Don't Panic, A Pilgrim's Guide to the Galaxy
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-The Night is Dark and Full of Terror
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"Hey Veetor, wanna play?"
The Rayya, as one of the Quarians' most valuable liveships, had the most space as not to suffocate the plant-matter that grew to feed the nation on the move. Quarians still spent a great deal of time in each other's personal bubbles, but if one wanted some privacy, it was the only place possible on the Flotilla. As well as the only place for Quarian children to play any sort of 'out door' ball game; in polymer bubbles of course.
Even then, despite the Rayya being the most comfortable ship for someone like Veetor'Nara nar Rayya, he still felt horribly awkward and paranoid.
Veetor was in the words of the adults, 'Special'.
"Veetor?" The other young Quarian asked.
"Aargh!" Veetor yelled, practically bursting his bubble with the height of his jump. He quickly turned to see the young girl in the purple dress with the swirly patterns smiling at him through her own respective bubble. He felt his cheeks blush, wishing he had a suit like the adults to hide his embarrassment.
"You okay?" She asked nonchalantly.
"Oh, yes. Yes. Very much. Good. Yes." He stammered like the imbecile people thought he was. He looked away.
The tension was so great, the air could be packed and sold.
"Don't waste your time with him, Tali!" Called one of the other children. A boy. He gave a sour look at Veetor. "All he does is panic when he has the ball, and scores for the other side!"
"So, wanna play?" Tali asked, ignoring the other boy. "It is a human game called Soccer. You kick a black and white ball around while your parents get drunk and fight."
Veetor wanted to say yes. But sadly he knew the other boy was ultimately right. He felt rather glum.
"No. No, thank you. Thank you for offering, yes." He quietly muttered. Tali sadly nodded but didn't stop smiling.
"If you wanna play, just ask, okay?"
With that she returned to the other children. Veetor could only watch the others playing. While watching he realized that neither team knew which side was which, revealing the factitiousness of the other boy's scathing remark about him. This didn't stop the adults watching and fighting each other. Even Tali's father, Admiral Rael'Zorah, was demanding that his daughter should not be penalized, on the grounds that he was Admiral and therefore he could do 'whatever bloody hell he wanted'.
Human sports had a rather nasty habit of bringing out the absolute worst in people.
After watching the chaos slowly unfolded from insults to suit-punctures, Veetor's paranoia and fear of sharp objects took over his addled mind. He quickly made himself scarce, retreating back to his parent's corner of the Rayya.
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Quarians believed in shared space. Doors were only an artifact from the original owners. Actual homes only had a curtain with the pattern of the currently-residing family to serve as personal pockets of space. Even these only held a few bunks and bookcase of precious doodads. And anyone could come in. So during the sleeping hours, there was a great deal of vibrating sounds from NerveStim kits and yells of 'Are you masturbating again?' from spouses and parents.
So neither Yuon'Nara nor Shuri'Nara looked up from their work pads as a bubbled child ran into their 'house'.
"Oh greetings, son." Said Yuon, Veetor's father, in a calm and serene voice.
"Hi. Hello. Dad. Hello Dad." Veetor said, wringing his hands in nervousness. "Hello Mom."
"Hello, my child." Said Shuri in an equally serene voice. Both the parents, despite living in such a cramped space, seemed completely relaxed, in total contrast to their nervous wreck-of-a-child.
"You seem very tense, son. Please, have some Turian coffee." Spoke Hardael as he attached a tube to the bubble with such speed that Veetor hadn't even finished listening to his father's words. A thermos popped through inside the bubble, leaving the transfer-canister outside and therefore protecting the young Veetor from infection.
"Butbutbutbutbut…" Veetor stammered.
"Butts are for alien sex-deviants." His mother quietly warned. "You know what they will do to you if you bring too much attention to yourself."
"They will rape me dead?" Veetor answered, fighting back the tears of fear.
"Yes, son. The galaxy is a very dangerous place. It is full of perverts, murderers and servants of dark and terrible gods that wish to drink your soul and feast upon your juicy flesh." Yuon said in a completely calming monotone. "Drink your coffee, it will keep the monster under your bed away."
"There is a monster under my bed!?" Veetor asked loudly, eyes wide, clutching the Thermos like a security blanket.
"Yes." Shuri said softly. "And unless it is saturated in Turian coffee, your flesh will be stripped off of your bones while you are still awake and living. And we really would like to avoid cleaning up the mess in the morning."
"OH SWEET JESUS!" Veetor screamed.
"Don't say the name of human gods in vain, son." Yuon said. "Or else the humans will hunt you down, drag you back screaming to Earth and proceed to boil you in a vat of something called 'marmalade'." Veetor proceeded to make the sound a mouse that just realized there is a varren behind it. "Now, please, my sweet child. Drink your Turian coffee."
Veetor pulled the cap off in haste and knocked the thermos back like an alcoholic. The stuff was foul tasting and burningly hot.
"I don't feel calmer." He protested. Fear of flesh-devouring beasts under his bed filling his addled mind with pant-soiling terror.
"Keep drinking, son. It is your only hope of surviving. Now what was it you wanted to tell us?" Shuri asked quietly.
