Another Name (SU fanfic)

18. SAY IT

The Clifarian mother ship is about to leave towards a new galaxy. It's been eight months since Tiny fixed Apatite's lack of energy.
The now experienced scientists are aboard a small alien space carrier which will soon reach a Clifarian transport that will take them back to their people. They're saying goodbye to the one who once was a lost exotic creature, after their subject of study, then their pet, and later was recognized as an intelligent sentient being with full rights. Dragon chose to stay behind.

Dpc: "I'm glad you're keeping a name of a mythological creature."
D: "I guess I'll always call myself Dragon anyway... you know..." Curious. "That thing... Did I ask for it and I don't remember?"
Ot: "No. That was all us."
D: To Otri. "By 'all us' you mean 'all you'?
Ot: Smiles. "Not really."
Wjy: "What matters is the spirit."
Scp: "And by 'spirit' she means 'power burst'."
Scop's specie has many virtudes, acting with style in social situations isn't one of them. That's why he asked his mates to keep correcting him when he's too straight, or in this case, to explain themselves when he corrects them and it wasn't necessary.
Wjy: To Scop, half whispered. "Elegance..."
Dpc: "Although we put a lot of effort on the shape, it's actually reformable... if that's what you want."
D: "I'm not looking forward to have a chance for that." Smiles. "And I like it as it is anyway."
Dragon, who is piloting the ship, stops it on the meeting point. He's surprised to see the transport is further away than expected, almost out of the sensors range, so he checks if he introduced the coordinates correctly when Otri places a hand on his shoulder.
Ot: "It's ok boy."
The empath always treats the photonic life form like her son, actually, her children call him 'light brother'.
Dpc: "There's one more thing we'd like to talk about before the proper goodbye."
D: Tuns around to face the others. "What is it?"
Scp: "You know we have been considering the possibilities and odds you will have in an independent life."
D: "Yes, you always calculate everything..."
Scp: "And you know you're..." Corrects himself. "You will not have Clifarian support from now on."
D: "Yeah... What's going on? It's not like you to point something this obvious..."
Dpc: "What he means is that being a part of the Clifarian community implies the acceptance of our directives and, in general, we hope you will live according to the education you received. Still, when the context changes, so should the rules."
Ot: "Everything we have is our Mother Ship, we have to protect it at all costs."
D: Doubting. "So... I have to protect my ship at all costs?"
Wjy: "Except your ship is your projector."
D: "Well, sure I'll keep it safe, it sustains my life and everything else..." Smiles half sad. "It's a part of you I'll carry with me wherever I go... But..." Curious. "You're repeating things I already know. Why now?"
Wjy: "The resistance of your projector and your ability to jump away from danger grant you more freedom than what our kind will ever have."
D: "Right... It begins to look like you want me to do something. Can't you just say it?"
Dpc: "We're not allowed to interfere in a conflict unless the weakest part is in imminent danger or all parts agree to our moderation."
D: Shocked. "What parts?! As far as we know I'm the only one of my kind alive. Am I?"
Spc: "Yes, the only one confirmed."
Dragon remembers two times when the Clifarians obtained data mentioning beings coming out of anomalies like his who could have survived. One of the traces led to a dead end and the other was too vague to be considered a reliable hint.
D: "What conflict could I possibly be a part of?" Sees a very light shrug from Dripac and Wajeyan. "Ok, let's play along. Since I'm the only one of my kind I must be the weakest part."
Scp: "You're not in danger."
D: "Then I officially ask the Clifarians to be moderators in any conflict I might be involved in."
Wjy: "It doesn't matter."
The non-Clif can feel Otri being sad in a way he recognizes. It was 28 years ago, the empath was missing for a while and when he saw her again she was carrying this sadness merged with helplessness, anger and guilt. That day she only told him everything went wrong with their diplomatic mission. Every time he asked about it later she refused to talk being sorry for it. He had to ask other empaths about the feeling and they told him it was survivor's guilt, but they all fell silent when his caretaker was mentioned.
D: "The other part refused..."
Ot: "We understand this is frustrating for you."
D: "Are you going to do anything about it?"
Dpc: "There was one time we all got a disciplinary warning for changing the location of a meeting."
Wjy: "Which was absolutely worthy."
Dpc: "You might have remembered that day a moment ago."
Dragon vaguely recalls a reunion in his room the said day. They talked about someone naming places, things and himself with funny names and playing with stuff. Now he's sure it had to be a more important subject, unfortunately, back then he could barely understand Simplified Clifarian.
D: "You have done it already..."
Scp: "When considering someone with a limited lifespan the main question is what is going to happen and what is not, time is somehow defined already. But if you think about a being who potentially has eternity ahead things change, every possibility will happen, what matters is establishing when, or specifically, the order. You will encounter this conflict, it's inevitable. And if you stay around your new home I would say it will happen in less than 500 years."
Dragon finds this especially alarming. Not the encountering a conflict part, which is concerning, but the one they considered he could not stay where he has chosen to be. He's about to protest when Otri continues.
Ot: Still sad. "Don't make the same mistake we made. You will want to fix it." Very serious. "Don't do it. You must find someone like you first."
D: Confused. "It's the reason I'm staying. You know that. Why are you saying this?"
Wjy: "Someone able to understand at least two other sides of the situation."
D: "Two other...? How many parts are there?"
Scp: "Whatever number, don't be too fast taking a side, it will surely be not the right one."
Among every confusing thing his caretakers are saying this is the only that makes sense to the inorganic life form.
D: [There's no right side, at least none righter than the others.] "Can you tell me how many directives have you broken because of this conflict?"
If there's something Clifarians love are their precious rules, acting against them is extremely rare in their society. The number will tell how bad things are.
Scp: "Fifteen."
The photonic being expected a range between two and five, this seems exaggerated, and still he knows Scop wouldn't lie.
D: "Why...?"
Scp: "Because our morale is built upon the assumption ghosts don't exist."
D: "What?!" Perplexed, laughs nervously. "There can't be ghosts, you taught me that."
In fact, no Clifarian older than two believes in ghosts, vampires, zombies or any other half death life form.
Scp: "I'm sorry."
Dragon can't tell whether Scop apologized because he made the worse joke attempt ever or because he taught him something that proved to be wrong. In ambiguous cases like this he usually uses Otri's emotions to clarify the meaning, but she's willingly hiding them right now.
D: "It's fine."
He says that having the feeling it might take him several thousand years to figure the hole thing out.

