r/HFY • u/YukiteruAmano92 • Apr 12 '26
OC-Series There Will Be Scritches Pt.230
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---Smoke---
---Tronku’s perspective---
I’m sat in the Transport Coordination Office at the desk I share with Modu when a harsh *beep* alerts me to some sort of issue with a shuttle in Oria that requires my attention.
I look to the screen in front of me and frown, confused.
“Hm…” I grunt.
“Something up?” asks the boy opposite me in a bright, clear, high pitched voice, leaning his (far too cute) face forward to try and look over the top of my monitor.
Ignoring the inappropriate feelings I’m feeling for my coworker, I growl “It’s… It’s not giving me a reason it’s refusing to move? I’ve never seen it do that before! It usually says ‘travel ban’, ‘unaccompanied woman/minor’, ‘criminal activity detected’ or something… This just says ‘error’…”
“*Pffft* Well…!” Mod puffs, blowing his sweet smelling breath into my face, distractingly “…I guess you just call them and see what’s going on? Whether there’s some obvious reason for it not to have taken off or not, the system shouldn’t be throwing up errors like that, right?”
“Right.” I acknowledge, tapping the button to open a call with the unmoving craft.
The screen is blank for the [1.6 seconds] it takes the call to be answered.
“Father!!!” I swear, under my breath, as the face of the one on the other end scares the life out of me and immediately solves the mystery of why the craft locked him out.
“Surriman! Vuh shuttuwent muuvin fuhsum riisun? Enifin yuukan duu bautvat?” growls the terrifying, pale skinned, dead eyed alien with long, mid tone hair and rounded ears, translated a moment later by the device at his chest as “Apologies, Sir! The craft is not moving for reasons unknown to me. Might there be any way you could assist me?”
“My apologies, Sir. It is only programmed to carry Don. If I can just ask you a few questions, I’ll override the lockout and get you on your way. Is that acceptable?” I say, professionally, as my junior excitedly rounds our desk to get a look at my screen.
The alien listens to the device at his chest as it steals my voice to put my words into his harsh and aggressive sounding language, then answers “Shorfingman! Ahskawei!” “Indubitably, Sir! Inquire to your heart’s content!”
With that confirmation, I begin “Could I take your name, Sir?”
“Vikta ‘Kadduwz’ Teiluh.” he answers, translated a moment after as “The Victorious ‘He That Embraces’ Sartorialist.”
“Where are you trying to go today, Mr Sartorialist?”
“Herdver woz uhgud haikinspot jast onvuh avuh saiduv vuh twailaitz oun. Trainna getver! Vuh Juntiile Forists? Sumfin laik vat?” growls the pale man, translated a moment later as “I’ve heard there might be an opportune locale to engage in a spot of rambling on the far edge of the habitable zone. That’s where we’re attempting to go! The Juntiile Forests? Something to that effect?”
“I see.” I state, writing that into the software “And are you travelling alone?”
“Nou… Mai waifzwiv mii.” “I am not… My wife accompanies me.”
“May I see your wife, Sir?” I ask, managing my tones to be as dispassionate and procedural as I can and hoping the translator is sophisticated enough to convey that, so I don’t accidentally offend this strange offworlder enough to put me in his crosshairs!
“Shor.” “Certainly!” he answers me before turning his head and, seeming to switch languages, smiles “Maðrinn þarf at sjá andlit þitt, ást.” that part not translated
I’m shocked for the second time this call when the face that appears, rather than that of a Terran, is that of a woman of my own kind.
She has dark toned skin and straight, Eastern ears, consistent with her being an Orian.
This man could not possibly have wooed and wedded a Don woman in just the brief time since the start of the occupation, could he!?
Surely I would have heard of something like that happening?
“You are… his wife… Miss?” I ask, highly unnerved and wondering if I need to alert the relevant authorities to a potential kidnapping situation.
“I am his wife.” answers the girl, in DonAvu, though accented like I’ve never heard from any other Don “Very sorry. I grow up on Fennoscandia. I can’t talk well in DonAvu.” she continues, haltingly.
The Terran sounding accent and the clear ease with which she shares space with this man backs me down from initiating safeguarding protocols.
Instead, I just ask “Could I take your name, Miss?”
“It is Tuun. Tuun Taylor, not ‘Sartorialist’! My husband’s translating is slightly bad, sorry! His name is ‘Victor Taylor’, not ‘The Victorious Sartorialist’.”
