“Then why...?” He spontaneously froze in his steps. He, a mere heir to a countdom, had, unbenknownst to him, obtained an incredible privilege. And here he’d been, actively trying to discard it. “You want me to call you ‘Lafier’... even though we’ve only barely met?”
“It was the first time anyone ever asked me my name.” Lafiel also stopped walking, but she kept facing ahead.
“Being the granddaughter of the Empress means everyone already knows my name and appearance. I’m famous, apparently. People call me ‘Fïac Lartnér’ without my ever getting to introduce myself. So even people I’m quite close to end up calling me Fïac. It’s been like that all my life. I didn’t pay it all that much mind, but at the academy, I felt the tiniest — the tiniest — bit jealous when everyone was dropping titles when calling each other’s names. That jealousy only grew worse when I realized that my peers were always unable to ‘loosen up’ when I was around.”
“I, I’m sorry...” Jinto was appalled at the enormity of the offense he’d committed. He’d inadvertently slapped away the hand she’d extended in good will, and dealt a blow to her heart.
“Do not apologize.” As coldly as ever, she stated “You have done nothing wrong. While ‘Fïac Rüé-nér’ is definitely mistaken, you meant nothing by it. I wasn’t brought up to endure rude monikers, but I will accept any proper name. So be at ease, Lonh-Ïarlucec Dreur — you may now call me ‘Fïac Lartnér’ or ‘Fïac Bœrh Parhynr.’”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll just call you ‘Lafier’...”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not as though I really wanted you to call me ‘Lafier.’
I just thought it would be questionable to introduce myself with my title attached.”
Maybe she isn’t suited to becoming Empress; she’s a terrible liar.
Jinto shook off that thought and pled anew. “Please, I’d really like to just call you ‘Lafier.’”
Lafier finally turned back to face him, and stared intently.
“Don’t strain yourself, Lonh.”
“I’m not. I swear...”
“Then I don’t even mind if you call me ‘Fïac Rüé-baugenér.’” Jinto let out a gasp. He’d wounded her so much that she’d rather he called her the name she’d said sounded “weird.”
“What do I need to do to make it up to you!?”
Lafier just kept wordlessly staring at Jinto for a while. Then, at last, her cheeks twitched. The indignant princess started chuckling, as though she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Jinto was relieved — it seemed their friendship had been mended.
“You really had no idea I was an Ablïar?” asked Lafier, after stifling the urge to laugh.
“Nope. None whatsoever.”
“Even with these ears of mine?” Lafier scooped up her hair. They were pointy — the same ears as Fleet Commander Ablïar, the man who had invaded the Hyde star system.
“This is the üaritec (WAHREET, unique family feature) of my lineage, the nüic ablïarser (NOOEE AHBREEARSAR, ears of Ablïar).”
“They were hidden inside your hair.”
“I see... My ears are small for an Ablïar’s.” Judging by the tone of her voice, she’d occasionally felt insecure about them.
“Besides,” Jinto continued, “even if I had seen them, I don’t know that I would have cottoned on anyway. I’m not an Abh by birth, so I’m not used to giving family features much thought.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is,” Lafier nodded, moved.
“Yep, that’s how it is.” Jinto resumed walking.
Üaritec or “family features” were like the trademark physical characteristics of individual lines. They varied from the shape of body parts like the nose or ears, to the color of the eyes or hair. Where it manifested depended on the family. Whether they were gentry or nobles, the Abh obsessively saw to it that all descendants of a given family shared that one distinct physical feature. Naturally, they engraved it into their very genes.
Needless to say, Ablïar ears were the most highly respected family feature. But Jinto had altogether forgotten about family features until just that moment.
Lafier walked with him shoulder-to-shoulder. “You really are an amusing one.”
“Cut it out, would ya?” Jinto shrugged. “So, I wanted to ask you about your experiences...”
“My experiences?”
“At the academy. You said nobody could relax when you were around?” Lafier urged him to continue with her eyes. “I’ve got my fair share of memories, too, let me tell you,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Though yours are probably on a whole different level.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if you know... I was the only noble at my school.”
