Date Point: 14Y 4D AV
Peterson Residence, Folctha, Cimbrean
Gillian lay in bed, listening to the sound of the nightly rain overhead, drumming on the roof. It was her favorite part of living in Folctha, and as she did every night, she internally composed thanks to whatever powers-that-were had inspired her parents to move here from Tucson, Arizona. She’d been sorry to leave her friends, and the rules here were different – it was a whole different world, after all – but there had been new friends waiting here, and most of the rules weren’t so hard to follow.
She just couldn’t always remember them. She did try, and she was getting better about it, but some of the things here were just weird. Papa and Mama had explained some of them, like the one about having to go to the gym all the time, but she’d been left to make sense of some of the other stuff on her own. Like not having a car, or really needing a car.
She shook her head, and tried to go back to sleep. Normally going to sleep and staying that way was much easier, with the sound of the rain on the roof a constant comforting white noise that blanked out the sometimes jarring noises in the city outside. Tonight, she was just…restless, and couldn’t get comfortable, and she didn’t know why.
She started to drift back off, random thoughts lining up and assembling themselves into some sort of mildly-coherent order for embarkation onto the seas of dreams. A sudden splashing of heavy booted feet in puddles outside at the street, followed by a rapid thumpthumpthump at the front door, jerked her back awake, and she lay wide-eyed in the darkness, listening as her father hustled to the front door. Unable to resist seeing what was going on, as nothing like this had ever happened before here, she sneaked on soft feet out of bed, quietly opening her bedroom door and peeking under the railing at the living room and front door below.
Outside, the flashing of blue and white lights starkly illuminated the figure at the door from behind, but Gillian had no trouble recognizing Constable Mike, a friend of Mama’s from work. Where’s Mama?
“Hey, Mike, what’s going on?” Papa asked, holding up one hand to shade his eyes from the piercing glare outside.
“Sorry to disturb you, Samuel. Nothing’s wrong, Clara’s fine, by the way, she’s just on the other side of town tonight and this area’s mine tonight.” Her father relaxed, a sudden tension she hadn’t realized was in his shoulders disappearing.”Actually, she’s doing the same thing I am right now. We all are. Chief Ares has asked us all to reach out to families we know and trust as a first point-of-contact for emergency quartering.”
“Quartering of…?”
“Gaoian kids, man. The Commune here in town is way too small, there are no facilities set up, and they’re gating through Females and cubs as fast as the generators can cycle. Up at the base, the whole HEAT team is gone on mission….shit has gone totally sideways, man. We’re hearing that things haven’t gone well for the Navy, and they’ve lost a ton of ships.”
“Oh, God….” Papa had his hand over his mouth. “What do you need from us?”
“We need you to take one or two cubs in. No idea how long it’ll be, no idea how many, no idea if we’ll ask for you to take more…no way of knowing, either. The Commune is full, the hall of the Thing up on the hill is full, the Interfaith Center is full, and we’re strapped with emergency tents and anything else we can scrounge. We’re trying to find placement for as many as we can, and they just keep comin’.”
Gillian was moving before she even thought about it, and was down the stairs and by Papa’s side, hopping from one foot to another. “We can take them! They can have my room!” she blurted in a rush. “I don’t mind sharing!” Papa put a hand on her head.
“Mostly what I was going to say, but I’m glad you’re okay with this too, Peanut,” he said. “I don’t think we have space for more than one or two, Mike, but bring them. I’m sure Clara will feel the same way.”
Constable Mike nodded once. “I’ll be back as soon as I finish this block, Samuel. Gimme about half an hour.”
“We’ll be ready. Thanks, Mike,” Papa said, closing the door. “Peanut, how about you go and put the kettle on with milk? I think we’re going to start with food and hot chocolate.” Gillian squeaked in excitement, and ran for the kitchen, flipping lights on, bouncing almost like a kangaroo the last few steps, and not hearing her father’s muttered sigh of frustration about the likelihood of getting her back into bed any time soon.
This was something Gillian had practiced, although it was usually a precursor to a movie and then bedtime on nights when Mama had to work and she was allowed to stay up with Papa, and usually he made popcorn or got out crackers or something. She bustled around, getting the milk out (and not spilling a drop, which she’d worked on), filling the kettle up, plugging it in, and then turning it on. She put the milk back in the stasis-fridge, and realized Papa was deep in thought with one hand at his chin.
“What are we going to have for snacks?” she asked. He blinked, and actually looked at her rather than into some internal space.
