Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

You put on your glasses and lean close to examine the stuff, absently stopping the fluffcheep from pecking at it. "Have you tried soaking it in a mild lye solution and then drawing it through a roller? I often use behemoth gut thread in bookbinding, and I believe that's how it's made."

 

"Well bless your brains, love, aren't you a little scholar," the girl says, drawing herself up in affront. "Would you care to advise me on how to braid my hair, next?"

"Haha, you stuck your foot in it now, buddy," the boy says, and heads back into the bathroom.

 

You shrug. "It didn't work?" you prompt.

Some part of you is wondering why you always seem to like people for getting annoyed at you, but mostly you're just curious whether you could bind books with glow in the dark thread.

 

"Astoundingly enough, honey child, I somehow neglected to attempt a technique some random little boy told me he'd heard about once for an entirely different sort of material," the girl says acidly. "Would you assume your guts process the same way as a swamp dragon's? I can assure you they wouldn't."

She huffily plies the green fibers for a few turns, then visibly settles herself into her earlier calm, easy friendliness. "Now, would you like more tea, dear? You seem like you've had a rough couple of nights."

 

You would, in fact, assume all guts process the same way, roughly, since aren't they all made of collagen and muscle fiber? But since she's changing the topic, you don't ask. You're kind of disappointed, though; you were hoping she'd teach you something. Oh well. "It's, um, kind of you to offer, but I'm thinking I should check out this Heinrich person. I still don't understand what his deal is and I really need to have a solution in place before Erskin wanders off looking for someone to bite him again."

It's getting harder and harder to ignore your fatigue, but you've handled worse before. It's just that you were handling it in the mud and rain on a battlefield, not a comfy chair in a warm parlor.

 

"His deal is he's an awful person, for any given value of person, and you shouldn't go anywhere near him on no sleep and an empty stomach," the girl says, and pours Bel more tea. "And anyway you crashed your flyer, dear, at least put your feet up while you order a new one."

 

"It stil flies, it's just a little scuffed up." But you accept the tea. After a moment's thought, you sigh and accept the advice too -- get out your phone and contact the rental people.

Once you put the phone away, you sip the tea and venture, "What's awful about him? Is he like Cloris?"

 

"Oh, no, not at all," she says dismissively. "Cloris was just a stripling, you know, still very wild. Hence all the sex and the drugs and the troll rock-and-roll. But I suppose she and Heinrich had this in common, you couldn't tell them a damn thing."

She pours herself some tea— not without a quick, measuring stare at Bel's throat— and settles back to sip. "He does take his charges well in hand, though. Every decade or so he's bragging about how this one or that won this honor or that, though you couldn't pay me enough to care which captains are doing what out there. He spends decades off-planet traveling about with them, sometimes, but he always comes back." She grimaces. "That, at least, I can understand, we're made for the light of this star. It isn't right to be anywhere else for us. Still, it'd be nice if that were one of the things he didn't care about."

 

"So they survive," you insist. "And are still functional enough to achieve stuff after he's done with them. That sounds like a good thing. What's the catch?"

She just shakes her head ominously, which persuades you of nothing.

"Well, thank you very much for the tea and advice. I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced. Forgive my rudeness, but I need to troll Jethro before I head out."

CH: * How is Erskin?
AD: = sleepy, dopey, an a couple other mythical mini-trolls. where the fuck you at?
CH: * I went to see some pleasant, civilized rainbow drinkers who seem to like Erskin as a person.
AD: = dude why
CH: * Looking for an alternative to letting him pick his own fix, because he has terrible taste in undead.
CH: * Apparently there's this drinker named Heinrich who is so old he's got no passion or aggression left, and who likes to mentor his bite-ees or something. I am informed that they not only survive, but do well afterwards.
CH: * Since it sounds like this Aurora lady considers herself a real stand-up troll for not killing him all at once, and won't even walk him to the door, a mentor figure would be a big improvement, right? Even if he's sort of creepy.
CH: * But one of the nice drinkers says he's awful, though she won't specify awful how.
CH: * So I'm going to go check this Heinrich guy out and make sure he's not a hazard.
AD: = whoa up there, big blue!
CH: * What?
AD: = slow your roll.
CH: * What. I'm listening.
AD: = no, i mean slow down on this drinker shit. don't do any more drinker shit.
CH: * I can't send Erskin to Heinrich sight unseen. I'm not even sure yet I want to suggest the guy.
AD: = don't be doin this all on your ownsome, bro. ain't your call to make.
CH: * I'm not making any calls! I'm just gathering information!
AD: = just get a room or something, ok?
CH: * Are you okay with random strangers putting their mouths all over him, Jethro? He'll let anyone do anything!
AD: = bro, you sound like a paranoid asshole. don't make me shoosh you. when'd you last sleep?
CH: * That's irrelevant. You're not listening to me.
AD: = oh my god it is SO relevant. look at this chat after a solid six hours in sopor an tell me again it ain't relevant. fuck off and sleep, bel.

