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This isn’t a vacation, Stinger had insisted. He’s here officially, observing the status of post-Jark-Matter reconstruction on this particular planet – Merueq, it’s called, a tiny little marble with a mostly tropical climate. Bright, teal-coloured oceans make up most of its surface, interrupted here and there by a speckling of islands formed of black bedrock and sand that give way to dense jungle at their center.
It’s rather beautiful, as far as planets go. But this isn’t a vacation. Definitely not.
(Though he left anything that might identify him as Federation Commander back aboard the ship, Champ can’t help but notice.)
The marketplace on the outskirts of this, the largest town on the planet, is a quiet, peaceful affair. The pleasant atmosphere is palpable as they roam through rows of stalls selling freshly caught sea creatures with glittering scales, delicately woven baskets and blown glass trinkets that refract the sunlight.
“We should get a souvenir for Kotaro,” Champ says, holding up an item that he takes to be a simple musical instrument of some kind. Like an ocarina, but with an odd curve to its shape, seemingly made from the black rock that makes up the foundations of this place. It looks like something the kid might like.
“He’s just going to be annoyed that we didn’t bring him along.”
“Oh? On this absolutely-not-a-vacation, y’mean?”
Stinger tries to level Champ with one of his new Sternly Disapproving Commander looks, but the slight twitch of his lips gives him away. He goes to reach for something himself, a handmade pincushion with needles stuck into it that seem to be whittled from bleached white bone. Someone else’s hand lands on it first.
“I am sorry,” an accented voice says, and they both turn to find a young woman standing there next to them. Humanoid, with piercing amber-coloured eyes against sun-tanned skin, a patterned headscarf draped over her. “Do you… want this?”
“It’s alright,” Stinger says, stepping aside, his tail moving in an unconscious gesture. “I was just browsing, really.”
The girl stares at him. At the barbed tip of his tail, then back to his face. Her lips part in a soft, astonished “ah.”
“You… are hirakh?” she says.
Something twines out from underneath the low hang of her shawl, then. A scorpion’s tail of her own. A deep golden in colour, the smooth chitin of its surface painted with tiny, intricate designs of black ink that spiral and twist down the entire length.
Stinger’s eyes widen.
Neyva, she says her name is. She lives in a scorpionfolk settlement a little ways into the jungle, which she’s agreed to take them to, and she chatters away to Stinger as she leads them along the barely visible path between the undergrowth. The language is almost entirely unfamiliar to Champ’s systems. He has scorpionfolk speech uploaded to his translation database – at least, he thought he did. But this seems to be a rare, little-known dialect. He can only comprehend a word or phrase here and there, a sudden snatch of understanding before it’s gone again, almost more jarring than useful.
“Where’d you learn to talk like this?” he mutters to Stinger, once Neyva has fallen quiet for a moment, hacking a low-hanging vine out of the way with a machete. “I thought you just spoke the regular version.”
“Oh. Well. There was this old man in my village.” Stinger shrugs a shoulder. “He’d come on a caravan from another planet. I’d help him with things, sometimes, and in return he told me stories and taught me his home village’s way of speaking. I was just curious, I guess. Never thought it would actually come in handy.”
Champ makes a contemplative noise. He wonders, suddenly, why he’s never really asked about Stinger’s childhood, his home and his people. Maybe it all felt too precarious, before, as tainted as those things were by Scorpio’s black mark. But there’s been enough distance for a while now, hasn’t there? Enough time for some of the hurt to fade. It’s a whole culture he knows only the bare minimum about. He wonders if Stinger misses it.
Neyva sheathes her machete and turns back to them with a smile. “Ije kashim,” she says.
“Damat,” Stinger replies, moving to follow after her, and Champ stands there for a moment with an odd feeling he can’t put a name to creeping up into his systems before following suit.
(Even after Neyva’s efforts he still gets his horns caught on the vines overhead.)
They draw a lot of eyes as they’re led through the settlement. Or Champ does, at least. Scorpionfolk are known to keep to themselves, mostly. He doubts these people are used to seeing anyone other than their own kind right here on their front step, much less anyone as conspicuous as himself. They pause in their work and conversations as their trio passes by; peer out from the doorways of their homes – simply-made bungalows that are raised up off the ground to combat the torrential downpours-turned flash floods that this planet often suffers.
Neyva takes them to the farthest house at the end of the village: no different from the rest save for a carved wooden sign bearing an inscription that hangs over the entrance. She pushes the beaded curtain aside; calls out to someone inside as she beckons them in. The interior is dim, warmer even than the humid tropical weather outside, smoke from a smoldering fire pit in the center curling upwards. An old woman sits next to it, seemingly perusing over a map of some sort, and Champ wonders how an organic is able to see any kind of detail in this light. She sets it aside and looks up at them with mild interest as they step inside.
