“W-what?” Despite knowing it wasn’t real, Vievel tightened his grip around his flashlight ‘revolver’. It brought him little comfort.

“Stay and talk for awhile,” he said.

“Talk?” Vievel said, incredulous. “The ship is dying, we haven’t time to talk!” Vievel raised his voice, yelling at the man. Realising he had perhaps been ruder than he thought it safe to be, Vievel corrected his voice to an almost-whisper as he continued. “We’ll die if we stay,” he said. “At least, I will”. He didn’t know if humans could or couldn’t survive in the deep and dark; it wouldn’t have surprised him to learn that they could. Some things could.

“Do you need a ship? My father has a ship-” Vievel’s mind turned back to the glory he could win if the man came with him willingly. He had no illusions about being able to force the human to join with him, he doubted Sera Odill or even the entirety of the Ulmadr Advance could physically force a human to come with them, if it was to be done, it was to be done diplomatically and oh-so-carefully. The decision on whether to stay and convince him, or to leave, to step away and potentially regret it, weighed on Vievel.

The ship can’t hold itself together much longer. An invisible clock hung over his thoughts. To stay and talk would be risking his life, particularly if he was still further away from the breach than he thought; in addition, every minute he lingered he was further risking getting caught. Indecision paralysed him but as Vievel considered the problem he noticed an uncomfortable look had settled upon the man’s face, a brief spasm of pain followed by distress.

“Are you okay?” Vievel asked. The human nodded.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just peachy.”

His breath was laboured for a moment, but the man continued to speak.

“Say, what’s your name kid?”

“Vievel,” Vievel replied.

Vievel Vaegath Ulmadr, he thought. He didn’t use his family name for fear he might recognise it as an Aælfir name. The man’s breath resumed its normal pattern and he shifted, sitting up straighter against the wall. He grunted as he moved.

“You going to sit with me Vievel? Or you gonna make me ask you a third time?”

“We can’t stay and talk Sera... I-” He suddenly didn’t know what to call the man; he didn’t even know if humans had names. Dwurkn didn’t. Other monsters didn’t. “Sorry, do you have a name?” Vievel broached, eyeing him carefully in case he was offended by the question.

“Sure do,” he replied. Vievel felt his shoulders drop slightly. The motion surprised him, he hadn’t noticed that his body had been tensed up before. “It’s Calito,” he said, a roguish smirk breaking across his face. “So now we’re prim and proper, properly introduced, as they say, I ask again, you going to sit and talk?” Calito braced his hands against the floor. It was perhaps an innocent movement but it unnerved Vievel, the man looked as though he was preparing to stand up. He shook his head softly, eager to break his disagreement as gently as possible. The human seemed too adamant that he stay.

“I can’t. We’ve got to go- don’t you want to go?” Vievel said, his voice rising slightly. He looked toward the open door.

“Oh I’ve got no need of that,” Calito said, looking at the door as well. “I’m gonna go kid. Just not like that,” he said, grimacing in plain distress again.

Calito shifted on the ground, shuffling into a more comfortable position; as he moved he exposed a bloody wound that was slowly making a mess of his wrappings, making of them a grisly canvas. His hair moved, briefly exposing his other eye, or the space where his other eye should have been. A thick black patch was strung across it, tied by a band around Calito’s face and scalp.

“Andlátta!” Vievel swore. “What happened?” The man’s bloody wound was tremendous in size but clearly still growing, the bleeding showing no signs that it was slowing, let alone stopping, and yet somehow he continued to speak and act as though nothing was the matter with him.

“It’s just a sign of the end,” he said. “This old body of mine is getting a bit worn”.

“I can help, I’ve got a bunch of meds,” Vievel said, sitting down on the floor and lifting his knapsack from his shoulder. There were still countless Dwurka medications inside, but he didn’t know which would serve the human if any. How many could be useful to his alien body?

Medigauze, why didn’t I bring gauze, Vievel thought bitterly.

Calito heaved forward all of a sudden, doubling over as a series of short explosive barks rocked his chest. The coughing fit subsided quickly but it left his voice with a croaky quality that betrayed the soreness of his throat.

“You can’t help me with those Vievel,” he said. His words weren’t tinged with sadness, nor fear of his death. He spoke with acceptance, a peacefulness. Whatever grieving the man had done for his situation was since over; only a hard-edged certainty remained to his declaration.

“I can help, I can do something-” Vievel replied. With all the medicine he had, there must be something, anything, that was able to help the man; he couldn’t let the lone human in the universe die. He upended his knapsack so the contents fell out in front of him. “How about this?” he said, brushing aside his own possessions and grabbing one of the Dwurkn boxes. The box was made of white plastic, and it featured several Dwurka runes as well as a series of green flower glyphs arranged in a line. Calito squinted for a moment and then laughed hoarsely.

“That’s for indigestion,” he said. His smile twisted sadly as he looked at the boxes in front of Vievel. “I guarantee none of those boxes, most anything there, will be of use to me right now”.

“Most?” Vievel asked. “Something is?” Vievel grabbed a second box at random, offering it to the man. Calito shook his head and then nodded at the mouth of Vievel’s knapsack.

“There,” he murmured. “The drink”.

“The drink?” Vievel glanced down at his knapsack where a clear plastic bottle, half-filled with an amber liquid, was sat.

