The Wyrms Meet The Family
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:32:11 amI finally got the chance to write this. It is about Moongara introducing her Wyrms to her family at her base.
I walked down the hallway from the docking bay, headed to my quarters at the base at Tauru'Reng'Gou. Riding on my shoulders, helmet and, in one case, tucked under my collar, were my little wyrm pets. I also carried a metal cage, made of scrap metal scrounged up from gods only knows where by the Anubis's engineers to keep the two Tesla wyrms out of ship's internal systems. How two wyrms that aren't a pound between them can cause that much trouble on my 2 mile long, 1.5 mile wing spanned interstellar war machine I still don't know. Sufficed to say, my chief engineer told me I wasn't permitted to bring the Teslas on board again...EVER, unless they were properly caged.
And this is to say nothing of the dog house I am after asking my science officer and chief engineer to program wyrm language into the Universal Translator system.
As I walked down the hall, I listened to Tiri and Shadowdancer, both of whom were wrapped around the horns of my headdress, discuss the surrounding and how the walls needed decoration. Shar'sha flitted around my head, throwing in her two cents. Hatshepet wrapped herself around my neck. I felt a twitch against my neck, from under my collar.
"Are we there yet?" Reth asked, his nose barely poking out from under the leather of my vest collar. He hadn't hardly left that spot since I picked him up on Earth...a behavior that I wouldn't normally find annoying but I drew the line at "following me into the bath." No one comes in to the bath with me, not even my mate. So he hid under my pillow when he couldn't be stuck to my collar.
"I don't think so." Old Sorrel said from my shoulder. "It looks like we have a bit more hallway to go."
"This place is so strange." Trinity Garr said, from his perch next to Old Sorrel. "You said we are underground but it is so well lit to be under ground."
A little further down the hall, we came to my office and attached quarters. My first officer, Tige was waiting with a pile of (thankfully finished) paperwork for me to review. Not quite sure how she beat me there...but given who she actually was and her "day job" I have learned not to ask questions. (she is actually a goddess who likes to hang out in the mortal realm on a regular basis) I put the cage with the two Teslas down on my desk.
"I will review those later." I said, "I want to introduce these guys to the family." Family meaning all my friends (aka my officers and advisers) and my two adopted children...I expect the wyrms will love my two kids, who have an uncanny ability to get along with anything that doesn't walk on two legs.
"If you like I can watch these two." Tige said, getting the two Teslas out of their cage. "They look a little bit tired from being stuck in that cage." H.G. and Jagdtiger looked at her hopefully.
"Alright." I said and opened the cage, "just keep them out of the power conduits." The two wyrms quickly squiggled out of their cage and down off the desk. Tige showed them into my quarters.
"You know you shouldn't let them anywhere near anything you don't want taken apart." Tiri said. Tige looked up.
"After the trip here, I am well aware." She said. "But there isn't that much technology in here. Moongara doesn't actually like technology." Ironic, I know for a starship commander...but you see how long you could deal with moody, uncooperative technology before you start to loath it. We may not have created AI, artificial intelligence, but we have certain created AA, artificial attitude.
"I am going to head down to the stables and introduce the rest of these guys to Legato and Hawkeye." I said. "I will introduce them to the two Teslas later."
"Have fun." Tige said and then turned and headed into my quarters to babysit the Teslas.
I walked into the stables but didn't see either of my two dhampir (half vampire) adopted children, nor did I see any of my horses wandering around. Our horses are sentient and thus have run of the stables, though they (normally) go into their own stalls at night (which are the size of a 2 bed room apartment) otherwise they can come and go, in and out, as they please.
"I see you are back, General Moongara." Sula said from behind me. Sula is the head of Dreng'ki's (an immortal paramilitary organization that my military works with) heavy cavalry and armored forces. "What are all those?" He asked, pointing to the wyrms. "Are those what you went to Earth to pick up?"
"Yes." I said.
"I heard one of them liked to get into your books on history." Sula said, amused.
"Yes." I said, reaching under my vest collar and dragging a protesting Reth out. "Reth, sweetheart, this is Sula." I said, holding Reth up to eye level with Sula (who is, 6 ft +, so it was a bit of reach for me). "The one who knows about military history." Reth suddenly yelped and dove into my sleeve. I hadn't noticed that Sula's mount, the 25 hand tall, flame maned, saber fanged, nightmare, had come up behind Sula. I pried Reth out of sleeve and held him by the wyrm equivalent of the scruff until he quit freaking out.