“Well, I’ve heard that Gaoians like carrots, and we just so happen to have that bag of them that you & your mother pulled out of the greenhouse last week,” he said. “Other than that….I think I’m gonna make some nuggets for you and our guest. Or guests. Lemme have the kitchen, here, Peanut. I’m going to have to make a mess.”
“I wanna finish…” she started.
“…making the hot chocolate, I know, kiddo. I won’t do that for you, you get to finish that, but I’m gonna need elbow room without worrying about accidentally bonking you in the head.” He punctuated that with a poke in her forehead, grinning.
“You do, and I’ll kick you in the butt,” she said, and stuck her tongue out at him. She moved, anyway, as far as the end of the counter which was technically out of the kitchen.
“Gillian,” her father said after a moment, with his hands busily taking things out of the cabinets. This was probably going to be a Serious Discussion, she realized. That tone and the use of her first name, was always the lead-in to a Serious Discussion In Which You Aren’t In Trouble, But We Need To Talk About This. “I think it’s important you understand what is going on, before our guest gets here.” She nodded, and pulled a stool around from the other side of the counter to sit, while she waited for the milk to finish heating.
“Something very bad has happened to the Gaoians. There’s a lot I don’t know, because the military isn’t talking about it, even to the police, but still, I’ve heard things. Scary things, like real end-of-the-world kinds of things. Thousands of Gaoians dead, maybe hundreds of thousands dead. Our own Navy fighting off the Hunters. Humans fighting Gaoians. Gaoians fighting each other. It’s a mess, and nobody can say exactly how bad it is.” He looked her in the eye and paused in his preparations. “It’s important that you understand that whoever comes here will have been in the middle of it, and while they may have seen it, may not understand any more than we do what has happened or what is going on. Okay?”
“Okay, Papa,” Gillian said, nodding.
“I don’t want you to ask them any questions about it. If they want to talk, you can listen, but you let them decide when it’s a good time to talk. They haven’t said, but I think the reason that they’re evacuating Gaoian Females and cubs first is that the bad guys, whoever, they are, may have been trying to kill them first, before anyone else.” He went back to preparing the food. “You know the story you read last summer, about the girl hiding during World War Two in the attic?” She nodded. “That kind of thing is what I’m talking about. Someone is trying to kill all of the Gaoians, I think. Or maybe the Hunters are trying to eat them all. I don’t know. So it’s going to be important that if our guests want to talk about it, they can, and if they simply need to be here and be safe, then they can do that too. Understand?”
Gillian nodded again solemnly. “Yes, Papa.” Reading the Diary of Anne Frank the previous summer had been an eye-opening experience. They hadn’t really covered the second World War at school yet, but one of her friends from back home in Tuscon had sent her an email about it, saying it was, “amazing”, and she had read it cover to cover. Her parents hadn’t realized at first what she was reading until she came to them with some questions about the content, and that had resulted in several serious discussions much like this one. For the first time, she’d felt a clear sense of a larger world outside her front door, in which the bad things that happened weren’t just in stories.
Papa worked busily with knife, bowl, and spoons cutting and mixing things, depositing a series of breaded chicken breast chunks onto an awaiting baking sheet. The kettle dinged, announcing its readiness, and Gillian wended her way around Papa to a small area of the counter he’d left clear for her to work. She poured the now-steaming milk into the pot they used for hot chocolate, mixed in the powder and stirred vigorously. The warm smooth scent of chocolate filled the kitchen, and she stuck it in the “hot” side of the stasis fridge to stay that way until their guests arrived. Papa was just putting the nuggets into the oven, when there was a much more subdued knock at the door.
At the door, standing on their porch out of the downpour, was Constable Mike again, this time with a small, utterly bedraggled-looking Gaoian covered in a camouflaged poncho with wide frightened eyes. Constable Mike rested a reassuring hand on the newcomer’s shoulder lightly, and kneeled down next to…her, Gillian realized. It…she…was a girl cub. She’s smaller than me. I wonder how old she is.
“Okay, Liina,” Constable Mike said. “These are the people I was telling you about. I know this is pretty scary, but they’ll take good care of you. This is Samuel,” he gestured to Papa, “…and Gillian, and I know Gillian is really excited to meet you. You’re safe now, okay?” The little cub duck-nodded, and just stood there, shivering. Constable Mike stood back up.
“Samuel, she’s going to need a lot of support. An Airborne team found her late this morning, and got her to the evac point. She hasn’t even talked to any of the Mothers yet. You…uh..,” he trailed off, and then knelt again. “Liina, one thing they’re going to have to do is help you with a bath, and get the knots, dirt, and soot out of your fur. I know you are used to dust baths, but that isn’t going to get you clean enough, okay? It’s going to have to be water, like what humans use.” He gave Papa the sort of look that adults used when they didn’t want to say things in front of kids, which Gillian found really annoying.
