Chapter Text
Beatrix took off her headphones and gently threw them on her bed. She had stayed in bed all morning while listening to the song Casey had sent her, deep in thought about their last Starmail. They had never truly broken up before Beatrix left for the Far, Far Range but this had seemed to be it. Casey has their music career and Bea has her slime ranch. It felt good to finally conclude that they were both much happier this way, yet it still hurt a bit that it was fully over now. Beatrix sighed, thinking about life back on Earth and how different things were now. Casey breaking up with her felt like the last string attaching her to Earth had finally been severed, leaving her stranded here. It’s not like she left anyone else behind. Casey had suggested, in a starmail, that Beatrix could find new love here on the Far, Far Range. It sounded unlikely, considering she only knew six people here. Everyone else on the Range was too far away for the range exchange to reach.
Beatrix found herself imagining what a date with the various people she knew here would be like. Viktor seemed cute but it would be impossible to get him to stop working, even for a second. Thora and Hobson were already together. They were also much older than Bea. So was Ogden. She was pretty sure BOb was just 4 pink slimes in a trench coat so that’s definitely a no-go. That only left Mochi...
Bea imagined them on a date together at a fancy restaurant that Mochi would still somehow find ways to criticize. She chuckled at the thought. Mochi would always criticize Bea and her ranch, despite never having seen it for herself. She had learned not to take her insults too seriously and at this point, it seemed more like friendly banter.
Bea finally decided to get out of bed. She had already wasted too much time thinking about things and it had left her a tad uncomfortable. Working all day usually got rid of that feeling. The slimes outside were waiting impatiently to be fed and her mental list of chores wasn’t small. She quickly picked up yesterday’s shirt and pants off the floor where she had left them. Once fully dressed she opened her front door and was greeted with the humid air of the dry reef. There wasn’t a single cloud in sight and the sun was beaming down on Bea. With a smile on her lips, she excitedly started working. Mint mangos, pogo fruits, and prickle pears were flying out her silos and into her vacpack. On the way to the hungry slimes, she decided to use some of it as her breakfast. Today’s menu: fresh prickle pears. Despite their hostile exterior, what was behind it was worth the trouble. It was an acquired taste for sure but Beatrix had come to love it. Her hands were sticky with pear juices when she reached her hungry dervish slimes and launched a couple of pears into their corral. The rest went into the auto-feeder that had been empty for longer than she had intended.
Beatrix would often leave for long adventures and forget how long the auto-feeders would keep her slimes occupied. It usually wasn't worse than a couple of upset slimes though. Except for the quantum slimes. She had gotten rid of most of those by now since they were such a hassle. At first, Bea had felt terrible about shooting slimes into the slime sea but she later learned that it doesn’t hurt them at all. Instead, they’re sucked into the many underground pipes, leading to places all over the Far, Far Range. It made sense when she thought about it. Every time she was out exploring she would see slimes seemingly popping up out of nowhere. Sometimes Beatrix wondered what would happen if a human were to fall into the slime sea but she wasn’t up for testing that theory herself.
She continued her daily chores and quickly finished the most crucial ones. Her slimes were all fed and the ranch was all cleaned up. Before she could even think about what to do next, the range exchange started beeping. It had been a while since anyone had called and she happily dashed over to pick up. A familiar face flickered into view on the small pixelated display.
“Heyyy, Beatrix.” Mochi, the proclaimed top rancher, shouted. “It’s been a hot minute!”
“It sure has,” Bea replied. “I guess we both got busy.”
“Oh, you bet your butt I’ve been busy!” Mochi said with a smirk that could only mean she had been up to no good. “I discovered a new slime!”
“You did WHAT?”
“Oh yeah I did,” Mochi said proudly. “It’s a bismuth slime!”
“I’ve never even heard of those...” Beatrix replied, confused.
“That’s because I’m the first person to discover them!” Mochi continued. “I tried mixing the quicksilvers with quantum slimes just for fun and they merged!”
“Wait, they’re largos?” Bea asked, now more confused.
“Nope!” Mochi said excitedly and went way too close to the camera. “Come over so I can show you!”
She paused, realizing how excited she had gotten.
“I-if you have the time of course...” Mochi said, trying to regain her professional composure.
Bea chuckled. It was always pleasant to see Mochi's passion for her work shine through her tough facade.
"Of course I'll come over," Beatrix said and smiled. "I'll be there in a minute."
She turned off the range exchange and headed towards the grotto where the teleporter to Nimble Valley was located. It whirred as Bea stepped onto it. In an instant, she was transported across the planet and had arrived at Nimble Valley, the location of one of Mochi's mansions. The temperature was much nicer here, compared to the desert Bea was used to living in. Bea walked through the green force field, making her vacpack automatically change to Mochi's modified vac. The sound it made still startled her every single time. Mochi was already calling on the plort exchanger when Beatrix arrived. She seemed impatient today. Bea hit the big green button and Mochi's pixelated image popped up on the screen.