“Ahh...”
Because they all aimed to work under Abhs, the students of the Abh Linguistic and Cultural Institute were far removed from any anti-Abh sentiment. On the contrary, the majority intended to find success as imperial citizens, earn appointment as gentry if being nobility was unattainable, and make their descendants into Abhs.
To those students, the presence of a boy who had a noble rank lined up for him despite being a Lander was hard to stomach. He was the target of ridicule on the least pretext, and of vicious bullying wherever teachers weren’t looking. That said, there were also those who confused him with their abject servility.
No one knew how to deal with a noble.
“And I can’t blame them, either — it’s not like I had any idea, either.”
“In that case, you had a rougher time than me. The trainee pupils knew full well how they’re supposed to behave around an imperial. I simply didn’t like how they were supposed to behave around an imperial. I was treated with the proper cordiality and was paid all respects. And yet...” Lafier’s eyes turned reproachful. “If I had been you, I wouldn’t have let them bully me.”
“I’m a pacifist, Lafier,” he said with a shrug.
“Neither pacificism nor militarism have anything to do with it, surely.”
“Look, there were way more people than I could fight. There was animosity towards me even from the faculty.”
“I see...”
“Don’t worry, I learned how to get by quickly enough.”
“What did you have to do?” she asked, curious.
“I hid my rank.”
“You can hide your rank?” Lafier looked puzzled.
“I’m not as famous as you, Fïac Lartnér. Although...” Jinto shook his head. “I couldn’t hide it at school. Whenever I tried to put on an innocent face and chat with freshies, some old-timer with a big mouth would be there to make sure they found out.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went into town. In town, I made friends with territorial citizens who live without sparing the Empire a thought.”
“Wow. You’ve experienced more hardship than I expected.”
A pair of NCCs was about to pass by, but they stopped to give Jinto and Lafier a salute. Lafier saluted back, but didn’t break her stride.
“Umm...” said Jinto in hushed tones. “What am I supposed to do when things like that happen? Saluting them back would be weird, right?”
“You can just give them a nod.”
The NCCs had already passed by, so Jinto turned around and gave them a nod. Surprised, their hands flew back to the saluting position.
“Well, don’t do that, that’s just inconveniencing them,” Lafier chided him softly.
“You’re right.” Jinto sighed inwardly.
It played out better the next time they crossed paths with some NCCs.
Finally, they arrived in front of a door illustrated with a sunflower bathing in rays of daylight.
“This is your cabin.” Lafier pointed to the door.
Jinto studied it long and hard. “It’s been nagging at me — What are these paintings all about? What does this image mean, exactly?”
“It’s just decoration. It doesn’t ‘mean’ anything,” she s
aid. “Even warships need some livening up. That’s probably what they thought.”
“But it’s jarring, isn’t it?” Jinto started whispering: “Aren’t there more spaceship-y subjects for decoration?”
“Like?”
“Like stars or galaxies; you know.”
“Who would paint such boring subjects?”
“I thought you guys loved the cosmos?” Jinto certainly didn’t expect that response.
“We do. It’s our home. But the stars are far too everyday to be in art. You can just look outside if you want to see the stars.”
“I mean, yeah, that’s true, but...
“Besides, paintings like these seem to help NCCs who come from terrestrial worlds mellow out.”
“I see...” Jinto closely observed the sunflower. “But what do you people think about it? Abhs, I mean?”
“How many times are you going to make me say it? You are an—”
“Right, I’m an Abh, too,” Jinto cut in. “But I’m not an Abh by birth. That’s why I’m curious how Abhs feel when they look at natural plant life.”
“I don’t think it’s any different from how surface peoples feel.” Lafier cocked an eyebrow. “We too are descended from the selfsame glœc (GLEH, humanity) that arose from Earth.”
“But you’ve never seen a real sunflower, right?”
