"Join me in my ship" He uttered with no one nearby to hear him. He already knew she watched him. He met her as he rounded the corner. She was in her battle-frame, helping Fifth to offload it into the cargo bay.
"I'll come to you as soon as possible" She told Varul, trying to balance herself down a ramp with the battle-frame.
"There's no hurry. I need some rest, I will be in my living quarters. Wake me when you're ready for me" Varul treated his biologics with care. He was a strong man but he still didn't take his precious body for granted. He worked in his biologics to help hers because he was interested in her. He measured his reintegrated moments precisely. So far He'd spent a considerable amount of energy, the kind of energy he could've used for intimacy. Helping her get the child sorted out was a gamble. He could only hope for her to be considerate.
Even if she didn't, it hadn't been totally wasted either. He did get to touch her skin, hold her. The interactions he had so far gave him just enough of a glimpse about what she could provide. He liked having those feelings, it made him feel human. The effect worked every single time like an addictive drug.
"You're going to sleep?" Liera asked as he passed by her. This was rather odd. Sleeping in one's biologics was wasting it's time. It was uncharacteristic of Varul that she knew. The one she knew wasted nothing. He would just go back to his base frame, put his biologics in a lighter version of stasis to let it physically recover and be refreshed.
"Lately, I've been enjoying it" He told her over his shoulder. "There wasn't much to do. Dreams were the most fun I had in the last few decades"
"How much time have you spent dreaming?"
"544 attempts. About 8 hours each. 476 successfully recorded dreams"
This was shocking. He'd spent nearly half an year's worth of hours just trying to feel something. Liera found herself glad she wasn't successful at reintegration. Winning it was its own curse.
"That's more time than you've spent on intimacy, isn't it?"
"Yes, by far. That total is 379 hours. 73 additional hours if you include the meals and sightseeing"
"Didn't expect such disparity from you, of all people" This wasn't Varul that she knew.
"Well, now you do" He smiled and walked away.
Years have changed him, they've changed him faster because he was successful at reintegration. She couldn't tell if it was for the better or worse. But this was rapid change in her eyes. She hadn't changed in a thousand years.
She was fond of sleeping, this man was a dreamer. They had much in common, in the most useless way.
She had Sineul accompany her battle-frame to Fifth’s super carrier in a separate cargo ship that arrived to pick it up. She personally excused Sineul in saying she needed to test some new manufacturing parameters. The real reason was infiltration. Sineul could get more information if he made it inside one of the ships. With that task settled and that plot set in action, she made her way back to Calan using the ball.
“How is your leg? Calan?” Liera asked when the boy groaned and opened his eyes. He was half asleep, between naps and frustrated about not being able to go back to sleep.
“It hurts” he whined, trying to part his legs. The sharp jabs of pain were unpleasant to say the least. He gasped aloud and brought his leg back to its comfortable position.
“I’m sorry that happened” She couldn’t apologize enough. She avoided neurobit damage and gave him real damage instead. “Can’t sleep anymore?”
He groaned, rolling himself up to a sitting position. “So tired…I’m hungry”
“How about we get a proper meal?”
“I hate those cubes”
“No, we can do better. Varul has everything”
“Everything?” Calan lifted his head, interested. He was still afraid of that man but food was more important. “Like anything?”
“I’m sure he can find whatever you want” Liera opened the closet. Sineul had already stocked it with new dresses. This was an improvement. She brought him a clean one to put on. He was still in disheveled undergarments that remained glued to his skin. He had to peel them off. He didn't enjoy the sensations, it was only slightly better than taking off a plaster.
Once he put the dress on, she made him tidy himself up. She was getting ready for another gambit, this one needed her looks to be somewhat acceptable. Calan couldn’t be expected to apply any cosmetics. She didn’t need them anyway, she looked fine as she was. The hair needed to be combed and some lip moisturizer needed to be applied, She could only do the bare minimum, even if things were different.
Calan ate a chunk of the lipstick because it looked edible.
“Tastes like cake without sugar. Tastes like nothing. Tastes like ice if it was jelly” He gulped it down, going for seconds. Liera silently tossed it away where he couldn’t find it again She wasn’t sure if eating it like a candy bar was good for anyone. This was about as far as she could get her looks fixed with this impatient boy inside it.
“Come, why eat cosmetics when you can have real food?” She quickly opened the door, noticing Calan’s slowly running out of patience the more time she spent to prepare him. She tied two straps of the dress behind him as he walked. That was the final touch, to show off her waist. She estimated this would be enough for Varul, simply because it was as good as it could get for him for the foreseeable future.
She walked him to the dock.
“Now, listen Calan. We’re going to have a meal with Varul. You can do all the eating. Eat as much as you want”
“Can we meet him now?” He was too eager for food. In a way, this was good. He only had a singular focus and he wouldn’t pay attention to the rest of it.
“One more thing” Liera circled to face him. In her third spindly arm, she was now hauling a rectangular box. There was a plug on it that Calan had seen before in the stasis room. He was too hungry to notice it. “When you’re done eating, we need to switch bodies”
“Oh?” He was suddenly interested. “Can I be the big robot again please!?”
