Keep me in distant sight

Chapter 20 : Second Coming

(Somewhere, in the intersideral void)

"They're asking if you're okay going there."

"Do I have a choice, even?"

"Not really but they want you to be focused on your mission. So, they need to know if they need to give you a bigger team."

"I am focused, thank you. Have been for the past six years actually. I'll be fine. But you can't expect me to not be nervous. Nervous doesn't even cover all the things I'm feeling right now."

"They say you have their... green light? Yeah, green light."

"Having their authorization is one thing. Preparing myself accordingly for this moment is another..."

"Your kind and its weird ways..."

"You're used to it. You've been with me since the beginning of my mission. Ask them when we are going?"

"Tomorrow, they said. You will have others with you. They also say after this mission, you might be able to have free time."

"I will have this free time, allowed or not. If they think I can accept going there and leaving immediately, they have another thing coming..."

"Do I need to translate?"

"You can if you want. This way they know what to expect."

"There, done. We better go pack for the trip. Grab some warm clothes, I've heard it's cold there."

****

"So in order to express the depths of your emotions in formal language, they use a little add-on on their sentences, which I think you might have seen it already but you need to say it out loud: ti-e."

"Ti-e?"

"Yeah, it's one of the rare words when a sound is dragged. Are you sure you need to learn this much, Akaashi? Formal is only used for other kinds' royalty... Some old texts related to the Sisters might use it too but really, you don't need to learn it." Kōshi points out, perched on their favorite feos (a sturdy chair-like thing with only two feet, not unlike the type of furniture you could put your clothes on.)

Akaashi, reading a dozen papers at once, looks at his teacher, turned friend, barely a month into their weekly nillian 101 session. He has the equivalent of a paintbrush dangling dangerously from his left ear and he knows without looking that he must have a smear of bright gold paint all over his left side. For some reason, nillians only use a certain type of paint for writing, the same kind that ends up on his skin every Full Day. He can't say he's particularly fond of having paint all over his hands, or face, everytime Kōshi and him work on his nillian but he has learned to manage.

"Of course I need to learn it, Kōshi-san. It's your language." He frowns at his test sheet before circling a word. "Is this the correct form of ti-a?"

"Yeah, yeah." Kōshi sighs, ruffling his pretty silver feathers to get rid of dust. "You and your weird overachiever complex..."

"Oh please, I'm not asking you to teach the Old Ways of your Old Priests or whatever. Although, do you have some information on them?"

"By the Sisters!" Kōshi exclaims. "You have more than 350 cycles to read everything, calm down. You have already gone through the better part of my lessons. What's going to happen when I can't teach you more?" Kōshi sways on their perch dramatically, their clawed feet holding shakily on the wooden-like structure.

"I'm sure I can find some new things to pester you with..." Akaashi chuckles. "Don't underestimate the human thirst for knowledge."

"Look at this sassy little Retjia." Kōshi laughs in reply, the insult turned less biting by the way their right upper wing unfolds and lightly taps Akaashi on his head. "All biting like a young dasli. I still remember the nice, polite and silent human you were almost 3 cycles ago..."