trans_9 | Of Mice and Girls (Right after podpop meet and greet)

Entry tags:

caelestine,
stature

Of Mice and Girls (Right after podpop meet and greet)

Cassie tried her best to keep from bouncing around the tiny mouse in her hand. After he'd held Ava hostage, Caelestine had promptly passed out. Cassie didn't know where else to take him but medbay. There would be people there, but at least it was quieter, and she could shrink down to talk to him there. And if he felt like getting stab happy she wouldn't have to look far for a doctor.

That was assuming, of course, all the jostling didn't wake up Caelestine.

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She's good for the first little bit of the journey... but then the mouse starts to shift and rouse in her hand, the little bits of equipment strapped to him poking against her.

Now might be the time to prepare quick, Cassie, if you want to try and keep him from flipping out when he actually wakes up.

Oh crap.

Cassie didn't have the time to set him down and if she shrank while holding him she'd either end up crushed under him or dropping him.

She had a feeling she was going to need stitches for her hand after this.

"Easy Caelestine. You're all right."

It's to his credit that Cae doesn't immediately panic—or panic completely, at least–though he does freeze up, trembling, in her hand. Congratulations, Cassie! You've managed not to be stabbed in the palm or something.

Not to be stabbed yet.

"Sorry, I wanted to shrink down to your size before you woke up. I was just going to take you to some place where we wouldn't get stepped on but I think we'll be O.K. here. I'm just going to set you down and then we can talk." She slowly, slowly sank down into a crouching position so she could deposit her little passenger on the floor.

Caelestine stumbles back, visibly shaking... but he doesn't run away. He waits, instead, though he keeps glancing around, worried that someone else is going to show up. He doesn't understand what's going on—not at all. Not at all.

"Don't worry. We won't get stepped on. I can change size pretty fast. I'm just going down to your size right now. It'll look weird." She took her time going down to small size. Mainly because she didn't want to scare the hell out of the mouse.

And a few moments later there was a little mouse sized Cassie standing in front of Caelestine. "There."

Caelestine breaths slowly, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. What, what is this creature in front of him? How can it change like that? He's heard the little legends and stories of things like wolves adopting mouse guise, but the thing he's talking is clearly no wolf. In fact, he's not even sure what it is. No fur... isn't it cold?

His mouth parts a little, but no words come out.

There was something a lot less cute about mice when you were their size. Or the sword had something to do with that. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't have humans in your world? People who look like me and the others."

He shakes his head. "N-no..." His paws reach up and readjust that cloak around him—it's a battered thing, like it's been through nasty weather, and there's a long spot up the side where it was carefully stitched back together after being sliced up. "You—nothing like you. No."

"Yeah, I can see how this is scary. We come from very different worlds. I'm a human, so are a lot of people on the ship. I don't think we have anyone your size. You probably have a lot of questions and if I can answer them I will."

"What is this?" Cae asks, and his paws grip together tightly. His voice is—well, a bit ambiguous, actually, once it gets through the ship's translator. And the name doesn't help... "I don't, I don't understand," he adds, staring at Cassie, and he wobbles a little on his feet.

"Stacy? That's- a really big question. Did they have ships where your from? Boats? Do you know what space is?" Please let him at least know about ships.

"Ships... my friend is a boatmaker," the mouse says, though he's confused about how that relates to anything. "He's a junior partner in one of the Sumac trading companies, he's very good at—ah," he adds, and cuts himself off as he realizes the stress has made him start to babble.

"O.K., well, we're on a kind of ship, only instead of sailing the ocean we're sailing in space, or well, not really space but-" She had no idea how to explain what the Bleed was. "Let me back up. Do you know what a planet is?"

Caelestine gives Cassie kind of an annoyed confused look. She's only making it worse!

"...No... This is going to be hard. Uhm." She rubbed her chin. "A planet is basically- well, it's all the places you know about. You know how land just stretches off into the distance? Well it's beyond that. It's all the land and water ever and it's ball shaped and-" She stopped. "I'm sorry. Maybe this would be easier if I took you to the library. I think it'd be able to explain things better. I hope."

Cae grinds his teeth a little. "You're just being more confusing..." he says, almost turning it into a whine.

"I think I can take you somewhere where you can read something that will explain it better than I can. But I'd have to grow back to giant size and hold you while I take you there."

"I could walk," Cae says defensively. He hasn't quite taken into account the scope of it all, though—that would be quite a trek for a little mouse like him. And rather slow and boring for Cassie to move at his comparatively slow pace.

"Caelestine, it's a very long way away at this size. It might take all day. This ship wasn't built for people this size."

"I—but—..." He slouches a little, kind of shaky and generally unhappy about the thought.

"I'm sorry. We can hang out here if you want. Maybe I can think of how to explain this. Maybe I can answer some other questions?"

"...I'll go," he finally says, after long moments of thought. "I want to learn what's going on. It's my duty to find out what I can do to help people." A pause— "And if you were going to hurt me, you'd've done it already."

"...Before we go, there's something else you should know." Cassie tugged at one of her locks of hair. "You should sit down."

Cae's gaze latches onto the hair. Is that... fur? On the head? He can't figure it out... "What are you talking about?"

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