Is It Working? - Blog Posts
OMG HEXQUAD??? PERFECT
I need more people on board
QUICK EVERYONE LOOK OVER HERE
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not immune to hexquad propaganda/lh
"Do you think I could use horseradish as fuel?"
Kara paused in her hammering to cast the alien an apprehensive look, "It depends on how advanced your technology is."
"We don't usually rely on vegetables for powering up our spaceships, but this one- this one glows..." the alien trailed off, frowning at the luminous tuber clutched in her hands.
"Your vegetables aren't of the glowing kind?"
The alien offered an overwhelmed shrug.
"Will you show me another cool transmutation trick? From vegetable to fuel?"
Something creased the thin line of the alien's mouth, "That was just dried grape fruit. Astronaut foods. It wasn't a real sugar cube, it just looked like one."
Kara didn't frown back. She offered an helpless shrug instead, one that made the hammer slip out of her clammy grip. The tool plummeted to the ground, awkward and way too loud for what was going on. The alien chuckled at her clumsiness, sniffling and Kara ignored the wet note stuck in her voice.
The air grew quiet as Kara turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with the lost castaway. Together, they stared at the crumpled skeleton of the spaceship as smoke slowly rose from its corpse.
The alien crouched to toss back the horseradish in its crate, where other vegetables were mutely glowing in a rainbow of neon colours. The movement shifted the tattered bandage fastened around her head.
"It's not like-" Kara extricated her sweaty fingers around the hammer's handle, hoping that freedom of movement would improve her eloquence, "I mean, even if you had fuel, it's not like you could fly with a gaping hole in your flank, right?" she muttered, awkwardly pinching the side of her wrist.
The alien's shoulders just deflated, the slope of her spine tilting. Fingertips nervously drumming the side of the hammer, Kara felt she had never known such helplessness before.
(Maybe once.)
"Look, Lena-" the name rumbled like a sticky vibration on Kara's tongue, unfamiliar with the strangeness of such a foreign tonality. By the passing expression on the alien's face, the same weird feeling must have resounded in her ears.
Feeling a bubble of unease burst in her chest, Kara gnawed on her bottom lip. "It's going to be okay," she pressed, "Next time the cargo ship comes, you can come with me to the market. I'm sure you'll find something for repairs and-and..."
Lingering words got lost in the stark profile that Lena cast over rows of drooping gladiolus, under the twinkling light of the pair of suns. Kara swallowed, fighting the distinct urge to hug the lost alien, who was merely a stranger with a crashed spaceship and frowning lines.
"I promise."
But the frown didn't lift from Lena's forehead, settling deeper in the circles in her eyes. Kara had never encountered such a frowny alien before.
She fell silent, dreading whatever clunky attempt at comfort her mouth would sprout next.
(She used to be better at this.)
She aligned her knuckles back in her grip around the hammer and turned back to work. She let herself get lost in the rhythm of mindless hammering, palming dark veins in wooden planks. There was always something to mend or repair around the farm, dull tasks that became plain boring during the sourer days. But Kara didn't mind the dust and the boredom, she liked the hard work. Making something with her hands.
It took Lena three boards and seventeen nails to turn away from the broken remains of the spaceship.
"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, tugging at the loose end of one of her sleeves.
Kneeling in the dirt, Kara tossed an easy smile over her shoulder, grateful for the lighter tone of Lena's question. "Oh! Just trying to fix this pond. It’s been leaking something awful and I could hardly keep it full.”
Lena still looked caught up in her head, but Kara couldn't help a relieved breath when Lena sat down with her on the naked ground, legs folding over each other. The slope of her shoulders curled inwards.
"I was worried the ducks wouldn't have liked it anymore with such little water," Kara continued, conversational, eyes flicking to a grease stain on Lena's forearm.
Lena didn't reply to that. She just changed her position, the white of her pants brushing against the ground. It painted a smudge of dirt on the cloth, the only dainty pair of trousers Kara had been able to salvage from the crash and the blood. It was a pity to stain such a rich fabric, but living on a farm did tend to have that effect on things. And on people, too.
She looked like a lost person, with her crossed legs and closed eyes. Like a fragment of a star in a galaxy of asteroids.
Turning on the water to refill the pond, Kara straightened with a jolt, head snapping up. A couple of bones cracked in her back and elbow as she released a satisfying sigh. Cheek cradled in one hand, Lena peeked at her from the corner of one eye, "Ouch," she winced, offering a tight grin.
Kara shrugged cheekily. She rummaged for a moment through the pebbles at her feet, before choosing a single rock and weighed it in her hand. It was flat and small and she could hold it in one palm.
Lena's gaze got lost in the repetitive movement of the water, until Kara tossed the pebble across the surface of her newly repaired pond, watching it glumly sink in the middle of lazy ripples.
Lena turned to face her, both eyes open. Kara felt herself blushing under her stare, "I was trying to skip a rock."
"It didn't skip."
The blush reached the tips of Kara's ears.
"Why would you do that?"
Shuffling closer to the pond, Kara knelt to inspect the mended planks, if only to hide the redness dusted on her cheeks, "I thought it would skip."
A huff of laughter reached her ears and Kara watched the shards of a smile paint itself across Lena's frown. It was the first time she could see a trace of pure joy in the alien's smile. She should have tried to skip rocks earlier.
When Lena's laughter grew into a comfortable silence, Kara turned back towards the setting suns. She had just enough time before darkness to check on the grapevines, to check the soil for-
"Oh."
Kara watched as Lena's lips morphed into a mou of surprise.
A chaotic procession of ducks suddenly unfolded in front of them, a fluttery of green feathers. Two, three, six animals wandered past the pair, wobbling unsteadily on webbed feet. Only the bravest of the flock hobbled close to Lena to inspect the frayed hem of her nice pants.
"Uuuh," Lena's hand hovered.
"Ssh," Kara shushed gently, "I think he likes you."
The curious duck hesitated maybe three more seconds before he blinked his purple irises at Lena, batting one eyelid at a time. He lifted one wing and started preening. The other ducks were swimming lazy circles in the pond.
Kara leaned back on her feet to stare, flashing a proud smile.
Lena didn't meet her eye, busy doing some simple math under her breath. "He has... four wings."
Hammer tucked back in her belt, Kara sat again in the dirt, sending a fleeting apology to the grapevines, "Yes," the duck fluttered his wings, "You've never seen a duck before?"
"Of course I have- of course," said Lena, and then hesitated for a handful of choppy seconds, "We have ducks on... back on my home planet, but these... I've never seen alien ducks before."
Kara wrinkled her nose, "These aren't alien ducks," she pointed out.
"Of course they are, Kara. They have four wings, four-"
"That doesn't make them aliens."
"Ducks have two wings, Kara, two! Not four. Back on my...," she stumbled, "Back on..."
The first of the two suns the planet orbited around disappeared under the horizon, a trail of magenta embers left behind.
The breath that pushed out of Lena was long, sharp and Kara noticed the way it took another chip of tension out of her body. It dissolved into a hiccuping laughter, like syrupy bubbles clawing their way out of her throat. Lena kept chuckling even when her eyes filled with tears.
Done with his preening, the duck ambled towards the pond, tail wagging, his animal heart too young to comprehend the entirety of Lena's splintered feelings. Kara felt more in tune with him for a cursory instant.
Lena leaned back on her elbows, "I'm an alien."
Kara wondered if there was mercy in discovering another part of your soul, lost in such a minuscule place.
When Lena's tears dried, they revealed an hesitant grin buried underneath.
