Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mmm, yes. This is mostly me just passing some time by writing story in the background. I've noted that I gotta work on making the Point of View more consistent amongst other things. Still, this helps give some more insight into some characters, so here it is. It's still not done though, so keep that in mind.

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"I'll be back in a bit to go over the reports with you Kai. I just gotta escort this guy to someone who can keep an eye on him until Marcus get's his lazy ass over here." Cibo replied with a worn air. She was tired from all that. Yes, very, very tired. In fact, she couldn't even join her roommate in watching that movie marathon. A pity. However, she knew someone that wouldn't mind keeping her other friend company. Cibo looked up at the unmasked Ottyo as some of his feathers moved in curiosity. She smiled despite the feelings she felt. The intelligence agent HATED the fact that the damned alien was taller. And the noises he sometimes made! More annoying than any god damned pet bird that didn't know how to shut the hell up. It was time to give him a taste of what it felt like to be shorter and out screeched by someone...

Not too much later, Cibo was in front of the quarters she shared with a marine. She opened it up and stuck her head in, her voice bright and cheery. "Lolita! I've got the guy I talked about! Can you hang on to him while I'm away?" A faint shuffling of feet could be heard from inside. Cibo pulled her head out and turned her attention to Yotruyan with a stern expression. "Alright Killy. This is my roommate; she's my friend, so don't do anything funny. Do you hear me?" She then shoved him into the room. "In you go!"

The door sealed behind the Ottyo.

****

One eye received a final glimpse of the skinny Terran female Cibo as the door shut past while the other saw the quarters in it's entirety; the other occupant was nowhere in sight. Yotruyan knew he should try and find the other her, but no, that didn't matter. Not quite yet; he wasn't in a combat zone, so priorities were different. The very first thing that he noticed was the smell. The faint, musky scent of sweat, strangely clean yet dirty assailed his nostrils. A faint hint of fruits and maybe flowers accompanied it along with something nearly intangible, yet was unmistakeably theirs; it to be of them. This all was for his nose only of course; Terrans' olfactory parts were simply inferior, and looked so to boot. Next, he saw the quarters. Or, more accurately, apartment.

As he strode forward, the Ottyo realized there was carpet. 'I mustn't be rude.' With a bit of work, he remove his feet glove-combat-boots and set them aside. The carpet...Yotruyan was so tempted to dig into it with his claws like a cat. He noted a living room, kitchenette, and a hallway leading to three doors; two sleeping rooms most likely, with a room for toiletries and affiliated things between them. The whole time, sounds of searching emanated from the farthest room, but he paid the closer one attention first. It was left carelessly ajar, it's contents free for him to see. The room was a mess. Used clothing and trinkets scattered everywhere. And was that Terran underwear? He could never understand why they were so often of bright color when they often went unseen. It smelled of Cibo. He backed out.

The Ottyo silently strode up to the final bed room, and entered. It was nice. Neat even, and well kept. The source of the second person's scent was nearby. A Terran female, fairly different from Cibo, was on all fours, back turned to him and looking through some things; an open closet with articles of normal clothing somewhat like what he saw in some of their movies, uniforms, and finally, something very familiar. Little Inbred Drathonian Leather. It was the same one he took earlier, except, it was made into something. A small, shining ruby red vest, beret and very short shorts. In less than a nano-second, he knew who was pointing her rear end at him. The Terran silently exclaimed in triumph and snapped a strange device around her neck.

The Terran female turned, saw him, and stood. Judging by her facial contortions and slight rush of blood to her face, most notably the cheeks, Yotruyan guessed that she was both delighted and slightly embarrassed to see him. The female was tall, easily two inches taller than him even. Massive height for a Terran. Hair, shiny and lustrous yet incomparable to his own rainbow of feathers fell to her shoulder blades. It was the color of their golden grain. Wheat was it? Yotruyan found it odd that though this female kept a relatively lean appearance similar to Cibo, she still had considerably more bulk on the chest. 'They must be irritating. Cibo most likely had hers reduced for efficiency.' he thought to himself. And then he looked her in the eyes. Frighteningly sharp blue, like Cibo's, like...

****

Lolita used her voice synthesizer to speak. It was practically her old voice, but with a faint hint of being synthesized; she liked that. "Ha. I knew all guys were perverts, alien or not! Don't lie! I saw you looking me over." She watched in awe as the feathered alien recoiled in unmistakable horror, backpedaled, and fell, crawling away on his back while watching her in utmost fear. "Yeah. Nice to see you again too. Ahem." A hint of static laced her voice as she cleared it. "Girl that can't speak anymore? Synthesizer? Hello? You were more chatty when you first gave me the Moonie skin." Lolita, already a few inches taller than him, towered over him now as he cowered. She set both hands on her hips, expecting a reply.

"C'mon. It's ok. I'm not going to hurt you. It's just my voicebox, see?" She cooed at the feathered-raptor-person. 'Oh god. This is all wrong, feels wrong, and probably is wrong! I'm talking all soft like to, to...to him! But I can't let him feel threatened. Why is he scared of this thing anyways?' Lolita watched the alien; it's, no, his feather crest spread out and quivering. His eyes were both steady on her chest, one eye independent of the other occasionally glancing up to her face. Inside, she was a tad furious. 'He's not a man, he's not a man. Well, not a Terran man. He's not looking at my breasts because he's a Terran man. He's just looking at the voicebox.' the gifted marine told herself, again and again, forcibly keeping cool. Lolita pointed at the voice synthesizer around her neck as she continued to speak comfortingly. "Look, I won't be able to speak without it. I'm taking it off now, ok?"