“My,” she says, in a language that Champ can thankfully interpret. “Haven’t had visitors in a while.”
Stinger makes a gesture with his hands that Champ has never seen before. A delicate arc of his fingertips against the air. The scorpionfolk equivalent of a bow, he imagines. “Thank you for your hospitality in welcoming us.”
The woman laughs, quick and sharp. “Seems Neyva made up her own mind about that. But of course it’s fine. Take a seat, please.” The beautifully embroidered cushions she gestures to seem too nice to be crushed by his weight, but Champ isn’t about to offend this person by declining. “I’m called Ulun. I suppose you could call me the chieftain around here.”
“We’re from the Galactic Federation,” Stinger supplies. “Or. I am, at least. My name is Stinger. And this is – ”
“Champ.” He gives a reflexive okyu salute. “Pleased to meet you.”
Ulun raises an eyebrow. “The Federation? Here on Merueq?”
“We’re trying to pinpoint more off-the-radar places that might require financial aid or volunteer assistance to recoup Jark Matter-related losses.” Stinger says this stiltedly, like he’s reading from a memorized script. It certainly sounds like something Raptor may have written for him. Champ pictures him practicing it in the mirror and barely manages to stifle a laugh.
“Are you, now?” Ulun says dryly. Her tail – a deep, midnight blue in colour – moves behind her, a thoughtful flick from side to side. “Where are you from, boy? Actually, I mean. The place you were born and raised in.”
Stinger blinks. “I… From the settlement on Themus B-68.”
The woman seems to ponder for a moment before her expression darkens. “Ah. I apologize, then. If I’ve dredged up any bad memories. I’ve heard awful stories about what happened there.”
Stinger shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” Ulun says firmly. “The things you must have witnessed are far and beyond what you should have. And a hirakh with no home to return to is a terrible thing.” She studies him. “You seem like the upstanding sort. I can see it in your face, and your eyes. I’ve decided. You will join us.”
Stinger’s mouth opens and closes again wordlessly. His brow furrows. “Join… you?”
“Yes. We will induct you into our village.” She gives him a curious look. “Unless you wish to remain like the hermit from the sandsea?”
Champ has little idea what that means, but judging by Stinger’s reaction – a widening of eyes, his fingers curling tight in his lap – it must be a sad way for a scorpionfolk to be.
He hesitates visibly. Glances over towards Champ, like he’s seeking counsel, but all Champ can do is shrug. He’s no part of this society. Whether all of this is a good idea or not is far beyond him.
“I,” Stinger says finally. “Yes. I accept your offer.”
Ulun smiles, broad and jovial, a strange expression against her severe face. “Then we will start the preparations immediately. It will be good to have you, Stinger of the Galactic Federation. I’m certain the others will feel the same.”
Neyva’s family have agreed to put them up for the night, her elder brother graciously giving up his small room. For the time being they sit around the firepit, Neyva’s mother foisting maybe a little too much food on to Stinger, muttering something that Champ can’t quite understand but gets the feeling might mean “too skinny.” Refusing must be considered very rude in this culture, as Stinger just keeps smiling awkwardly and thanking her, eyeing the third portion in his bowl grimly when she turns away. Champ is rather enjoying watching this.
Neyva is chattering away again, this time with her brother joining in, and Champ soon finds himself lost once more amid the sea of foreign conversation. From the few words his systems can pick out – yulen (beast), ikkra (to strike, as with a blade) – he assumes they must be recounting the story of some great village hero. If Stinger is to join them he supposes it’s only logical, that they would rush to tell all their most impressive tales. Proving their people’s bravery and mettle to the newcomer.
The conversation dies down gradually alongside the fire. Outside, the night has thoroughly crept in. They all say their good nights (varishok, seems to be the word – he files it away to remember), and Champ finds himself sitting by the window in their little borrowed room, peering out and up at the stars. The odd atmosphere of this planet causes a haze of faint iridescence to shimmer across the night sky. Like an oil slick.
“Is this somethin’ you’ve been thinking about for a while?” he says. He turns back to look at Stinger, who pauses in rolling out the sleeping mat he’s been provided.
“I mean… to some extent.” He chews on his lip for a moment. “Obviously I knew people in my village who were like that. Who’d been welcomed in. And I guess this past year or so it has been crossing my mind on occasion. If maybe there was a place… who would do the same for me.”
“You never said anything about it.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out accusatory, and yet there’s an edge there all the same.
