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Esraniki sits cloaked in the treeline, watching Kellin work away behind a set of terminals. She always found herself watching him when she had the free time away from her assignments. Her teammates back at the treehouse would always tease her about it, saying he wasn’t anything worth studying, just another human of the eight billion on this planet. To her though, Kellin is certainly not just one of eight billion, but one in eight billion. The feats of bravery that came from surviving in this forest despite not nearly as advanced equipment as her. Taking risks when it came to the unknown of her and the other Arirals while not being afraid or lashing out violently that certainly wouldn’t be unexpected from humans. Along with being pretty smart all things considered from what she observed of him working with the signal capturing equipment and elsewhere around the base. And of course, the interest for things much bigger than oneself that she could relate to a lot.
However, what had originally started as curious surveying of her human neighbour had slowly turned into genuine concern for him. It was something to do with the way he went about his tasks with a lifeless look in his eyes, his hunched over posture or his disheveled appearance that made her feel bad for him. One thing she knew about humans was that they were a social species much like Arirals, but here Kellin was far from anyone to talk to. He was slowly withering away as he tried to survive all the dangerous things that lived in these woods.
Esraniki remembers when she first saw Kellin, he had this dumb and awe-inspiring look as he saw, or more felt the warp arrows for the first time as their cloaking were engaged. By pure happenstance, he came across a picnic they had set up and she happened to be nearby to see his reaction. He was beaming with this sense of wonder, smiling while taking lots of pictures, talking to himself about something related to this being all the proof he needed.
At that point, she didn’t even know his name and yet she still watched from afar and took in how happy he was. Maybe that first impression is why she cared about him so much. The look of deep curiosity that transcended the barrier between species or culture. It just endeared him to her so much and led to really stretching her restrictions of not coming into contact with any humans. It’s that concern and care for him that brought her out here, as Esraniki is trying to figure out just one thing about Kellin…
What she could give him to invoke that look of awe-inspiring wonder as a gift for his day of birth.
If her grasp on the human calendar is correct and the date on Kellin’s badge, which she had taken a couple of weeks ago, was his day of birth. It will be happening two days from now. From what she understands of human traditions, celebrating the day of one's birth every year was a somewhat important event in a person's life. A tradition that was shared with family members and close friends, where gifts would be given as a celebration for one's life.
And Kellin would be all alone when his day came this year.
Adjusting her position in the treeline to keep Kellin in view, she watches him walk out to the garage and hop onto the small vehicle and peel out. As he rides out between the big satellites; she trails behind, always keeping enough distance as to not alert him of her presence. All while she thinks about gift ideas.
One that seems simple enough is to just uncloak in front of him. For his own safety, it would still only be the protective suit visible due to Ariral biology being actively harmful towards humans. Still Kellin had never actually seen her uncloaked, the only reference he had to how she looked was her simmering silhouette while cloaked and some creative drawings that she and her teammates drew on the sides of the main base. So all she would need to do is uncloak on the day and waltz down to the base and be there with him to celebrate with him. That could really make him happy to actually see her, even if just the armor.
But even knowing what that could do to improve his mood, Esraniki rules the idea out. It would be pushing at the guidelines she was already stretching to its limits when it came to in what capacity they were allowed to interact with humans. Kellin knew much more about them then he really should’ve, though given his situation cut off from all means of communication from the wider planet, it was a bit of a non-issue.
Kellin stops at the satellite by the far end of the lake with Esraniki stopping by a set of benches on the main path. Something about him today seems different as he is moving at a more sluggish pace. Her best guess is that he has been pulling long nights again, which isn’t unexpected given he had to deal with avoiding the wisps daily for the past few days. Lucky for him though, it was now a problem of the past as the Rozitals dealt with the problem only the day before.
As she continues her observation of Kellin, she starts to think about another idea for a good gift. Maybe she could make another little plushie of him along with some food. Sure it’s a little simple, but he liked the plush she had made last time along with all the brownies it took to lead him to the note. He has kept that plushie on his desk since the day he got it and delivered a few packs of shrimps off to the treehouse seemingly in thanks. It isn’t going to blow his mind or get him to make that dumb shocked look she had seen when he encountered something not of this world, but it would be something she could do without direct contact.
