"How's your tail?"
"Fine. How's your leg?"
"Fine."
Lance lifted his tail up and down to test its strength. "If it weren't for that healing spell with the seaweed, man, all would be lost right now."
"That puts my mind at ease." Keith muttered as he played with his own leg wrap.
"Hey." Lance propped himself up on his elbows. "Tell me about your home."
"What?"
"Tell me about your home. What do you do for fun? I know you said it's usually just you at your house; how do you keep yourself entertained?"
"Oh. Well... I usually work all day, figured earning money is better than just sitting around."
"Work?"
"Yeah, labor for currency, so we can buy things like food, clothes."
"We have something kinda like that; we use diamonds instead."
"Wait... you have diamonds?"
"Yeah?"
"Like... like actual diamonds? Sparkly, hard, super rare?"
"Well... not really rare for us."
"Seriously!?"
"Yeah. There's a bunch of them in the seabed; they're pretty much crystals of carbon that form beneath the Earth's crust, and then there's these kimberlite pipes, which are made by volcanic eruptions, and that's how the gems can surface; it's the particular magma---the kimberlite---that holds those gems, so when a volcano does erupt, it spews out the magma that's holding them all inside."
"...wow."
Lance winked. "There's some science for ya."
"So you've got a hefty bunch down there, huh?"
"You bet!"
"Geez... don't tell Marus Crassus."
"Huh?"
"Nothing," he chuckled at his own joke. "Anyway, back to what I was saying, I have a position that I manage that I earn money for."
"Okay, gotcha. So what do you do?"
"It's at an aquarium."
"It is not! And you hate the water?"
"Believe it or not." He grinned. "I work in the small habitats; cleaning tanks, feeding the fish... don't tell anyone, but I sometimes let the kids hold the starfish."
Lance hummed, smiling fondly at Keith's sudden excitement. "Your secret's safe with me."
Keith returned the smile, and a comfortable silence fell over them as they both locked eyes.
But then Lance coughed, looking away shyly. "So um, are you the only one who works that position?"
"It's me and one other. She sometimes works with the large fish, though, so sometimes I'm working by myself."
"Really?" Lance giggled his brows playfully. "She your girlfriend?"
Keith couldn't help but laugh at that. "No! No, she's just a friend... hardly even a friend I'd say, more like a work colleague. Like I said, I barely even see her." He then shrugged. "Besides, girls aren't exactly my taste."
Lance leaned forward with interest. "Really? So you prefer the male gender?"
"Yep." His head tilted curiously. "What's that like for you?"
