Wave Goodbye To The Sky

Oliver, after a while, finally let go of Wikus, though it was with a great deal of reluctance.

"We're the same now!" Oliver chirped, and Wikus winced at the memory of those words, but they did not instill the same rage anymore. He was the same as the younger prawn. He was a prawn, but at the same time, he wasn't. The confusion still ran rampant.

"We've always been the same," Wikus pointed out, elaborating at the confused look, "prawn or human, we're the same. It just no body else can see it yet." Maybe all the humans should be turned to Prawn, and all Prawn to human, and then they would see the similarities.

Oliver smiled. "Poleepkwa."

"What?"

"That's who we are. We aren't Prawn, that was our enslaved name. We are the proud Poleepkwan race."

"Poleepkwa?" Wikus repeated, the foreign word familiar on his alien tongue. How odd. His mind did not know the word, but his body did. "I like it better than Prawn."

"Me too," Oliver agreed rapidly, nodding his head. He grabbed the sheet of fabric, hastily wrapping it around his shoulders again. "Come! Father will want to know you're here!" He grabbed Wikus' wrist and tugged him towards the exit of the cafeteria.

"Wait," Wikus protested, thinking of Joseph and Amelia. He glanced back, trying to spot them, but they had been swallowed in the crowd again. "...never mind." He allowed the boy to resume his pulling, practically dragging the elder Prawn...the elder Poleepwka along behind him.

"Tell me, what...what happened to Christopher?" Wikus asked, hesitating at the last moment. Oliver slowed, and his face twisted into a frown.

"It's best that you let Father answer that," the youth said seriously, before rapidly changing the topic. He began to prattle on about something or another, happily distracting Wikus from his thoughts. The endless chirping was familiar and made Wikus hide a smile.

It was all familiar to him. Strangely enough, it wasn't a scary thought. The familiarity was...welcomed.

He reached out his hand out, allowing his long fingers to drag across the wall of the ship, the metal feeling cold under his digits. He wondered if the metal would be as easy to bend as the cans of catfood would be. The clean, crisp metal would make wonderful flowers, he mused.

"Wikus?"

He glanced up. Oliver had paused. In reality, they both had paused, but Wikus hadn't noticed. They stood outside a suspicious metal door and Wikus swallowed.

"Is...?"

Oliver nodded, releasing his grasp on his hand. He walked forward, and touching the pad next to the closed door, he quickly tapped in a code of unfamiliar letters. The door slid open with an ominous hiss.

"Father's inside. Uh...you go in by yourself," he said, with a small smile. "Make it a real surprise, okay?"

"Surprise?" Wikus repeated, suspiciously stepping towards the open door. "Didn't he realise I would board the ship?"

"Uh, just...ask him yourself," Oliver announced brightly and pushed the elder Poleepkwan into the room, chirping, "have fun!" as the door slid shut and locked him in.

Wikus blinked.

Yeah. This was going to turn out well, he thought to himself with heavy sarcasm, taking his first glance at the room.

Vials and cases of foreign looking things lined the walls, gray metal tables littered the floor, positively covered in vibrantly covered liquid in glass bottle-looking-things. Now this was a scene that made Wikus really think of those bad Sci-Fi movies he'd watched as a teenager. The ones that made you laugh they were so bad, but you were secretly terrified of? Yeah, those ones.

Wikus stepped forward, his footsteps sounding loud on the metal floor. He reached out a long finger, cautiously touching the closest vial. Of course, what he hadn't expected was that liquid in the vial to blink at him.

He gave a surprised chirp and jumped back from the table, stumbling and nearly knocking over what appeared to be a barrel of yellow...goo, that looked suspiciously of custard. However, the...custard appeared to be moving on it's own, which made Wikus fairly sure, that it wasn't custard.

It had, however, completely put him off the human substance.

"Oliver, what have I told yo-"

The voice was familiar and Wikus raised his head, his gaze slipping from the custardy goo to that of an even more familiar figure. He looked like most other prawn and he looked very similar to the last time he'd seen him, except now his exoskeleton practically shone with health, the white cloth draped around his shoulders symbolized...something which Wikus didn't know. He looked a little skinnier than last time.

