Apriltober 2022 04 Trial part 2

a/n: Randall the OC has a quick trip to the ground. He'll be fine!

Editing? Not really.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, except for Randall.

The light around him was so bright that Randall had to rub his eyes to shake off the last of the sleep effect.

"I wasn't expecting you to get up this early, hon," a surprised voice said.

He rubbed harder, to make the scene resolve from a blurry brilliance. He could tell he was indoors, standing barefoot on a tiled floor. How had he gotten to the Mim Maintenance Center so fast? Had he been knocked out the entire time? The Maintenance Center was never this bright, as well as warm and smelling like ...? He sniffed. Cookies? No one had ever baked cookies in the soulless temple of Mimeosome repair.

"I was hoping to surprise you with those almond pastries that you like. You do like them, right?"

He tried to train his eyes on the speaker, but it moved out of focus. He rubbed his eyes harder, trying to orient himself. Something warm and alive pushed against his leg, hard enough to make him stumble.

"Oh no, down boy! Look, he's still half asleep. Honestly, you can go back to bed. It's your break. I really wasn't expecting you to get up before, well, before noon maybe?" A light, embarrassed laugh. "That's not a dig, by the way. You deserve to sleep in if you want to."

He shook his head, looked down and saw a dog. Not any dog: a lean-faced pale mutt, a note of beagle in its snout and a whisper of pitbull along its ribs, short haired, splatter of grey dapples along its back. His dog. "Naruto?" he whispered.

"Silly dog, let your boy alone. Look, if you aren't going back to sleep, it would be a big help if you took him for a short walk in a bit. I need to leave for class as soon as the pastries are out of the oven. I was going to leave them on the counter for you, as a kind of wake-up surprise."

He snapped his eyes up to the speaker. He knew who she was now. His dad's ex-wife, except she was dead, dead for years. She'd left them and he'd only learned she was dead a decade later. But now she was here, and apologizing for not staying home with him over break. He'd been 12, maybe a little young to be left alone, but his Gram had come over at lunchtime every day. And Karen had left him a cheerful note on the counter every morning, next to a treat.

She must have noticed him staring at her. "Unless you'd like to come to class with me? I mean, you'd need to throw on shoes and maybe a sweatshirt, but honestly, the things the students wear to class these days, I don't think they'd care about pajamas. If you'd like?"

"Can't you stay?" He didn't sound like a kid to his ears, but Karen didn't seem to notice that.

"My students are counting on me, hon, you know that. But you're welcome to come along."

"Couldn't you stay?" His voice was changing as he spoke, getting smaller and younger.

"Oh hon, I can't." She walked over to him and gave him a hug. He hugged back, not letting go. "Oh hon," she repeated. "You're growing so big." She was still taller than he was, although that would change by that summer, he knew it would, and then a year later it wouldn't matter. And in ten years, none of it would matter at all.

"Stay," he whispered.

"Is that what you want?" A different voice, unseen, not human, curious and distant.

Randall didn't answer. The skell had broken up around him. Wind was blasting in his face, blowing away the tears so that they sparkled around his face like a cloud. A diamond-tipped wing passed over him and knifed its way into the distance. The lagoon was rushing very fast towards him.

Rory reached him while he was still dumping water out of his boots. "Nice job," the older man said. Randall glared at him. "No, really. You got to part three." He looked over his shoulder and shut his mouth as the team leader reached them.

"We'll be in touch," she said. "I'll tell you right now, you didn't make the cut. However, I know some teams that might be interested. Good teams. If you want."

"I want that," said Randall.

a/n: Hmmm, could that be Dr. Karen, the OC that mothers Phog in previous stories? IT IS. She wasn't nearly as alive on Earth as she is on my Mira.

Next up: Send me a suggestion or dare and see what happens. Otherwise, "blank" [hysterics].