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Man, what a day. I pissed some guy off so badly that he felt compelled to hang out his window and scream at me for like five minutes and then I burned the crap out of both of my hands. Ugh.

I forgot to take an arthritis pill today, so I guess I could get drunk. May just have to.

Anyhow, @Voligne requested that I write more on Freaky Fiveday, so sure, why not?

———

Commissioner Yutarenga watched Gormat as he wiped his eyes for the fifth time. “You okay?” she whispered, trying not to wake the cub sleeping in her arms.

The gigantic janitor frowned. “I don’t feel so good.”

“That’s because you’ve been breathing geroo air for too long,” she explained.

His expression fell. “Am I going to die?” he gasped, sounding worried.

“Shh. Keep your voice down.” She rocked the cub until Tys snuggled deeper into her arms. “No, it won’t hurt you—not unless you stayed out a really long time. But the longer you do, the crappier you’re going to feel. Go back to my ship and take a nap on the floor.”

“I’m not leaving—”

“I know. I know.” She patted his claw. “You just need some rest. Take a few minutes. Take an hour. Take as long as you need, and we can try this again when you’re ready.”

“And you’ll—?”

“I’ll go get some dinner with Tys. She’ll be fine.”

Gormat stared a moment before finally nodding. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” she said. “You’re not going to starve to death today. There’s plenty of time.”

He turned but paused again at the airlock when his daughter stirred. “Daddy?” she said. “Where’s Daddy going?”

“I’m gonna take a nap, fluff-fluff. Go eat dinner with Auntie Yutarenga, and we’ll practice some more when I get up, okay?”

The commissioner bristled slightly at being called the cub’s aunt, but she tried to keep displeasure off her ears.

“Okay,” said Tys, not sounding entirely confident.

The commissioner set the cub down on her paws. “Turn the handwheel,” Yutarenga told the giant janitor. “Go in, pull the hatch closed behind you, latch it, pull the cycle lever, and then go through the second door. On the shuttle, you’ll find a bag of Tasty Frooties in the center console.”

“A bag of what?” he asked.

“Snacks.” She waved and encouraged his daughter to wave too before leading her back to the marketplace.

“So, what would you like for dinner?” the commissioner asked Tys.

“Pudding!” the cub shrieked with glee as she rushed off toward the snack vendor.

“Oh, no. No. No. No,” Yutarenga laughed as she scooped the cub back up into her arms. “Your dad would squish me like a bug if I got you pudding for dinner. He’d turn me into pudding!”

“Nu-uh!” she protested, squirming. “My daddy would never squish anyone.”

“Well, we’re not going to find out,” said the tiny commissioner, “because pudding isn’t on the menu. What kind of food-food would you eat?”

“Uh…” Tys said, dragging the word out until she ran out of breath. “Could we have curried turbaraks?” She pointed to a cart with a big sign over top of it.

The commissioner sniffed the air, and the spices seared her sinuses. “Oh, I don’t know, Tys. That sounds awful spicy.”

“Please…” the cub whined, drawing out the sound once more.

“How about a nice plate of egg noodles?” Yutarenga suggested. When the cub frowned, she added, “We can ask the vendor to sprinkle a little curry on top, if you like.”

“Can we?” Her eyes opened wide.

“I don’t see why not!”

She set Tys down and the two held paws as they walked to the noodle cart.

“How can I help you, sir?” asked the cook.

“Sir?” the commissioner gasped, her ears turning red with rage. “How dare you! You will refer to me as Com—”

Tys tugged hard on Yutarenga’s paw, drawing her attention down. “What?” the commissioner hissed at the interruption. The cub looked upset at her outburst. She was about to return to berating the vendor when something caught her eye—something she wasn’t accustomed to having.

“Uh,” she whispered, her eyes locked on her own equipment. She pulled her attention away and looked back at the stunned noodle cook. “Yeah … sir. Of course. I would be a sir because … because I am a sir, and you should definitely not call me Com—”

Tys tugged again at her paw.

“Right,” said the commissioner. “Can we get a plate of egg noodles with a little curry sprinkled on top?”

With a full belly, Tys slept on a bench outside the shuttle bay. Gormat worked with Yutarenga on his pronunciation and by morning the actual commissioner declared his accent to be “painfully thick, but clear enough to be passable”.

This was a great victory for both father and cub, and Tys celebrated with excited hoots of “Boop! Boop!” as she pulled on a helmet.

The trio clambered into the shuttle and flew out without a catch. The ship’s computer accepted voice commands, and to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t seem to care if the instructions were squeaked by a geroo or boomed by a krakun, so Yutarenga took charge of piloting. They drifted slowly through the gate, and Gormat—trembling with fear—stared only at the commissioner’s strand and the words he had practiced saying.

The seconds ticked by, endlessly.

“Perhaps they won’t ask—” he said at long last.

Commissioner Yutarenga held a paw up, asking him to wait.

The radio suddenly cracked to life and the gigantic janitor yelped in fright, leaping back from the control console with a thump that shook the ship.

“Authentication code,” requested a bored-sounding voice in the geroo language.

The commissioner beckoned Gormat forward and pointed silently at the words on her strand. She stomped on a button to enable transmitting and it lit up.

He cleared his throat a couple times, whined, and when he spoke, he skipped the first half of the message Yutarenga had prepared for him and just read the authentication code.

In frustration, the commissioner stomped around in a circle as Gormat read the letters and numbers she’d listed for him, slowly sounding out each one. But he’d only made it halfway through before the voice on the other end of the line apparently got tired of waiting.