Constable Mike stood and handed Papa a bag. “Here are some of the things they were able to send with. It ain’t much, but it’s what we have.”
“Thanks, Mike. Clara knows about this?”
“Oh yeah. She wanted to trade places with me when we heard what we were doin’ but the Chief said no, this was a good opportunity to build ‘community relations on a non-peer basis’.” He mimicked Chief Ares’ mild Spanish accent and gravelly delivery perfectly, and the two men chuckled. Constable Mike bent back down.
“Liina, do you need anything else from me tonight?” The little Gaoian shook her head wordlessly, her ears back. He took a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. “You can call me, at any time, for anything you need. Gilian’s mother is also a constable like me, and you can talk to her about anything, too. I’m gonna stop talking now, and let you get in outta the rain, okay? Go ahead.”
Gillian unconsciously bounced on her toes, careful to smile with her lips closed. She remembered most other species saw smiling as a ‘threat display’, which was just weird. Whoever heard of being threatened by smiling? Smiling was her favorite. She moved out of the doorway, and Liina came in. Papa shut the door behind her, and knelt to speak to her.
“We’re really glad you’re here, Liina. I can tell you’re cold. How about we help you get clean and warm, and then have something to eat?” His voice was kind. Liina just nodded a little, hesitantly. “Like the constable said, we don’t use dust baths, and we’ll have to figure out something for you if you’re here long…but it looks like your fur is pretty matted right now. Gillian, honey, go start the shower. Not too hot.”
“Okay!” Gillian, glad to have something to do, dashed back upstairs taking them two at a time. Papa led their guest up the stairs at a more sedate pace, continuing to talk to her reassuringly. Gillian yanked the faucet control on, careful to make sure the water wasn’t too hot like Papa had said. She cast around for the next step, and with a flash of inspiration, put the hair trap on the drain and got several big fluffy towels out to set on the counter.
The piteous sight of an already thoroughly soaked Gaoian, fur encrusted with mud, ash, and only God knew what else silenced her enthusiasm, when Liina took off the poncho. Underneath, parts of her fur were scorched and burnt, and most of the fur at the end of her little tail was actually missing. One ear had a scabbed-over notch in it from something, and she had a hastily applied bandage over her upper arm on one side. The tracks she left behind her were sooty and dark.
“All right. Let’s get you into the water,” Papa said soothingly. “You let me know if it’s too hot or cold, okay?” He surreptitiously tested it with one hand. “Honey, hand me the tube of…good girl, thank you,” as she handed him a bottle of something that was obviously a fur shampoo of some kind. He massaged a foamy handful of it into the fur on her head behind her ears, carefully working his way down. Some of the water went into one ear, and she sneezed suddenly, shaking her head violently to expel the water.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I was trying to avoid that,” Papa said. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” Liina said quietly, speaking for the first time. Her voice was high and piping, and Gillian realized that she was wearing a translator on a thong around her neck. Papa continued working, just nodding in acknowledgement. The water going down the drain was soapy, and filthy black. The hair trap filled quickly, and Gillian moved to empty it with one flick of the wrist into a waiting garbage can, replacing it before much fur could build up in the unprotected drain. Papa nodded at her as he continued to talk quietly. Overhead, the bathroom fan hummed quietly.
Papa’s watch buzzed suddenly. “Oh. The nuggets – Gillian, go take them out of the oven for me and turn the oven off, please.”
“Okay,” she replied, and darted off to the kitchen. She was very careful to put on the oven mitts before opening the oven as Mama had shown her, and set the nuggets on top of the stove to cool off, then thought about it and put them in the ‘hot’ stasis cabinet with the hot chocolate instead. She shut the oven door and turned the oven off with an agreeable boop, then ran back upstairs again. Papa was using the shower wand attachment to apply water directly to Liina’s back, rinsing dark soapy water out.
“This may take a second pass with the shampoo, I’m afraid honey,” Papa said. “Your fur isn’t as long as I thought it was, but it’s pretty matted in a few places.”
“The water feels good,” Liina said. The frightened tilt to her ears had subsided, although the distant stare in her eyes remained.