"You know you two aren't helping." I said. Tiri and Shadowdancer were making comments about how much of a coward Reth is. "Quit." I said, tapping Tiri on the head with the tip of my tail blade.
Flamewalker, meanwhile, stuck his head over Sula's shoulder and sniffed the now limp Reth.
"Aren't you cute." Flamewalker says.
"Reth, this is Flamewalker, General Sula's horse." I said. Reth sniffed Flamewalker back. "Feeling better?" Reth nodded.
"General Sula, sir, Moongara says you know about military history and strategy and tactics. I am interested in those things, since Growlers are supposed to be strong fighters but I can't fight very well, so I want to learn how to out smart my enemies." Reth said, very politely. Sula put his hands under Reth. "I will take him and bring him back to you later." He said. I dropped Reth into his hands, where upon he put Reth up on his shoulder. "Come on little one, lets see how much Moongara has already taught you." I watched Sula and Reth walk out of stables, thinking that those were about as unlikely a pair as I could think of.
"He won't hurt Reth, right?" Hatshepet said.
"As intimidating he can be, Sula is actually very nice and I trust he won't injure Reth." I said. "Don't worry." By intimidating, I mean Sula is a 50,000 plus year old vampiric Half Dragon.
"Okay. If you trust him, I guess I should trust him too." Hatshepet said.
"You know you worry too much." Tiri said. "For a Growler, you are much too wimpy."
"Tiri." I growled.
"Momma." I turned to see Hawkeye, my adopted daughter, walking fast towards me. While she looked to be no more than 8 or 9 years old, she is actually over 100...but she spent that 100 plus years as a slave of a very nasty elder vampire...that I long ago disposed of. Slavery is illegal in the Catrian Empire but in a huge, interstellar empire, there are dark corners where it still exists...despite our best efforts.
I knelt down to be eye to eye with her. "My little sweetheart." I said, hugging her. "I brought you some new friends." I said, pointing to the wyrms.
"These are the little creatures you told me about." She said, extremely excited. Over her shoulder, I see Legato walking up behind her. While their pasts were very similar, Legato is much more reserved. He looked at the wyrms and smiled.
"They are very cute." He said. "What are you?" He asked, trying to get nose to nose with Shar'sha. "I have never seen anything that moves like you." As soon as he said that, Tiri unwound herself from the horn of my mask and snaked her way down my face and out to the tip of my muzzle and then took off.
"We, my daughter and I and my attendant, are fairy wyrms." She said, flying up to eye level with Legato. "You must be one of the children I have heard so much about." She looked Legato over and smiled kindly (not a look I am used to with her). She landed on his shoulder and snaked around his neck. Shadowdancer flew over and joined her. "I think my daughter and I will be staying here for now." She said to me.
"That is fine." I said.
"Well, that is fine but I have stable chores to do." Legato said.
"That's fine." Tiri said. Shar'sha flitted after them as Legato walked back towards the stables feed room with Tiri and Shadowdancer attached to him.
Meanwhile, Hatshepet and Toltecatl had squiggled their way off my shoulder and into Hawkweye's hands.
"Let me guess, you two want to stay put." I said. They both nodded.
"You want to stay with me?" Hawkeye asked, looking a little surprised.
They nodded again.
"If they become too much trouble, just bring them to my quarters." I said.
She nodded. "Anything you need to tell me about the stables?"
"No, everything is running quite well." She says. "Falareth has been very helpful." Falareth is the head of the Dreng'ki's special forces...and the current admin head of the stables.
"That's good." I said.
"I heard my name." Falareth said, stepping out of a shadow. She is a Black Jackal coated nine tail Kitsune of, at least, 25,000years...which makes her half as old as Sula. "So these are the creatures you mentioned you were picking up." She said, pointing to Old Sorrel, Trinity Garr and Floofball. "They are very cute."
"Sula has one with him, Legato has two with him and Hawkeye has two with her...plus the two I left in my quarters with Tige." I said.
"I will have to go by and meet the rest of them." She said.
"Is Akara around?" I asked. Akara is Falareth and Sula's boss, the head of the Dreng'ki.
"Not right now, she is at the Zafiri ship yards, overseeing the construction of two new ships."
"Okay, thank you for letting me know." I said.
"Moongara, please come back to your quarters." Tige's voice crackled over the comm line...I don't remember there being crackling on the comm line.
"I need to go." I told Falareth.
