@puppetmaster13u You called Danny a space whale in the tags of one of this post.
Now what if that was literal?
Hear me out, Danny outlives his friends, parents, sister. Danny becomes a literal whale.
Well, not a literal one because he's a ghost, but he takes the shape one of at the very least. He's just a giant, glowing white whale that looks pretty divine not going to lie.
Danny leaves earth. It wasn't safe for him anymore, what with the GIW and all that as even the ghosts found it not even worth anymore to visit the mortal world.
Except for Desiree and Spectra, but that's besides the point.
But Danny doesn't retreat to the zone, he's always longed for space, but because of his new half humanness he doesn't get believe he could've ever gone because, well. Yea.
But Danny goes fuck it and goes anyway. His form shifts from human to that of a giant whale, and he swims out into the vastness of space.
Years pass, and Danny does start getting bigger as he aged. He explored the vastness of space, marveling at many things, the different planets, the stars, the formations of rock and other things.
Then he encounters someone he never though he would've.
Vlad.
Well, he knew Vlad was left behind in space by his father but he didn't think he would find him again and Vlad seemed... different, from what he remembered.
For one thing, he didn't even know where Vlad began and space ended. He got only see those red eyes that even hinted at it being the man. His body was void black and filled with stars upon stars, all glittering from his body and Vlad barely even seemed to notice him, or if he did, he didn't seem to care at all.
So, Danny took him.
He was both curious and felt a bit bad about what happened to Vlad, even if he didn't know exactly what happened, and he couldn't just leave him there either.
So on his back Vlad went, and his travels continued.
It seemed to be the correct decision, really, because slowly overtime Vlad seemed to be regaining his awareness. Then slowly, tentatively, started to speak with him through ghost speak.
Vlad only seemed to vaguely remember what he was before space. He remembered hating a man, loving a woman, wanting a son, loneliness and a boy with white hair and toxic green eyes.
Even though Vlad was his former enemy, his nemesis, and someone who took the world hostage.
He couldn't help but feel pity for him.
Then their travels continued.
Years pass unnoticed, when in space, with Danny slowly getting bigger and bigger as the two travel throughout. They've come into contact with various civilizations, some hostile, some peaceful, some neutral.
The hostile ones never lasted long, even if Danny never lifted a flipper to do anything most of the time, Vlad made sure of it.
They came at went as they pleased, and Danny believes that they've gained a bit of a reputations over their adventures, but neither he nor Vlad knew exactly what they said. It did prove useful in some cases, however.
A few more years, and Danny feels that this system is vaguely familiar. Which happens sometimes, considering he's been travelling for so long. He then finds out why it was so familiar.
He came across Earth and, oh. When was the Earth so small?
Well, not small really, but when was he just only a bit smaller than it?
Did it shrink when he was away? Or did he just grow?
That doesn't matter though. What does, is the fact that currently seemed to be an invasion going on, on his home planet thank you very much. He did not like the fact that there was a massive fleet parked right outside his home.
So he spoke to Vlad, expressed his displeasure, Vlad responded back knowingly and went off to make the source of his displeasure disappear. That doesn't Danny was idle either, the fleet was big and, well.
It's been a while since he's stretched himself in a fight.
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Playing Translation Telephone
“Hi,” I said as the door slid open. “Captain Sunlight wants to know how your translations are going.”
Coals sighed. “They’re going. This one’s a mess.” He shook his lizardy head, brick-red scales dull in the light by the doorway. That part of the translation suite was always dim because Trrili liked looming in the shadows there.
But today she was at the workstation in the back, surrounded by glowing screens and a cloud of irritated hisses. “I think we missed a language,” she announced, snapping her pincher arms and angling her antennae into a scowl.
“What, really?” Coals asked. He ran a hand over his head, scales clicking quietly. “How many is that now?”
“Sixssss,” Trrili hissed.
Coals grumbled something I didn’t catch, and walked back over to the workstation.
Curious, I followed and let the door shut behind me. “What kind of project is this one?”
“Old records of a multi-species colonizing effort,” Coals said from his floating chair with the tail hole. “The originals are lost, and all that’s left is this jumble that’s been translated through a succession of languages, none of which they bothered to write down. And they want us to figure out what the originals actually meant.”
“Sounds tricky,” I said. Each of the screens held writing, most in languages I didn’t recognize. Some were notes in the trade language we all spoke, and I was amused to see how much swearing was in Trrili’s notes.
