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 Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:22 pm
{prologue - the serving girl, the prince, the necklace, and a momentous occasion of passing the buck}
Kukui Cashil was a practical girl. She did her job, she asked no questions, she was polite, demure and efficient. That was all that was required of a servant for the Y'bezzan gentry - do your job, and don't muck it up. Kukui had come from a long line of servants, and really, it wasn't a bad gig. Do the chores, serve the food, bear the fans, polish floors and whatnot. In return, you got to say that you lived in a castle.
Kukui had liked her job.
Each member of the royal household had their own little court - a contingent of favored nobles for matters of state and whatnot, and a small fleet of servants to call their own. The Cashil family had been so proud when Kukui had been handpicked by Prince Ulamayah to be his personal laundress. Kukui herself had preened - wasn't Ulamayah the most handsome, bravest, noble little peach of a prince ever spawned? Oh, she'd certainly thought so.
Sitting now in an exile-pod, Kukui clapped a hand to her forehead hard enough to make her dizzy. Gods above have mercy, what a dolt she was.
As she watched the stars roll past leisurely, Kukui clicked her mandibles together in thought. It was only two days prior that she and Ulamayah had been in the royal treasury. After three blasted months courting and finally consummating a sordid affair, he had finally gotten off his soft-carapaced a** and given her a love-gift, as was fitting of courting Y'bezzans. The b*****d had known! He had known!
"Kukui, my darling, take anything you like - wear it with pride and know once we are wed you shall have the richest of trinkets to play with and wear at your leisure."
Kukui sighed. What kind of idiot even talked like that any more?
She had been so humbled and bewildered by the beautiful things in the treasury. She hadn't wanted to touch anything, fearing to lessen their beauty with dirty fingers. But she had, at last, picked up a small meteroite-mined platinum necklace. The chain was studded with semi-precious stones, and she had loved it. Ulamayah had even fastened it about her neck himself, the son of a diseased cow!
Kukui had been so thrilled she let him have one last tryst with her among the towering piles of wealth in the treasury. She had thought she was in love.
And then when she tried to leave the room, the alarms sounded. Ulamayah had conveniently forgot to tell her that each piece of treasure was tagged and could not be removed from the room without disengaging the invisible proton alarm triggers.
And when she had tried to reason with the guards who ripped the necklace from her and muscled her bodily from the room, begging Ulamayah to help her, she could hear his smug grin from across the room.
"She threatened to kill me if I didn't help her steal," he was telling the head guard solemnly. "She held a knife to my throat! But please, it's not her fault - she really isn't very bright. She didn't think things through. Don't be too hard on her..."
Kukui blustered, raged and shrieked.
"YOU STUPID TRAITOROUS IDIOTIC MIDDEN-BRAINED SON OF A-"
And then a guard had hit her, right on the unarmored soft spot at the back of her head. Kukui winced to remember that she'd gurgled, gasped, and dropped like a stone. The lump still hurt.
Curling up restlessly in the tiny pod, Kukui touched her belly ruefully. In hindsight, maybe it really was her fault. Ulamayah had been a voracious lover, but he'd been mostly shooting blanks as well. None of the eggs Kukui had laid had been fertilized in the past three months, but she'd missed the weekly purge-cycle, hadn't she? She sighed and shook her head. It didn't matter now, anyway, if she'd been pregnant. Stress during pregnancy almost always guaranteed miscarriage, and her body had purged itself unhappily the last night in her cell before sentencing. One sad, acid-washed egg, that if laid and hatched would have trapped Ulamayah into marriage. Y'bezzan courts did not allow b*****d children.
He had used her and sent her on her merry way the minute he was done with her.
"Males," Kukui said distastefully. "Good grief."
And so, sailing past the stars, further and further away from the warmth and darkness of Y'bezza, Kukui curled into a tight ball and slept, hoping, just maybe, the pod would be knocked off course and fly into a sun.
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:50 am
{ part one - this ain't no feel good boy meets alien movie }
The house was very quiet these days.
Mickey sat on the backdoor steps, looking out into the serene suburbia of the cul-de-sac, which looked like something straight out of an All-American it's-perfect-because-we're-all-in-denial postcard. Mickey liked the neighborhood because there were other kids to play with and there was room to run around, unlike the old apartment in the city. His parents had liked it because it was a good place to raise a family. His brother had liked it...well, actually, he hadn't very much. He'd been planning on moving out now that he had a steady job and had finished school.