- armchairDesperado [AD] has blocked crossfireHurricane [CH] -
- armchairDesperado [AD] has unblocked crossfireHurricane [CH] -

AD: = and call sarge back, she's blowin up my phone lookin for your ass

- armchairDesperado [AD] has blocked crossfireHurricane [CH] -

You scowl at your phone. Jethro is usually fairly sensible. Maybe you should take his advice. You are pretty tired, and the rental guys haven't swapped out your flyer with the cracked windshield yet.

Assembling a smile that you hope is more polite than weird, you say humbly, "Sorry to impose, but is there anywhere I could catch a nap?"

 

"If you don't mind secondhand sopor there's three or four recuperacoons free to chose from, dear," she says. "It's not a bother, we've got folks in and out all hours of the day and night."

She indicates a place for Bel to set his tea, then leads him up a set of stairs to a winding hallway lined with doors. Some rooms are open, and piled high with crates, bags, bundles, sticks, and string, and others seem more like normal respite or entertainment blocks. The few closed doors she looks into she closes again quickly, until she makes an exasperated tch noise and scurries down to the end of the hall, pushing the door open sharply.

"Here, this is my block, I always seem to manage to forget that no one around here ever cleans up after themselves—" she bustles around the small block, throwing sheets, tapestries, and wads of loose string against the far wall, "— well, including me, I suppose. The sopor's fresh enough, though. Ablution chamber's through there, love, use any of the blank towels you like, and there should be a pajama shirt somewhere around here if you don't want to get your nice little outfit messy. Oh!"

She scoops up a large earthenware basin, pours a pile of seed pods out, bundles a pile of handkerchiefs in, and plops it on a tall stack of books by the cocoon. "There, for your lusus."

(feel free to have any of the books be priceless historical artifacts)

 

"Thank you, very kind." You decide not to argue about the fluffcheep being your lusus. It's a nice little soft nest, and the little guy's had quite a day; you're glad to settle him into it. "There you go, buddy, yes I've got your jingleball, hang on, there it iiiiiohmygod." You sink to one knee, the better to study the book stack. "Is this an original copy of the Book of Zenuri?"

 

"What? oh, yes, I think that's the first one Zenuri threw together, the binding's atrocious. I kept meaning to send it back to her with the annotations the Herald jotted in but then they both died and it seemed a bit pointless. That was awhile back, wasn't it... ah! here's the dayshirt, dear."

A large, striped sleeping shirt is tossed in Bel's direction.

 

The shirt boffs you in the side of the head; you bat vaguely at it, then ignore it, leaving it hanging off your horn. You're busy very gently easing the book out of the pile. "Annotations... the Herald..." you echo breathlessly. The fluffcheep gives a quiet burble of protest as his nest rocks, but then you've got the book, and oh my gosh it's in really good condition. You open it reverently. The color plates are as bright as the day they were printed.

You look up at her beseechingly. "May I... maybe... borrow it? My matesprit and I have a project we're working on, scanning rare old books so their contents won't be lost."

 

The girl looks up from folding a large, crinkly sheet. "Hm? Take it out of the hive? No, dear, you'd get culled and then who would bring it back? You can read it if you promise not to get any sopor on the pages, though. Or crumbs... Mind you, you might get culled just for having read it. I'm sure I have some comics around here somewhere if you'd like some lighter reading..."

 

"I would like to read this, please," you say firmly. You don't blame her for not wanting you to take it anywhere. And you're not about to drag Galley out here just to scan it, that'd be putting him in danger for the sake of an inanimate object. But you do have cameras of your own. Photographs of the pages would be better than nothing! But before that -- "I should bathe first. I still smell like a hive fire. Probably because I lit a hive on fire."

 

"I didn't want to say anything, but yes," the girl agrees, and scoops the book out of his hands, putting it on the wide rim of the recuperacoon. She swats him with the dayshirt. "Go, shoo, don't get hive fire in my sopor. I'll be downstairs if you need anything, though, just shout. And do try to get some sleep, if you try to read all the old books we've got around here I expect you'll go blind first."

After that she scoops up a last few pieces of fabric and bustles out of the room, closing the door with a quiet click behind her.

 

All the old books... all the old books... very old books...

Challenge accepted.

 

Many hours later, the woman with the tattered pants and jangly bracelets comes into the room to rummage through a drawer of colored string for a while, picking out half a dozen yellow-greens and a long, barbed needle. She notices Bel curled up in a heap of books and tapestries and wanders over to shake him by a horn.

"Hey, get up, go sleep in the actual 'cupe," she says. "Growing pupas need regular sleep, and Hess is probably gonna try and load some dumb quest on you tomorrow. Get up. Up. Recuperacoon's over there, buddy."

 

At the first touch, you startle awake and equip the shotgun, but put it away with a mumbled apology the next moment. She doesn't seem alarmed, anyhow.

You untangle the fluffcheep from your hair and put him on top of your head where he can hang on to your horns. You drop the robe -- you've got shorts underneath -- and climb into the 'cupe. "Who's Hess?" you slur. "What's your name? I'm Bel."

 

"Yeah, I'm not gonna remember that," the woman says, pushing him into the slime. "I'm Grue. Hess is her big fat highness whose room this is. Are you her latest? Only she usually goes for much prettier boys, no offense."