Kellin descends from the satellite and takes off towards the other side of the valley. She moves from her hiding spot and runs off in the direction he is heading. As Esraniki trails behind the vehicle, she disregards the idea as she affirms to herself that the gift must be one that really wows him. There is always another day to give him food and cute toys of himself that she puts together.
When she realizes what satellite he must be heading to and gets a little bit worried for him. It’s the one located on a hill that is about a stone's throw away from the entrance of a cave; A cave which has been the center of her studies in the forest for days now. As far as collecting some samples of the large crystals in the caves. Esraniki didn’t know exactly what lived in that cave as of yet, but it was big and it could be dangerous. Especially to someone that doesn’t have a suit of heavily specialized armor and is running off two hours of sleep.
With Kellin parking up his vehicle at the base of the dish, Esraniki positions herself just by the edge of the hill to put herself between the cave and Kellin. Hearing the metal clatter of boots climbing up the stairs, she returns to pondering on her gift dilemma.
She runs though a lot of ideas quickly, but both either fall into the too simple category or crossing some kind of boundary with handing a human an advanced piece of technology. It gets to the point that she considers just gifting some of the large white crystals she had collected from the cave. Esraniki believed humans called it “Quarrs” and it would be housed in a container that suspends the sample in a stasis field.
It would differently capture his curiosity, trying to pickapart how it works or just marveling at it. The container is pretty technologically advanced by human standards. So much so that she likely shouldn’t be giving it to Kellin. However, considering it for a little longer, it is not like she is handing him the schematics to a superweapon or the warp arrows. Just a pretty looking sample container that hopefully captures his awe and has him just a little bit puzzled so he can have something to ponder over.
This idea more than the others seems to be the right one, but she feels like there is one final piece that could really make this a special gift for Kellin. It only takes a moment before she figures out what could really strike shock and awe into his little cute face. Esraniki sprints back towards the treehouse and more importantly the warp arrows. There is a pretty good chance her teammates will disagree with such an unauthorized flight, but it is worth it for Kellin.
Kellin does a double-take due to seeing a quick blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. His heart rate spikes and he starts reaching for the crowbar to defend himself if the movement is from some hostile creature that Dunkeltaler wants to throw at him. Tip-toeing down the stairs of Romeo, he readies himself for whatever could be stalking him. Jumping off the last step in a combat stance, he keeps tensed up and ready to strike. Though when nothing attacks him from the foliage, he makes his way toward the ATV so he can collect his last hashcode from Yankee.
He sits hunched over at the downloading terminal, tuning the frequency and polarity of a recently captured signal. After he sets this one to download with the highest efficiency possible, he will be treating himself to a freshly bought, frozen pizza dinner. Despite his very unique situation all alone in Dunkeltaler National Park; it seems like he is going to have a very standard and lonely birthday party for one.
Kellin takes his hands off the dials as he reaches max efficiency on the download before standing up. As he slowly makes his way out of the signal processing room and up to the living quarters, there is a loud banging at the front door of the base which causes him to jump a little.
If he didn’t know better, he would already be running deeper into the base to hide. However, he knows a certain extraterrestrial neighbor that really made sure to knock well. He makes sure to still be cautious while approaching the door as it’s quite possible that he is walking face first into another one of their pranks.
His hand hovers over the release for the doors as he mumbles under his breath, “I swear, if there is a mannequin right up against this door. I will start to skimp out on the shrimp deliveries.’ Kellin activates the door and with the hiss of the hydraulics releasing, it slides open.
Thankfully, he isn’t greeted by a blank wooden face. Instead he’s greeted by a stark white box that is just a bit longer and wider than the standard drive boxes with handles on the side. It also has a note attached to the top. He crouches down to pick up and read what's written on the note.
KELLIN
RECEIVE GIFT
CAUSE DAY OF BIRTH
HOPE LIKE
ESRANIKI A ARIRAL
He has to read the note twice as his brain processes the mere idea that he just got a birthday present from an extraterrestrial. “How did they even know it’s my… Right, these are the same aliens that have cloaking tech, can snoop undetected and have been known for wandering the base at night.. Still… it's not like I left my drivers licence ou..” The explanation dawns on him and he feels stupid for not realizing it before. “So that’s why I couldn’t find my spare ID badge… those pesky shrimp lovers pinched it.”