"Took you long enough!"
"It took me less than a minute, Mochi." Beatrix chuckled. "That's actually faster than I promised you."
Mochi huffed.
"Whatever, I added a new teleporter that will take you to the bismuth track. I’ve worked on this for a long time and making this discovery was hard work. They function about the same as the quicksilver slimes, I think. I haven't really tested them much because… no one else really picks up..."
Mochi’s excitement vanished for a second but quickly returned.
"I promise these plorts are worth a lot of money!” Mochi continued as if nothing had happened. “And I already have a couple of orders ready and…"
"Mochi, I would love to help you out," Bea cut her sales speech off. "Not because of the money but because we’re friends."
Bea gave her a reassuring smile. Mochi's cheeks reddened slightly and a slight smile formed on her lips before continuing.
"Excellent!" She exclaimed. "You up for giving it a whirl right now?"
"Totally!" Beatrix said excitedly.
She actually was quite excited to see these new slimes for the first time. It had been many months since Bea had seen anything new around here.
"Great!" Mochi's facial expression suddenly got serious. "But be careful in there. Okay, Bea?"
Beatrix smiled seeing that Mochi actually did care a bit about her. She always suspected it but it was nice to have it confirmed.
"I'll do my very best!"
"Good because I can’t have my only worker bee get beaten up by some wild slimes. Then I wouldn’t make any money!" She said with a smirk. “Later, tater!”
The screen went dark.
The teleporter was on a new platform above the two previous ones. It was painted in all the colors of the rainbow, probably to make it look like bismuth. Bea thought it was cute how Mochi had such attention to detail. She took a deep breath and stepped onto the teleporter. Moments later Bea found herself inside a narrow cave corridor. Good thing she wasn't claustrophobic. It looked like she was somewhere deep beneath the indigo quarry with the blue rock walls and crystals hanging from the ceiling. A generator that looked similar to the ones used to bring the quicksilver slimes out was mounted to the tunnel's wall. Bea took a deep breath before pressing the button. The tunnel was instantly lit up by the crystals as if they had absorbed the electricity from the generator. She barely had any time to adjust to the bright blue light before the bismuth slimes appeared. They almost spilled out of crevices in the walls and formed as they hit the ground. It seemed like Mochi had forgotten to tell her how much bigger they were compared to the quicksilver slimes. They were definitely the size of a largo. It looked like they changed color all the time but Beatrix didn’t get to take a good look at them. The slimes were already barreling towards her in the narrow tunnel and she barely had time to reach the electrical charge station before they started flying past her. Even with the best dash boots she had, it was hard to keep up with them. The tunnels snaked around, up and down, in sudden hairpin turns. Suddenly the tunnel ended in a huge cavern. The floor disappeared under Bea’s feet but she quickly turned on her jetpack. She landed safely on the floating islands in the middle of the round cavern and kept running after the speedy slimes. While jumping from island to island, she realized she should’ve taken a look around the track before bringing the slimes out but that was too late now. The cave ended in another narrow tunnel, only lit up by the crystals. So far Bea had managed to not get hit by a single charged slime but her luck was about to end. She had made the mistake of turning around and shooting the slimes behind her. By the time she realized what she had done, it was too late. Multiple charged bismuth slimes went right through her as they sped by, transferring their electricity to Beatrix. She fell to the ground with a burning sensation spreading over her entire body. She tried getting back up but that only resulted in more pain. As she stumbled, her vision got blurry. She tried desperately to stay awake but ended up passing out on the cold rock floor.
It was dark and cold when Beatrix limped back into Nimble Valley. There were multiple missed calls from Mochi on the plort exchanger. Bea groaned in pain as she lifted the vacpack and started shooting the bismuth plorts into the plort exchanger. She wasn’t even halfway done before Mochi called again. Bea sighed and pressed the green button.
“Beatrix!” Mochi yelled. “Where have you been!? I thought you were dead or something!”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Bea lied, trying to look like she wasn’t in pain.
“This screen may be pixelated but I can see that you’ve gotten burned badly,” Mochi said more calmly, realizing Bea was mostly alright. “What happened?”
“I got hit by a bunch of charged bismuth slimes,” Bea replied, letting her facade fall. “The tunnels were too narrow to even attempt to avoid them.”
“Crap...” Mochi said under her breath. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again, okay? I’m gonna make the new track much safer.”
Bea nodded, too tired to reply. By now she had finished depositing all the bismuth plorts. She waved at Mochi, signaling that she was going home.
“Wait!” Mochi said as Beatrix started limping away. “You should take a break, Bea.”
She sounded worried.
“Yeah, I probably should.”