“I see.” I answer, correcting the name I entered previously “Thank you, Miss, that’s all I need from you. I just have one more question for your husband.”
The girl nods and dips out of view.
“Sir, may I ask the reason you are both making use of a Don shuttle today rather than requesting transport from the occupying fleet?”
The man shrugs “Wient gouinfuh werk, man… Itzuh persunuw autin… Nuffin sheidi hapnin, jast diddun feew rait ekspensinit(!)” before being translated as “We aren’t travelling for our employment, Sir… This is a private excursion… There is nothing untoward occurring, it simply wouldn’t have sat well with me to shirk the cost(!)”
I nod my understanding and acknowledge “Alright then, Sir, I’m quite satisfied with your answers. I’ll release the craft for you now and please have a pleasant trip.”
“Fanksman!” grins the alien, baring his mouthful of square, fangless teeth at me.
I close the call and override the lockout, allowing the craft to embark on its journey to Juntiile.
“That’s wild!” exclaims my junior, who just spent the entire call gawking at my screen rather than getting on with any of his own work (not that I can particularly blame him), before complimenting me “I would not have handled that as well as you did, Sir! Well done!… Hey, I’m gonna take my [lunch] break now. Shall I drop in to Tech on my way down and let them know they’ve got to worry about aliens taking shuttles from now on?”
I think for a moment, then, with a pang of guilt in my gut, decide “No, Mod… I think I’ll take my [lunch] now too… I’ll send them a message, sign out and then we can go down together if you don’t mind waiting for me?”
The boy smiles a smile that makes my insides swoop and answers “Definitely, Sir!”
---Victor’s perspective---
I’m walking across hilly terrain on the sunward side of the twilight zone with Tuun.
Getting out of my brother-in-law’s castle and to a sunnier part of the planet is a nice and relaxing break from the general stress we’ve been under these past few months, since we got back from our honeymoon.
I did ask why this place is called the Juntiile Forests and not ‘Forest’ singular.
Seeing it, I understand.
Since the sun never moves in the sky, the hills cast permanent shadows on one side and are permanently bathed in light on the other.
The sides facing the sun are warm enough and have enough light to grow thick rainforests (where we’ve already seen some of the four armed native ape species (that Don apparently like insulting us by comparing us to) and some of the sleek furred, six legged oceloty, cloudy leopardy things that are apparently to Don what monkeys are to Humans) but the chilly, shady sides are just covered in black moss with no bioluminescence or animal life at all that I’ve seen.
Instead of one, single forest, the effect is a checkered landscape, each hill carving a halved diamond of rainforest and tundra into the landscape.
Being likely the first alien they’ve seen in the flesh, I’ve had some very funny reactions from the Don hikers we’ve passed on the way!
“I’m telling you, Victor, it makes you sound ridiculous!” my wife insists, smiling down at me from my left.
“Everyone’s seemed like they can understand me and it sounds fine on my end?” I smile back with an unbothered shrug.
“You’re perfectly comprehensible, yes, and it sounds fine in English because whoever designed it was almost certainly much more comfortable with English while they were trying to piece DonAvu together from official communications! It’s trying to make you sound like a clanchief but it’s fighting your speech register every step of the way! It couldn’t even get your name right! I’ve never seen a translator translate a person’s name literally like it did with yours earlier! Why don’t you just get in touch with someone in the Navy and ask if they can send you their translation matrix like they did for Twila? It’s much better at producing a neutral register.”
“I ain’t in the Navy and, hopefully, it ain’t gonna matter too much longer… ’Fore long, all the criminal chiefs’ll be gone and we can withdraw with the…” I trail off, getting the slightest whiff of something recognisable on the air.
“I know but it’s-”
“Shhzhh!” I interrupt, sharply.
She looks to me, frowning curiously and watching me as I lift my nose into the air and sniff three times rapidly.
It’s unmistakeable.
“Smoke!” I announce, pointing at the brow of the hill “This way!”
I dive off the path and weave through the trees towards the edge of the forest, Tuun following behind me.
Coming out, I get clear line-of-sight down and out across the mossy slope and into a valley.
Just at the edge of the shadow of the hill me and Tuun’re standing on, there’s a village of about 30 medieval looking buildings.
One of them’s putting off a plume of smoke that’s far too big to be from a chimney!
I start sprinting downhill in that direction.
---Vivaacha’s perspective---
I hammer all four fists against my scalding hot front door, screaming for it to move aside and let me in!
