rejam
His meditations, as he had gone through the same sort of ritualized self-care that he did before a house party or one of his ill-fated Hinge dates before he’d thrown in the towel, were that it might be wasted effort. Hard to say what an alien standard of beauty was, but that wasn’t so much relevant, as - despite the little show he’d put on for Grieve - he had no intentions to make himself attractive to her. Which was just as well, given the material he was working with. But she seemed remarkably un-immersed, as yet, in the culture of the modern human. Would she understand that it meant something, the way that he dressed and looked? That it broadcast some idea to the people around him, that he had little things painted on every fingernail and an enameled flower on his lapel? How much of that language did she speak - anything? He wouldn’t have had the words to fit to the idea himself, but maybe she’d be aware that he seemed to look like cool air and cool tile in a flowering garden somewhere in the summer heat, amidst a sea of heavy denim and cargo shorts. Maybe, to her, the cargo shorts were better. Odd thing to consider.
But Maus - Kay - Morgan, today - was more aware than most people that you dressed both to be seen by the eyes around you (who would know some of that language, even if she didn’t), and to be seen by the eyes in your own head. These looked at the man in the mirror that still sometimes startled him by seeming too old to be himself, but at least saw in that stranger someone well-dressed and casually aware of it.
It was good, to look good and smell good and know it, and to get into Elaine’s too-clean car. Good to know that he had given up smoking long enough, this time, that there wasn’t anything clinging to him.
And good, too, to pull up where he’d been told to meet her, and to lean against the car that wasn’t his and bask in summer heat that was already rising despite the early hour, and to know that he was going to spend his time making someone feel good too and pay for it only with his pockets.
He had a way of greeting people, so ingrained from even Before that it was not a matter of conscious thought. He deployed it on his dates, at parties, at work to people who recognized him from something or other, and he would deploy it now, of course: a casual swing of the arm, which had the tidy effect of inviting equally a hug or a handshake, and receiving whichever one was uppermost in the thoughts of the person he was putting that arm out to.
That smile, of course - that ray of genuine sunshine, always turned on any object of his attention as if an admiring spotlight - she had to some extent seen. But today it was less strained from being under the weight of Maus, breaking out with boyish suddenness.
But Maus - Kay - Morgan, today - was more aware than most people that you dressed both to be seen by the eyes around you (who would know some of that language, even if she didn’t), and to be seen by the eyes in your own head. These looked at the man in the mirror that still sometimes startled him by seeming too old to be himself, but at least saw in that stranger someone well-dressed and casually aware of it.
It was good, to look good and smell good and know it, and to get into Elaine’s too-clean car. Good to know that he had given up smoking long enough, this time, that there wasn’t anything clinging to him.
And good, too, to pull up where he’d been told to meet her, and to lean against the car that wasn’t his and bask in summer heat that was already rising despite the early hour, and to know that he was going to spend his time making someone feel good too and pay for it only with his pockets.
He had a way of greeting people, so ingrained from even Before that it was not a matter of conscious thought. He deployed it on his dates, at parties, at work to people who recognized him from something or other, and he would deploy it now, of course: a casual swing of the arm, which had the tidy effect of inviting equally a hug or a handshake, and receiving whichever one was uppermost in the thoughts of the person he was putting that arm out to.
That smile, of course - that ray of genuine sunshine, always turned on any object of his attention as if an admiring spotlight - she had to some extent seen. But today it was less strained from being under the weight of Maus, breaking out with boyish suddenness.
Kalani had accepted her glamour, but when she looked at her reflection, she didn’t recognize the person who stared back at her. Mostly because that person looked human, and Kalani was resoundingly not. She saw pieces and parts of her true self - the nose, at certain angles, and currently, the fact that the same little tuft of hair that wouldn’t lie flat when she was powered up currently wouldn’t lie flat as she prepared for her day at the zoo with - Morgan.
