Ch. 8 - They Mingled...

↓ This is the Audio Companion for Chapter 8! ↓ 

Families were separated. Children were lost or killed. But eventually, the united front against Galvana stopped the theft or deaths of any more. Soon, the organization of Galvana became effectively bankrupt, in resources and new blood. Without any knowledge of the land which the people had spent generations living with, they failed to produce remotely adequate living standards.

Brandenson could tell from glancing back to Joshua's face that what he was looking at was those aliens he mentioned yesterday. And even from behind the glass, which seriously reduced the clarity of their image, they didn't strike him as uniquely... otherworldly. Let alone physically threatening. I mean, they did seem much taller than the both of them, but here, that's basically normal.

"What are they doing here?" Joshua asked himself in a breathy whisper. What little color was in his white face was starting to leave.

Bran smiled and turned to the guy. "Well, I can only imagine they're here to make sure you're okay." With one healthy laugh, he turned back to the glass front doors. "Or apologize for freaking you out. Or something like that."

Silence lasted between both of them as they absorbed the motions of the figures. They were getting closer, seemed to be talking to each other, and looking around at the 'sights' of the town. As far as Bran could tell, anyway.

As good a sign as any that there wasn't anything to worry about.

"I'm gonna go say hi to them."

As Bran started walking to the doors, Joshua tried to quickly grab his left arm, which Bran easily avoided by walking with something of an exaggerated swagger. Failing stopping him dead in his tracks, Joshua followed Bran after stumbling a bit.

"Bran!!" Joshua whispered loudly.

Bran turned with a heavy sigh and lazily glared at Joshua in boredom. "What?"

"We...", Joshua started to say, but he seemed to lose himself in his own head. Likely trying to find a way to actually convince Bran to be more cautious about these new people. "We don't know how they'll react to you."

Bran briefly played along, and mocked the motions of considering the idea of danger, even going so far as to lift his head up, widen his eyes, and then turn his face down to the ground squinting, and tapping his chin with his finger.

"Well," Bran began in a joke thoughtful tone, "...if they reacted to you and 'Ichael just fine yesterday, I think I'll be okay." As he turned to move towards the doors again, he lifted his head and announced in a raised voice "And that's final," and opened the door to be greeted by the soft colors of fur on the other side.

"Might even-- Oh!", the one on the left said, in a soft, gentle voice. They were caught completely off guard and attempted to recollect themself. "He... Hello there! Uh... we would've come in, but we weren't sure how these doors worked. Or if they were even doors." The one on the right simply nodded, having a more serious but no less amused look on their face.

As Brandenson was very confident in the whole... 'meeting a whole new sapient species' thing, he actually found himself at a loss for words looking at them. He wasn't expecting them to look dog-esque at their heads, and his eyes moving down to their talons didn't help with that either.

Thankfully, he quickly came back to his sense of presentation and smiled back at them. "Oh, that's not an issue. Don't worry. I assume you two are... uh... aliens?"

The one on the left laughed as they exclaimed "Oh, yes, of course. I'm sorry, where are my manners? My name is It'kara, and this is Tor'me. We're acting as diplomats on behalf of our uh..." they turned to Tor'me, who was smiling more clearly now.

"On behalf of everybody on the spaceship back there," he said as he pointed back in the sky behind the walls.

Bran stepped out from the doors, dwarfed a bit by both of them, and held out his hand to shake. "Brandenson. You can call me Bran. Pleasure."

Tor'me took Bran's hand, easily fitting it into his own palm, and shook firmly. It'kara took out something like a pill, along with one of the bottles on their waist, and handed them to Bran. "Before we do anything else, I recommend this vaccine cocktail to ensure we don't accidentally infect one another with foreign diseases. Take with water."

Bran looked at the pill and bottle. "Well, I can't say no to a vaccine," he said, cheerily and enthusiastically, while taking the pill and water quickly, like a total champ.

He then heard Joshua walk out a bit from inside the shadows of the building, which caught the attention of both It'kara and Tor'me.

"Oh. Hey... Joshua," Tor'me said, a bit disarmed.

"I--I would like to apologize for how things turned out yesterday, Joshua." It'kara's voice seemed to carry a sense of embarrasment or something similar, and Bran quickly reacted to the statement.

"Oh, don't-don't worry about that. New faces just make him nervous."

"Well, regardless," It'kara continued, first to Bran and then to Joshua, still behind the glass door, "I'm sorry."

Joshua finally stepped out from the Tower, still finding some slight cover behind Bran. As much as he definitely wasn't intent on showing it outwardly, Bran could tell he gained some confidence.

Well. Maybe this'll change his mind about them.

...

Maybe we can get out of here.

"Well, uh... Bran?" Tor'me tilted his head down towards him, holding his hands together.

"Hm?" Bran replied, keeping a quaint smile on his face.

"You uh..." Tor'me continued with a small chuckle, "You wouldn't happen to be... in charge here, are you?"

For a few seconds, Brandenson just stared, confused. He had completely forgotten what was happening right now.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, his brain finally functioning again. "Oh, god no. I'm... At best, I'm just an officer."

"I see," Tor'me said, seeming relieved. "Would anybody like that happen to be in this building right now?"

"Oh, right."

Completely forgot about the whole 'diplomacy' thing too.

"Uh, yeah... but, I'm not so sure if they're willing to see visitors right now... let alone engage in diplomacy."

"Oh," It'kara said, the tone of defeat present. They looked at Tor'me, who also seemed a little concerned and unsure.

A pause stayed alive for a bit. Tor'me turned back to Bran and Joshua. "Well, surely it wouldn't hurt to at least try? We're already here, we need to talk at some point."

Bran... really didn't like the idea of letting them into Riand's office. He'd only just met these two, and if anything were to happen to them that could stop them coming back, or worse... then the ticket he's been betting on these past few days will dry up.