“Have a safe flight,” said the voice, and the connection clicked closed.

“Huh,” muttered the commissioner in surprise.

“I did it!” cheered Gormat. He pranced around as best he was able within the ship’s tiny confines.

Tys cheered too.

“Well, it should be simple enough to get home from here,” the commissioner sighed, scratching her ruff through the plastic suit. “I’ll take care of navigation and ordering a driver to take us home. Tys and I can ride on your head, and I’ll tell you where to walk.”

He was too busy celebrating with his daughter to pay any attention to what she was saying.

On Krakuntec, Gormat and his daughter chattered excitedly about their future while Yutarenga ordered them a ride to the apartment. In case she needed to guide the driver, the commissioner rode up front, but the trip was uneventful, and she found herself nodding off inside her environment suit. The driver actually had to give her a little shake when they arrived.

She had wished she’d gotten more sleep that night, but she was so worried that the janitor would flub his lines and get them caught, that she’d stayed awake, even when the two geroo slept.

At the apartment, he lifted the two back onto his head, and she directed him to the apartment. Tys and her father spoke non-stop, and the commissioner had to repeat herself over and over just to be heard. In fact, the one instruction that she truly wished had gotten into his brain was the one he missed entirely.

“Don’t talk to Ujaoyrenja, my neighbor.”

In retrospect, she should have stressed that one harder, but it seemed so obvious from a krakun perspective. No krakun ever talked to another unless they were giving an order or explaining why they had failed to accomplish something.

Well, that was a bit of hyperbole certainly, but it was closer to the truth than she cared to admit.

Geroo, however, operated on a totally different ruleset. She should have realized that immediately but of course all her interactions with geroo—and there’d been a lot of them over the past four hundred years—had been more typical of krakun society, not geroo. She’d ordered captains around, demanded explanations, and listened half-heartedly to their excuses.

“Hello!” Gormat shouted when he saw Ujaoyrenja emerge from the apartment next door.

“What are you doing?” the commissioner hissed into his tympanum horn, but the gigantic janitor continued talking unabated. At least he spoke in krakun, she thought to herself. It was a small consolation, but she had to be thankful for that.

“Uh, what?” asked the orange scaled neighbor, a look of shock on her face.

“Have you been out yet?” he asked. “It’s amazing out there. The air is warm and starshine makes your um … your scales, I suppose, feel like they’re sizzling.”

“Sizzling?” Yutarenga groaned, beating her helmet repeatedly against his head.

“I don’t believe I’ve spoken with you before,” said the neighbor, walking closer. “Yutarenga, right? And your accent is … I can’t place it.”

“Yeah,” Gormat said, “I’m not from around here.”

The commissioner sobbed softly inside her environment suit.

“Your accent is so … thick,” Ujaoyrenja added. “Krakuntec five? One of the colony worlds, perhaps?”

“Yes!” Yutarenga whispered directly into Gormat’s tympanum. “Tell her you’re from colony world Eta Gamma three-seven-nine-two. No one ever keeps up on the colonies. She’ll have no idea—”

“Yeah, one of them worlds,” he said.

The commissioner’s head hung low. She wanted to leap from his head and end it once and for all.

“Well, I find your accent so…” the neighbor said, pausing to search for words, “exotic. I quite like it.”

Yutarenga’s jaw hung wide, and she stared unblinking.

“You do?” Gormat asked. “Well, hells, maybe we should get to know each other better! You doin’ anything after work?”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oGD95SCR9H40MOvHCf1MzmRYaiw8PzCWS4NsttYJPbE/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?

Comments

Anonymous

Yutarenga: "Oh no" Tys: "Daddy no" Gormat: "DADDY YES"

Greg

Well, he hasn't dated anyone in a while. Guy gets a little lonely!

Voligne

Bow Chica wow wow.

Piedunk

Another fantastic one! This and the last Talent chapter were both superb; there's just something fun about a krakun that's either unusually casual or overwhelmed! Gotta love too that the thing that broke Yutarenga out of her thought process was "Oh, right, I have a dick now", haha! I imagine it'll be quite a surprise the first time she wakes up with a 'morning problem' to deal with. And now that Gormat's started being so friendly, I can't help but imagine an outcome where he manages to befriend everyone in the apartment building to Yutarenga's complete shock! Especially when he gets particularly friendly with some of them...

Piedunk

Now I'm just picturing him getting ready for the date and asking the commissioner how to work the new equipment, ahaha!

Greg

He's gonna leave her with quite a legacy if they ever get swapped back!

Edolon

Crap, sorry to hear I hope today went better. Ya Arthritis sucks, I have RA acting up the last few weeks the pains in my paws has been quite annoying not looking forward to when I’m over 40 :s This is being an interesting story. Apparently somethings are instant hits (accents), can’t wait to see what issues come out of it. I hope the apartment has an environment suitable for geroo, I can’t remember if they thought that part though yet

Geo Holms

Continuing to enjoy this tale. In particular liked the bit where Yutarenga is worried about being squished for letting Tys eat unhealthy (in general the care she took for Tys' eating habits was cute). Also entertained how she forgot her current body and became aware. And Gormat's actions in general are great. He's very much himself no matter his current body and how hard it is for Yutarenga to control his nature is great. Look forward to wherever this goes.

Anonymous

This had me laughing out loud the whole time. Poor Gormat is going to quickly learn which side of the fence he leans.