----------

Enstatite has been living on her own at the Iota 3 colony since Peridot had to leave her behind. Thanks to the information she received her life has been mostly quiet, except for the couple of times she was eaten by giant organic worms. She never understood how beings without legs can move so fast.
With all the time she had, she discovered she likes to wear stuff on her form to keep a higher temperature. It's not like cold could harm her in any way, she just feels more comfortable when it's hot. She began with leaves and tried various materials during the years. Nowadays she wears a basic leather dress lined with a soft vegetable material similar to raw cotton.

The brown gem has had the sensation someone has been watching her for some weeks now. She's beginning to think it's just her mind playing tricks on her because she hasn't seen anyone and misses staying with people too much, still she keeps looking around every time she feels it hopping to be wrong, and... giant worm.
E: "Shit!"
She can't tell why these beast, who don't even get nutrients from gems, are so obsessed with her. She doesn't wait to solve the mystery to start running away, this time she jumps from tree to tree as regular running doesn't always work well.
The extra effort doesn't get results today and soon she's about to be eaten, then there's a short weird sound and the organic falls flat on the ground. She continues escaping until she realizes the worm isn't moving again, then stops and goes back cautiously to see what happened to it. The organic is dead, it has a small burned hole from the back to the front of its head.
While she looks where the perforating beam came out of she hears an unfamiliar voice.
T: Doubting. "Ji..." Corrects herself. "Hi." Smiles happy with the correction.
The miner turns around to see a tall yellow gem, a spodumene, about ten meters away, lowering and putting the pistol she must have used a moment ago away. This type of stone might be produced at the colony, but it's way too early for one to have emerged. The brown miner leaves the corpse behind, gets ready to summon the shovel, if necessary, and walks towards the gem who isn't wearing her kind's usual facemask.
E: "You did this?"
T: "Ye...s."
Enstatite ignores triphanes are willingly made without vocal tract and so she thinks her interlocutor must me stupid as she has obvious trouble using simple words.
E: "Organics don't come back like us."
T: Slow. "I know."
E: "If I wanted to kill it I could have done it myself!"
T: Very slow. "I'm sol... sorry..."
E: "Now it's dead forever."
T: Continues. "...you thin... k..."
E: Gets nervous, talks faster. "Yes, I do. You should try it sometime."
T: Keeps expressing her idea. "...your li...fe is worth..."
E: "And its life was worthy too."
T: Wasn't done yet. "...so lid... little."
E: "What?"
The brown gem needs a moment to recompose the hole sentence. She knows others underappreciated her in the past, but she never thought she could be not valuing herself enough. With that she doesn't see the yellow gem as a menace anymore, so she lowers the hand she kept close to her gem.
E: Sighs. "You care about me?"
Triphane nods.
E: "Why? I'm a renegade."
T: Still slow. "So am I. Triphanes shoul... dn't tal... k. We come out li...ke this..."
The yellow gem shapeshifts to her original form, then tears off the mask to show the mouthless face it's supposed to hide. The miner wasn't expecting that and can't help to make an exaggerated disgusted face for a moment.
E: "Sorry. That... dear... I didn't know."
The rebelled assistant goes back to the form she chose when she last reformed to answer the question asked before.
T: A bit faster. "I'm lookin...g for hel...p to buil...d freedom."
E: Smiles. "This is something I'd like to build."
Enstatite is surprised by how drastically and fast her perception of the new gem changed.