“It’s not back yet, repairs. You can be the ball” She lied again. She was carrying herself in the rectangular module. She didn’t trust Varul’s ship enough to use its compute. This was a local cluster to host a soul. It was connected to the ball for input and output.
“Okay, Can I play with lasers?” He asked, his eyes bright with excitement.
“Sure” She could just turn the power way down and let him have his fun with it. “You can have fun. I’ll only be gone for few minutes, though”
“That’s not enough! Please, can I play more please!”
“…because the ball doesn’t have battery. We’re in someone else’s ship, you know. It’s rude to drain their power for our fun. We can do this later” She lied and hoped he was dumb enough to not poke holes in it. Luckily for her, he was. Three minutes was the most she could inhabit her body.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The dock opened on both sides and they walked into Varul’s ship.
Varul's personal ship was slightly different than the L98 Vellek, for one, It didn't even have a name. The layout was completely different and everything was much more streamlined and smooth. Gold trims, white marble floors. It had all the signs of wealth and luxury built into it. While it was eye catching, Calan would’ve been bored in here in 15 minutes. In the Vellek, he had so many holes to poke his head into.
“Do they have another old man in here?” He asked curiously. He expected to see a ball but this place was just well lit and abandoned.
“You mean like Sineul?”
“Yes, it’s too silent”
Liera chuckled internally. She wanted Sineul to hear that off-handed and unintentional little remark.
“I don’t think he has one here. This ship is just a toy to him”
“Woah! But it’s same size like ours? he’s got a lot of money!” Calan looked around. “More than hundred for sure” That’s about as far as his savings jar went. He felt rich at 100 of anything.
“Way more than hundred. Maybe ten of those” Liera mused, Calan was fun to talk with. While Sineul would’ve jumped in to correct him with exact figures, Liera let him enjoy his silly innocence.
They came upon a lobby area with velvet couches and golden pillars. Red banners hung from ceiling to floor and there was a huge window. The view outside was confusing at first. They were parked in a weird angle, This was the position the Vellek last stopped at when it lost power. Filling a corner of the window was L2 Darnek with smaller luminous dots going in and out of it. A super carrier was next to it with number 5 in neo-roman numerals.
“Woah!” Calan exclaimed, pinning his face to the glass. This was a display, not a window, but it had enough resolution to be virtually the same. Liera pulled him back a bit to stop him from ruining the lips that she went through so much trouble to get right.
“That’s the one he came with right?” Calan saw it from his naked eyes. He had no sense of scale for it. Since its arrival, it had slowly made its way below them. It was at minimum as large as the ER-Madec. Small complex shapes decorated every surface in intricate patterns. Lights blinked every now and then, shapes moved. “I can build a house there and grow trees! It’s so huge!” He had his fun analogies to explain the scale to himself.
“Yes. It’s one of the largest”
“Why don’t you have a cool one like that?” He asked, accusing her with his tone. “It’s because you’re sleeping all the time!” He even came to a conclusion, blaming her.
The boy didn’t know how much it cost to maintain a planet buster. She survived on the lowest amount of possessions a Red Sect Sovereign could have. She had been doing this for millennia. The thought didn’t even occur to her. In a way, he was right, it was that damn sleeping.
“Indeed, maybe we should get one. Let’s try” She told him, just to make him believe it was possible. He was young, she didn’t want to limit his space of possibilities. Men owned planet busters across time, they built empires that rose and fell. Calan could be great too, he had so much time left to be ambitious.
They made their way to Varul’s living quarters. There was no one stop them, greet them or anything. The door was wide open and It opened up to a complete apartment with every luxury imaginable.
“Look at all this!” Calan exclaimed, rotating himself in the middle of the living room. It was full of things, decorations, furniture. The silk, the black marble, red velvet, it was organized visual chaos. A product of art from a man that had too many years and too much money to spare.
The bed chamber was only separated with a beautiful gold and green curtain that was a gigantic replica of an oil painting. Beyond it was a bed that spanned half the size of the living room. Varul slept on a far corner, hugging a long white pillow. Calan tested the nearest corner of the bed and he almost forgot about food. It was perfectly soft, perfect temperature. This is what he imagined sleeping on a cloud to feel like. He had never felt such pleasant sensations on his skin.
Liera could tell a lot of thought went to the construction of this bed chamber. There were things Calan wasn’t old enough to notice, facilities and adjustments for more intimate settings. This bed chamber could be warped to many different things. She could tell the bed itself was a creation of high Materium art. It had intricate carvings from 3 millennia ago. It was loot plundered from a dead emperor, auctioned off from a private collection. It fit Varul’s obsession with dreams. A perfect tool to optimize for the perfect dream.
Liera hovered over to Varul and tugged the pillow until he opened his eyes.