“You have a distorted view of us, Jinto. I’ve seen sunflowers. There are botanical gardens in Lacmhacarh (LAHKFAHKARR), and my house has a flower garden of its own.”
“All right.” Jinto turned around and pointed at the wall behind her. “Then what about that?”
It was a prairie. Realistic knee-length grass filled the piece, and on that grass grazed elephants, horses, and other assorted animals. The scene was sparsely populated by trees, like pines and birches, and cherry blossom petals danced in the blue sky.
“I’ve never seen that, no,” she replied.
“So what are your thoughts on it?”
“Why are you asking? What do you get out of it?” She looked dubious.
“Come on,” he said. “Help me understand how native-born Abhs tick.”
“Very well.” Lafier nodded. “It looks dreamlike to me.”
“Dreamlike, as in it doesn’t exist in reality?”
“No.” She tilted her head. “I know it does exist in reality. I understand that our origins lie in lands like these. I guess I would say it’s like our founding myth.”
“The forsaken homeland.”
“Yes. But the céssath (KEHSAHTH, universe) is our home now. We are the one and only céssatudec (KEHSAHTOOD, people of the cosmos), and we’re proud of that.”
“Well, surface peoples are descended from interstellar travelers, too,” Jinto was quick to point out.
“Yes, travelers. The ancestors of surface peoples simply zipped from one point of the universe to another. We live among the stars. That is a sizeable difference, don’t you agree?”
“Maybe.” Though in truth, Jinto didn’t really know. What he did know was that there was something odd, something alien about the Abh. Whether that “something odd” had to do with their homeland apart from other humans wasn’t clear.
“What do you think, Jinto?” “Is it as boring for you as when we look at the stars? Oh, and by ‘we,’ I mean native-born Abhs. Because you’re also Abh.”
I guess whenever she says that, she’s being conscientious and thinking about me, in her own weird way. Maybe.
“No, it’s not boring. This isn’t exactly an everyday scene on terrestrial worlds either, you know. Also, my home planet’s ecosystem is different from other worlds’. This painting’s ecosystem isn’t so far removed from reality that it can be called fantastical, but I think it’s really all over the place. To the eyes of a trained botanist, it would look fantastical — by the way, could you let me in? I don’t know how to open the door.”
“You’re the one who sidetracked us with sunflowers,” she pouted.
“But you’ve got to admit, it was interesting.”
“Yes, I’ve never stared at a picture so intensely before.” It seemed that at her core, she was the honest and unaffected type, this First Princess of the Kingdom of Cryb.
“Right then, open me up, if you please.”
“You need but use your compuwatch. It’s already registered to its signal.”
“Ah, is that right?” Jinto touched the red stone to the side of the compuwatch’s display. The door opened.
Jinto took a look around the room from its threshold. “Goodness me, what do we have here?”
“Are you dissatisfied?”
“Far from it. I didn’t think it would be this pristine.”
It wasn’t all that big. The bed took up the entire depth of the room, while it was only around twice as wide. In the space that wasn’t taken up by the bed, there was a table and chair. At the back, there was another, small door. But the most eye-catching thing in the room, without a doubt, was the gar-glac (GAR GLAH, coat-of-arms banner) hanging on the bed-side wall. The coat of the arms of the Countdom of Hyde.
A red rezwan had been embroidered on a green background. What was a rezwan? It didn’t look so dissimilar to a bird, but it was a species of furry-fish that swum the seas of the planet Martinh. The specimens in the wild were, even accounting for the fact it was a fish, extremely dimwitted. And yet, it had an inexplicable stateliness to it.
“Your bags will have been put in there.” She pointed to the storage shelves opposite the bed. “If you want to get clean, use that door.”
Jinto opened the door at the back. Just as he thought, a lavatory and bathroom were furnished for him.
“This is awesome. What is this room? Is it for temporary passengers or something?”
“This is a patrol ship, Jinto. It’s a standard room for a starpilot.”
“I just hope I didn’t take somebody’s pad.”