Grabbing each handle, he is surprised by the heft of the box. Just before he slips back inside, he calls out to the woods, “Thank you!” Just before turning to walk into the base, he swears he sees a weird trick of the air dash between trees.
Hauling the box into the signal processing room, he walks over to the left wall where the map of the array hangs just above an empty metal desk. Kellin places the box on top of the desk before he undoes the latches on the sides and removes the lid. Inside the box is another note on top of nine metal cylindrical tubes. Of course, he reaches for the note and reads it first.
CAREFUL
NO OPEN CONTAINER
SAFE IN CONTAINER
ESRANIKI A ARIRAL
“Okay, if that isn’t just a little bit ominous…” That doesn’t stop him from examining what the objects in the box are, curiosity is now at an all time high. Each one of the tubes has a similar pictogram engraved on the top of it. In the dead center, is a single solid dot which has a ring surrounding it at varying radiouses depending on the tube that also has a dot seemingly placed at random along the line of the ring. The radius ranges from almost converging with the center dot, to being almost on the rim of the container. A sense of familiarity washes over him, but he can’t pin exactly why this pictogram feels like something he should know.
Taking extra care with removing the first tube from the box, Kellin finds that there is a glasslike window to show the contents of the container. In this one, is a dusty looking reddish rock. Of course, he is immediately fascinated with the fact that the sample looks to be held in what looks like a stasis field. Despite better judgment, he flips the container and confirms that the rock doesn’t even move a nano-meter.
“Holy shit, this is a cool piece of tech. Is really practically too given it means any sample couldn’t be disturbed by any movement… now if only I could figure out what the sample was…” Kellin thinks he has placed the cylinder on the desk and continues to unpack the box.
In total, five of the samples are solid and rocklike. While the remaining four are gaseous in nature. While initially he thought all pictograms had a different size of outer ring; one of the samples, a gray powdery rock, actually had a ring that seemingly matched with another sample ring. That sample being what looks to be a pretty flawless example of a quartz crystal.
Kellin holds his hand over his mouth as he tries to put together the puzzle pieces that are whirling around in his head. The pictogram is the only sort of label or identification the samples had, but it seems that Esraniki certainly thought it was enough to figure out what each sample was.
He decides to place each tube in an order of increasing size of that outermost ring. After doing so it does reveal a new piece of information to work with. The five rock samples are closest to the center dot. While the gaseous samples all have the furthest rings from the center dot. He steps back to really take a moment to study the display. It feels like he is on the precipice of the solution as all of this feels oddly familiar in a weird sort of way.
And then it clicks.
The messy cloud ideas and theories condense together until a critical point, in which the solution is born as a bright star. Where each puzzle piece falls into a perfect orbit around that central solution and causes Kellin’s eyes to go wide. Like many things even remotely related to the Arirals, he can’t believe what's in front of him in the cylinders.
They are samples from each planet in the solar system, along with the most important moon to any earthling. It's an unbelievable and absolutely amazing sight that no human in history has ever had. He always joked with himself that he held a bunch of the big milestones in astronomical history given his regular contact with extraterrestrial life. Yet, he is now in possession of seven new milestones which he has stolen off all the major space agencies. First samples from Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Satan, Uranus and Neptune returned to Earth. He is fine with NASA having one win in the form of the first sample from the moon.
Kellin can’t help but smile and laugh a little as this is just such a momentous sight in his mind. Just having a piece of every planet only a few feet away. It’s the most happy he's been in weeks as the inner child has a field day examining each one of the samples up close. All thanks to a noisy alien that understands the concept of a birthday present and decided that he was worth a cross solar system trip to acquire the gift. Any plans he had for the evening are thrown out as this incredible gift is now the center of his focus.
As Kellin grabs a chair to sit down with the samples, Esraniki sits just in the tree line peering into the big bay window of the signal processing room. She sees Kellin make that cute little face and can’t help but smile herself under the mask.