“Ah, you’re here” He yawned and stretched, his sculpted body looked like a statue that belonged in this room. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Liera, slithering across his bed like a worm. Then his eyes fell on the ball before him. For a second, he was puzzled out of his mind. Then he remembered. “The boy, I nearly forgot”
He frowned at the ball. “Why couldn’t you come alone?”
“He’s hungry. I don’t want food, He’s here to eat” She explained it simply.
“And I prepared such a feast for us” He rubbed his face and stood.
“It has the same effect, if you get what you want at the end. I’ll have a taste if you really want me to. I doubt you’d want to waste our time like that though”
“Keep this up and you’ll end up his mother. You’re halfway there already” Varul told her curtly. Then he walked to Calan and gently lifted him off the bed. He wasn’t a rude man, he just valued his plans. He took one look at Liera’s face and smiled.
“At least you tried” He set Calan straight. “Come, child. There’s much to eat”
The feast was grand in every possible way. Varul had spent life savings of the average Galactic citizen on it. There were meats of animals that Calan couldn't even pronounce or imagine. The table was full of rows and rows of dishes with various culinary wonders. Their quantities however, were low for Calan's standards. He often didn't have much left after the third mouthful of something. This was a feast designed for a cascade of tastes. Liera knew why, this was exactly what was needed to impress a Red Sect Sovereign. Variety, unfathomable variety. Boredom was their greatest curse. They had been everywhere for several millennia. She personally knew some Priestesses that abandoned taste as a pursuit altogether after having tried everything. Varul was a careful man, Despite his impressive wealth, he had the discipline and restraint to not lose himself with indulgence.
Calan had so many questions and strangely, Varul was fine answering everything. He had encyclopedic knowledge about places that he had been to. He rarely had anyone to ask questions about them. Liera remained silent, listening to them. The pair could even be friends, she thought. Calan seemed to really look up to the man he was scared of after getting a taste of his food and his knowledge.
"Where did this come from?" He asked, holding a thin slice of meat dipped in some sort of honey. His lips and his face was all ruined at this point, He wasted no time stuffing his face. Varul had already enjoyed his first impressions. There was no need to look nice while eating. Liera wouldn't have stopped him, even if it wasn't the case. He needed his freedom to eat his food.
"That's Kalthamarian Streig. A fish delicacy from 37 systems away. They hunt the Streig seasonally in this planet wide competition" Varul had learned by this point Calan only understood about 10% of the words. So he always had to bring things down to the child's level. "Children like you, maybe a bit older. They help their fishing families in hunts. They dive underwater with adults, prepare nets, bait, luring mines. It is fascinating to watch"
"Woah" his eyes lit up. He'd never tried any of these things. He was completely afraid of water if his feet couldn't touch the bottom.
"And now, a taste from home..." Varul looked at Liera, She was hovering above the table. He pointed at a dish tucked away at the middle. She hadn't paid enough attention to notice it. When she did, she was shocked.
"BaIdor rib meat" He placed one on Calan's dish. It wasn't any different from any other meat Calan ate so far, but it was a perfect cube. "You eat it with a bit of this" Varul seasoned it with some green powder and then he placed a bunch of small leaves on it.
"Where did you get that?" Liera asked, trying to hide her surprise.
"It was a pet project of mine. Ninth managed to bring one back from extinction, well, partially. We had to euthanize the poor thing. This is synthetic meat based on it. Closest it has ever been" Varul set a cube aside and picked one for himself. "I'll leave that one for you"
"Thank you" She was glad the ball had a robotic voice. She was more grateful than she wanted to sound. It was indeed, a taste from home. It had the potential to bring back memories without neurobit damage. Opportunities like these were rare.
When the feast finished about an hour later, Calan was well fed, bordering on well bloated. He couldn't fit any more food down his throat. Liera and Varul gave him half an hour to digest all of it and to clean himself up. This was time they couldn't waste when she was back in her body. Calan came out from the most luxurious washroom in this part of the galaxy and he fell back on the bed, closing his eyes.
"Time for switching" Liera announced, he was drifting back to sleep. That wasn't good for her plan. She used the makeshift port at the back of his neck to switch with him. Calan was yawning during the transfer, he finished his yawn as the ball.
"Huh? I'm not sleepy anymore" He said, rotating wildly. He tested his spindly arms. He wasn't perfect with them yet, but it was fun.
"Now, I am" Liera covered her mouth to finish his yawn more elegantly. "Go, have fun, don't break anything. If you do break something, make sure to hide it" She pushed him towards the door. She moved the rectangular module away from the bed. Calan was inside it without knowing it. The door closed when Calan zigzagged and bumped himself out of the room, toppling a brass statue behind him.
"I limited his access, only up to the lobby" Varul told her, sitting next to her slowly.
"So, what do you have In mind?" Liera asked him, using her best flirting voice. That didn't amount to much. She was never experienced in seduction. She never had to put effort into it, her beauty was enough to make everything fall to her feet. She only had her natural charms and mannerisms to give him what he wanted. "It can't be anything that leaves a mark, keep that in mind"
"I have ideas" Varul wrapped a hand around her, pulling her closer.