Richard's Animorphs Forum

With her perceptions in a mix down twenty lightyears through the sticks, Pluck turned toward the only thing that grabbed her attention: the sign with an unfamiliar but still legible text on it. Much like with Sylvan, she knew not hew she understood what the sign read, but her mind effortlessly knew what the four letters were. Whatever "GESB" was supposed to mean, though, was a mystery to her, as well as how she found herself at the edge of a forest with nothing else in view but this sign and building. She tried to re-trace her steps, but the last thing she remembered was falling asleep in Pahkidoo, and this certainly didn't look like Pahkidoo.

"Indigo?" Pluck didn't quite know why she called Indigo's name. There was no good reason Indigo would be here,, but she figured that if there was anyone that could explain what was happening, it would be them. Of course, there was no response from Indigo, nor from anybody else. The silence made Pluck uncomfortable, so she hurried toward the only point of interest, that being the building with the sign in front of it. The ground made an odd sound under her claws as she walked quickly toward the building, and it certainly didn't feel like normal earth.

The closer she got to the building, the more it looked like the tavern she visited in Spinarum. It probably looked like most other taverns, in fact, but the Kenku had a rather small frame of reference. She steps inside, probably being the shortest patron the GESB had seen in quite a long time. She scans the taproom, which is empty except for the ever-present bartender. Her claws tapped across the wooden floor as she made her way toward the bar and climbed onto a stool, her feet dangling quite some distance from the ground.

For a moment, she wasn't sure what to do. Should she ask where she is? Would that make her look foolish, for being in a place without even knowing where it is? Pluck felt a little foolish, if only because that kept happening to her, and she didn't know why. Self-consciously, she adjusted her hat, giving the bleached feather sticking out of it a reassuring stroke. She didn't want anyone to think of her as a fool, so she kept that thought to herself.

Eventually, she decided that she should just order a drink. That is, after all, what is done in taverns. But then she realized that she didn't know what to ask for. The blackberry wine she tried in Spinarum was good, but it was strong, or at least, it was for Pluck, and Norren had told her not to have any more. Norren had also said that she can maybe try some again another night, but he wasn't here, and the headache Pluck had the day after drinking the wine told her that it would be a good idea to wait until he was around again.

However, the blackberry wine gave Pluck an idea. She made eye contact with the bartender, who was already expectantly looking at her. "Excuse me," she started, her voice voice soft and melodious, "do you have blackberry juice?" The bartender nodded, and Pluck was satisfied with her decision a minute later when he handed her a glass of her drink. Her legs swung absentmindedly underneath her as she occasionally dipped her beak in the glass, clearly enjoying the drink, until a noise outside grabbed her attention. She swung around and saw... something fly off into the sky outside the tavern. It was like nothing she had ever seen before, at least, that she could remember. All but forgetting her drink, she hopped up from her seat and hurried toward the door to get a better look, bumping into the waist of human that was entering the building.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said. Andrew was face-to-face with what appeared to be a crow-person - or, he would be face-to-face, if she wasn't shorter than four feet tall. She wore an ostentatious purple outfit, complete with a feathered hat, and a rapier sheathed at her side. "Did you see that outside? What was that!?"

In a remote corner of the galaxy, removed from the usual hustle and bustle of interstellar trade and activity, there is a star. A thousand thousand government registers, guild maps, and a million more journals, personal messages, and navigational reference points call it by different names.

For the small colony of disparate stellar strays, castaways, exiles, and oddballs who call the system home, it is simply called referred to by a mangled remembrance of a long-dead pidgin trade language, itself calling back to a poorly pronounced title for the star used by a long-fallen empire which simply referred to a property deed which had fallen out of registry due to inactivity. In the trade lingua of the current era, this jumble of sounds was crudely sounded out as Estelore.

An unremarkable system with the typical assortment of bodies whizzing around its stellar top. A bloated layer of gas giants in a far orbit, with a handful of rocky smaller worlds whizzing about in a tighter circulation. Of particular note, and one of the few reasons it was ever sought out other than the solitude, was a micro blackhole zipping about in a remarkably close orbit to the sun itself with a diameter of just a meter. A perfect, smugly silent singularity which gave no answers on how it came to be, or why it did not dissolve from Hawking Radiation. Thousands of years of study by thousands of races had yet to yield anything, so it was for the most left alone now. Just a strange oddity that dragged cultists, desperate or bored scientists, mystics, and general weirdos to it to pry and beg for answers not forthcoming.

Travel a layer deeper. The second planetary orbit is occupied by a distinctly uninteresting blob of rock and primitive hydrocarbons. No one cares about poor, boring Trasente.

A few people do care about its moon. A habitable rock, with a broad belt stretching across its equator. A belt with warmth, complex life, the sweet song of possibility ringing in its air.

There are miscellaneous settlements sprinkled across it. People from various species, various walks of life, seeking their own meaning and fulfillment the best they can.

On a particularly quiet peninsula, near a cliffside which juts out over the smooth sea in this land of perpetual summer, is the bar. A weatherworn sign outsign outlines the symbols 'GESB'. Patrons argue over what it used to mean, but all agree its important it stays there.

The bar is a worn, but cared of, simple log building. A few landing pads for spacecraft ring it, scarred by centuries of thrusters and repulsors. A small patio with sunbleached chairs and tables sits outside. Within, there is nothing remarkable. A wooden interior with a score and ten tables with battered chairs in various states of squeakiness and wobble. Grafitti and marks in a hundred languages are carved across every surface of the fixtures, the walls, even the floor.

In contrast, the bar itself is polished and cared for. Behind its smooth surface, a wealth of bottles spanning the galaxy, always fully stocked even though no one ever see's deliveries being made. Behind the scenes is a kitchen which is remarkably able to do a pretty good job at producing most dishes in the galaxy - not the best, but pretty good.

As far as any patrons past or present could remember, the bar had always been there. A place to laugh. To meet. To cry. To fight. To scream and rage. To smile and reminisce. To pass out drunk in the corner. To sit alone, or together. Memory and life is embedded the fibers of the ancient wood of the place, that wood which never seems to decay no matter its age. Despite its remoteness, it always manages to attract just enough people to stay interesting.

Wow there's ANOTHER name I've not heard for a long time.

This is gloriously petty.   My hat's off to you.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Hah!