I hate to admit it but Sula is right, I have been at this game too long...my first upon after walking into my quarters and seeing the unholy mess the two Teslas had made of anything and everything technological was "these guys would make great saboteurs." Tige was frantically trying to pry Jagdtiger out of the wall communication unit in my "spare bedroom" (aka storage) while my mate and military adviser...or "pet werewolf" depending on who you ask, Marr was sitting, in his dog form on my bed with his paw firmly clamped down on H.G. who had, apparently dragged a pile of wire scraps, bits of circuit board and other assorted eletronic components I didn't immediately recognize up onto the bed and had started making a nest (I guess) when Marr stopped her.
"Oh good gods." I snarled. "I told you two to behave." The two Teslas looked up, as did Tige and Marr.
"But we needed nests." Jagdtiger said, sheepishly.
"You didn't think to mention this before?" I asked, annoyed.
"Sorry." H.G. Wells piped up. "We thought you had read the part in the Wyrm Guide about Teslas and were just being mean."
"RTFM?...Seriously." Tige asked, glaring daggers at H.G. Wells.
"If you two had thought to mention this, just as the other wyrms made clear what they needed and wanted as soon as the Universal Translator was operational, there is a room filled with un-usable, obsolete technology destined for recycling for you to play in." I said. The three wyrms remaining with me were chittering angrily at the two Teslas. Three voices talking at once is hard to understand but I guessed it wasn't very nice.
I sighed. "Please clean this mess up. We three," I pointed to myself, Tige and Marr, "will help move things that are too big so you can fix what you broke. Then, tomorrow, I will take you to the room-o-random-tech and you can get materials to build your nests."
"They put you in a cage for this behavior last time." Old Sorrel broke in.
"You didn't think to mention the bit about technology and nests then?"
"The one who put us in the cage didn't seem to interested in listening to reason." Jagdtiger said.
"That was because he discovered you in one of the power transfer nodes to the ships main weapons array." I said. "Which is a finicky enough beast to begin with. My people get really touchy about anything that might jeopardize the ability of the IKS Anubis to fight."
"We are sorry." Jagdtiger and H.G. Wells said in unison.
After a couple of hours of cleaning up and a few calls to the base's engineers, things had finally calmed down. Legato and Hawkeye had both returned to their rooms for the night, with their respective wyrms still very much interested in staying with them. Sula hadn't brought Reth back yet...but I wasn't expecting to see either of them for a week, at the least. I finally turned out the lights and dreamed of Teslas turned loose on an enemy ship and them turning said ship into an enemy nest. An interesting idea to pursue...in the morning.
I walked down the hallway from the docking bay, headed to my quarters at the base at Tauru'Reng'Gou. Riding on my shoulders, helmet and, in one case, tucked under my collar, were my little wyrm pets. I also carried a metal cage, made of scrap metal scrounged up from gods only knows where by the Anubis's engineers to keep the two Tesla wyrms out of ship's internal systems. How two wyrms that aren't a pound between them can cause that much trouble on my 2 mile long, 1.5 mile wing spanned interstellar war machine I still don't know. Sufficed to say, my chief engineer told me I wasn't permitted to bring the Teslas on board again...EVER, unless they were properly caged.
And this is to say nothing of the dog house I am after asking my science officer and chief engineer to program wyrm language into the Universal Translator system.
As I walked down the hall, I listened to Tiri and Shadowdancer, both of whom were wrapped around the horns of my headdress, discuss the surrounding and how the walls needed decoration. Shar'sha flitted around my head, throwing in her two cents. Hatshepet wrapped herself around my neck. I felt a twitch against my neck, from under my collar.
"Are we there yet?" Reth asked, his nose barely poking out from under the leather of my vest collar. He hadn't hardly left that spot since I picked him up on Earth...a behavior that I wouldn't normally find annoying but I drew the line at "following me into the bath." No one comes in to the bath with me, not even my mate. So he hid under my pillow when he couldn't be stuck to my collar.
"I don't think so." Old Sorrel said from my shoulder. "It looks like we have a bit more hallway to go."
"This place is so strange." Trinity Garr said, from his perch next to Old Sorrel. "You said we are underground but it is so well lit to be under ground."
A little further down the hall, we came to my office and attached quarters. My first officer, Tige was waiting with a pile of (thankfully finished) paperwork for me to review. Not quite sure how she beat me there...but given who she actually was and her "day job" I have learned not to ask questions. (she is actually a goddess who likes to hang out in the mortal realm on a regular basis) I put the cage with the two Teslas down on my desk.
"I will review those later." I said, "I want to introduce these guys to the family." Family meaning all my friends (aka my officers and advisers) and my two adopted children...I expect the wyrms will love my two kids, who have an uncanny ability to get along with anything that doesn't walk on two legs.
