And on that farm he had a -- dear God, what is that thing?

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

He'd gone back to the ship and spent a day in preparation, contacted the ship about transport, made the purchases...  And so now he had a couple cages of swine -- the individual in the ridiculous fur cap had called them targs, but the seemed quite boar-like.

There were cattle -- six-legged cattle, but cattle all the same, and the individual in the ridiculous broad-brimmed hat had assured him their milk would be safe for the consumption of the humans.

And he had some actual deer, on the oath of yet another man in a ridiculous hat. Skittish, but he was going to get them situated one way or another.

Comments

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

Against livestock-- even if that livestock was strange looking (six-legged cattle? Really?), the Chancellor still stood out a lot more to Snow.

"Heeey, Chance!" he greeted when he noticed him busying about. And then he looked from the Chancellor from the animals he had taken aboard the ship. "You get these from down on the planet?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

The Chancellor blinks slightly. Chance?

"Good afternoon, Snow Villiers. Exactly so. I have not actively participated in raising livestock in... some three hundred years, but I remember it well enough."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

Chancellor had too much of that rank feeling. Chance had a nice ring to it ... and to Snow anyway, it sort of fit.

It was his turn to blink at the Chancellor's response. "Uh ... just Snow's fine. Did you say three-hundred years?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Yes. I am nearly one thousand years old, Snow. I have had very good medical treatment."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"A thousand years old? Oh man..." Yet he didn't seem particularly old to Snow (but then again, he still couldn't tell well, aging might not have the same effects on him as they would with humans). "How long do you live? You guys--"

He realized he had no idea what the Chancellor even was. "What do you call yourselves, anyway?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Most of us, especially the worker caste, do not have access to such good medical care. I am uncertain how long I will live, but I am still in my prime."

"We have never been much for the concept of names. We call ourselves 'people.' Our oppressors call us Ternaui. Our friends call us Dragons."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Prime's always good. You must've seen a ton of things over all those centuries." And one thing Snow wanted to be sure of, even if there were so much he still wasn't very sure of, was that the Chancellor's uncertainty about his span of life wouldn't apply to the situation they were tossed into.

"Sooo I'll keep Dragon in mind, then!"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"A good many. But at home, the real war has only just begun."

A fangy smile at the last part. "Thank you, Snow."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Real war? That doesn't sound very promising."

Not very unfamiliar, either.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"It is a fighting chance. We have worked centuries for a fighting chance."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"What are you dealing with?" he asked with am honest curiosity. He knew of his own circumstances he had to deal with ... so he wondered how different (or maybe even similar) stories from other places were.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"A galactic civilization built upon thousands of years of slavery and genocide."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Slavery and genocide, huh? Sounds like every world goes through something like that at some point."

He perked up slightly after that, waving an enthusiastic fist at the Chancellor. "That fighting chance'll help big time, though! All it takes is an opening like that to get the wheels turning."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

He nods. "The first large-scale battle was jsut before we came. My Veronica -- and the rest of the fleet -- blew an extermination force out of the sky."

The rest of the fleet was slightly an afterthought in that statement. You'd think Veronica had brought down the entire extermination force singlehanded instead of merely captaining the flagship.

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

Snow let out a low whistle. "That daughter of yours sounds like some girl!"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

Big toothy smile. "Thank you, Snow. She is."

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Can't wait to meet her!" Snow figured he would, eventually. To him she and everyone else who was even the slightest bit important to any of the crew members was down in those pods. And if they didn't plan on waking up soon, he just figured that once they saved the multiverse they'd all be waking up anyway. Win-win situation, even if there did have to be a wait time.

"Sounds like a good start to freedom, too."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

Chase already helped Kang with a lot of the heavy moving. Bags of holding and large scale carrying capacity help with that.

Here? Its a bit trickier. He can move the physical supplies in large amounts, and sets quickly to doing so... but he has to give the livestock a wide-berth for the sanity of others. The herbivores amongst them do not like him, at all.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

Chase will get a much less skittish reaction from the targs, who despite their porkishness have a predatory streak.

The Chancellor appreciates the help. He's already got the pasture boundary-fences and a few mangers set up not far from the basilica, but there's still a lot of bulk that needs dealing with.

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

Once he discovers this, being used to somewhat more vegetarian pigs, Chase sets to helping move the targs as well. Indeed, they seem to get on pretty well.

