Interlude 1
Shira was worried.
Her father’s been missing for three days now, and still, there's no word of him anywhere. The news hasn't mentioned any mysterious accidents with the lab, there's nothing significant in online forums, and the mail has been empty for the first time in years.
Even going through her father’s various accounts resulted in nothing, other than causing a mild sense of guilt in Shira for an afternoon. He’s neither sent nor responded to any messages. Shira really didn’t like digging around in his personal stuff, and she didn’t even learn anything from doing so.
Contacting the lab resulted in nothing, just an automated voicemail bot. She left a few messages anyway but hasn’t gotten a response yet. Calling or texting his family or relatives was a bust, they were all missing too. Going through the local police’s missing person report, Shira did actually find several new cases, but they were on hold and had no additional information.
It was surprising just how little their community cared that an entire clan just up and disappeared overnight. Shira found a total of one, one, post on the town’s social media about it. It wasn’t even acknowledged, just ignored. Not a single person commented on the post or tried to help in any way.
Even the house servants agreed this was strange. While Clan Naskiwa wasn’t the most influential in town, they were at least treated respectfully! It’s not like the town dislikes the clan or anything either, quite the opposite! If anything, they had a reputation as well-meaning workaholics.
Ok, fine, Ena had a slightly worse reputation overall, but it’s not to the point of ignoring his entire clan disappearing! And it’s not Shira that’s the problem either, she’d never done anything that could warrant this kind of mistreatment.
So either the town disliked them far more than anyone could have ever guessed, or someone’s trying to hide whatever happened. And given the complete lack of options, Shira can only conclude it was The Spacing Guild. But why? Why would they go through all this effort?
Someone probably died, or multiple someones. It was the only thing Shira could think of that would cause this. Someone died and they're trying to hide it, to make it seem less important. If they release the news slowly enough, people won’t make as big a deal about it.
What could Shira do about it though? She couldn’t even find her father. Did she even need to do anything about it? As long as she finds her father, what the public thinks doesn’t really matter. Not to her at least.
In frustration, Shira lept from her perch among her mother’s branches to glide around the garden. She was helpless, and she really did not like being helpless. It was all just so unfair! Why did her father have to disappear!? And there wasn’t anything she could do about it! She’d nearly made it two full laps around the garden before she managed to calm down.
Shira looked around. What should she do now? She really needed a distraction, but what? She couldn’t access the training sims without her father, and everything else on her schedule was boring. She couldn’t watch any movies or read any books either, those kinds of things always required her father to log her in.
What about eating? She was slightly hungry after all. But no, they were running out of money as it was. They couldn’t afford her snaking between mealtimes. Maybe Shira could play with the maids again? She hasn’t done that in ages. Too busy with homework and all that. But no, even when they're not being condescending they’re no fun to be around.
Maybe Shira should play a game or something with the males? Or even her mother, if she can figure out how. Yes, she’ll try that. Shira doesn’t know all that many games they’d be able to play, but at least a few of them were pretty fun last time.
Shira pulses out an open invitation to play using her mind-speak. Only three males responded, unfortunately. That’s alright though, she’d just have to make due. They lined up in front of her and she inspected them closely. The left one was a deep verdant green with cobalt blue accent colors. He was overly large, with long spindly legs and a bulbous blue-green abdomen. His healthy grass colored wings fluttered about nervously as she looked at him, his whiskers twitching slightly.
The middle guy was an enormous brute, nearly doubling the height of the nervous guy to his right. He was as stoic as a statue, his movements betraying nothing. His mud-green fur was the thickest she’d ever seen, almost nothing like the peach-fuzz usually covering the others. Honestly, Shira was a little confused as to why he wanted to play. The guy looked like he’d have more fun fighting than playing with her.
The last one was a cute little guy, probably just hatched last week or something. He was an interesting jade green and while his fur was pretty short, it was matted and moss-like. His eyes were disproportionately large in relation to his body, which had the strange effect of making him look absolutely adorable.
There is a time and a place for being mature. With her father missing, Shira’s pretty sure now is supposed to be such a time. She doesn’t care though, she just needs a break. And right now, it’s time to be a kid.
John was having a weird day. Hell, it’s been a weird week. He looked down at the young girl in his lap, reading some book she’d found god knows where. John still didn’t know who she was. Sure, he’d read that nurse's notes on her, but those told him jack shit about who she is and why she’s so attached to him.
John shifted uncomfortably. Her tail, or at least he thinks it’s a tail, was jabbing into his stomach quite painfully. His friends were looking at him strangely now, because of course they were. The girl was nearly five years his junior - 10 looks wise - so he probably looked like a creep with her in his lap like this.
The strange girl had tracked him down barely an hour after being released from medical and hasn’t left his side since. Like, not even once. He hasn’t been able to go to the bathroom for over 8 hours now. Nor can he even leave the building, she’d just follow him and he’d be blamed for anything that goes wrong. And over that entire time, she hasn’t said more than a handful of words. It’s like she’d used up her entire vocabulary speaking with that one nurse.
‘She was like this before too,’ John remembers, ‘back in the van.’ She couldn’t sleep until he calmed her down. ‘Did she know me?’ John wonders absently, flipping through screens on the monitor. ‘Or is this just a case of her attaching herself to the first person she sees after a traumatic event?’
‘Why couldn’t she stick to one of the other kids?’ John laments silently.
