Translation

Why is it that nothing can be easy? The mp3 player was completely incompatible with the cpu I needed to put into it; I ended up ripping out the circuit board and fabbing my own. Which added four hours onto the project. Luckily, my profs had prepared my for most anything.

"Hey, you done in there?" came a voice from the doorway. I looked up from the mess I had strewn around me and saw Robin in the doorway. He came over to the table.

'Just about. I need to set the board and seal the case, then mod the headset. But the hard parts are done now,' I wrote, letting my fingers relax as he read.

"That's good. Anything I can help with?" he asked, smiling.

You mean, can I see exactly what you've done? I translated in my head. For a guy who seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, he could lie with the best of them. 'Sure. If you could modify the headset for me, that'd be great.'

The leader of the group took the headset and began to tinker. By the time I had set the board, re-wired it, and sealed the unit, he had been done for fifteen minutes. 'Wow,' I wrote. Robin handed me the headset to try on. It fit like a freaking glove. 'How did you manage to get it to fit the first time?!' I scrawled.

"I guessed."

'You guessed.'

He nodded.

I shook my head. 'Whatever,' I wrote. Now, to see if this works. I plugged in the headphones and turned on the translator. "Can you understand me?" I asked.

The black-haired youth recoiled.

"Crap, I screwed up. I can fix this, I swear," I said, reaching for the unit.

"No, it's fine. I understood you perfectly. It's just a little weird for a what looks like a fox in human clothing to be speaking Queen's English."

I decided to let the fox remark slide for now. "So, it works?"

"Like a charm."

"Yes!" I jumped up and down, pouncing on Robin and hugging him for dear life. Okay, granted, it was just a translator, but I had made it almost from scratch and it worked. I felt like I could do anything.

"What are you doing?" asked Starfire in a rather dangerous tone of voice. She fixed a hard look at me. "Perhaps you like to explain, Kaelia?"

I stopped hugging him. "Umm, you see, I was working really hard on this translator, and Robin said that it worked, and I was so happy, that I, umm, hugged him..." I trailed off, feeling just a tad bit nervous. Not only had I broken at least six laws of contact with the gods, I had also advanced on her pre-mate. I was just racking up the idiot points, wasn't I?

"She didn't mean anything by it, Star. She was just happy," said Robin in my defense.

"...I am sure," said the red-head, her tone implying threats of terrible violence.

"Well, Kaelia, now that you have a working translator, maybe we could finish what we started earlier?"

"Yeah, you're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

"Just a bit."

"Okay, what would you like to know?" I asked, leaning back in my chair, lacing my fingers behind my head.

"Actually, would you prefer the couch to answer the questions?"

I grinned. "Thank you very much, sir, I'd very much appreciate that," I said, getting out of my chair and bowing.

"So, what would you like to know about me?" I asked, now comfortably seated on the couch. The Titans were spread throughout the room so as to make me a bit more at ease.

"What are you?" asked Raven.

"I'm an Alexander, Kaleofebrys class."

"Which is?" she continued. I was fairly surprised, most humans knew the name for our organization

"The Alexanders were originally protectors, usually guarding a city or town from outside attack. Nowadays, we function more as a liaison between humans and TS."

"What about the Kaleo-whatever thingy?" asked Beastboy.

I smiled, not without a bit of pride. "It's the designation for a third-year student who has surpassed the Lasalk." I frowned, apparently I had forgotten a few words. Or perhaps there was no English equivalent.

"The what?"

I thought about how to translate it. "The closest I can get in English, would be, 'one who has acesended the Tetanus Point.'"

Beastboy stopped breathing. "Do you mean the 'Tetanus Point' as in the point where the muscles lose their summation?"

"Yeah."

"You mean, that your twitch and summation movements are equal?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear God."

"What, what's the big deal?" asked Cyborg, confused with the exchange.

"She just told me that she can move at an infinite speed!" The rest of the group sat quietly, digesting that piece of information.

"Ummm, I can't actually move that fast. So far, my top speed ever has been Mach Fifteen." I rolled my eyes. Figures I'd remember that and not 'Kaleofebrys.'

"This is all very nice, but I was asking as to what species you are, not what your job is," interjected Raven.

"Ah, that's not surprising. I'm a TSCR/UC. Most get me confused with one or the other, but not a hybrid."

Blank looks were all that greeted my statement.

"Oh, for the love of Dalz. You've never heard of a hybrid? Come on, every single canid is the same species. Fertile crosses aren't uncommon."

Robin looked confused. "No, it's not about the hybrids. What we're not understanding exactly what a 'TSCR/UC' is."

"Theriosapiens Canis rufus and Urcyon cineroargentus. I thought that all Silicon Gods knew the nomenclature for TS," I said, confused.

"'Silicon Gods?' Is that what you just called us?" asked Cyborg.

"Yeah," I said, feeling just a touch out of sync.

"We're not gods, Kaelia. We protect this city," he said, gesturing at the skyline in front of us. "I guess you could call us Alexanders." Oh Dalz. They weren't just humans, they were Aeosai. My head bounced off the floor before I even knew that I was submissing.

"What are you doing!?" asked Robin, seeing my skull do a bouncyball impression.

"I... have to... show... respect..." I muttered thickly. I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because my vision was fading quickly.

"Raven! Starfire! Get her to the medwing now!" The Boy Wonder's voice filtered through the deepening blackness.

"Kaelia? Hold on for just a little bit, okay?"

What? Oh. Okay.

Afterthoughts

Wow, more things to explain. Fun...

Laws of Contact: On Aldas, to touch a human without invitation is tantamount to blasphemy, as physical contact is an indication of equality between the parties. Thus it is generally labeled as "a really bad idea."

Pre-mate: The equivalent of a boyfriend/girlfriend.

Summation: The release movement of muscles. In all natural beings, the summation movement will always be slower than the twitch movements.

Twitch: The contraction movement of the muscles.

Dalz: The god of the grey fox species. The religion goes something like, each species/subspecies has their own god, which is an aspect of the Creator, who created all. This religion is a relatively new development; it was created to settle the warring factions. Worked, too.

Nomenclature: The official system for naming organisms, ex. Homo sapiens for modern humans.

Aeosai: The plural form of Aeos.

Aeos: Literally, "God among gods." In the current sense, it's a designation reserved for a single, small class of humans. The Black Ribbon Guard, the highest level of protection in the human government. To give you an example of the level they're on, a single member of the Guard was once dispatched to defend a visting dignitary. Over the visit, no less than twelve assassination attempts occured, including a hellfire barrage from a squadron of fighters. The dignitary escaped unscathed, and the Guard member shot down the squad with nothing more than his pistol(they pack serious heat).

Submissing: In a wolf pack, a low ranking wolf will lie down and expose his or her throat to the alpha wolf to show that they're below them. In the same way, and because wolves set a lot of social customs, an Aldian will submiss to an Aeos to show they're respect. It's sort of like bowing.