Mickey sighed, leaning forward on his knees. A dragonfly buzzed past him lazily, wings clear as glass shot with early summer sunlight. Mickey smiled as it flitted past him, hunting for mosquitoes and gnats and the no-see-'ums that drifted on breezes from the nearby brook. Birdsong erupted from the stand of birch trees that bordered the back yard, and Mickey closed his eyes. He felt powerfully lonely. Noah was at work and wouldn't be home for some hours yet, and even then...he didn't like to come home. The house was empty, and quiet, and too big for two people.
Mickey felt a sweep of nausea as the gentle burbling of the brook, birdsong and buzzing of insects filled his ears like static. How could the world be so peaceful when the two most important people in it were gone? He abruptly got off the step and stormed inside, slamming the door. He immediately regretted going back inside - there were so many reminders and scents and sights it made Mickey dizzy.
He gave a frustrated growl and slunk back outside like a chastised puppy, jumping the porch steps and heading out into the cul-de-sac. He walked past the Jamesons' house, ignoring their dog as it yapped excitedly at him, and went down the steep hill towards the brook. It was a good place to play and fish, and Mickey had found a sanctuary in the place lately. He splashed through the shallows of the brook, feeling icy water creep into his shoes and soak his socks. He climbed the mossy walls of the tiny ravine the brook had carved, heaving himself up into the undeveloped woods creatively called a forest. It was a tiny patch of woodland, but Mickey and his friends had created worlds in that small space. He climbed up onto a craggy, lichen-eaten boulder, sat, and shouted out many angry bad words that Noah would surely ground him for even thinking of. When his breath ran out he dashed a hand across his face, ignoring hot, acid-like tears that burned in his eyes, and shouted himself hoarse with curses real and made-up.
Not feeling anything aside from empty and upset, Mickey curled up on the rock and stared up into the sky. The foliage was thick and rich green with new leaves, late-blooming flowers spilling petals here and there at the merest breath of wind. Mickey coughed wetly against tears and snot, wiping his face against his shirt sleeve. Good gravy, but he was tired. He checked his watch - two o'clock. Noah wouldn't even be home until five, and Mickey couldn't bear the thought of sitting in the house alone. Curling into a tight ball on the rock, he listened to the hiss of wind through leaves and the liquid trickle of birdsong, and eventually fell asleep.
----
It was six thirty-two PM, approximately, when something small and traveling at an average speed of ninety-two point eight miles per second crashed with concussive force into a small patch of woods outside of Barton city limits. It skimmed over trees at first, then crashed through several, going into a dangerous spin that knocked it off course of impact into a busy street and instead ended plowing through soil sixteen feet, finally coming to a halt when an immovable, thick vein of granite provided an unceremonious stop.
Systems went into various states of failure, and one by one clicked off. And slowly, painfully, and with great mechanized effort, the pod's door lifted open.
---
"OHMIGOD."
Mickey awoke shouting the words, sent flying off his rock by what felt like a miniature earthquake. The tremor lasted twelve seconds, with subtle vibrations afterwards making his teeth sit on edge, tiny aftershocks of some random cataclysm. Mickey smelled smoke and fresh overturned earth, and looked with jaw hanging open at a trail of damaged trees and two ridges of rough-plowed earth.
"No. Way."
Was it a plane? Had a PLANE crashed? Mickey went running, jumping logs and roots and even a startled raccoon frightened out of its den into the late evening sunlight. The smell of seared wood and overturned soil was overpowering as he jumped into the deep ditch, running towards the end of the impromptu tunnel.
"Hello?" he called urgently, digging in his pocket for the trac phone Noah had given him. It was for emergencies only, but plane crashes were absolutely an emergency. "I can call 911 for you - are you okay? Hey, hello? Anyb-"
Mickey skidded to a halt, words dying on his lips.
That wasn't a plane.
"Ohmigod..."
The heat from the pod had turned the soil into rough glass. It crunched dully underneath his feet as he approached the small, unremarkable, completely totally ABSOLUTELY not-human-made-thing that sat gently humming in a nest of tree roots and scorched dirt.