****

Awoman'svoiceperfectandclearyetsulliedbyasyntheticbuzz. The perfect memory flooded and nearly drowned out his perception, reducing awareness of the awkward-unbalanced thin-large Terran female. Coltfeetagainstmyhelmetpressingheadintocurb-gentlepeacepromisingwordsandgunpointedatmyback-smellofbloodashcementmetalfloodingmynose. Yotruyan did his best to force it out of his mind. Their technology, no matter how much it was similar and to Ottyo Archaic Technology, unsettled and occasionally, like right now, terrorized him. Frequently. A lowly minor traumatized as he was would have broken and try to kill everyone in a desperate bid to stop the stream of fear. He slowly got up to his feet, slightly shaky and now completely forgetting to stand on his feet knuckles due to the claws. The sound of ripping carpet was heard as a talon ripped into the carpet. The female Terran moved it's, no, her flaps of. No. Lips. She moved her lips, forgetting that the voice device was gone. The Terran's face bespoke surprise before moving to put it back on. Yotruyan waved his hand, gesturing for her to stop urgently.
"N-no, that is not necessary. I can. Hear the flapping and wind passing over your flesh. Barely over my rapidly beating hearts, but I hear it." He watched her roughly move her facial features. An eyebrow up, another down, and lips slightly curved downwards as well. Was it confusion? Disbelief?

"Not exactly flattering, but I guess this works too." She moved her lips, passing air over them. Yotruyan watched the expression changed to a 'softer' one, where the lips subtly, if their expressions could be called that, upwards in a 'smile' while relaxing the eyes.

"My apologies. I mean, sorry. I am trying to use contractions and simpler words. Please, go ahead and put it back on if you're comfortable. I will be fine." He watched as she put both hands on her hips and pursed her lips together. Yotruyan saw that often enough from Cibo to know what it meant. "Yes. Really."

****

Lolita put her voicebox necklace back on and gave out a weary sigh. He was a handful, that was for certain. No wonder Cibo dumped him on her! Not that way; hell no, definitely not that way. A shiver ran down her spine as she recalled some of the...hobbies that others partook in. "Well, that was quite a reunion. I didn't get your name yet. Mine's Lolita Sartre by the way." The marine spoke, offering a hand out for a shake; the thought then occurred to her that he may not know it, and then, another thought came to mind. He had claws. 'Is this going to hurt?' She mentally asked herself, sarcasm dripping from the thought. With a bit of satisfaction, he did know how to give a handshake, and with a delightful surprise, he knew to be careful.

"Yotruyan Cliriki. Though, it is flatly pronounced at your typical pitch, and most Terrans often refer to me as either 'Killy', the name given to me by the Seflaurinds, or just 'Ottyo'. They don't ever call me Inquisitor for some reason that I can't figure." Lolita quaffed at his statement.

"It's because 'Inquisitor' sounds evil to us. Like, it's got a bad rap from way back. Try looking up The Spanish Inquisition."

"Oh my." Lolita couldn't hold it back anymore. She started giggling.

"And so, we're going to all watch 'Moonlight' together!" Lolita squeed in excitement. In all honesty though, Yotruyan couldn't figure out why the movie series was so entertaining to Terrans based on what he just heard. Ageless creatures of beauty? Lived by drinking blood? Sparkled? He honestly couldn't figure out why they drank blood. It was silly; though it could be viewed as the life of a creature, why not take it in with the meat being eaten? After a meal of blood only, a person would surely have to come back for more very soon. It just wasn't very filling. He told her this. "Huh. And they usually complain about the sparkling." she seemed to muse. It was hard to tell if she actually was musing. Unsubtle facial and eye gestures combined with all sorts of subconscious facial ticks made the Terrans maddeningly enigmatic. They were just bizarre with how messy their faces were! At the least, the rest of their body language was easy enough to understand. Most of the time.

"I have no problem with sparkling." he honestly replied to the Terran female. "Plenty of animals sparkled at my home." Yotruyan went on matter-of-factly.

"More weird. They usually complain about these actors being too pretty too..." she murmured. In response, the Ottyo shrugged and frankly replied to her,

"I have seen more weird things before."He looked at her breasts again. Needless to say, Yotruyan could figure easily enough that she wasn't very pleased at the not-so-subtle meaning of that. "Well. They are abnormal..." Yotruyan forced himself to stop and be considerate after taking careful note of the change in facial expressions, the folding together of the brows, slight downward inflection of the lips and so forth. With great care, he thought a response over before going on. "Is the cancer terminal?"

*****

Lolita wasn't sure what to feel right now. She just decked the de-facto ambassador of an enigmatic alien race that came out of the blue and handed over an entire resource rich planet. Was she supposed to feel terrified? On the other hand, she seethed, he essentially called her breasts a pair of cancerous lumps. She hugged herself, felt herself, and looked over her shoulder at the Ottyo. "Um. Yotruyan? Are you ok?" He was sitting by the table again, now pressing a small bag of ice to an eye.

"I have been through significantly worse encounters. And I felt you did not mean to actually harm me." he went on, opening up a clawed hand. She shivered at what he could have done with those. "And here I was guessing that large size meant softer individuals. As in occupation I mean. Though...I suppose literally too?" By now, Lolita figured enough to hand-wave some of the normal meaning behind the words. Still, she couldn't help but have that feeling anyways.

"Heh. Glad you think I got some arms on me." she spoke proudly. "I'm a Marine proper. Heavy Machine Gunner. I'm strong enough to TC The Organ Grinder all on my own, no assistant gunner necessary."

"Really now? Wha-" Yotruyan was cut off mid-syllable as the door bell rang. Soon enough, the other girls started to come right in for the flick.