"Got the fence lines all laid out? Need any help with the construction?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"It seems the nature of the swine makes it all the more important that the separations between pastures be quite high. Some help in establishing that would be quite appreciated."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Sure. There's a bunch of scrap metal about. I can probably salvage enough to make some better fortified moorings." he doesn't know herd animals well, but he does know building fortifications. "You'll want to make sure the fencing material for them is solid stuff too. Doesn't look like wooden gates will slow them down much."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

A big, toothy smile. "Indeed. Unfortunately, we do not have the pasture structures we have in the Empire available, but I have long since accepted that if one needs 'joury-rigging,' one should consult a human." Pause. "Or, apparently, another sentient species of Earth."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Jury rigging was most of what we did. We worked mostly out of a scrap yard, so not exactly swimming in new parts. So this is nothing new... and its just fences. They just need to be strong. I can also get the mechanics set up for an electric fence, but you'd need someone else to do the wiring."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Best, most likely to get them situated first." The Chancellor nods. "But that may prove necessary."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Huh uh, if we're going to build a heavy electric fence, the foundation and grounding work different. I need to do that from the start. It'll be hell'a sturdy even so, so there's time to get it hooked up. But if you want to eventually make the pig pen electrified, I need to know now. I'll stick with working on that, so I don't panic the rest of your stock."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Ah. Then it might be wisest to plan ahead. Thank you, Chase."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Hey, no worries. We did a lot of this. Won't take much time at all... don't have to trap these fences or anything."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Excellent, Thank you." A pause. "I am pleasantly surprised that STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT has offered no apparent resistance to this project."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Nah, we won't see any of that til she decides they count as crew members, I'm guessing. How the fuck do you handle that mouthful?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Several centuries of discussing the Sharnhaishian Guild Commander Yuaw Khta, and the fact that I do not have to use my tongue. I will not call her Stacy. We are not friends."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"That's fair enough, knew a guy back home who would probably do the same thing... if just to prove he could say it. Good plan though, cause yer right. Too much we don't know yet."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Indeed. And who was this guy, so proud of his pronunciation skils?"

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"We just called him Scruffy the Recyclable Man. He referred to himself as a mummy... ancient Aztec priest who gets reborn over and over again. His real name was hard to pronounce... but he got used to Scruffy."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"How... Interesting. Aztec. Those are on the new continents, yes?" For an alien, The Chancellor has a bit of a Eurocentric view of Earth.

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

That takes a moment. New continents?
"Uhm... yeah. Aztecs, ancient civilization. First time Scruffy died, far as he can figure, was a few thousand years ago."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Ah, I beg your pardon. I am not as well-versed in any Earth history not known to the English in the fourteenth century. We have good access to spy satelites, but it is still fairly sporadic information. The only of Earth's ancient civilizations I know well are the Druids, Hebrews, and Romans."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"Druids, huh? Used to know this Verbena chick who called herself a druid. Really into the sex magic thing. Otherwise, couldn't tell you much about anything other than sort of the Aztecs, through learning shit from Scruffy."

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

The deer are skittish, but the herd has begun to gather around a particular patch of ground, which appears to taste great.

A blue-tattooed woman in an orange dress, with a staff across her lap, is sitting nearby and watching the deer. Next to her is a zipped orange bag, and she has a small chunk of crystallized salt in her hand.

She's also surrounded by six or seven largish creatures, with long arms and many-jointed fingers. The creatures are behaving themselves quietly, grooming their fur, which is bioluminescent in rippling orange and purple patterns. The smallest on, 3 feet high at the shoulder, is licking at the salt chunk in her hand.

A few of the deer are watching her back, closed out from the salt she's already put on the ground for them. They are eying the salt lick as if strongly considering coming a bit closer to check it out.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

The Chancellor makes no sudden moves, and speaks quietly. "What exactly are they?"

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

"My herd? Or yours?"

Nima turns her head only enough to see the Chancellor out of the corner of her eye. What she sees is . . . possibly not human? How interesting!

One of the bioluminescent creatures, rippling with a very yellow-tinted orange, crouches on bowed front legs to sniff the Chancellor's ankles.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Yours," the Chancellor asks politely, lips unmoving as always, but the transmitter braodcasting a very natural-sounding English voice.

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

Nima doesn't recognize an English voice. Everything from the Chancellor's accent to his appearance to his speaking without moving his lips is foreign to her, and since there is nothing about him that is familiar, she takes the entirety of it in stride.

"I bought them on XaXing," she says, speaking just above a whisper as the deer continue to stare at them both, motionless but distinctly interested in the salt in her hands. "They're called something - I can't remember the name - but what they ARE is egg and milk-producing herdbeasts."

The one licking the salt in her hands has a bioluminescent coloring on the pink side of purple, and the color ripples through the fur in gentle, placid waves. The fur is very long, and on close inspection, is translucent in the individual hairs. The color appears to come from the skin underneath. Far underneath, as all the creatures are very, very shaggy.

"What about yours? They look like deercats - if you crossed them with something with hooves."

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Very interesting. Do you plan to pasture them here as well?"

"They are called simply 'deer,'" the Chancellor explains.

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

"No - they're mountain creatures. When I can find someone to make a little mountain for them, I'll settle them there."

She peers at the deer, picking apart their features with a breeder's eye - "So - so that's what they look like without the -cat parts?"

Amazing

"What makes a simply-cat then?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

He smiles. "I often wondered what they meant by 'cat' as well. Then Imperial Research and Development finally presented Her Majesty with their attempt to recreate one. They are furry, fanged creatures that walk on four padded, clawed paws and have a long tail."