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Ever since the second ship crashlanded, the colony has been a hive of activity. The materials, technology, and seed banks from the Heliopause are welcome additions to the colony’s infrastructure. Their people and weapons are… kind of a mixed bag.
Pyrexic always thought that she’d never meet anyone who wasn’t, well, a baby. She wishes she could be more excited to be wrong. Along with their guns, these Helio have brought a whole heap of the attitudes the Vertumna Group hoped to leave behind on Earth. Many of them are some combination of stiff, aggressive, and mean. Pyrexic’s peers and elders have teased her plenty, but she’s never felt looked down on before.
Whatever, it’s their loss. Pyrexic loves people, but she’s never played those games and she never will; she’s herself, take her or leave her. Sheesh, she got over ‘if you don’t join in with everyone else you’re a looooser’ in the creche.
Pyrexic wouldn’t usually be idling around people watching when there’s work to do, it’s just that she’s been left at kind of a loose end. Her very first shift in the new xenobotany lab started off with a literal bang as one of the terminals exploded, no doubt due to bugs getting at the cabling again. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, it’s just going to take a while to fix and a while longer to safety test, and until then, Pyrexic doesn’t get any lab time, which sucks, ‘cause she loves lab time. She’s always had an affinity for plants, and the instruments make stuff make sense in a way that never quite seemed to click in the classroom. Passing her certification for the lab is one of the hardest thing she’s ever done.
To be honest, the accident has Pyrexic kind of rattled. That could have gone real bad, and it’s sending some unwelcome memories pinballing around her head. Acrid smoke, showering sparks, a body falling without so much as a chance to scream.
Pyrexic grimaces. Alright, she’s gotta find something to occupy herself; maybe she can swing by the expeditions depot and see if the rover or autobus are still parked up? Can’t overthink if she’s busy exerting her body. Worth a shot, even if it’s pretty likely that the surveyors have already ventured far beyond the colony walls by this time in the morning. Adventuring around and documenting this gorgeous planet good. 5am wakeups… not so good.
Breaking into a brisk walk, Pyrexic begins making her way across the colony. Vace is stepping out of the quarters right as she passes, manhandling a crateful of what’s probably packed lunches.
“Where you headed, slacker?” he hollers goodnaturedly, balancing the crate easily on his hip.
“Lab accident! Seeing if I can sub in someplace!” Pyrexic calls back. Vace’s brow is already creasing with concern, so she quickly goes on. “Nobody got hurt, don’t get in a twist!”
“Fine, I won’t check on you!” Vace grins, just a little in relief. He’s always been the responsible and (over)protective one, even when they were kids.
“Don’t need it!” Pyrexic ripostes. “Catch up at dinner?”
She’s just close enough to see his exaggerated roll of the eyes. “I guess I don’t have plans.” He flicks his long plume of a ponytail. “See ya, punk.”
Pyrexic makes a rude gesture, and Vace sets off, chuckling. She briefly watches him go, and then resumes her own journey.
Weird to think that they used to hate each other. Well, maybe hate is a strong word, but Pyrexic distinctly remembers wailing exactly that at him, each of them scooped in the arms of a different adult, both beside themselves and crying.
Planetside, things changed. There was way too much to do and see for Vace’s bossiness to get to Pyrexic, and in turn, if she’s being totally fair and balanced, she did kinda stop pushing his buttons on purpose.
In her defence, he was really overbearing.
Anyway, turns out that they actually get along. He has a big heart and works hard, and presumably he finds her vaguely likable too.
Pyrexic’s musings are interrupted by another encounter, this just outside of engineering. A person she has never seen before is stood staring at the sky with the familiar wide-eyed look of someone is experiencing life outside a spaceship for the very first time. Which is a little strange, since it’s at least a month since the Heliopause crashed and even the folks who aren’t fully adapted to terrestrial life are done with the gawking.
The Helio tend to be pretty rigidly gendered in their presentation, so it’s doubly intriguing that the stranger is dressed neutrally enough that Pyrexic can’t call it one way or the other. (Another set of norms she’s not much a fan of; clothing, hair, jewellery, that should all be preference, not prescription). They’re rather skinny, have a mane of blue/blonde hair, and—oh! Are those dog ears?
Thankfully, they’re preoccupied enough that they don’t notice Pyrexic staring at their canine features, and she’s buttoned up her surprise by the time they snap out of their daze and turn around.
