saw, sweetie… It was very impressive!”

“Thanks…” acknowledges the little humanoid with a cocky grin.

“It must have taken a lot of practice to learn how to do things like that?” I probe.

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The girl raises her shoulders in a gesture flagged as nonchalance before answering “Nah… not really… it’s pretty normal where I’m from… just easier in the low [gravity] here.”

“Oh. So, you come from a high gravity world?” I ask, as if that fact weren’t blatantly obvious to me!

“Guess so…” she answers, doing another one of those shoulder raises.

“I… see… So, what brings you to Xartham, Viig?” I ask.

“We just stopping off here on the way to somewhere else.” she explains, completely ignoring the point of the question by explaining how travel works to me(!)

“Right, right… and… how come you’re here in the Warren?”

Her face falls as she gestures around us and asks “The ‘Warren’s’ this place? Am I not allowed in here?”

Hurriedly, I correct “No! It’s not that you’re not welcome here… I just... well, I know you don’t live here… and there’s no thoroughfare so it’s not on the way to anywhere else… I was just wondering if you were visiting someone?”

“Oh… nah…” she answers, cheer returned to her face “…we’re leaving today so I was just having a last look around when I saw the door.” she points over to the entrance I just came through “Noticed it ’cause it was so small… I went up to it and it opened for me… came in and saw Laggy here, thought he was an animal until he said ‘Hello’ to me. I was so startled that I jumped away… which he found very funny!”

“Ah! And that explains the jumping(!)” I smile “So, you’ve not been to Xartham before then?”

She gives a negatively flagged gesture and grimaces “I’d never left the world I was born on before very recently. This is the first time I’ve been anywhere but there.”

“Oooh…” I frown sympathetically “…sorry to hear that, sweetie!… The first time is always a bit rough. How are you finding it?”

Thoughtfully, she answers “It’s… a lot… We don’t have anything like all this on Graom…” gesturing around and above her to indicate not just the Warren but all of Xartham “It’s scary…but… it’s also exciting… and interesting… and fun…!” with a bittersweet smile.

I chuckle “Yes… That about sums up space travel, sweetie(!)… Those feelings never really go away but you do sort of get used to them when you’ve been doing it long enough.”

She gives me another friendly (but unnerving) toothbare as she starts “Thanks… I…”

“Viig!” interrupts a powerful voice from the door that just opened behind me.

Turning around, I see a large Terran with red hair and green eyes, stooped double to fit his (what looks like) [+2m] beneath the [1.5m] ceiling, his gaze fixed on the girl.

I briefly think he might have nefarious intentions of some kind but the girl shows no discomfort with his appearance, allowing me to mostly discount that possibility.

As he draws closer, I recognise him… or… I’m pretty sure I do anyway!

Terrans have quite pronounced heterogeneity so, while it’s not impossible that it’s a different Terran with the same features, I’m nearly certain that this is the same one from AnThuk and Daughters’ [last year].

Ignoring me and Laggy completely, the stooped giant with his head at the ceiling crouch walks over to Viig and chides “You can’t keep goin’ out without your holo, Viig! ‘Holo’ means ‘all’! You need it for everything! Without it, you can’t pay for stuff, you can’t ID yourself and, crucially, we can’t call you!” irritatedly.

“Sir…” I say before Viig can, causing the looming man’s green eyes to snap to me “…do you recognise me?”

He frowns “Err… sorry… no… Should I?”

“Well… I’m going to be embarrassed if it’s not you but… I’m fairly sure you saved my son’s life a [year] or so ago?”

Recognition lights up his face as he says “Oh! It’s you two! From the emporium?… Sorry I didn’t recognise you, the cracked rib was a bit distracting and a lot’s happened to me since then!”

I raise my pawhand to his for a Terran greeting and say “Bonheh Joodie. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Sir.”

He smiles and reaches out to enclose both my paw and about a third of my forearm in his hand, toothlessly smiling “Victor ‘Cuddles’ Taylor… pleasure’s all mine.”

“Lagomeer…” I say, turning to my son “…come and say hello to the man who saved you from MaThal’s loader…”

Laggy tentatively hops forward, the tops of his ears not quite level with the enormous Terran’s [65cm] tall kneecaps.

The giant squats down on his haunches (still taller than me) and beams at my son.

“It’s… nice to meet you, Sir… Thank you for saving me… sorry you had to… I’m… Lagomeer Joodie…” he introduces himself.

“Nice to meet you, kid. I’m Victor… No need to apologise! You’re very welcome!” smiles the Terran.

Lagomeer holds out his arm to the man, the way he saw me do, only he extends the wrong one.

Not missing a beat, the crouched titan grasps my son’s arm in his left hand and gives it a gentle shake up and down before asking “My imagination or’re you bigger than last time I saw you?”

Seeming to forget his trepidation, my son immediately and excitedly says “Yes! I’m growing! I’m 61cm with ears!” extending his ears from where they were flattened behind his head to fully standing.

The Terran lets out a genuine sounding chuckle at that, repeating “‘With ears’! That’s lovely!”

“Erm… Victor?” interrupts the one he actually came here for “Did you need me for something?”

Returning his attention to her, he answers “Yeah, Viig… it’s time to go! Everyone’s back on the ship, ’cept those out lookin’ for you… Something else holos help with is timekeepin’(!)”

She scoffs “I’m not going to let some little square boss me around and tell me I’m late for things(!)”

“Ain’t even slightly how it works, Viig…” observes the Terran, wryly “You use it to tell you the time! If you don’t, then you’ll be late… a lot!”

Rolling her yellow eyes, she says “Sure… whatever… Could I ride you back?”

Cocking a copper eyebrow, unimpressed, he asks “Your legs stopped workin’…(?)”

“No… I’ve just been entertaining Laggy with tricks and I’m a bit tired now…” she answers.

The man sighs before saying “Sure… fine… climb on!” turning his back to her and gesturing it with a thumb.

The girl grins and clambers up.

The giant stands (lower than he came in so as not to crush his passenger against the ceiling) and turns to wish us “Goodbye, you two!”

“Bye!” waves Viig over his shoulder.

“Goodbye!” answer Laggy and I in unison.

With that, the pair make their way to the door.

The man stands fully up the moment he’s able, causing both his and the girl’s heads to disappear above the lintel.

The door closes.

“They were nice, weren’t they Laggy…” I smile.

“They were so cool!” he says, enthusiastically.