The door was open. And something was moving inside.
Mickey moved closer, heart beating in his throat.
"Hello?" he rasped. The thing inside moved again, and a thin, confused squall answered him. Mickey stood over the opening of the pod, looking down at something he had never seen before. And it looked back at him, with wide, inky black eyes.
"...hi," Mickey whispered, reaching out.
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:22 am
{part two - the monster under my bed}
It had been a week since the UFO had crashed in the woods. There had been a big to-do about the whole thing; firetrucks, policemen, and even two people in sunglasses and dark suits had shown up. Only one of them was a mysterious government agent, though, and she wasn't anything like the Evil Generic Government People that Mickey had grown up learning to instantly mistrust from the movies. The other suit had been a TV reporter, who had been very politely steered away from the crash site. Deprived of main event action, the reporter prowled the neighborhood, snagging interviews of people who had experienced the tremor. Mickey, being a kid, was ignored.
He didn't mind this at all, really. For one, the reporter was very nosy and rude and twisted people's words into sensationalism, which Mickey didn't know how to recognize very well but still didn't like. And for another, it meant that the little creature camped out under his bed could remain secret. Mickey didn't like to lie, but Noah didn't know it was there to ask about it, so technically saying nothing at all wasn't lying.
After the policemen and firemen and Not-Really-Generic-Government-Evil-Agent-Lady had left the scene of the crash, Mickey had had to go back for a look. He'd looted the pod of its spare contents, but the adults had still taken it away. Mickey frowned and puzzled over this - it was broken. Why on earth would they still want it? Shaking his head over the impracticality of grown-ups, Mickey had reflected then on what the pod had borne. Aside from the obvious, the only other thing had been a small, featureless opaque sphere. Mickey couldn't discern its use and had figured it must be a toy for the creature, though she had shown no interest in it when he tried to play fetch with her. He carried it now in his pocket, mostly because even though it was completely uninteresting it was still something alien and Mickey preened at the thought that he had real-life Alien Stuff.
Interest in the cataclysm had faded within the week. And Noah, who hadn't been home for it - he'd been working late - had given only the barest sign of interest when Mickey told him about it. And now Mickey, feeling both treacherous that he was hiding things from his brother and very important that he had such a big secret, was taking care of the little alien-girl.
He had also discovered that he was not very good at changing diapers.
The alien was very patient, very quiet, and not very curious. She slept a lot and particularly liked to snuggle against Mickey at night, taking comfort from body heat. She didn't like to be alone and tried to find him when he left her, but seemed to understand when Mickey frantically hid her under his bed when Noah came in to tell him to go to bed.
"You're really not chatty, are you," Mickey said one afternoon to the alien over peanut butter sandwiches. "No baby-talk or cryin' or nothin'. Can't you talk at all?"
The alien looked up at him with those liquid black eyes, not understanding but listening politely anyway. Mickey sighed, grinning ruefully.
"I guess it's too much to ask for you to talk JUST yet," he said reasonably. "I mean, you're just a baby, right? I'm ten. And Mom said I didn't start really talking 'til I was one and a half. Noah says nobody could shut me up after that," he added, looking pleased with himself. The expression faded as Mickey allowed himself to think too long about his mother. A familiar ugly tight knot made breathing just a little bit harder and Mickey took a big bite of his sandwich, chewing without tasting.
The alien, seeming to notice his distress, crawled into his lap and continued eating her part of the sandwich. Mickey looked down at her and smiled, patting her feathery-soft hair. The alien didn't seem to have a mouth, or indeed any facial features at all aside from her eyes, but she ate and breathed and could hear and smell - he presumed, anyway - so it must've been okay.
"I need to think of a name for you," he said, nodding sagely. The alien copy-catted his nod, eyes crinkling as she copied his smile as well. Without a mouth another would've been hard-put to tell if she was smiling or had gas, but Mickey knew what it was.
"You're pretty smart for a baby," he said. "I betcher hiding something from me, aren'tcha?"
The alien said nothing, and took another bite from her sandwich.