"If you like I can watch these two." Tige said, getting the two Teslas out of their cage. "They look a little bit tired from being stuck in that cage." H.G. and Jagdtiger looked at her hopefully.
"Alright." I said and opened the cage, "just keep them out of the power conduits." The two wyrms quickly squiggled out of their cage and down off the desk. Tige showed them into my quarters.
"You know you shouldn't let them anywhere near anything you don't want taken apart." Tiri said. Tige looked up.
"After the trip here, I am well aware." She said. "But there isn't that much technology in here. Moongara doesn't actually like technology." Ironic, I know for a starship commander...but you see how long you could deal with moody, uncooperative technology before you start to loath it. We may not have created AI, artificial intelligence, but we have certain created AA, artificial attitude.
"I am going to head down to the stables and introduce the rest of these guys to Legato and Hawkeye." I said. "I will introduce them to the two Teslas later."
"Have fun." Tige said and then turned and headed into my quarters to babysit the Teslas.
I walked into the stables but didn't see either of my two dhampir (half vampire) adopted children, nor did I see any of my horses wandering around. Our horses are sentient and thus have run of the stables, though they (normally) go into their own stalls at night (which are the size of a 2 bed room apartment) otherwise they can come and go, in and out, as they please.
"I see you are back, General Moongara." Sula said from behind me. Sula is the head of Dreng'ki's (an immortal paramilitary organization that my military works with) heavy cavalry and armored forces. "What are all those?" He asked, pointing to the wyrms. "Are those what you went to Earth to pick up?"
"Yes." I said.
"I heard one of them liked to get into your books on history." Sula said, amused.
"Yes." I said, reaching under my vest collar and dragging a protesting Reth out. "Reth, sweetheart, this is Sula." I said, holding Reth up to eye level with Sula (who is, 6 ft +, so it was a bit of reach for me). "The one who knows about military history." Reth suddenly yelped and dove into my sleeve. I hadn't noticed that Sula's mount, the 25 hand tall, flame maned, saber fanged, nightmare, had come up behind Sula. I pried Reth out of sleeve and held him by the wyrm equivalent of the scruff until he quit freaking out.
"You know you two aren't helping." I said. Tiri and Shadowdancer were making comments about how much of a coward Reth is. "Quit." I said, tapping Tiri on the head with the tip of my tail blade.
Flamewalker, meanwhile, stuck his head over Sula's shoulder and sniffed the now limp Reth.
"Aren't you cute." Flamewalker says.
"Reth, this is Flamewalker, General Sula's horse." I said. Reth sniffed Flamewalker back. "Feeling better?" Reth nodded.
"General Sula, sir, Moongara says you know about military history and strategy and tactics. I am interested in those things, since Growlers are supposed to be strong fighters but I can't fight very well, so I want to learn how to out smart my enemies." Reth said, very politely. Sula put his hands under Reth. "I will take him and bring him back to you later." He said. I dropped Reth into his hands, where upon he put Reth up on his shoulder. "Come on little one, lets see how much Moongara has already taught you." I watched Sula and Reth walk out of stables, thinking that those were about as unlikely a pair as I could think of.
"He won't hurt Reth, right?" Hatshepet said.
"As intimidating he can be, Sula is actually very nice and I trust he won't injure Reth." I said. "Don't worry." By intimidating, I mean Sula is a 50,000 plus year old vampiric Half Dragon.
"Okay. If you trust him, I guess I should trust him too." Hatshepet said.
"You know you worry too much." Tiri said. "For a Growler, you are much too wimpy."
"Tiri." I growled.
"Momma." I turned to see Hawkeye, my adopted daughter, walking fast towards me. While she looked to be no more than 8 or 9 years old, she is actually over 100...but she spent that 100 plus years as a slave of a very nasty elder vampire...that I long ago disposed of. Slavery is illegal in the Catrian Empire but in a huge, interstellar empire, there are dark corners where it still exists...despite our best efforts.
I knelt down to be eye to eye with her. "My little sweetheart." I said, hugging her. "I brought you some new friends." I said, pointing to the wyrms.
"These are the little creatures you told me about." She said, extremely excited. Over her shoulder, I see Legato walking up behind her. While their pasts were very similar, Legato is much more reserved. He looked at the wyrms and smiled.
"They are very cute." He said. "What are you?" He asked, trying to get nose to nose with Shar'sha. "I have never seen anything that moves like you." As soon as he said that, Tiri unwound herself from the horn of my mask and snaked her way down my face and out to the tip of my muzzle and then took off.