Beatrix returned to her ranch and headed towards the med station. Her right leg was heavily burned and she could already tell the med station wasn’t gonna be able to heal her up completely. The bismuth slimes were much stronger than Bea had been anticipating. It was like they were liquid when they passed right through her. She had never seen anything like it. The burns slowly healed as she stood on the med station but it could only do so much. She did a quick check of her ranch to make sure all her slimes were okay and headed inside. She didn’t bother to take off any of her clothes and collapsed in bed. Her plan had been to watch one of the movies 7Zee had included in their last shipment from Earth but that clearly wasn’t going to happen today. Beatrix closed her heavy eyelids and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
Mochi turned off the monitor and sighed. The bismuth slimes had been a huge disaster. Sure, Bea had gotten her some high-value plorts but she had also gotten hurt. Mochi stood up and went over to her bee drone control panel. She had promised Bea that the track was going to be safer next time and she intended to keep that promise. The bee drones installed around the bismuth track woke up and Mochi gave them new instructions. Making the tunnels larger wasn’t a hard task, just time-consuming. She narrowed her eyes, deep in thought about what else could improve the safety of the track. Mochi ended up writing a list of things to improve and made sure at least one bee drone was on each task. This should be done in a couple of days. She sighed.
“I hope she comes back again...”
Beatrix woke up tangled in blankets. The sun beamed through her window. She had definitely overslept. After untangling herself she stood up, testing if her leg was better today. It still hurt to stand on it but at least she could walk. Today’s goal was to do as little work as possible. She intended to take Mochi’s advice seriously and take a break for once. There weren’t even many tasks to do around the ranch today. Some fruits and veggies were done but that was about it. The slimes still had food in their auto-feeders from yesterday. Everything was at peace on this sunny day.
Beatrix returned to her house. She had decided it was a good time to take a shower and change her outfit. Most of the clothes she had been wearing yesterday were burned and probably had to be thrown out. Good thing Beatrix didn’t care much for fashion anyway. The shower was refreshing and a change in outfit was certainly needed. She slipped back into her cozy bed with her computer sitting on her lap. Now she finally had time to watch some of those movies 7Zee had included in their latest shipments. Having time to herself was a luxury Beatrix rarely got to enjoy here on the ranch. Not that she minded being busy all the time but taking this almost full-on break was something she hadn’t tried before. The only reason she was doing it was that Mochi told her to and Beatrix was glad she listened. Sitting in bed and binging movies was something she hadn’t done in years. It almost felt nostalgic.
The rest of the was spent in bed with more movies of all kinds. Beatrix wasn’t picky when it came to entertainment. She went to bed late, after finishing an exceptionally long documentary about seals. The next day she had the same routine. Beatrix had agreed with herself to take a two-day break. She even let herself sleep in. Taking care of the slime’s basic needs was quick and easy. Just restocking some auto feeders and then it was back in bed to watch movies. She promised herself to take more breaks like this in the future. Maybe even tell Mochi to make her do it since Beatrix was so bad at taking breaks on her own.
It had gotten rather late but Bea had paused the movie. A sudden loneliness had washed over her like a tidal wave. Sitting alone in her room with only movies to distract her hadn’t been the best idea after all. Obviously, Beatrix was totally okay with living on her own, or else she wouldn’t have moved to the Far, Far Range, but It seemed like being okay with being alone wasn’t good enough. Just seeing movie characters on screen have fun together made it ache in her stomach. It was dead silent, only making Bea feel more alone. She pushed the computer away and hugged her legs.
“Maybe working all the time isn’t the best idea.” She thought to herself. “I love working but I forget to feel things sometimes...”
Beatrix sat there for a while, reflecting on her past. The pattern of overworking herself was something she could trace way back. Back to before she left for the Far, Far Range even. Casey had been sad and distant when Bea told them she was leaving soon but all Bea did was work more. She had no idea for how long she had been avoiding this current loneliness but now that she thought about it, she had been working a lot more lately.
“There’s no way I’m ever gonna make a friend on this dumb rock.” Beatrix sighed. “Everyone’s so far away...”
She closed her eyes. This was the first time she had missed life back on Earth. Making friends could certainly be troublesome there but it was nothing compared to here on the Far, Far Range. The number of people she was in contact with was in the single digits. Not exactly an ideal situation when you’re lonely. Why weren’t the other ranchers lonely…
A beep from her computer suddenly pulled her out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw it was a starmail from Mochi.
(no subject)
From Mochi:
hey hey! i have spent all my time since you left on making the bismuth track better. my bee drones have been excavating the site to make the tunnels bigger. i even installed lamps!!! you bet your butt it’s safe now. i made sure. you should really come over tomorrow and try again but ONLY if you are okay. i will be VERY upset if you come over and you’re not okay. got it? later, tater!
Bea smiled faintly. Even a simple message like this was enough to ease the loneliness. If only Mochi wanted to do more than just business with her. Not that she had any idea of what they could do together but just the thought of hanging out with another human being again felt so good. She quickly replied to the starmail and closed her computer. At least she would get to talk to Mochi again tomorrow. Surely that would fix this loneliness.