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:23 am
{part three - anything you can do I can do better}
Mickey was in a panic. The alien was sick. She sniffled, coughed, sneezed - and nothing Mickey tried to do seemed to help her. She was running a fever, and Mickey didn't know how to cool her down. She slept fitfully but her own coughing often woke her up, and when Mickey tried to give her anything aside from water or soup it immediately came back up - often all over Mickey if he wasn't quick enough to dodge.
He wanted to take care of her, and all he'd managed to to was let her get sick. Maybe she was dying. She was certainly burning up...
As he sat on his bed mopping the alien's brow with a cool washcloth, Mickey roiled in panicky internal debate. On the one hand, it had been two weeks since the alien had appeared and he'd hidden her from Noah the entire time, and there didn't seem like a good reason to clue him in on her existence now, in case Noah got funny ideas like selling her off to the circus. On the other hand, Noah was older and more experienced, and may be able to help before the alien got too sick.
"What should I do?" he whispered to the alien. "How can I help you?"
The alien blinked dully at Mickey - her once bright eyes were glazed and tired-looking. She coughed again, as though for extra effect.
Mickey sighed, got up, and steeled his shoulders.
"I'll be right back."
It was a bit past Mickey's bedtime, but Noah tended to stay up late after putting his brother to bed. Mostly he watched TV, sometimes he read, sometimes he played video games. Mickey was good about going to bed on time, so the fact that he was downstairs standing in the living room door, looking anxious, instantly put Noah on guard.
"What're you doing up so late, squirt?" he asked, getting up from the couch and muting the baseball game he'd been half-involved in watching. "It's eleven o'clock. You feeling okay?"
"No. Yes. Maybe."
"Well, that's got all the bases covered. How about you pick one?"
Mickey wrung his hands, looking up at his brother with anxiety.
"Promise you won't get mad?"
"If you threw up or something, that's nothing to get mad about."
"I'm not the one that's throwing up."
"What d'you mean?"
Mickey swallowed hard. No turning back now.
"Follow me."
Noah sighed, following his brother back upstairs. Mickey paused meaningfully at his door, looking up at Noah.
"Don't get mad."
"I won't, I won't."
"Remember that in a second."
Mickey pushed the door open, and ushered Noah inside. Noah smelled the odor of vomit and his nose scrunched, lip curling.
"Jeez, Mickey, where's the-"
A thin squall cut Noah's question off, and he slowly looked to the bed. There, lying swaddled in blankets with a damp washcloth on its head, was a mutant.
"JESUS."
Noah picked Mickey up, sweeping him out of the room and slamming the door in case the creature tried to follow. Mickey kicked and wriggled in vain, protesting.
"She's sick! She's sick!"
"She-? The-what. What IS that thing?"
"Her name is Laika."
Noah blinked.
"You named the mutant."
Mickey growled, trying to kick free again.
"Yeah, I did. Just now."
"How long have you HAD that thing."
"Since she crashed in her alien-pod thing."
Noah put Mickey down slowly, and cracked the door open. The newly named Laika coughed feebly.
"...motheragod."
Mickey kicked his brother sharply in the shin.
"OW. Mickey, what the hell? You have a goddamned space alien on your bed. How the hell did you think I was going to react?!"
"Like this! Just like this! Why do you think I was keeping her secret? Now she's sick and I ask you for help and all you're doing is swearing and not being any help at all and-"
Noah clamped a hand over Mickey's mouth.
"Okay, first off? Take a breath before you pass out. Second, I'm allowed to feel freaked out that there's an alien in your bedroom. Third..."
He trailed off, looking in Mickey's room again. Laika looked back.
"Third..."
Dammit.
"Third, we need to get medicine. Baby food, some clean clothes...maybe give her a bath if she got sick on herself."
Mickey's eyes brightened and he flung his arms around Noah. Noah hesitated, then slowly returned the hug.
"Geddoffame, squirt," he said after a moment, peeling Mickey off him. "C'mon. Hopefully this isn't just her getting ready to latch onto someone's face and lay eggs down their throat."
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:24 am
{part four - baby that wasn't no weather balloon}
It took a few days for Laika to recover - it had been a cold, nothing more. Noah was adjusting very slowly to the fact that his little brother had a baby sister that looked like a gold-scaled humanoid barn owl, but at least he was adjusting.