Morgan. Kay. Maus. Morgan. She mulled the names over in her head, and wondered, idly, which of his names, which of his selves, felt like a glamor to him. He said he didn’t exist, and Kalani thought she understood what he meant by that; she thought she understood the great empty yawning nothingness that existed within his memory.
What overwhelmed her sometimes about Maus-Morgan-Kay was his…earnestness. She got the distinct impression that he tried to be…what was the Earthling word…aloof, but that was not his true self, his true way of being. She wasn’t sure what was his true way of being - and she didn’t think he knew for sure either, but that was okay, because the way he was with her was enough: kind, thoughtful, willing to teach. Willing to listen. He never made fun of her for what she didn’t - couldn’t - know, even though she knew sometimes her mistakes must be funny to an Earthling.
Maus-Morgan-Kay was her friend. That would have been enough - that alone felt like a gift too large to hold in her body - but he went beyond that. His love of his planet, his home...in a strange sort of way, it inspired her, or made her idle curiosity something active, something that demanded engagement. Something that had her saying ‘take me to the zoo’. She hadn’t thought it possible, to feel like Earth was her home, even temporarily, but…when she spent time with Maus-Morgan-Kay, it made her want to see through his eyes. It made her want to love what he loved about this place.
Kalani sighed at herself, gave up trying to pat down the little fwoop of hair, and instead clipped it down with a hairclip in the shape of a flower. It matched her dress, she thought; a little white flower with a blue center, a white sundress - one of her roommates had taught her the word - with little stitched-on flowers cascading down like they’d gotten caught in a windstorm.
Kalani left the bathroom and picked up her things-container (‘purse’, her roommates insisted, but she couldn’t quite make her mouth make that word yet). Inside was some Earthling money, generously given to her by Soren, who had one of the ‘jobs’ she had heard so much about. She had mentioned to her roommates that she was going to this ‘zoo’ thing and they had helped her determine what she would need for such an outing: clothes, shoes, things-container, money. She hadn’t said she didn’t understand how Earthling money worked, because she was sure that Maus-Morgan-Kay would help her, if the people she needed to give the money to would not.
One last look in the reflection-square (mirror, another word with too many ‘r’s for Kalani to easily say) and Kalani nodded to herself. She might not know that girl, but she knew that she looked - happy. Nervous, as anyone would be before a new experience, but - happy.
Kalani left her room, left the house, and smiled broadly as she spotted Maus-Morgan-Kay (just Morgan, now, because he said he preferred it, and Kalani was incapable of bringing up the negative connotations he’d mentioned, because she had absolutely no idea what they were referring to).
“Hello,” Kalani called as she approached. As she got closer, he swung his arm open, and Kalani - thoughtless beyond a bright ! of happiness in her mind - allowed herself to be caught in a hug. It was brief, but it made Kalani smile against Morgan’s shoulder; he was warm. He smelled good: not like anything she recognized from her home planet, which was exciting in and of itself - it was a gentle scent, but deep, and beneath that somewhat artificial scent was something that she knew was just - him, woodsy and natural, and she knew in that moment that no matter what name he went by, no matter what side he was on, she would never forget that scent, and so she would never forget him, either.
He was - real, which after so many years of being a lonely ghost on her planet, after how many hundreds of years of having no one else to touch…maybe that was a little bit of a miracle too.
Kalani stepped back and gave him a smile, a little shy, retroactively worried she had, once again, misinterpreted an Earthling gesture. “Thank you for this,” she said, meaning the car and the trip and also everything. “I am very excited to zoo.”
rejam
One of the things he never did was correct her little misuses of language, at least directly. It was with complete, apparently-thoughtless nonchalance, and not like a correction at all, that he answered her as he held the door for her: “No, thank you for coming with me. I love going to the zoo and it’s no fun going alone. I haven’t gone to the zoo in - well, forever,” he said, observing that this was more or less true.