Could Prawn...Poleepkwa's become skinny? They all looked rather emancipated to him, or maybe he'd only met skinny ones. Come to think of it, could they be fat?

A smash brought Wikus' attention back to Christopher, who had accidentally let go of the beaker in his hand. The red liquid hit the ground, shattering all over the floor and spreading like a stain. It avoided Christopher's feet, big and awkward as they were.

The silence between them was deafening, and Wikus continued to stare at the liquid, so he wouldn't have to look at Christopher.

The urge to speak, to say something to break the awkward silence overwhelmed something, so in his desperation, he blurted out, "that wasn't the cure, was it?"

The silence stretched out for a moment longer, before Christopher began to laugh. The clicks and whirls filled the room, and Wikus joined in a moment later. It was relief, pure and simple. Wikus barely saw Christopher start to move until he was right in front of him, and for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, Wikus was embraced by a Poleepkwa.

"Wikus," his name sounded odd from the mouth of Christopher. It sounded more guttural, more...heavy, like it should mean something more to him than it did. "You're alive."

Wikus had lifted his arms and had coiled them around the slender figure of the fellow Poleepkwa, unaware that his body had been doing it until after he felt the cool smooth shell under his hands. "Alive? Of course I fooking well am! I couldn't fooking let them humans win!"

Humans. There was that word again. He was starting to separate humans and Poleepkwa more. The separation should have been an obvious one, but then again, here he was, both and neither. They were so similar and yet nothing alike. Hadn't he told Oliver they were the same not minutes before? How could two races be so similar...and so completely different.

Christopher laughed, pulling back but keeping his hands on Wikus' shoulders. "No fooking way, right?" It was the first time Wikus could remember Christopher swearing, and it startled a laugh out of him.

"Fooking hell," he said, unable to believe where he was. It was like a dream. "You look good, man."

Christopher smiled, his eyes crinkling and took a step back. He reached up a hand and touched his hand to the fabric which decorated his shoulder, which he hastily pulled off and threw it somewhere else. "You too. The transformation went well, I see."

Wikus had cataloged all the changes to him, and all the differences between him and the other Poleepkwa already, so he knew what Christopher saw. Wikus was slightly smaller, his feelers were not as properly developed and one of his hands stilled missed a finger. Other than that, well, he was exactly like every other creature in the ship.

"You could say that," Wikus said, evasively. The actual transformation had been painful, but the real pain had come afterwards, when he had to face the fact his Tania, his angel, hadn't seemed to want him anymore, not in this form. "The cure," he said suddenly, desperately, as the thoughts of Tania pushed forward. "Did you..." he couldn't bring himself to ask.

Christopher looked saddened by something, and nodded, hesitating. "Yes. I...I was able to work out something even though I..."

"You?" Wikus prompted.

"...We thought you were dead, Wikus."

That had not been what he expected to hear, and his eyes went wide. "WHAT?"

"We...got news, when the third year ended, that...the human-prawn had been killed in a raid. It was all over the human news," Christopher tried to explain. "It was the only way we were able to keep up with the news of our people, as our communications with the district had been destroyed. We all thought you were dead."

All. Who was 'All'? Christopher and Oliver. There was no one else on the ship who would notice his began to pace, amazed. Did...did Tania think he was dead? Did the whole human world think he was dead? How did he not know of this? He shook his head, and paused, to stare at Christopher.

"You thought I was dead."

"Yes." Christopher nodded, looking slightly mournful.

"You still made the antidote."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because we had to try, even if you...were gone, I had to keep my promise," Christopher said firmly, his jaw clenched tightly in his determination.

It made Wikus laugh. He laughed so hard that Christopher began to frown and stepped forward, leading him to a chair nearby.

All those years, Wikus had struggled to keep the faith that Christopher would come back, and Christopher...he had held onto the hope that despite everything, that Wikus would still be alive when he returned.

Hope and faith.

Emotions felt by fooking prawns.

Who would have thought?

-

AN:

This chapter was originally longer, but I split it so I was able to post this now, and still have a chapter in advance (as I like doing with shorter stories). School's back for me, so I would expect the next update to be on the weekend sometime.

Thank you very much for all the feedback for the last chapter.

Reviews appreciated,

-Liaa