Stinger frowns. “I just… didn’t think you or any of the others would be interested. It’s not exactly a relatable issue. And you know me. I’m not always… the best at talking about feelings.”
Some of the inexplicable tension in Champ’s circuitry fades, then. He huffs out a laugh. “Well. You got me there.”
Stinger’s mouth twitches as he wanders over to sink down next to him, sighing in a contented way and stretching out his arms before letting his head fall to rest against Champ’s shoulder. The warmth of his cheek against the metal is pleasant as ever.
“Sorry. This probably isn’t what you envisioned for a vacation.”
“Oh, so now you’re admitting it’s a vacation?”
“Shut up,” Stinger mutters, clearly trying not to laugh.
Champ considers for a moment; reaches up absentmindedly to stroke Stinger’s hair and receives a pleased, quiet hum in return.
“I’m havin’ a good time if you are, partner. That’s how it always goes for me. So don’t worry about it.” He pauses. “This is all pretty interesting, to be real. Feel like I’m learnin’ something. What was… that thing earlier? About the hermit?”
“Oh, the hermit in the sandsea? That’s… an old wives’ tale, I guess you’d call it. The story goes that there was a scorpionfolk man who thought he heard a voice calling out to him one day when he was alone in his tent, but it was muffled and he couldn’t quite make out what it was saying. He decided that it was the wind trying to talk to him. Trying to ‘impart its wisdom.’
“He got obsessed with hearing it again. Started spending less and less time with other people, because he was so busy listening for the wind. He started to think that the noise others made was drowning it out. He couldn’t hear it because they were so loud. Eventually, his annoyance grew so much that he decided to leave. Packed his belongings, and just… went off into the sandsea.
“He went farther and farther, past the point where he could find his way back. And he knew it, too. Knew that he was resigning himself to living alone in the sands for months or maybe years. But he was happy to be away from everyone else, as long as he heard the wind. And he did, finally. It spoke to him, but its voice was totally different from the one he’d heard before. The wind told him that it got lonely, sometimes. It wanted company. So it would blow through villages and imitate the voices of the people that lived there, so that they would come out of their tents and spend time with it.
“‘That’s all?’ the hermit said, and the wind replied: ‘That’s all.’”
In the silence after, Champ realizes that his hand has gone still against Stinger’s hair. “Huh,” he says. “That’s quite the story.”
“I used to have it told to me by village elders whenever I had a fight with my friends and was off sulking somewhere.” There is an amused smile in Stinger’s voice. “Scorpions are very big on ‘unity’ and ‘togetherness,’ you’ll find.” That amusement fades gradually. “Though there’s always a few of us who forget.”
He seems to shake himself, as if trying to dispel whatever thoughts had just gripped him; peers up at Champ. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Guess I might as well. Doesn’t seem like I need to keep watch around here.” He pauses, listening to the chirp of exotic insects, the distant slosh of water against the shore. “A vacation for sure,” he mutters.
Stinger is summoned mid-afternoon to the chieftain’s hut once again, and Champ trails after him dutifully, only to be given a look of mild reproach as he ducks through the curtain. The room is brighter, today, lit with torches that give off a smoky, perfumed scent as they smolder, revealing faded yet intricately woven rugs laid out on the floor.
“I apologize,” Ulun says. “But this part of the ceremony is for the inductee only.”
Champ pauses there in the doorway. The feeling of being an unwanted outsider – it’s not one he’s had for quite a while, and it’s jarring now, like something caught in his gears. He nods a moment later.
“Understood, ma’am,” he says, giving a salute, and turns to leave the way he came.
“Wait.” Stinger’s hand darts out and closes around his wrist. “Can – can you make an exception? He is… abatia.”
The room goes utterly still and silent.
Champ glances back and forth between their wide-eyed hosts and Stinger, whose neck is beginning to flush a deep cerulean.
“Oi,” he murmurs. “What’s that mean? If you’re talkin’ about me I think I deserve a translation.”
“I’ll explain later,” Stinger hisses back at him, in that tone of voice that says he will probably try to change the topic later instead.
“…I see,” Ulun is saying, as her two companions whisper to each other in the corner. She looks rattled, shaken abruptly from the calming haze of the room. “You will have to excuse us for our rude reactions. We are rather old-fashioned folk, at the end of the day. But certainly… your abatia is welcome.”
“So, then. I can stay?”
“Yes, yes, by all means.” She gestures to one of the plush rugs with a distracted, thin-lipped smile, and Stinger tugs him down onto it, giving him a look that means he should sit with his legs neatly folded beneath him as well. A harder feat for him, bulky as he is, but manages it with some difficulty.
“Since you have no tail, I suppose… the fingers will do?” Ulun seems to be talking to herself more than him.