"We, my daughter and I and my attendant, are fairy wyrms." She said, flying up to eye level with Legato. "You must be one of the children I have heard so much about." She looked Legato over and smiled kindly (not a look I am used to with her). She landed on his shoulder and snaked around his neck. Shadowdancer flew over and joined her. "I think my daughter and I will be staying here for now." She said to me.
"That is fine." I said.
"Well, that is fine but I have stable chores to do." Legato said.
"That's fine." Tiri said. Shar'sha flitted after them as Legato walked back towards the stables feed room with Tiri and Shadowdancer attached to him.
Meanwhile, Hatshepet and Toltecatl had squiggled their way off my shoulder and into Hawkweye's hands.
"Let me guess, you two want to stay put." I said. They both nodded.
"You want to stay with me?" Hawkeye asked, looking a little surprised.
They nodded again.
"If they become too much trouble, just bring them to my quarters." I said.
She nodded. "Anything you need to tell me about the stables?"
"No, everything is running quite well." She says. "Falareth has been very helpful." Falareth is the head of the Dreng'ki's special forces...and the current admin head of the stables.
"That's good." I said.
"I heard my name." Falareth said, stepping out of a shadow. She is a Black Jackal coated nine tail Kitsune of, at least, 25,000years...which makes her half as old as Sula. "So these are the creatures you mentioned you were picking up." She said, pointing to Old Sorrel, Trinity Garr and Floofball. "They are very cute."
"Sula has one with him, Legato has two with him and Hawkeye has two with her...plus the two I left in my quarters with Tige." I said.
"I will have to go by and meet the rest of them." She said.
"Is Akara around?" I asked. Akara is Falareth and Sula's boss, the head of the Dreng'ki.
"Not right now, she is at the Zafiri ship yards, overseeing the construction of two new ships."
"Okay, thank you for letting me know." I said.
"Moongara, please come back to your quarters." Tige's voice crackled over the comm line...I don't remember there being crackling on the comm line.
"I need to go." I told Falareth.
I hate to admit it but Sula is right, I have been at this game too long...my first upon after walking into my quarters and seeing the unholy mess the two Teslas had made of anything and everything technological was "these guys would make great saboteurs." Tige was frantically trying to pry Jagdtiger out of the wall communication unit in my "spare bedroom" (aka storage) while my mate and military adviser...or "pet werewolf" depending on who you ask, Marr was sitting, in his dog form on my bed with his paw firmly clamped down on H.G. who had, apparently dragged a pile of wire scraps, bits of circuit board and other assorted eletronic components I didn't immediately recognize up onto the bed and had started making a nest (I guess) when Marr stopped her.
"Oh good gods." I snarled. "I told you two to behave." The two Teslas looked up, as did Tige and Marr.
"But we needed nests." Jagdtiger said, sheepishly.
"You didn't think to mention this before?" I asked, annoyed.
"Sorry." H.G. Wells piped up. "We thought you had read the part in the Wyrm Guide about Teslas and were just being mean."
"RTFM?...Seriously." Tige asked, glaring daggers at H.G. Wells.
"If you two had thought to mention this, just as the other wyrms made clear what they needed and wanted as soon as the Universal Translator was operational, there is a room filled with un-usable, obsolete technology destined for recycling for you to play in." I said. The three wyrms remaining with me were chittering angrily at the two Teslas. Three voices talking at once is hard to understand but I guessed it wasn't very nice.
I sighed. "Please clean this mess up. We three," I pointed to myself, Tige and Marr, "will help move things that are too big so you can fix what you broke. Then, tomorrow, I will take you to the room-o-random-tech and you can get materials to build your nests."
"They put you in a cage for this behavior last time." Old Sorrel broke in.
"You didn't think to mention the bit about technology and nests then?"
"The one who put us in the cage didn't seem to interested in listening to reason." Jagdtiger said.
"That was because he discovered you in one of the power transfer nodes to the ships main weapons array." I said. "Which is a finicky enough beast to begin with. My people get really touchy about anything that might jeopardize the ability of the IKS Anubis to fight."
"We are sorry." Jagdtiger and H.G. Wells said in unison.
After a couple of hours of cleaning up and a few calls to the base's engineers, things had finally calmed down. Legato and Hawkeye had both returned to their rooms for the night, with their respective wyrms still very much interested in staying with them. Sula hadn't brought Reth back yet...but I wasn't expecting to see either of them for a week, at the least. I finally turned out the lights and dreamed of Teslas turned loose on an enemy ship and them turning said ship into an enemy nest. An interesting idea to pursue...in the morning.
Loved it! I really like how you write, Moongara!