“It is very tricky,” Trrili agreed, jabbing a little wrist finger at the screen in the middle. “The grammar doesn’t match the words, and the idioms are an utter tar hole. It’s anyone’s guess what culture came up with some of these details.”
“I’m pretty sure the bit about rocks is a Strongarm saying,” Coals said. “It makes more sense than a Frillian interpretation.”
“Yes, fine, probably,” Trrili said with an irritated wave of her pinchers. “I’m stuck at this part that goes off on a tangent about the family arrangements of the wildlife. It’s clearly significant, and at least one layer of translation wanted to make sure the full interpretation was spelled out, but that just makes it more confusing.”
“How so?” I asked. I’d gotten the job on this ship because of my animal-care knowledge, so maybe I could offer some insights. I peered at the screen.
“This part,” Trrili said, “Is a recounting of a colonist’s experience in retrieving goods from a shuttle that crashed in a lake. The water creatures seem to have complex social arrangements, and somehow that relates to their behavior toward this particular colonist.” She folded her pinchers and leaned back, glaring at the ancient diary. “Of course this had to be written by someone disinclined to speaking clearly.”
“What kind of behavior is it?” I asked. “Are we talking mating advances, or aggressively protecting the young, or—?”
“Aggressive,” Trrili said immediately. “This word means mouth, possibly teeth specifically, and in the grammatical arrangement that it’s currently configured into, it has to be saying that the thing bit the colonist.”
Coals flipped through documents on another screen. “Do we know what the official name for the creature is?”
Trrili hissed. “Not even close. That’s what this whole tangent is: an attempt at describing it. I’d love to know if it was the original colonist or someone later who decided it would be helpful to tell us that this creature’s ancestors rejected social bonds.”
“Rejected how?” I asked.
Coals brought up another document. “I’ve got something on the legal system of the original colony. Sounds like there were multiple types of family arrangements at play. Possibly this colonist was just musing on a similarity to their own life.”
Trrili hissed. “How does that help us? I don’t see any accounts of this person’s family life, or even their species. We have no way to know if their own parents performed the socially-accepted rituals or not.”
“Wait,” I said. “Is this about the animal’s parents not doing a certain ritual? Like marriage? Is the colonist calling the fish a bastard?”
Both of my alien coworkers looked at me. Coals asked slowly, “That’s an insult in human circles, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
Trrili threw her pinchers skyward and stalked away from the workstation. “Of course it is. You people are sentimental about everything, including reproduction. This would have been so much simpler if we’d known from the start that there was a human layer to this.”
“So what does it say?” I asked. “The colonist went into the lake to help with the crash, and got bitten by a bastard fish?”
Trrili was walking in circles hissing, so Coals scooted in front of the center screen. “Going by what we’ve figured out so far,” he said, “The colonist was trying to move salvage from the shuttle. Walking through shallow water. The water creatures were of many bright colors — it goes into detail about that, comparing them to refractive prisms and seaspray — but they kept their distance as long as the colonist kept moving. Pretty sure this part says one came in for a bite as soon as the colonist stood still. And that’s where we go off on an elaborate description of the creature’s family arrangements.”
I grinned. “‘Dear diary, today I waded through a lake and got bit by a rainbow bastard fish. Terrible experience; wouldn’t recommend.’”
Coals looked closer. “It does actually say something like that afterward,” he admitted. “There’s a suggestion that the next person to enter the water wear protective clothing.”
Over Trrili’s aggravated hissing, I said, “That colonist might have been a human.”
“Might indeed,” Coals said. He scrolled up through a page of notes. “That could actually shed some light on a couple other spots, now that you mention it.”
Trrili appeared beside us. “Bring up the part about the colony leader mating with someone’s mother.”
I laughed. “I can tell you right now that that’s an insult. The colonist is likely complaining about the boss, not describing something that actually happened.”
Coals looked at Trrili. “Told you we need an insult chart.”
Trrili tilted her head dramatically. “That’s so much work!”
“So’s this,” Coals pointed out. “How about you take another look at what we’ve got so far here, and I’ll start a list of common human insults.”
Trrili took a position in front of the screens, hissing quietly.
“I’ll be happy to help,” I said to Coals. “My people are very creative on that front.”
“So I gather,” Coals said. He scooted over to me, digital notepad at the ready. “And not one of those insults revolves around eggs. Mindblowing.”
“Well,” I said with a tip of my head. “There is the thing about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. That’s kind of an insult.”
“What?” Coals said. “Never mind. I can tell this is going to be a long list.”
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!
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