“That’s good. We’ll get you nice and clean, then dry your fur out, and get some hot food in you. You’re safe with us.” Papa said. “Okay. Let’s have a look at what’s under that bandage.” He gently unwound the binding – it was obviously something of Gaoian make, because it adhered to the fur and skin beneath it to provide protection, but came readily off when tugged at in the right way without sticking to the fur or the wound. Beneath, a nasty looking jagged gash marred her fur, although it appeared to have been competently cleaned already and sealed up with some kind of battlefield dressing. “Okay, I don’t think I’m going to touch that, but I’m going to clean around it,” Papa reflected. His touch was gentle and a little tentative, trying to make sure that he wasn’t disturbing the dressing, Gillian realized.
Papa worked his way down Liina’s arms to her fingers, and had her extend her claws so that he could get them clean as well, one by one. He worked his way further down Liina’s torso, to her legs and tail and carefully, patiently, washed out the knotted mats of tangled fur and filth. Gillian tried not to hop back and forth, because she knew that wasn’t going to help, and settled for wiggling her toes instead. It seemed to help.
Eventually, Liina was clean, and the shampoo had been completely washed out of her fur. Clouds of water vapor wafted out of the bathroom, the whole operation having taken the better part of an hour. Papa shut the water off finally, and grabbed the first towel on top, drying her from the top down. Her undercoat held a surprising amount of water, Gillian realized, and was glad that she’d thought to put several towels out instead of just one. Washing a Gaoian was a complicated business. She had a sudden thought, and rummaged around in the cabinet to find her mother’s hair dryer. Mama rarely used it anymore, having cut her hair short when she took a job with Folctha Colony’s constabulary, but she’d never gotten rid of it.
“Here, Papa, this should help,” she said, plugging it in. Papa gave her a grateful look, as he set down the first towel and picked up a second one to continue.
“Oh, good thinking, Peanut, I’d forgotten your mother even had that.” Liina looked up, interested for the first time.
“What is it?” she asked in her high voice.
“Look! I’ll show you!” Suiting words to actions, Gillian grasped it the way her mother always had, and flicked the switch on, which unfortunately blasted Papa right in the face with a gust of immediately hot air.
“Blarg!!” he said, jerking his head to the side and out of the way. Gillian giggled, and switched it off. Papa reached over and took it from her by the handle. “I’d forgotten how loud this thing is,” he grumbled. “Liina, your hearing is probably better than ours. This isn’t going to hurt your ears, is it?” She shook her head, a lively tilt to her ears for the first time since she’d arrived.
“Okay, then. This should make things go a little faster.” He set the towel down and began working with a wide toothed comb and the hair dryer. One by one, tangles came out with a minimum of startled yelps. All too soon, a much…poofier… Gaoian stood in front of them, looking considerably more alive than she had.
“Better?” Papa leaned back finally, and appraised his results.
“Thank you,” Liina said. “Yes.” She shook her head side to side. “There’s still some water in my ear, but yes. Much better.”
“Okay. Lets get some food in you two, and then it’s definitely time for bed.” Gillian forgot she was trying not to bounce, and began jumping up and down.
“Food! Papa made nuggets, and I made you hot chocolate, and have you ever had nuggets with barbecue sauce, because it’s the best thing ever, and we have carrots, because I heard Gaoians like carrots, come on, come on, come on!!” With that stream of consciousness, she took Liina’s hand/paw and led down the stairs at a dash, chattering the whole way. Samuel let the girls go, figuring Gillian could get everything back out, and looking around ruefully realized that some cleaning of his now-filthy bathroom before Clara got home in the morning was definitely in order. He sighed and got to work.
Downstairs, a still-subdued Liina and a very excited Gillian got to the kitchen. Gillian was still talking and hardly let her guest get a word in edgewise, telling her mid-stream to, “Sit at the table, k, and I’ll bring everything over and what kind of barbecue sauce do you like, you never said…” Everything came flying out of the stasis cabinet and was set on the stove where it steamed slightly, still hot. Gillian fetched a spatula and scooped up a handful of the breaded chicken morsels onto two plates, poured two mugs of hot chocolate, and hunted down the marshmallows.
“I forgot to even ask, do you like marshmallows in your hot chocolate?” she paused. On some level, she was aware that her guest hadn’t said anything, and thought for a moment. “Oh. You haven’t said anything. I’m doing all the talking. I do that sometimes, Mama says I need to spend more time breathing and less time…” She took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“I’ve never had…hot chocolate. Or barbecue sauce. Or…whatever these are,” Liina said, poking one of them with a claw. They certainly smelled good, and she suddenly realized how hungry she actually was. “What are carrots?” She impaled one of the …nugget… things on one claw and took a cautious bite, then abandoned caution and devoured it. It was hot, and juicy, dense meat in a way she’d never had before, almost like naxas meat but not as chewy. Gillian plopped down the mugs of hot chocolate and set some marshmallows down next to her mug.
