Lt Vylaa zh'Tisav: Sins Of The Father
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Andrew B
10:00 AM (11 hours ago) 10:00 AM
to Gorkon IC
((Anderson Hotel, Peachtrees District, Adamas))
The room was quiet. Athyn and Sivaa had fallen asleep with an arm each across Alorr’s sleeping form, having been lulled to sleep by the grahty’s purr-snores. Vylaa and Sallia now sat on the balcony, curled up side by side on a lounger, watching the clouds pass by overhead. The Anderson didn’t break past the cloud layer, nowhere in Peachtrees did, but they got fairly close. The clerk at the desk had told Vylaa it had been Adamas’ first foray into “super-rise” building. Other districts like Concordia had surpassed it within a few decades but it was preserved as it had been first built as a sort of historical showcase rather than be torn down and rebuilt.
zh’Tisav: So, are you going to tell me why you’re really here? Without Sel or Riv?
Sallia took a long sip from her srjula, taking her time to answer.
Sallia: The… the twins have been having trouble in school…
zh’Tisav: Oh… ::She looked out over the building at the garish neon.:: They did get really quiet when I asked how school was. How bad are their grades?
Sallia: Oh, it’s nothing like that. They’re top of their age group. They’ve been getting into fights.
zh’Tisav: Fights? Start or finish?
It was an important distinction. Vylaa would never condone them raising their hands to provoke another, but if they did it to defend themselves, or another, then she would never fault them for that.
She might even buy them ice cream.
Sallia: Finish, sort of. They’ve been getting picked on by the other children, and they are much like their Zhavey and wouldn’t let that slide.
zh’Tisav: Why in the many gods are they being picked on? And where were the teachers?
Sallia: Because… because my shreya did something terrible, and they’re all taking it out on them.
The shen grew quiet, and Vylaa didn’t know what to say. Least of all because she still didn’t know what the hell was going on. That information lay with the person next to her, who seemed to have shrunk in size, and her normally sky-blue skin had paled.
Sallia: ::Quietly.:: Her trial is in two months…
zh’Tisav: What!? Okay, you need to start from the beginning. Your shreya is a geneticist! What did she do, kill someones puppy?
Sallia: If only it were that minor… She committed a severe breach of testing protocol. She jumped straight to humanoid testing, worse yet without her test subjects knowing…
She trailed off, clearly not wanting to continue. Vylaa was starting to put things together; Sallia’s shreya was on one of the top teams trying to solve the reproduction crisis. The team everyone thought was closest to solving it. The team under the most pressure to succeed…
zh’Tisav: Sallia, who did she test on?
Silence.
zh’Tisav: WHO DID SHE TEST ON?!
Sallia: Us! It was us, and my zhi’s bond, okay?
The zhen was on her feet in an instant, pacing to the railing, where she stood staring out at nothing in particular. Then, in an eye blink she whirled, grabbed Sallia’s srjula mug and threw it against the side of the building, sending hot liquid and shards of ceramic showering toward the ground far below. Given the fickle air currents this high up the bits of mug would probably land on an unsuspecting pedestrian kilometers away, but that was literally neither here nor there.
Vylaa had always known her shedei was driven, and more than a bit arrogant, but this took the fat-grass.
zh’Tisav: ::Growling.:: What did she do to us?
Sallia: It was a retrovirus. She says it was designed to widen genetic comparability and extend our fertility period.
zh’Tisav: Hence the unusual number of children…
Vylaa wanted to scream, to yell at Sallia for letting it happen. But she didn’t. She knew it wasn’t her fault, that if she had had an inkling of what was going on she would have told all of them immediately. She couldn’t fault the child for the sins of the parent.
zh’Tisav: Okay, I get the what, and I’m pretty sure I can guess the why, but how? When?
Sallia, In our drinks at our bonding ceremony. Remember how we all were ill just after?
zh’Tisav: That was food poisoning, from the iffy redbat they served us.
Sallia: No, it wasn’t…
The shen’s voice had grown quieter through the exchange, until it stood barely above a whisper. Vylaa stopped, taking her seat by Sallia’s side again. The gods certainly had not smiled much on the shen in the parental department. First her birth Zhavey had been institutionalized, and now this. Add in a couple of career-driven fathers and it was a wonder she was the wonderful person she was.
zh’Tisav: Does she know what she’s done? Her research will be blacklisted, locked away. No one will look at it for years, even decades. Her impatience may have doomed us.
Sallia: Even if it helps?
zh’Tisav: You know our people. The Traditionalists would rather our people burn than take help from a criminal.
Sallia was silent. Vylaa could sense the feelings emanating from her like waves on a storm-battered rock. Anger, sadness, but worse of all was the shame. It was making sense why her mates hadn’t told her before now. The twins couldn’t be the only ones being snubbed.
zh’Tisav: Okay, so what now? It’s only going to get worse for the twins, for us all.