"Well, there is this girl…" he began, but his father reached and slapped the bubble. Even though it did little but stop Veetor's train of thought, it was clear that his father was aiming for the face.
"Veetor'Nara nar Rayya!" He suddenly spoke in heartbroken tone. "How could you do this to us?"
"Eh?" Veetor was really confused. The Turian coffee didn't help.
"Pursuing a relationship before your pilgrimage. Do you know how deviant that is?" His mother asked, barely holding back her tears. "Do you want the Quarian people to pursue breeding solely within their birth-ships? Do you want the Quarian race to be nothing but inbred yokels who engage in massive incestuous orgies in space?"
"What!?"
"Son, don't you realize that if you seduce this woman that you will bring about the doom of not only of the Flotilla but the whole galaxy?" Yuon accused.
"The galaxy?" Veetor asked, tears welling from guilt.
"Oh, Yuon!" Cried Shuri, she fell in her husband's arms as Yuon cradled her comfortably. "Our son is the herald of the Reapers! All is lost! Where did we go wrong?"
"I don't know, my love!" Yuon wailed. "This is our entire fault! May the ancestors have mercy on us for bringing this devil child into the world."
The two of them kept wailing and sobbing. Their pitiful cries could be heard throughout the Rayya. One Quarian could not stand it.
"Would you two shut up?" He yelled. "It is hard to install these NerveStim kits by yourself and I can't concentrate with you two sounding like a pyjak in a blender!"
They ignored him, continuing to cry and embrace each other as if their world was collapsing around each other.
"Mom… Dad…" Veetor quietly whispered.
"YOU ARE NOT MY SON!" Yuon screamed, pointing an accusing finger at the crying Veetor. "MY SON WAS KILLED BY THE CREATURE THAT STANDS BEFORE US!"
"I am sorry, I won't see Tali again…" Veetor cried. His whole world genuinely collapsing.
"Oh, that's good." Yuon said serenely. He and Shuri had returned to their original positions and composure as if nothing happened. "I am glad that your resisted her lusty wiles. But just in case, you should drink this." He slapped another Turian coffee transfer-canister unto Veetor's bubble. "It is well documented that sex-demons can't stand the delicious and refreshing blend of Palavenian Vorlorum-bean coffee."
"Really?"
"Yes." Yuon and Shuri answered flatly. Another Quarian, this time female, called out.
"Stop giving that poor child coffee! He is jittery enough as it is!"
"Ignore her son, she would crack open your bubble and molest you while you went into shock as your immune system explodes and devours your body." Yuon explained.
"WHAT!?" Veetor and the other Quarian screamed.
"Yes, it would be a horrible way to die." Shuri 'assured'. "But on the other hand, it would feel REALLY good."
"You people are sick in the helmet! I am definitely bringing this up with the Captain!" The Quarian said, even though Veetor only heard her voice, he could hear the sounds of angry footsteps marching the Captain's office.
"Now, son, we must get these accounts into order. So may you please leave and spend some time with your friends?" Shuri asked.
"I… I don't have any…" Veetor tried to finish the sentence through his tears. But in the end he could only squeeze his thermos.
"No excuses, go play with your friends." Yuon ordered, remaining serene as always. "And stop crying, you will end up flooding your bubble and then you will drown…"
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Curfew had come into effect. Veetor moved from his mobile bubble to the square one that covered his bed, and held what precious few toys he had. His parents slept on a single bunk directly above him. He wondered how two people slept on a single bunk with barely enough elbow room for one, though his parents claimed that they took turns sleeping on top of the other parent. His parents were odd, to say the least, but he started to wonder that they actually might be dangerous. What if the coffee only made him more delicious as opposed to immune to the horrors that lurked in the void?
He always thought about things. His teachers had said that despite being very introverted and terrified of everything, he was very smart little boy, who had a surprising knack for electronics, engineering and even rudimentary computer programming.
But most times he thought about things was when he was supposed to be 'sleeping'. Sadly the amounts of Turian coffee that his parents pushed on him made it difficult to go to sleep. He remembered that when he was even smaller and younger, he begged his mother to sing him a lullaby, like the ones the other mothers sang to their children, filling the living quarter with a soft and gentle choir of songs, whose lyrics were those of safety, quiet and love.
His mother refused, telling him that if she ever sang, her uncle would rise from the grave and eat her firstborn as a means to amass dark power.
He broke the record of the youngest Quarian to write a Will and Final Testament that night.
That night, there was a lullaby being sung. It sounded so heavenly to him. A precious voice of sanity in such a cruel and insane universe.
"Sleep well, sleep sound. Watch over my child.
Protect her from harm. Make her strong.
The homeworld waits for her yet…"
The song was sung in old Khelish. In galactic basic they didn't sound like much but in Khelish the words flowed together like warm oil. Veetor finally felt calm. If he were ever to have a bath, he imagined it would be like that lullaby.
The half-remembered lyrics carried on for a few minutes. Only once did someone actually shout 'Are you masturbating again?' which made Veetor wonder if it actually just that one person who kept offending the other.
By the time the song ended, he had gone to sleep.
But sadly for Veetor, the following day was only going to get worse.
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