“Here. You can try it for yourself and see if you like ‘em. I say hot chocolate isn’t really hot chocolate without marshmallows, but my friend Cindy doesn’t like them. She says they remind her of eyeballs. Not that I’ve ever had eyeballs to eat, but I don’t think she’s right.” She pushed a little bowl of dark red gooey sauce out between them and dunked a nugget into it. “Mmmmm, now that’s good.”
Liina took an experimental sniff of the sauce and recoiled. “That smells like being punched in the face,” she grimaced. “Way too much. I like the nuggets though. Your Father is a good cook.” She looked down. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
“Whaddya mean? Your father doesn’t cook?” Gillian asked.
“Oh, I’m sure some Fathers do,” Liina replied. “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never really met any, except for the Stonebacks that took me from the human soldiers that found me, I guess.” Her eyes turned dark and hooded again, and her ears folded back.
Gillian realized this line of conversation was one of the things Papa had said before that they shouldn’t do, and showing an unusual amount of restraint, changed the subject. “You should have some hot chocolate. That makes everything better.” She pointed at the steaming mug.
Liina shook herself out of her reverie, and regarded the mug. She picked it up by the handle, and put her other paw on the other side of the mug unconsciously, feeling the warmth through paws that hadn’t been warm enough in days. She sniffed, the warm scent of the chocolate clearing the last smell of the sauce stuff out of her nose. It smelled good. Really good. She took a pull of it, letting it cool off first a little, and her ears went up in shock.
“That…is the best thing ever,” she said, gulping it down and finishing her mug nearly all at once. “Is there more?”
Gillian giggled and went to get the pot out, pouring enough to fill Liina’s mug up nearly all the way. “Sure. Here you go.”
Liina drank her second mug more slowly, eating the rest of her nuggets. They both finished just as Papa came down the stairs.
“Liina, how do you usually sleep?” he asked. “Do Gaoians use beds, or…? I want to make sure you’re comfortable, even though Gillian has offered to give you her bed.”
“I’d prefer just a nest of pillows or something on the floor,” Liina said. “We don’t really do beds like you do.”
“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll make up a little pile of something on Gillian’s floor, and you set it up however you like. Sound good?” he asked kindly.
“Yes, Father,” she said automatically. Papa’s eyebrows went up.
“‘Father’…is a title, not necessarily family, in your language, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure what else to call you,” Liina replied.
“If that makes you comfortable, that’s fine,” he said. “I’ll be back down in a moment, you girls finish up eating and put your dishes in the sink for me, please.” With that, he disappeared upstairs into Gillian’s bedroom, and they could hear him moving things around.
Gillian yawned, the excitement of things starting to wear off and her age reasserting itself. Somewhat to her surprise, Liina yawned immediately after she did, and they shared a look. Gillian showed her where the sink was, and having cleaned up, they went upstairs. Gillian’s room had been moved around a little, her big chair in the corner having been moved out of the room and into the play room next door. A veritable mountain of pillows sat in its place, with a blanket over the top like a concealing mantle of snow over the Matterhorn.
“Okay, you two. Into bed, time to sleep now. Tomorrow is another big day, and we will have plenty to do,” Papa said from behind them. Gillian bounded into bed and yanked her sheets and the heavy blanket back up over the top of her with a contented wordless sigh. Liina pushed her way into the pillows, causing a minor avalanche before getting things suited to her liking, and turned herself around like a cat several times before finally curling up in a ball with her tail across her face. Papa shut the door quietly, leaving only the few fairy-lights overhead dimly illuminating Gillian’s room.
They laid there for perhaps five minutes before Liina spoke quietly into the dark.
“Gillian?”
“mmm….yeah?”
“Can…can I come up there with you?”
“Sure. Let me scoot over.” The padding of soft paws followed, and Liina crawled up onto the bed.
“Wow. Your bed is …really hard?” she said, perplexed.
“Oh. Papa got me a weighted blanket. It helps me sleep, it’s like a big hug. It’s got weights sewn into the whole thing, here feel it!”
“Do…do all humans need to sleep under crushing weight?” Liina asked. “That seems really uncomfortable, I don’t think I could breathe with that on me.”
“I don’t know anybody else with one. It just feels good to me,” Gillian said. “Papa says I’m hyperactive, and this helps me block out stuff that keeps me from sleeping.”
Liina curled up in the corner at her feet. “I’ll sleep right here, I think.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Good night.”