It would not be healthy for him to linger on how desperately grateful he had been that she had gone for the hug and not the handshake, and so he attempted to shake the thought. Were it not for his own tendencies when it came to having hands in his hair (and a scrupulous sense that it would be Weird to even privately inflict them on a stranger) he might have already succumbed to getting a haircut he didn't need for the sake of nonchalantly getting his hair washed at the same time, just for his desperation for human - well, human enough - contact.
He gave a good hug. He was aware of this; aware that it was because he had no self-consciousness in them and no shyness and an overflowing reservoir of goodwill directed towards anyone who wanted to put their arms around him for any reason, even briefly.
The thought was not being shaken successfully. He tried a more active means of chasing it off as he buckled himself in and discreetly monitored Kalani, not sure how far her experience in a car extended but feeling fairly certain she could not possibly have been around this long without being acquainted with a seatbelt at least once or twice, or at least the theory of it. Maybe.
"If you need anything," he said, on the idea that pursuing mundane topics might get the sensation of wanting to lean over and hug her again out of his system until he was actually driving, "- like - if I start rambling and don't make any sense or you wanna stop somewhere and look at something and I'm already wandering off, you can tell me. I get distracted easy," he finished. "I need wrangling."
He turned his discreet watching to a direct look, heralded by that smile again, and it was apologetically that he confessed to the uncomfortable thing he was now thinking: "It feels a little weird to - like - talk to someone I know wearing a face I don't, every time it happens," he said. "But I'm real good with faces. It'll go. You look like you even though you don't, you know? I like your hair."
It would not be healthy for him to linger on how desperately grateful he had been that she had gone for the hug and not the handshake, and so he attempted to shake the thought. Were it not for his own tendencies when it came to having hands in his hair (and a scrupulous sense that it would be Weird to even privately inflict them on a stranger) he might have already succumbed to getting a haircut he didn't need for the sake of nonchalantly getting his hair washed at the same time, just for his desperation for human - well, human enough - contact.
He gave a good hug. He was aware of this; aware that it was because he had no self-consciousness in them and no shyness and an overflowing reservoir of goodwill directed towards anyone who wanted to put their arms around him for any reason, even briefly.
The thought was not being shaken successfully. He tried a more active means of chasing it off as he buckled himself in and discreetly monitored Kalani, not sure how far her experience in a car extended but feeling fairly certain she could not possibly have been around this long without being acquainted with a seatbelt at least once or twice, or at least the theory of it. Maybe.
"If you need anything," he said, on the idea that pursuing mundane topics might get the sensation of wanting to lean over and hug her again out of his system until he was actually driving, "- like - if I start rambling and don't make any sense or you wanna stop somewhere and look at something and I'm already wandering off, you can tell me. I get distracted easy," he finished. "I need wrangling."
He turned his discreet watching to a direct look, heralded by that smile again, and it was apologetically that he confessed to the uncomfortable thing he was now thinking: "It feels a little weird to - like - talk to someone I know wearing a face I don't, every time it happens," he said. "But I'm real good with faces. It'll go. You look like you even though you don't, you know? I like your hair."
Kalani laughed softly, nodding in understanding. “I feel somewhat the same way,” she said, “both about you and myself. This - this version of myself, is… well, I have mostly gotten over being surprised whenever I see myself, but it still feels less honest than when we are patrolling. I feel fairly confident that Earthlings do not feel the same way,” she chuckled faintly and shook her head. “You, at least, still look like yourself, though it is pleasant to see you in colors other than yellow and brown.” And he did look good - she hadn’t been entirely sure what she’d been expecting him to wear, when he got to pick his own clothes, but she was pleased to find that his palette extended beyond that which he wore when he was powered up. She absently patted the bit of hair she’d clamped down, making sure it was staying in place. “But thank you.”