“Sure,” he says, holding out his hand. “For what, though?”
“The designs painted on Neyva’s tail,” Stinger mutters to him. “We’re going to get some of our own.”
“Oh?” He nods slowly, humming in assent, and tries to look as unintimidating as possible for the woman who’s just knelt in front of him and begun to take delicate wooden brushes and jars of paint from her bag. He’s not sure he succeeds. She keeps giving him nervous glances as she starts the painstaking inscription of a very particular pattern onto his fingers, thin lines of paint curling in on each other and forming complex symmetrical shapes. Next to him, the other woman is doing much the same for Stinger, but working with practiced ease with the familiar texture and behavior of a scorpionfolk’s tail. He notes that they’re using black paint for Stinger, and wonders why it is they’ve switched to vivid orange for him.
It’s a lengthy process, the minutes difficult to calculate, his inner clock thrown off somehow by the drowsy closeness of the air. He tries very hard not to fidget. (“Why are you so bad at keeping still?” he remembers Stinger asking once. “You’re a robot, idiot.” Frankly, it’s not his fault he was programmed to have a natural enthusiastic energy.)
Stinger has to nudge him when the ceremony is finally finished, his thoughts having drifted off somewhere in the middle. He admires the intricate spiderwebbing of orange that now decorates his hand as he hauls himself to his feet. It’s pretty to look at, that much he can’t deny. And the feeling of being a part of something, something important to his partner, is – warm and appealing, no matter how little he understands its implications.
“Damat,” he says to the painter woman, who gives him a startled incline of the head in return.
Next to him, Stinger’s hand moves in the air in that sign of respect before he is grabbing Champ by the arm and hauling him quickly toward the exit, clearly worried he’s going to make some kind of terrible faux pas at the last minute. He waits until they’re out in the fresh air and away from prying eyes to do exactly that, catching Stinger by the tail and examining the two patterns side by side.
“This is cute,” he laughs. “The way they almost match. Kinda like wedding rings, huh?”
Stinger stiffens and flushes deeply. “That’s – don’t joke about that,” he hisses. He flicks his tail out of his grasp. “I’m going to the village square. You can come with, if you want. It’s a whole… welcoming thing. I don’t know how much of this language you’ve been picking up but don’t say anything weird to anyone.”
“Yessir,” Champ says drily. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Hey,” he says, leaning against the fence next to Neyva. “You think you could tell me what a word means?”
She gives him a sidelong glance. She’s taking a break from the gathering, nursing a drink and looking as if she’d rather not be bothered, but he has no idea who else he could ask. She and Ulun seem to be the only ones who speak enough of the common tongue to make for an actual conversation.
“Alright,” she says finally. Her eyes drift down to study his hand. “I will guess. It is ‘abatia’?”
“Uh. Yeah. How’d you…?”
“Is a very important word for us. Something like… ‘husband’ or ‘wife.’ But deeper. Can’t be broken by anything.”
Champ stares at her. “Wait. Seriously?”
“Abatia is sacred. We are all looking for it. But only some find it. The person who is like… complementary colour. Balanced. Everything fits together. They say if one dies the other will, too. World isn’t right without them in it.”
His processors seem to slow as they process those words. He feels as if someone has just taken his wires and twisted them into a knot of sparking metal and rubber.
“What the hell,” he murmurs. Turns to observe the fireside gathering again: Stinger at the center of it all, nodding along as one of the kids teaches him the words to the rare traditional song he doesn’t already know by heart. “And you told me off for talking about wedding rings?”
He spots his chance when someone gets up from their seat around the fire, sliding in as gracefully as he can in their place and plonking himself down next to Stinger. He nudges his knee with his.
“So. Feeling pretty welcomed right now?”
His mouth curves into a smile. “It’d be hard not to,” he says, and ducks his head with a quiet thanks as someone on his other side foists yet another drink into his hands.
“Just like being home again?”
That seems to give him pause. He takes a thoughtful sip from his mug – the same thing Neyva had been drinking, smelling strongly of sweet spices. One of the villagers is plucking a long, thin stringed instrument, and the melody is peaceful, resonant, seeming to work in time with the crackle of the fire.
“Pretty close,” Stinger says, voice soft. “To how I remember it.”
“And this whole, ah. ‘Soul mates’ thing.” He lifts his hand and waggles his fingers. “You been thinkin’ about this for a while, too?”
Stinger’s head snaps around to look at him in sudden alarm. “Wh – put your hand down,” he hisses, swiping at him, but the villagers surrounding them have already taken notice. A young woman catches his hand and stares down at it, fascinated, showing the patterns to the folks gathered near her, and slowly a startled murmur seems to travel through the group.
