Richard's Animorphs Forum

"Until recently I'd have agreed. On the numbers in names thing, I mean." Sam explained, keeping eyes on the distractingly bird-like bird critter as it ****ed and bobbed its head. Like a pigeon. she thought. "Turns out things are a little more, diverse in the human-verse than I figured."

And then things took a weirder turn.

<Brain control, little creature. Wait, isn't this like that Star Trek movie dad kept rewatching? Where Kirk was screaming 'KHAAAAN'?> Sam pondered.

<Is that a question to me?> Cas said.

<It was an observation, jeez. But you ever heard of a Yeerk, oh resident alien?>

<You are from earth, you are then familiar with every human culture?>

Sam deferred quietly. She nodded tactly towards Dekket. "Well, I guess we learn something new everyday. Pretty big galaxy ainnit?" The request she almost missed from the bird-creature -Pluck- snapped to mind. She instinctively offered a hand towards it, before it clicked that the gesture might not be understandable or reciprocal. "Samantha-Lee Muriwaya. Former-former resident of earth, most recently former child soldier for someone who's definitely in the top running for galaxy's most raging dick head on a truly awful, no-good very bad place called Casanaly."

"I got here about.. I want to say, a day or two ago? Honestly its a little fuzzy. I got dropped off here by someone who I am reasonably sure is coming back, but had to take care of a few things."

Surprised, Pluck turned her head toward the other person who had just spoken up. Odd, she hadn't noticed anybody other than the bartender when she walked in. She ****ed her head at the woman, a very birdlike motion. "Mhm," she mumbled, righting her head and nodding, but still unable to break eye contact with the woman. Pluck wasn't trying to stare her down, but she was just so distracted by her own confusion. Something was off, it had to be. She had just appeared at this tavern with no knowledge of how she'd gotten there, other people were seemingly appearing out of nowhere, and nobody else had ever been here either.

Suddenly, she had remembered something - a brief memory from the night with the blackberry wine, when she had met Lady Greta. Much of the night was a blur; not just because of the wine, but also because of her encounter the next day with the witch, the werewolf, and the forest full of bleeding trees that kidnapped children. But now, one moment came back to her clear as day. When she first saw Lady Greta's armor, its shine was so enthralling that she just couldn't stop looking at it, and Norren told her that it was bad etiquette to stare. Recalling this, Pluck realized that she was still looking at the stranger, and slightly embarrassed, turned to take another beakful of her drink.

"Nice to meet you too, Dekket Eight-Five-Eight," she said, turning back to the human that had accompanied her back to the bar. "That's a funny name. I've met Humans, but not with numbers in their names." There was an innocence in her voice that makes it clear that this comment is not meant to insult, but is simply an observation. "Don't think I've met anybody with numbers in their name. People who aren't Kenku can't pronounce my name though, so that's just why I say it's Pluck. I'm from near Everfen, if you know where that is." She turned back to the other human, the woman. "What's your name?"

just saying hi I read the whole series in english when I was a kid, now I am reading the whole thing in german

"So, am I just doubling down on life as a walking cliche or what?" Samantha-Lee Muriwaya said, mostly to herself.

<How would I know?> The omnipresent word-thoughts of Casimara bubbled up in her mind.

"Because you can read my goddamn mind, duh."

<With the exception of the last year, your life was not that interesting that I've had any interest to flip through it like a photo album>

"****, please. What else do you have to do in there." Sam snipped, retreading a familiar bickering path.

<Relieving comrades lost, enemies slain, battles won, lovers had, and trying to crack open subroutines keeping part of my memory tranches locked up, and dealing with your needling. Now, what cliche?>

"The part where I am literally a washed-up mercenary in the literal corner of some grungy old bar on some backwater, reminiscing?" Sam intoned. There was a pause.

<Admittedly that is a pretty common cliche in pan-human circles> Cas conceded.

"Yeah, that's why its called a cliche-wholly ****, lookatthat." Sam's words tumbled out as her eyes locked onto the bipedal avian looking like a cosplayer or a ren fair person. She tracked it curiously as it gracefully meandered in, puttered around, and sat down to order a drink.

Honestly it wasn't the strangest thing she'd seen since getting yoinked off earth and transformed into a serious of nightmarish tragedies. Not by a long shot - but it was still noticeable. The rest of the few patrons scattered around all fell somewhere in the amorphous blob that Darsimar had called 'pan-humanity', a biological outline that was apparently an evolutionary crab which more than a few intelligent species convergently evolved towards.

Which is to say, the bird stood out a lot more than the aggressively normal dude who came in after, and struck up a flustered conversation with it. One her cochlear inserts picked up crisp and clear over the distance and various muttering and chattering of the clientele.

There was an impulse on Sam's part to try and introduce herself. Caveated by the fact that most of her introductions to new alien races had been on alternating ends of screams, sobs, pleas, threats, and various forms of weapon discharge.

But on the other hand, she was trying to turn a new leaf too. So, she slurped down the last of the fruity ethanol in her cup, hopped to her feet, and began ambling over, hands in the pockets of her knee length heavy jacket. She hoped the lumpy layers of green-brown body armor and fatigue jacket wouldn't be too alienating. As she got closer, she threw a little two-fingered salute and the bird-person and the person-person.

"Hey folks. I get the impression you might also be sort-of new around here?"

We're

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