“Worry not. For warships of patrol ship-size, living quarters are planned out with extra space. You never know when non-officer passengers need to board, after all.”
“Good.” Jinto turned his attention to the banner on the wall. “Where’d that thing come from?”
“Ah, it must have been made aboard ship,” she said nonchalantly.
“What, for me?”
“Who else would it be of any use for, besides you?”
It’s not much use to me, either...
Jinto shrugged gently. He felt no affection for that hastily improvised coat of arms. It hadn’t been long after the establishment of the count’s household that he’d laid eyes on it for the first time, and so up until the day prior he’d utterly forgotten they’d even had a coat of arms.
Jinto patted around his bed to gauge its comfiness. It was soft enough to assure him he’d be sleeping just fine.
Jinto took a seat on his bed. “So, what do I do now?”
“Right.” Lafier checked the time on her compuwatch. “It will be dinner time in two hours. You’ll most likely be invited to the captain’s table. When the time comes, I’ll come pick you up, so be patient and wait here.”
“You don’t need to go out of your way for me; if you just call me on the telephone I’m sure I can get there on my own. You must have work to do, right?”
“That will be enough of that nonsense.” Lafier’s expression turned serious. “I’ve been tasked with being your guard tomorrow as well. I advise you not to amble around on your own until after tomorrow. Since the founding of the Star Forces, there have been countless new recruits and civilians who believed they could get around by reading the onboard guide maps, only to nearly turn into mummies in deserted storage decks.”
“And you? Did you get lost, too?” Jinto needled.
“I don’t appreciate untoward questions that open old wounds, Jinto,” replied the Apprentice Starpilot.
“I see you’ve got some fun stories to share,” Jinto smiled.
“Shut up, Jinto,” Lafier shut him down. “Need anything else from me?”
“Nope. Thank you. I’m fine just killing time here, so I’ll be good and wait for you.”
“Then I’ll see you in two hours.”
“See you in two.”
Lafier turned right around, and closed the door behind her.
Jinto decided to use this time for a warm shower. As he took off his shoes, he suddenly realized, with a start, how relaxed he was. All the nervousness he’d felt before boarding the patrol ship disappeared like a bad dream.
Chapter 6: Raisrïamrhoth (RESREEAHMRROHTH, A State of Emergency)
It was Day 5 since the patrol ship Goslauth’s departure from the Vorlash Countdom.
“Captain.” Deca-commander Reiria’s voice sounded close to her ears.
The patrol ship Goslauth’s captain, Hecto-commander Laicch Üémh Laubér Placïac (LEKSHOO WEF LOHBEHR PLAHKEEA, or “Lexshue”) soon opened her eyes and looked up at her bedside occupant. The hologram of the Vice-Captain floated hazily in the darkness. He was on duty now.
“What?”
“Please come to the bridge right now.” He wore an incongruously grave expression on his miniature face (about a tenth the size of the genuine article). “Unidentified space-time bubbles have been spotted.”
“I’ll be there in no time.” Hecto-commander Lexshue waved a hand to break the telephonic connection and sprung to her feet. Swiftly and skillfully, she threw on her pure-black military uniform, fixed her sleep-tousled dark bluish-gray hair with a comb, and equipped her one-winged circlet. Then she took her decorative sash-belt and command staff in hand, and beat a quick path toward the bridge.
Within the elevator-tube leading to the bridge, she briskly wrapped the belt around her waist and “sheathed” her command staff in it. By the time she arrived at the bridge, she was all clad in a captain’s formal garb.
Lexshue rushed onto the bridge and shouted, “Reiria, your report!”
“Orientation, 78 degrees ahead. Distance, 1,539.17 cédlairh (KEDLEHERR). Direction, 18 degrees ahead. They’re heading for the Lœbehynh Sfagnaumr (LEBUHYOONYUH SFAHGNOHM, Marquessate of Sfagnoff).” After Deca-commander Reiria finished informing her, he offered the captain’s seat in which he’d been sitting (as he’d been on duty in her stead).
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