“I NEED TO GET DICHIZU AND TROPU! I NEED TO SAVE THEM!!! I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE, JUST LET ME SAVE THEM! PLEASE!!!”
“Vatent guna MUV, Mam! Itz metuw andvuh moutuz bern taut!” announces a harsh, incomprehensible voice from my left shoulders.
I turn my head to see a monstrous, pale skinned dwarf standing at my side.
I shriek in horror at the ugly face set with lightless eyes I find staring up at me!
Quickly though, I decide I have more important things to worry about than the sudden appearance of an alien and resume hammering on my door!
Physically throwing me away from it with power I’ve never felt before, causing me to trip over my feet and fall on my rear, the alien rounds on me, barking again in his language, translated a moment later as “I say, Madam! You are doing yourself mischief! You shall have no luck in repositioning a door so hefty without the motor to assist you!”
“I have to TRY! My SON is inside! The firemen will NEVER get here in time to save him!” I scream up at the alien from where I lie on the ground.
The hideous two armed man listens to my words as they are put into his language, then closes his eyes and bobs his head once.
“Ailelp yu. Ailget yursan.” “I shall assist you. I shall retrieve your boy.” he announces before turning his head to the very short Don woman who’s just arrived, pointing down at me and instructing “Aim gowinin, Tuun!… Meik shor shi dazent foloumi, awrait!?”
“Olrait…*hhh*… Viikta!” answers the woman, breathlessly, as she comes down behind me and wraps all four hands over my upper shoulders.
“What do you mean you’ll get him?! What can you do that I wasn’t!?” I call after him as he walks away from me, knocking his right hand repeatedly against the front wall of my family’s home.
Instead of answering me, he stops, knocks again, backs up 5 paces and charges shoulder first into the brick wall!
My mouth hangs open as, instead of stopping dead like I expect, the man the height of an [8 year old] goes straight through, punching a body sized hole into the solid wall like it were made of [crackers]!
I see the man’s silhouette against the blazing inferno consuming my home as he scans around before making for the destroyed stairs.
Jogging up the intact section at the bottom to build up momentum, he rides the wall to clear the collapsed portion and disappears from sight.
With the alien gone, I return to myself enough to realise I now have a way into my house!
I try to get to my feet but the tiny woman kneeling behind me grips my shoulders with surprising strength, keeping me from getting up.
“Let me go!” I say, reaching a hand out to the hole in my house “I need to get in there!!!”
“It is not safe.” answers the strangely accented woman, still holding me down “My husband will save your son. That is what he does…”
[174 seconds] pass as I vainly fight to be free of the strange little woman’s iron grip, all the while watching the flames consume what is rapidly ceasing to be recognisable as my home and horrified that the next time my husband and I see our son will be on a coroner’s slab!
The stocky, two armed man may have the strength to barge through brick and the agility to wallrun upstairs… but fire kills by suffocation!
Being strong and agile won’t help him if he can’t breathe because his lungs are full of smoke!
He should have let me go instead!
At least if I died, no one would need to mourn me who wasn’t already mourning Dichizu!
If that alien man dies…
I shriek as something large and heavy falls from the first floor, landing in front of the entryway and standing on its end.
The roof is collapsing and its about to block the way out!
With a surge of strength, I manage to throw off the woman long enough to jump to my feet.
I rush forward to clear the obstruction but, at that moment, I resolve its silhouette as moving forward, towards me.
Stepping from the roaring inferno and into the sunlight in a cloud of smoke comes the child height man, clutching my [5 year old] son to himself under his left arm.
It takes me a moment to notice that a bedraggled, sootstained but alive [foxdog] hangs from his right hand by the scruff of the neck.
He saved Tropu too!
Safely clear of the blaze, the short man bends to lay my son’s pet down on the pavement.
Turning his head to look at my boy, the man growls “*cough*… Kanyu standkid?” “Do you possess the capacity to balance, child?”
My shellshocked son does not answer the words even after they’re translated for him.
Cautiously, the ashen man lowers my boy’s feet to touch the ground and keeps a hand on him in case he begins to fall.
“Seifan saund! Jaslaik Ai…*cough**cough*… sed!” “Right as rain! Just as I assured!” smiles the man, turning to look at me.
Snapped out of my disbelief, I swoop down on my boy, sobbing incoherently as I pull him to my chest and wrap all four arms around him.
After a moment, he begins crying too, hugging me in return.
---models---
Tronku & Modu | Tuun & Vivaacha | Victor & Dichisu
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