TBC
The room was quiet. Athyn and Sivaa had fallen asleep with an arm each across Alorr’s sleeping form, having been lulled to sleep by the grahty’s purr-snores. Vylaa and Sallia now sat on the balcony, curled up side by side on a lounger, watching the clouds pass by overhead. The Anderson didn’t break past the cloud layer, nowhere in Peachtrees did, but they got fairly close. The clerk at the desk had told Vylaa it had been Adamas’ first foray into “super-rise” building. Other districts like Concordia had surpassed it within a few decades but it was preserved as it had been first built as a sort of historical showcase rather than be torn down and rebuilt.
zh’Tisav: So, are you going to tell me why you’re really here? Without Sel or Riv?
Sallia took a long sip from her srjula, taking her time to answer.
Sallia: The… the twins have been having trouble in school…
zh’Tisav: Oh… ::She looked out over the building at the garish neon.:: They did get really quiet when I asked how school was. How bad are their grades?
Sallia: Oh, it’s nothing like that. They’re top of their age group. They’ve been getting into fights.
zh’Tisav: Fights? Start or finish?
It was an important distinction. Vylaa would never condone them raising their hands to provoke another, but if they did it to defend themselves, or another, then she would never fault them for that.
She might even buy them ice cream.
Sallia: Finish, sort of. They’ve been getting picked on by the other children, and they are much like their Zhavey and wouldn’t let that slide.
zh’Tisav: Why in the many gods are they being picked on? And where were the teachers?
Sallia: Because… because my shreya did something terrible, and they’re all taking it out on them.
The shen grew quiet, and Vylaa didn’t know what to say. Least of all because she still didn’t know what the hell was going on. That information lay with the person next to her, who seemed to have shrunk in size, and her normally sky-blue skin had paled.
Sallia: ::Quietly.:: Her trial is in two months…
zh’Tisav: What!? Okay, you need to start from the beginning. Your shreya is a geneticist! What did she do, kill someones puppy?
Sallia: If only it were that minor… She committed a severe breach of testing protocol. She jumped straight to humanoid testing, worse yet without her test subjects knowing…
She trailed off, clearly not wanting to continue. Vylaa was starting to put things together; Sallia’s shreya was on one of the top teams trying to solve the reproduction crisis. The team everyone thought was closest to solving it. The team under the most pressure to succeed…
zh’Tisav: Sallia, who did she test on?
Silence.
zh’Tisav: WHO DID SHE TEST ON?!
Sallia: Us! It was us, and my zhi’s bond, okay?
The zhen was on her feet in an instant, pacing to the railing, where she stood staring out at nothing in particular. Then, in an eye blink she whirled, grabbed Sallia’s srjula mug and threw it against the side of the building, sending hot liquid and shards of ceramic showering toward the ground far below. Given the fickle air currents this high up the bits of mug would probably land on an unsuspecting pedestrian kilometers away, but that was literally neither here nor there.
Vylaa had always known her shedei was driven, and more than a bit arrogant, but this took the fat-grass.
zh’Tisav: ::Growling.:: What did she do to us?
Sallia: It was a retrovirus. She says it was designed to widen genetic comparability and extend our fertility period.
zh’Tisav: Hence the unusual number of children…
Vylaa wanted to scream, to yell at Sallia for letting it happen. But she didn’t. She knew it wasn’t her fault, that if she had had an inkling of what was going on she would have told all of them immediately. She couldn’t fault the child for the sins of the parent.
zh’Tisav: Okay, I get the what, and I’m pretty sure I can guess the why, but how? When?
Sallia, In our drinks at our bonding ceremony. Remember how we all were ill just after?
zh’Tisav: That was food poisoning, from the iffy redbat they served us.
Sallia: No, it wasn’t…
The shen’s voice had grown quieter through the exchange, until it stood barely above a whisper. Vylaa stopped, taking her seat by Sallia’s side again. The gods certainly had not smiled much on the shen in the parental department. First her birth Zhavey had been institutionalized, and now this. Add in a couple of career-driven fathers and it was a wonder she was the wonderful person she was.
zh’Tisav: Does she know what she’s done? Her research will be blacklisted, locked away. No one will look at it for years, even decades. Her impatience may have doomed us.
Sallia: Even if it helps?
zh’Tisav: You know our people. The Traditionalists would rather our people burn than take help from a criminal.
Sallia was silent. Vylaa could sense the feelings emanating from her like waves on a storm-battered rock. Anger, sadness, but worse of all was the shame. It was making sense why her mates hadn’t told her before now. The twins couldn’t be the only ones being snubbed.
zh’Tisav: Okay, so what now? It’s only going to get worse for the twins, for us all.
TBC
Lt Vylaa zh'Tisav
Engineering Specialist
USS Gorkon
C238601TB0
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