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 Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 8:34 pm
"No." Not this time. "I just couldn't sleep. I mean, I guess I slept a little on and off? But I ended up here." He gestured to the kitchen as a whole. Whether he wanted to talk about it or not should be clear from his total avoidance of the question. It wasn't fair that Maia should be kept in the dark, but it wasn't exactly something he enjoyed talking about.
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 8:44 pm
Maia nodded in understanding. She'd been having trouble sleeping herself. She didn't press the subject. "I've been having trouble sleeping too," she said. "Dari helps me. Maybe you should talk to him?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 8:49 pm
Toby's smile turned softer, but also more earnest. It was a fond expression and his eyes drifted away for a moment. "Yeah, I do. This happens every year about this time. I wish I could stop it but--" He shrugged. "Dari's great. If I was gay I'd marry him."
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:01 pm
Maia didn't know what was making Toby unhappy, but she didn't need to, to want to help. She gave Toby a hug. "I'm sorry about whatever it is. I have bad days too." Those days were days she spent in the ocean for the most part. Sad days. Maybe Toby needed an outlet?
"If you can't sleep, we can talk about things. Oranges. Astronauts. Whatever you like."
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:09 pm
"Well, it'll be a while before the apple's done. We could sit and talk, if you'd like." The baking had definitely calmed and distracted him, and so too did conversation seem like a good distraction. Once the apple pie was done he was probably going to head upstairs to try and get a few hours. He did go retrieve a bottle of wine and pour himself a glass, though. He hoped it would calm his nerves.
"So what do you want to talk about?" he asked, gesturing for the dining room table and the rest of the house.
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:22 pm
Maia led Toby to the dining room table and sat. She hadn't been surprised by Toby's desire for wine; he seemed to like it at dinner, at least lately. The selkie didn't see the appeal. It tasted awful. "Oh, anything," she said, flashing him a smile. She took a moment to smooth her hair with a hand. Since he asked, she'd suggest a subject. "What's been your most exciting adventure? Or your favorite of all the ones you've been on?" She asked, leaning forward slightly and placing her hands on the table. She folded them in front of her. She was genuinely interested.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:52 am
So to the dining table it was, then. Toby followed Maia and sat across from her, folding his fingers together on the tablecloth.
"Oh, that's a hard one. I've been at this about forty years, so every mission has had its good points and bad. Just by favoritism, though, Dari's case has to be it. The site was exciting, as horrible as that sounds. We hadn't had a crashed ship since the 60s, and an all new race's at that. Of course the crash itself was horrible. Then we had the blob in the petri dish and that whole mystery, and I can't say any other mission has ended with a good friend and a partner."
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:03 am
Hard questions were probably better, Maia considered, after he'd answered. They might keep his mind off whatever had him acting off. "Dari's the best," she said, offering Toby a smile. "There was another ship, then?" Just how many unknown creatures were up there, in the sky? More than the stars, maybe.
"I'd like to go on adventures sometime," she said. "But life's an adventure right now. Everything's new." And it was fun; but at one point, she was sure, she'd take things for granted.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:09 am
Toby chuckled. "He is." The alien and their most recent silent really did seem to get along swimmingly. That was enough to make him happy. He didn't need to be anyone's new "bestie."
"Everyone has their own adventures, you'll find some other some day. As for the ship, what, the one in the sixties? It was a different species' ship, yes. Unfortunately the few survivors didn't last long." Earth was perfect for humans and oxygen-breathers, but to some foreign species it was just a big ball of danger and poison.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:19 am
Maia's smile faded. The poor things. Crashing into an entirely new place, injured from the event and dying--that was horrible. Dari had been the only one to survive his crash, hadn't he? "There hasn't been one that's just landed?" she asked. Visitors were preferable to crash landings, any day. "Of course, if it had landed in the wrong place..."
Well. She didn't think people would go for that.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:21 am
"We haven't had any landings, no. We're not entirely sure either case was meant to be a 'we come in peace' sort of scenario or if they were just pulled in my Earth's gravitational field or what. Then people claim sightings but there's never any evidence, so who knows? Of course I never told you any of this."
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:29 am
Maia couldn't picture Dari ever wanting to hurt anyone, and so was fairly sure his family couldn't have wanted to invade earth. She nodded. "Of course not," she agreed. She understood the need for secrets; the average person learning that aliens, or that any entities, existed, would be chaos. And would probably cause several deaths.
"Can you tell me about other missions?" she asked.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:33 am
Toby sighed and tilted his head upward to think. Some missions had been fantastic successes. Others had ended in bloodshed. Even more led nowhere or held no particular excitement. Hello, how are you, here's our number if you need us, carry on.
"What kind of missions?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:40 am
"Maybe missions with other selkies? Dari's going to help me get in contact with Niamh tomorrow." While she wasn't particularly interested in relocating or meeting them, it was interesting to hear about them. "The internet's only got so much information, I looked. And this site google takes me to is always like "related creatures;" and lists kelpies and sirens and other things."
She made a face. "I don't think I'm anything like those."
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:49 am
"Well. We found Niamh after she was captured in Ireland. We keep an eye on aquariums and zoos and things. She was trying to write notes on the glass walls, but nobody suspected anything. She was just a seal to them. So one night we got in and helped her escape. We set it up to be like a woman had climbed into the seal tank while we kept her pelt. We gave her clothes and false information for one of our safehouses and I acted like a worried husband. That was all. She decided to join us after that. She's a smart cookie."
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