Challenge #03066-H158: Stolen By the Fae

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Especially at the beginning of integrating humans into the Galactic Alliance, there are still humans that have never been to space, don't really need any training. What do a fierce crew who have 2 (as many as you want) death-defy-ing humans think of this? do they visit earth and see this? or is a human with no training forced out into space. how crazy can a human with no training be? probably just as crazy but that's not the point lol. Chaos ensues, have fun! -- DisasterPan

Humans went from "to be avoided" to "in high demand" practically overnight. Which resulted in a lot of Humans entering employment whether they wanted it or not. The Alliance didn't necessarily travel all the way to Terra to get them, since Human colonies were abundant. However, many of them were... not exactly prepared for a spacer's life.

Call hir... Den. Ze had just been minding hir own business, eking out hir existence on a poultry farm in the middle of almost-nowhere. Then the sky lights came and now ze was... here. A smooth, neutrally-coloured area that may or may not be one of the circles of hell. The bed upon which Den lay was comfortable, but the clothes were... not hirs.

Gone was the homespun cloth from hir mothers' loom. Gone was the handmade quilt from hir grandmother. Gone was the poppet ze had had from childhood. This was not hir home. Everything was too clean. There was no way anyone had been living in this space before Den had been deposited here. There was so much to take in...

The bed ze lay on was in a niche in the wall. There was abundant space in the room it faced, a smaller room with mysterious knobs and dials and a spout above hir head. A seat with a lid with clear water inside. It could be a privy. It could be a well. Den couldn't work it out, but it had a lever that refreshed the water within like a miracle.

There was a bench, and some storage spaces, and more strange sigils on some of them. Ze could recognise a table and chairs, but... everything was beyond strange. It was as if they had been summoned out of unearthly material by the gods.

Everything was smooth and glossy and... grey. The sort of grey that was just... blandly present and so inoffensive that it almost toured around to offensive in a different direction. The space beyond that one room was grey, too. Grey walls, grey seating. Grey storage spaces with little or nothing in them. It was there that Den saw something familiar.

Green.

Ze ran for it. Green. Plants and grass and hanging vines and a small tree and beautiful flowers. This was a space that was alive.

Den wished hir chickens could be here.

"Good morning," said a voice, but it was a voice Den could not understand. The picture on the wall in the second grey room now had a beast on it. It was wearing clothes and looked... sort of like the lemurs in the forest near hir home. There was something happening at the bottom of the magic portrait, and it looked like... written words. Den had seen them, but never learned how they were used. That stuff was for lords and ladies. "We are attempting to make you feel comfortable as our new Ships' Human. Please say something so we can best translate."

There was another portrait within the portrait of the magical lemur thing. It was... hir, but the mouth was moving without sound, and ze was certainly not pulling any faces like that.

"What is this sorcery? I want to go home! Please, I didn't do anything wrong..." Den clung to the doorway as if it could save hir from the gross homunculus in the portrait. "Take that thing away... It isn't me. Please, my lord. I am frightened and I do not understand what I have done..."

The grotesque portrait and its associated magical lemur vanished, leaving once more a picture of idyllic nature within the frame. Magical music played softly in all three rooms. Slow. Soft. Calming.

Den retreated to the known safety of the garden, clinging to the good earth and not looking back to the grey rooms or the sky that was far too close and, somehow, on the walls as well. There was the comfort of the familiar, which became hir bastion against the unfamiliar - everything else.

Then there was the lemur in the suit. One of the fey folk who had taken Den away from the only home ze had ever known. "Hail and well met," they said, keeping their voice soft and musical. "I do apologise for the inconvenience, but we were in great need of your help."

They... they were speaking normally. "How do you know my words? The magic picture didn't know them..."

"We have worked on learning them. I have... a device that allows me to say your words. I may be slow in the beginning, but I will learn to be better. I am Companion Zor. What is your name?"

"All-Hallowed-in-Prudence-and-Forethought?"

"We prefer names that are much shorter," said Zor, carefully. "Something that can be said quickly."

Ze thought of hir home, and the same words that could be used for it. "Uh. Den?"

"Human Den," Zor had very many sharp teeth. "We will do our best to be certain you are happy with us."

If you had told Den then that ze would be pulling impossible stunts to save these beings inside of less than a month, ze would have laughed in your face.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Mirage3]

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Poor Den, all he wants to do is go home and be with his family. His family is likely worried sick wondering where he is and what's happened to him. And I wonder what the CRC would think of humans being nabbed like that and dragged off against their wishes, terrified like that? Would they at least allow him to go home, see his family so they'd know he was alive and unharmed, and be able to get clothing, his blankets and his possessions from home to make him more comfortable?

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Den's pronouns are ze/hir. Just sayin'.

Yeah this is a thing that's got to be unriddled at a later date. To be continued whenever it's prompted ::points meaningfully at the prompt link in my sig above::

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