“Agk! Uh—hi! Hello!” they blurt. “Hey uh, nice to meet you!”
“And you too.” Pyrexic finds a smile tugging at her mouth. This person seems about her age, and that’s pretty exciting; she thought she’d met everyone in a similar cohort already. “The name’s Pyrexic; you can call me Rex.”
“Rex!” One of their ears twitches. It’s floppy and covered in fur a similar colour to the blonde in their hair. Pyrexic really wants to touch it. “I’m Indifferent—uh, my name’s Indifferent, I mean, not that I don’t care about meeting you. People call me Diff.” Their eyes widen, face lighting up. “And my pronouns are xe/xem.” Xe sounds very proud of xerself.
Rex lifts a hand. “She/her.”
Diff nods enthusiastically. “It’s SO cool that you guys have all this stuff about like um, gender!” Xe gestures vaguely at the engineering building behind xem. “I’ve been stuck in medical forever cause my head got messed up in the crash, and I spent most of it talking to your AI. She’s like galactic cool, and she was telling me about how stuff isn’t always on a binary and I was like oh dip that’s me!” The words come out in a rush. Pyrexic knows a fellow motormouth who must be acquainted with xem posthaste.
“Good for you,” she replies. “You only just got out of medbay?”
“They let me leave last night, but I had to come back for observations this morning to make sure everything was still normal,” Diff explains.
Rex nods. “You get a tour yet, or you just been left to sink or swim?”
Diff chuckles mischievously, a glint in xer eye and a flash of sharp teeth in xer smile. Pyrexic decides she likes Diff’s laugh. “Technically I should be reporting in at the garrison, but I might have asked Congruence to please and thank you take my name off the detail.” Xe shrugs. “Wanna see what else there is to do other than shoot guns and punch people.”
“A lot, a whole lot.” Pyrexic smiles. Xe just gets better and better, huh?
“Speaking of, uh… I could maybe use a hand finding my way to construction…” Diff trails off while giving Rex very literal puppydog eyes.
“Right thattaway, can’t miss it,” she deadpans, pointing in the right direction. Xe’s cute, but she’s wise to these wiles.
Diff’s face falls just slightly, then rebounds. “Alright! Thanks for the help! I’ll see… mm?”
Rex has held up a hand. “Just giving you a hard time,” she says, grinning crookedly. “I’ll take you there, just this once.”
“Whoo!” Diff cheers. “Let’s go!”
Walking side by side, Pyrexic begins to get a better sense for Diff. Xe’s very excitable, rubbernecking at all the sights and sounds of the colony and Vertumna, but Rex has a sense that much of that is down to the pent up energy of being confined to a hospital recovering for over a month. There’s direction to xer barrage of questions, an underlying interest in how the colony runs, what the people here are like, and the finer details of their own age group. For her part, Pyrexic learns a little more about Diff; xe’s an only child, loves making things (apparently to xer mom’s consternation), and yes xe can move xer ears independently, if she’s wondering.
She was, in fact, wondering.
It’s with some disappointment and reluctance that Rex indicates with an arm that they’ve reached the construction crew’s makeshift base of operations. “You’ll want to find Lum or Miasma,” Rex explains. “They’re running the crew—now.” ‘At the moment’, she’d wanted to say. But it’s permanent. The people they’re replacing aren’t coming back.
“Got it, thanks for helping a little lost doggie.” Diff bats xer eyelashes, then dissolves into giggles. “Seriously though, I appreciate it.” Xe hesitates, cheer faltering. “Hey um, I’d love to hang out again, too. If, y’know, that’s okay.”
Rex smiles at xem. “I’m sure that’s doable. Shoot me a message, let me know how today goes for ya?”
“Aye aye!” Xe salutes, both ears perking up, and then tears off towards the construction site.
Pyrexic feels a faint heat in her cheeks. Adorable. And stars, that smile. The way xer whole face just goes bright as sunshine. Someone like that comes from the Heliopause? Xe’s nothing at all like the others; Rex doesn’t think xe’s quite like anyone else she’s ever met.
She blinks, realising that she’s just standing around, lingering for a glance of Diff before xe vanishes from view. She buries her face in her hands, turns, and speeds away, hoping against hope that nobody happened to spot her.
Uh oh, Pyrexic.