"So what else did you find in her little spaceship aside from her, anyway?" he asked Mickey one evening as they ate dinner, watching Mickey feed Laika strained peas.
"Um...well, there was a little ball thing. I think it's a toy for her to play with, but she never really bothers with it."
"Huh. Where is it?"
"Right here..."
Mickey dug the plain white orb out of his pocket. Noah gave him a sardonic look.
"You always carry it with you?"
Mickey stuck out his tongue. Laika copied him, giggling.
"It's alien stuff. Of COURSE I bring it everywhere, DUH."
Noah rolled his eyes, turning the orb over in his hands.
"So much for advanced alien life. This is like...the worst toy known to man. Owls. Owlmen."
Laika was watching the ball, and Noah. She seemed to understand that he was curious about it, and held out a hand.
"Ba'."
Noah jumped. Mickey beamed.
"She doesn't talk, but she makes wordy-kinda sounds sometimes. She's a quick learner."
Noah nodded, looking at Laika. She returned his gaze steadily, looking him right in the eye.
"How old do you think she actually is? She's...acting pretty aware for a baby."
Mickey shrugged.
"Ba'."
"Alright, alright...here, you want it back so bad."
Laika took the ball and held it clumsily - she may have been advanced in thinking, but she seemed unused to how her own body worked. She studied the orb for a moment, then pressed spindly fingers against different seemingly seamless parts of the orb. It started to hum almost subliminally, then glow. Mickey watched with wide eyes, and Noah reflexively pushed away from the table.
"What the hell is she...?"
"I think she's turning it on."
Indeed she was. Laika's eyes crinkled in what was clearly her smile, and let the ball slip out of her tiny hands. The orb didn't crash to the floor, but instead bounced as though on air, stopping to hover on the tabletop. It shone like a tiny star, brighter and brighter until both boys had to shield their eyes.
Mickey peered through his fingers a moment later when the light had dimmed, and gasped.
There was a perfect spiral galaxy spinning on their dining room table.
"Holy..."
Noah stared, dumbfounded. He reached out to touch the galaxy and it suddenly flickered - the orb was the golden-white center of the galaxy, projecting a holographic picture. The projection changed and suddenly something monstrous was looming ten feet high, surrounded by scrolling alien script. It was an insect, crimson-carapaced and sporting six long, spiny legs. Its body curved in an S pattern, all armor and spines. Its face was terrifying, with luminous yellow eyes that stared out lidlessly.
Laika pointed and squealed.
"KUI'."
"Kui? What the hell is Kui?"
"Hrrrshhhyal grrk ma'haak Kukui Cashil, hyurrr na'sav tah. Hrrshhhyal tsii gorroo Earth. Juut haaah shriik."
As guttural as the language was, the voice sang like a hundred grasshoppers in almost violin-like harmony. Something so horrifying, with such a beautiful voice...
"I think this is Laika," Mickey said, eyes wide.
"I think she's improved since this was taken," Noah replied.
Laika giggled again, painting her face with her dinner.
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:25 am
{part five - it's a feature not a bug}
Laika didn't stay a baby for long. After two months she had grown to toddlerdom, walking around and getting into everything. Five months after that, she'd grown into something roughly Mickey's height, though clearly older in mind than body.
"I do not understand-comprehend. Why do the pirates-thieves bury their treasure in the ground? It makes more sense to hoard-collect than hide-conceal."
Older in mind, and developing a curious way of talking.
Mickey shoved Laika's shoulder as they watched the pirate program together, rolling his eyes.
"They're pirates, Laika, it's what they do."
Laika shook her head, visibly puzzled.
"Pirate-thieves are stupid."
"You guys better have finished your homework."
"I helped-aided Mickey with his homework already. It was easy-simple."
"Yeah yeah, I'll easy-simple you. Don't go rewriting human mathematics again, okay? His teacher almost had a heart attack the last time."
Laika shrugged, though she seemed amused.
"It is not my fault that understanding-comprehension is limited-stunted. I wanted Mickey to get a good grade-report."
"You disproved half of String Theory."
"I helped-aided."
Mickey laughed, hugging Laika. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she hugged back, snuggling against him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:56 am
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Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:23 pm
{part 7 - no, they're not fake}
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