“Yeah, that’ll help more than anything else there”. Calito gingerly unfurled his fist, leaving his palm open and resting on his knee. Vievel hesitated briefly then grabbed the bottle, giving it a forceful push so that it rolled across the cell floor. The contents sloshed around noisily as it approached the man’s crossed legs; he reached forward to grab it once it was close enough, removing the clipped-on lid with a single flick of his thumb whilst lifting the bottle to his lips. He drank heartily from it, finishing his swig with an appreciative gasp.

“Ah- I’ve always loved the little after-burn,” he said. He sniffed at the open lid, inhaling deeply. “This - this is surprisingly good,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

“Stole it,” Vievel blurted. The confession slipped out before he could stop it. He avoided the human’s eyes and instead glanced down at the floor.

“Aye?” Calito sounded amused. “Who from?”

“-ah...my father,” Vievel admitted. With half the truth already out the second half came much easier.

“Your dad’s got good taste,” Calito nodded. “This helps,” he said, drinking again. After he finished his second sip Calito offered it back to Vievel; the man’s hand hung outstretched for a moment, the bottle gripped tightly between his fingers and thumb.

“That’s okay,” Vievel said, shaking his head. “You drink it”. Calito grunted in approval softly, bobbing his head once in appreciation, and continued to drink. Vievel watched as the liquid began to drain away, wishing that he had drunk more from it. He’d only taken it in case he needed it to steady his nerves, nerves which now seemed more unsteady than ever, but he’d found it to his liking. Vievel considered changing his mind and accepting the offer, but he dared not get any closer to the man than he already was.

“What do you call it?” Calito said, shaking the bottle.

“Skulla,” Vievel said. It wasn’t the name for the brewer, the name which the particular make went by, but a local common name of the drink itself. He didn’t dare use an Aælfir word in front of the human. Calito turned to look at the drink for a moment.

“Huh,” he murmured. “I still call it whiskey”. He pressed the bottle to his lips for a moment and then drew it back, a thought seemingly occurring to him.

“What are you kid, like eighteen?”

“W-what?” The question startled Vievel. Calito had asked it without the usual contempt that Vievel had come to associate with the question. The Ulmadr might cherish their children, but any member of an Aælfir ship without prestige, from spoils, salvage, or kills, was prone to being treated like a second-class citizen. Even the Patriarch’s son.

“How old are you? Eighteen?” the man repeated. He sounded concerned, worried for him. It was a reaction that struck Vievel as perhaps almost equally offensive.

“Seventeen long-cycles,” Vievel said, cautiously waiting for Calito’s reaction before he decided on whether the man had meant offense. Calito drank from the bottle and then placed it flat on the floor, reaching out for the discarded lid so he could close the plastic container tight.

“Is that young for an Aælfir to have a drink?” he asked. His pronunciation was clumsy, enunciating the first, silent, letter along with the spoken ones, but otherwise, he expressed the word properly. The fake revolver in Vievel’s hand had dropped steadily throughout their conversation, as Vievel had become increasingly more relaxed, but he suddenly jolted it up again and levelled it at the man.

“You know what I am?”

“Didn’t think you were a human kid”. Vievel didn’t know what he’d thought Calito believed him to be, only that the man’s civility had suggested he didn’t know him as Aælfir.

“But if you know, why-”

“Why did I ask? Why are we talking?” Calito smiled. “Well I suspected it, wanted to see if you’d admit it; I was pretty sure of what you were back when you were still bangin’ around in that vent, but the way you pronounced Skulla, that was enough. As for the second...” His voice drifted off as he watched Vievel for a reaction. Calito’s admission made Vievel’s heart run hot, a burning sensation in his chest exacerbating the rapid beating alongside it; his heart drummed so loudly he wondered if the man could hear it.

“You’re not denying it then,” Calito murmured. Vievel swallowed a protest, for a moment thinking there was some combination of words that could convince him otherwise, and then realising the truth of it.

“No,” Vievel said. “-S-so what? So I’m an Aælfir,” he said. “I’m still the one with the gun”. He tapped the faux-revolver, hoping it looked threatening. He just needed to stay the human’s bloodlust long enough that he could get to the door. He just needed to get behind the door, just-

“You tried to get me to come back to your ship,” Calito murmured. “Lot of you there?” he asked. Every trace of friendliness that had been present in his voice was now gone. His words had turned cold, calculating.

“Just s-stay where you are,” Vievel said, his voice cracking slightly under the strain of his adrenaline. Keeping the faux-revolver pointed toward the man Vievel shifted his knees and braced himself against the gem-studded wall that lay behind him, using it to pull himself to his feet.

Calito sighed.

“Kid, stop,” he said. “It’s not a gun”. Vievel’s feet stalled.

“Y-yes it is,” he offered weakly.

“It hasn’t been a gun the whole time you’ve sat here, and it ain’t a gun now”. The man grunted and placed a knee forward, hauling himself to his feet with some difficulty. He towered over Vievel, striking a powerful figure in contrast to Vievel’s much smaller frame.

Illandr andlátta Ganymede-above. Despite Calito’s words, Vievel gripped the cloth-covered flashlight tighter still. He now stood opposite him in the cell, his chest heaving forward and backward, the slow melody of his breath seeming weakened and exaggerated all at once.

“Why?” Vievel asked. His words were quiet enough that they barely sounded audible to his own ears, yet Calito heard them. Before the man replied, Vievel felt like he already knew the answer.

“Why? You’re here, cos I wanted you here Vievel”.