Ne’Tatkret of Ne'tsetiira'lu - Welcome, Starfeet, can you swim?
V'Nille
(( Aelvarai Selav, Aelkuun ))
The K’tsélai, like any other sapient species that survives long enough, had a history and people interested specifically in learning more of that history and categorizing it. Historians, archeologists, sociologists, all of that were represented well in K’tsélai academia, especially since the founding of the Tserai and the port city of Tseraiq. The various clans had decided to set aside their claws and weapons to unify in the blood way of the wars on Qareluun. The efforts to unify disparate cultures, languages and dialects, and histories demanded an understanding of those things and the wisest of them understood that innately.
Ne’Tatkret would not be counted among the wisest of them, but she was the lead researcher on the team to delve into the semi-buried temple compound on Aelvarai Selav so that counted for something, she figured. At the very least, her bosses trusted her enough not to bungle having guests show up at the digsite at the same time.
“Some offworlders from ‘Starfleet’ have been invited to see a bit of our history, Ne’Tatekeret, and the committee feels that Aelvarai Selav is safe enough for these land-dwellers. The waters are shallow with the island, yes?” her boss said, his lengthy greying whiskers somehow drooping further each time he opened his mouth.
Maybe one day, someone from the equatorial clans would pronounce her name right. That day was clearly not today. It was close, at least, the K’tsélai mused as she watched the last of her team finish clearing the landing site. Aelvari Selav was sinking beneath the ever-jealous waters but there was enough land remaining for a small spacecraft. Probably. She waved them away from the area, dismissing them to go do something else so she could properly greet complete strangers without the bumbling fools gawking at them from the outset.
She straightened her body, lifted one of her hands, and closed her eyes. The breeze was soft today and did not bite her nose. The cloud cover was minimal. The storms had finally cleared, giving the team time to work above the surface. Just in time, she opened her light brown eyes to see the growing grey dot approach from over the horizon. One last check of her outfit, then she would carefully position herself so that her thick brown fur could be easily seen from the air, waving them down to the proper landing site. The black wetsuit wouldn’t bring her visibility nearly as much as the turquoise and coral colored wrap around her upper torso would, she knew.
The shuttle the outworlders came down in seemed rather blocky and unwieldy to her, but it landed gracefully enough. Three of them came out of a door, two that wore blue and black and a third that wore yellow and black. She stared momentarily at the last one, trying to understand why that one was so much shorter than the other too (even much shorter than herself!) before shaking her head and ambling up to greet them with her arms outstretched and head bowed slightly.
Ne’Tatkret: Hello. I see you and greet you openly. I am Ne’Tatkret of the Ne'tsetiira'lu clan. Some find it easier to call me Ne’Tatekret and that is fine too. I am the leader of this research team. I take it you are of Starfleet?
It wasn’t the most formal greeting, but doing the whole ceremony seemed like a bit much to people that they didn’t know a lot about. Would they even appreciate a good shiny rock anyway?
Ada/Is’Kah/Zol: Response
The K’tsélai studied each in turn, nodding to acknowledge them as they introduced themselves. At least their names sounded short and relatively easy to pronounce, assuming the longer bits in front were ranks or titles like they seemed like. She took a moment to repeat the names as she understood them, pointing at each as she slowly repeated them. Better to be careful here. Some people, K’tsélai or otherwise, seemed to take offense at mispronunciation of their names.
Ne’Tatkret: Azura Ada. Iz’Kah Zeeron. Janai Zol.
Jenai seemed like a good proper K’tsélai name. Maybe she’d offer it as a suggestion to her child for his Naming Day.
Ada/Is’Kah/Zol: Response
Ne’Tatkret: Understood. Welcome to Aelvarai Selav. It is an island that has an old temple that the Va’tsekeluai’ra clan built long ago. We are here to investigate it before it is lost entirely to the waters here. It is partly underwater. You can all swim, yes-yes? We have spare wetsuits but I don’t know if they will fit you.
This was one thing that made the researcher most anxious. The K’tsélai had not met many offworlders in their relatively short time since their invention of faster than light travel, but a distressing number of them seemed to be more similar to the animals of deep within Qareluun that were not built for the waters that gave rise to the civilized folks of Aelkuun. Were these Starfleet folks more like tree climbers or dirt diggers or something else entirely?
Ada/Is’Kah/Zol: Response
(( OOC: Feel free to take the opportunity to describe how the island and temple look to you! Just keep in mind this is a semi-aquatic species without easy access to metals and forests at the time they built this. ))
Ne’Tatkret of Ne'tsetiira'lu
K'tsélai researcher
simmed by