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 Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:07 pm
Quote: Sweet Treats (5) : There’s no shortage of holiday themed popup shops and specials at your local places, and after a long day there’s nothing better than a nice treat for yourself. Maybe you decided to try something new, maybe it was a gift, maybe you got one of the coupons in the mail to try the place out–however you wound up with this drink, you’re in for a good time. No matter what your preferences are, the drink is delicious. Hot, cold, sweet, bitter–there’s a version of it for everyone. But, the flavor isn’t what makes the drink so special–it’s how good it makes you feel. There’s no alcohol in it, but drinking it can leave someone feeling tipsy, warm, and in a general good mood. Inhibitions aren’t lowered and there’s no negative repercussions for having the drink; it might make children more hyper, but the drink just has the ability to put someone in a pleasant mood.
He was sprawled across his bed—the lower of the bunks in the room he shared with Aliez. He’d strung lights up along the base of the top bunk a couple of weeks before, wanting a piece of the holiday cheer found around the city without having to spend too much time among the Earthlings. They threw spots of color over him, shimmering like starlight in his unfocused gaze.
In his hands Vyn held a half empty take out cup from a local café. He should’ve known better than to try something he’d never had before, especially at a time when the odd happenings around Destiny City seemed to occur with more frequency, but the advertisement had looked too tasty to resist.
The variety of sweets was one of the few good things Earth had going for it, after all.
“I feel sort of fuzzy,” he said.
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:08 pm
“Fuzzy? Are you growing fur?” Aliez heard himself asking as he peered over the top of the bunk. No, that didn’t sound right. He knew it was wrong the moment it left his mouth. Then again, he also had a half empty cup, similar to Vyn’s.
He supposed fuzzy was one way to explain how he felt. He thought it was more like… tingly and maybe a little elated.
Could a drink make someone feel that way? He’d heard it was one of the things those who enjoyed alcohol looked forward to, but with their metabolism as Velencians, he doubted it would have an effect if it did have alcohol.
Vyn was right, though. He felt like there must be something in the drink.
“Should we call Andreiya to run tests?” he asked, once again feeling strange about his own response. He could do the tests himself, but why would he bother when he liked how the drink made him feel? Was he trying to avoid having to stop drinking it?
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:08 pm
“No, like—”
Vyn waved a hand around in an attempt to demonstrate what he meant by fuzzy. This naturally proved to be a failure. Not only was the gesture ineffectual, but Aliez probably wasn’t able to see it well. The main light in the room was off so they could enjoy the holiday lights better. It left parts of the room shrouded in shadow.
Running tests was a good idea. Vyn probably should have done that the moment he’d realized something was happening. How long ago had that been? He could have sworn it’d been no more than ten minutes. He still had a decent amount of the drink left. Its warmth seeped through the cup into his palms.
He shook his hand again like he could jog his ComTech into working.
“I think my ComTech’s broken,” he said, though he didn’t sound nearly as worried by this turn of events as he would have been normally. His assumption proved inaccurate anyway; the small touchscreen lit up as soon as he put a knuckle from the opposite hand against it. “Wait, nevermind.”
Vyn fiddled with it but couldn’t seem to bring up the proper functions. His knuckle slid around the screen ineffectively, hampered by the drink he still held in that hand.
“Should update these with voice activation,” he mused.
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:09 pm
“Think we could create a telepathic connection? You know, like an earpiece that we can communicate silently with the ComTech,” Aliez mumbled somewhat dazedly. He was still able to come up with some thoughts, but whether they were any good or even feasible was another thing entirely.
The lights were nice, and he wondered if they could keep them up all year. It wasn’t like it would be bothering anyone else in the house. It was just a nice little bit of cheer.
But back to the matter at hand, Aliez didn’t know if he liked feeling like this or not. It was a pleasant feeling, but it was also somewhat disconcerting that he couldn’t fully process everything.
Or maybe he was just a stick in the mud that needed to lighten up.
“Do you think the Commodore would have any suggestions? About what tests to run. Or what to do.” Because if anyone knew what to do, it would be Commodore Lyndin.
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:09 pm
“I don’t want my ComTech knowing all my thoughts,” Vyn said.
Case in point, he went dreamy eyed and sank into fantasies the moment Aliez mentioned Commodore Lyndin. The last thing he would ever need was for anything with recording capabilities to ever have any sort of direct link to those fantasies.
Vyn shook his head and pushed himself up. He half expected the room to spin around him, but everything remained stable. The worst of the effects seemed to be that general out-of-focus feeling. Otherwise the experience was quite pleasant. His stress seemed to melt away from him, leaving him light of spirit and loose-limbed.
He shook his ComTech one more time for good measure, though he was unsure what he thought that would accomplish. When it offered him nothing, Vyn rose to his feet.
“Let’s have Andreiya run a scan before bothering the Commodore.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:10 pm
Oh… he supposed Vyn was right about not wanting their ComTech to know their thoughts. There were a lot of things that he thought over the past couple years that others hadn’t been happy about, but that he felt deeply. He didn’t want to cause more trouble for everyone when he was still trying to figure things out on his own.
He still hated Earth. He didn’t like how independent it made many of their comrades. Their communal effort made them strong, and that was how they survived. Or at least that was how they survived on Velencya. Now? It seemed like everyone had their own agendas. Did they even care about their world? Or the people who lived there? Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t doing enough, but he was trying.
But whatever was in his drink wasn’t letting him think too deeply about any of that. He nodded enthusiastically to Andreiya running tests. Andreiya was smart, so he would surely know what was going on. And reliable, too.
“Maybe if we find out these drinks are perfectly safe, we could bring one to the Commodore?” he suggested, wiggling his way over to the edge of the bunk bed so he could make his way down the ladder.
Maybe they could spend some more time with the Commodore too. Reporting their findings and such. Maybe he should bring a meal to share as well.
Fin!
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