“You ashamed of me or something?” he mutters to Stinger, who looks far more affronted by the suggestion than Champ actually feels. He knows by now that there tends to be a less dramatic explanation, even if his partner isn’t always keen to divulge it at first.
“No! God, just. You don’t know what it’s like,” he whispers urgently, “when these things are – ”
The subdued mood of before is gone in an instant as an exuberant cheer goes up through the crowd.
“ – made official,” Stinger finishes with a wince.
“Ah,” Champ says, in dawning understanding, as the two of them are hauled to their feet and clapped on the back in congratulations by no less than ten different people. Stinger nearly gets bowled over from the force of it. A cozy welcoming committee is one thing. A party is something else entirely for him. Stinger could maybe stand to attend a few more parties, though, is his line of thinking, and so he decides to do what he does best and lean in.
“Hey, what’s the word for song?” he asks, over the clamor of voices around them.
Stinger raises an eyebrow. “Ossya.”
Which is how he somehow manages, through limited vocabulary and a lot of gesturing, to communicate to the closest group of villagers:
He wrote a song about us. You should make him sing it.
The look of betrayal Stinger gives him is priceless.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” he says, and Champ laughs as he pats his cheek, takes him by the shoulders and shoves him forward to his eagerly awaiting audience.
“It’s not – something I decided in advance,” he explains later, back in their graciously provided room. Curled up on his side on the sleeping mat, on the verge of drifting off, his hand rests light against the metal of Champ’s shin. “It’s just… In the heat of the moment. It seemed right to say it.” He clears his throat. “Maybe… I just didn’t want you to leave.”
He can feel a hum of amusement in his chest. “What, so you’re rescinding my soul mate status?”
Stinger frowns up at him. “That’s not what I’m saying. Of course I actually – ” He breaks off, a faint blue tinge in his cheeks. “Wish you’d stop calling it that, anyhow.”
“Oh, my bad. It’s something even deeper than that, right? A ‘sacred bond’?”
He groans, covering his face with his hands. “Champ, come on. Can you make fun of me in the morning instead? I’m so tired I’m at a disadvantage here.”
Cute, he thinks. It still manages to take him by surprise sometimes. Certainly he couldn’t have programmed to look at someone like this and find him so cute.
“Alright, I’ll cut you some slack.” He leans down to press his mouth against his hair, making sure his systems are running warm as he does so – the closest to a kiss he can manage. “Anything for my abatia.”
“Are you sure you have to leave so soon?” Ulun’s disappointment seems to be directed at the both of them, and Champ can’t help feel a little pleased by that. Like he’s won over the ‘in-laws.’ (A term he learned from Earth television, that Kotaro then had to explain to him.)
“Duty calls, y’know,” he says, clapping Stinger on the shoulder, and Ulun gives them a sad but accepting smile in return.
“Champ has a match coming up soon, and if I take any more days off, my coworker will throw a fit,” Stinger explains. The mere mention of work and he’s assumed his Commander’s Posture again. “But… I’ll try to come back. As soon as I can.”
Ulun nods, eyes warm. “You may find this place changed when you do.” She casts her gaze around, thoughtfully scanning the bungalows and the faces of the people cooking, weaving, chatting. “We’ve been living in almost-isolation for many decades now. It was safer, I suppose. In the time of Jark Matter. But things are different now, aren’t they?
“And you know. Seeing the two of you has made me realize… that there could be happiness waiting out there in this universe for some among my people. Outsiders who could become something special. It’s unfair of me to prevent such potential meetings from occurring, isn’t it?”
They share a taken aback glance as she pauses to procure a farewell gift from one of her assistants – a netted bag stuffed full of the most vibrant fruit he’s ever seen.
“Y’hear that?” Champ murmurs. “We’re an inspiration.”
Stinger seems too thrown to muster an embarrassed retort. He blinks hard, a sheen to his eyes as Ulun presses the farewell gift into his hands, as others start to mill around, touching his arm and saying their heartfelt goodbyes. Their once-again guide Neyva has to forcefully pull the two of them away, in the end, towards the twisting jungle paths back to the beach.
“Happiness, huh.” He pushes aside a tangle of low-hanging moss and lichen. “Oi, partner, are you happy?”
He’s got the bag thrown over his shoulder as he navigates the path ahead, and those bright pieces of fruit shift as he laughs. “What kind of question is that?” He stops. Turns back slowly to look at him, and it’s so soft and unguarded it makes him halt in his tracks as well. Like being hit with a full body slam from off the ropes.
“Of course I am,” Stinger says, and smiles.