LF Friends, Will Travel

Wish you were here

Date: 61 PST (Post Stasis time)

Tauress slowly wandered through the museum, a building of seemingly infinite glass walls, dim sterile lighting and grey carpeted flooring able to handle the thousands of visitors at day this attraction garners. She wandered aimlessly through the endless sea of various artifacts and information cards that littered the building; the never ending treasure trove of knicknacks that had been safely kept and restored, items of little use proudly displayed simply because age gave it a value of its own.

The 4ft tall reptile felt a little out of place when compared with the mostly Terran clientele here, not that most people have a second glance at Ritilian and her pattern of green and blue iridescent scales: The two species had been allies for the last 55 odd years, and most of the chaos primates from Sol had gotten past their initial 'excitement' over everything that was 'alien'.

Which means Tauress was free to march through the very many rooms and hallways that made up this building unaccosted. It was a lovely museum as far as museums went: spacious and clean, plenty of interactive displays and activities for people of all ages, a complimentary audio guide with interesting pieces of information. She could see why this place was so popular with the Terrans, as it was a nice, if slightly sad and sombre experience for all ages.

All in all, not a terrible place to spend a day. Which was exactly what Tauress needed: the ship she worked on had finished its delivery hours ago, and was scheduled to leave the planet the next day, meaning the reptile had a bunch of time to kill. This gave Tauress plenty of opportunity to enjoy the activities on offer, including being exceptionally confused about the purpose of the museum.

She wasn't the only one not quite understanding what was going on here. While the vast majority of people in the building were Terrans, a handful of other species were also littered amongst the crowds, all showing their own signs of absolute confusion. Still, the Ritilian felt she should have been doing a bit better, after her many years of working with the Terran members of the crew, she did have a feeling of being the 'Terran whisperer' in many circumstances.

It wasn't the concept of a museum that confused her, practically every civilized species in the universe had the same idea at some point, of collecting all the old historical things they owned and putting them somewhere for safe keeping and study. Species that didn't learn from their mistakes didn't tend to be very successful.

No, the confusion came from the subject of study in this museum, and every single other building and business on this planet. Why this Terran obsession had had so much effort placed into it, when all logic suggested the topic wasn't anything more than a statistical blip.

Tauress stared at the model standing in front of her behind the glass case, the information board next to it explaining it was a recreation, a life-sized model of one of those who had once commanded this entire planet before the Terrans had arrived: the Fehu. Larger than most, towering over those below them at 10ft tall, the reptiles had a raptor-like form, closer to avian than a classic cold blooded lizard. Supported on two large legs, a tiny set of arms for fine motor control, and covered head to toe in claws, teeth, and brightly coloured feathers. This model was dressed in what was thought to be their standard clothing: simple woolen decoration and giant hat.

To be fair, Tauress could start to guess why Terrans were so enamored with this species, since "Brightly coloured dinosaurs in hats." did tick a lot of the boxes marked "things the chaos lemurs from Sol enjoy". It didn't stop there, based on the information in the museum, Terrans and the Fehu should get along nicely: their love of gunpowder and fire, a tendency to create art and music out of anything and everything, and an undeniable curiosity about the world around them.