The car was not a wholly new experience; she knew enough to click the cross-body piece into the waiting square at her hip, though how it worked - and what purpose it served beyond ‘it keeps you safe in case of an accident’ - was beyond her knowledge or interest. That was another thing she’d mostly gotten over the surprise of: these transportation machines. They had frightened her terribly when she first arrived on Earth, and more than once had nearly been squashed by one going too fast. They made terrible blaring noises, seemingly all the time, and it had been enough to keep Kalani far, far away from these things called ‘roads’ on which the machines travelled.
And also, they were very smelly, and she understood that they were, in some way, contributing more to the death of this planet than Chaos was, which Kalani both found unlikely and deeply concerning. She had not asked why humans insisted upon using them - or why they needed to be so large - and had instead just decided it was simply another in a long list of ‘human things’ that Kalani would never understand.
What she had not gotten used to, however, was actually being in the transportation machine. From the inside perspective, the machines were somehow even more terrifying - all the other machines were so close, so fast, and more than once Kalani had seen humans doing other things while they navigated the machines: eating, or speaking into their cell phones, or even taking pictures somehow? Kalani did not understand, and she did not trust anyone else on the road.
She did, however, trust Maus-Morgan-Kay, completely and implicitly. She trusted that he would not let any harm come to her, whether by the nightmare dogs that had surrounded her when they first met, or by these ‘car’ creations that sent her heart thumping.
So she was mostly fine. She kept her hands clasped in her lap, so that she only squeezed her own fingers when a car came too close or they took a turn at what felt like an impossible speed, rather than digging her nails into the door of the transportation machine. She had left tiny half-moon marks in the last one she’d been in, and she was determined not to do the same when Morgan was behind the…the…
The wheel. That was what it was called.
“What is your favorite zoo thing?” Kalani asked. She was, in spite of herself, very curious about the sort of flora and fauna that called Earth home - beyond what she saw in her day-to-day life. “What is the most interesting zoo thing to do?”
rejam
“Otters,” he said immediately. “Because they don't keep mice at the zoo. Have you seen an otter? I guess not - no otters around Destiny City. They're like - long slinky weasel things and they play in the water, and there's another kind that hold hands and float around together like that and they are,” and he delivered this with a sort of desperation, “so, so cute. They have otters there.” A thought occurred to him, suddenly. “And a butterfly garden.” This, with a glance towards her. Surely there must be something in that.
Kalani brightened immediately, seeming to gain an inch or two out of sheer delight. Two of her favorite words in Earthling were ‘butterfly’ and ‘garden’, and to hear that both were here? Why hadn’t they gone there immediately?
“Take me there!” Kalani said, momentarily forgetting Earthling politeness out of excitement. “I will translate for you and you can speak to my little cousins!! They have much to say!”
rejam
This sudden outburst, pleasant though it was, alarmed him a little. “I can’t tell if -” he started, correcting himself midway lest he sound patronizing by mistake. “Do they talk, where you’re from? I feel like I’m gonna be setting you up for disappointment. Ours don’t even make noise. But maybe they say things,” he allowed. “I think basically everything does.”
“Not out loud,” Kalani said with a laugh, as if this was patently ridiculous, and not something that May As Well Happen in this magical world they found themselves in, “but they communicate with us, and us with them, although admittedly…” Kalani trailed off, absently brushing her non-pointed, non-winged ears in her glamored form, “...it may be more difficult in this form, for them to understand me. And even on K–even at home, us speaking to them was always like speaking a foreign language. They had just learned to adapt to us, sort of like how your dogs and cats can understand what you are saying, even though you do not have tails or pointy ears.”
Kalani shook her head and her smile returned. “Either way, I would like to see your butterflies and your garden. I hope that they are being well-cared-for, because if they are not, and if they are anything like their bigger cousins, they will complain about it.” Kalani laughed again and shook her head, fondly. “I will tell you anything they say.” Kalani spent the rest of the drive pushing buttons on the car - finding the control for the music was enough to entertain her all the way to the zoo’s parking lot.