And he hasn't even had the chance to talk to them about it either.

...But it's also not like any good would come from him not letting them talk to them either.

"Well... alright then. If you think you can make it work, I can take you to where they should be."

Bran gently pushed Joshua back through the door he hid behind, and It'kara and Tor'me followed, while ducking their heads pretty lowly to cover the door's frame.

It was hard to tell from his own perspective, but... maybe they really were even taller than anybody else here.

As they walked across the faux emerald floors, Bran noticed the elevator lights were on, and coming down to the ground floor.

"Oh," Joshua said, noticing the same thing. Bran could feel him physically bracing into attention for whoever was coming down. He felt sorry for Joshua.

The elevator made a ding as it finally leveled, stopping It'kara and Tor'me in their gaits as the door opened. The General, still in his uniform, looking very tired and holding a mug with faint steam trailing from it as he slowly walked out, rubbing and squeezing the upper bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. He cleared his eyes as he looked around the reception area, trying to gather his surroundings again, glancing briefly at the figures just at the edge of his vision.

He made a double take when he realized what he just looked at. Eyes wide open, looking more scary than startled with his face.

They all stood where they were for a brief silence as Bran tried to keep things from being too awkward.

"General, Sir. These two are from the alien vessel, It'kara and Tor'me." He pointed to the both of them, It'kara shyly waving, and Tor'me somehow waving confidently. "They wanted to see Riand or you, in regards to the situation we've all found ourselves in."

The General still stood, staring. But his mug was losing it's position at his fingers, and tilted far enough to spill whatever was inside on his right shoe, finally waking himself up, so to speak.

He faced them now, shifting his collar and clearing his throat for a few seconds. "...Yes. Quite."

Tor'me braved the divide of the floor space, and held out his hand for the General to shake, managing to physically dwarf him in size.

Wow. They are really tall.

"We were at least hoping to explain our position, clear some things up, perhaps," Tor'me said, as It'kara followed just behind him.

The General stared at his hand, but didn't take it. "Right."

Bran wasn't at all sure of what was going through his mind right now.

"I can take you to my office. We can have a thorough conversation there," the General stated blithely, as he turned and walked in the opposite direction, where Tor'me quickly followed. It'kara lagged behind to look back to Bran and Joshua, leaned towards them and brought their hand to cover one side of their mouth.

"Can we talk later?" they whispered over.

Bran almost immediately leaped at the chance. "Yes!" he whispered back, "Yes, of course. I'll uh..."

He looked around, and then past Joshua towards his office.

"...We'll just be in my office, over here! The wooden door."

Throughout all of this, Galvana had almost entirely failed to meet their own goals. Instead of being on the offensive against what they saw as beneath them, it had rendered them, through and through, almost helpless. Still dangerous, but not as much as they were. Reduced to hiding in a long abandoned city project named after the billionaire who funded it, and then soon abandoned it. All the details of which are still very unclear.

Joshua now found the chair to be unsuitable to relax in. His apprehension was keeping him rather stiff right now.

"Well... to say I'm pleasantly surprised would be underselling it," Bran chuckled loudly, now that they were in a semi-private room. "Even with 'Ichael's glowing review."

Joshua quietly sighed to himself. But not quietly enough for Bran to not hear him. Speaking of, he turned to Joshua and frowned.

"Seriously?"

Joshua immediately turned away from the desk, peeved.

"Do you honestly expect me to just drop all of my worries about this cause of how they 'seem'?"

"Okay, Joshua," Bran started, stepping closer to him with a sense of authority, "You keep bringing that up as a justification, but I have not been presented with a single instance of them not being forward with us."

"You didn't hear them talk about Galvana." Joshua's voice was also attempting to be more assertive here, hoping to put all of this to bed soon.

"I don't care how they talk about 'Galvana'. I am not 'Galvana'. You are not 'Galvana'. You are Joshua. I am Brandenson. And 'Ichael is 'Ichael. We aren't even really welcome here. That's been made obvious enough with the way 'Galvana', whatever it's even supposed to be, looks at us."

Joshua was silent.

Not just in his words, but also his mind.

At least, as far as I can tell. I can't even make out vague semblances of thought. It's like everything's gone blank.

"Can you at least consider that you might be justifying unrealistic paranoia?"

"There's nothing unjustified about being uncertain about people we've never met before."

No, but---

Not talking to you.

"This has already gone past uncertainty, Joshua." Bran said, with something of a laugh. He walked away from the door to his seat behind the desk, all while holding his hand up, giving a sense of dismissal and an end to the conversation for now. He then sighed heavily as he sat down, basically throwing his weight like it was his bed he was getting into.

Joshua's disposition almost completely changed, watching Bran so exhausted. "You okay?" he asked, gently.

"No, I'm..." Bran started, lightly touching his left temple and using his other hand to swing a pencil around. "...It's just stressful days, is all."

Joshua lightly exhaled and nodded in vague agreement. He didn't bring up why or continue that thought any more to avoid further arguing. He was mostly feeling... empty, as opposed to tired like Bran was.

...

...

Scanning the office again, seeing adjustable steel shelf scaffolding, what little furniture it looked like Bran was able to put in here, some loose, dirty paper towels in the kinds of places someone would be hired to get to.

He looked back to Brandenson's desk, the somewhat managed mess that it was, thinking about how much effort it would add on top of everything else in here to clean, along with whatever Bran's been doing for Galvana's higher brass.

He noticed a singular sheet of paper was still there, with only a spare eraser on top of it.

It looked... like the piece of paper Bran wrote on yesterday.

"What is that?" Joshua asked, pointing at it.

Bran peeked through his fingers on his face to see what he was talking about, his expression from his eyes visibly changing, but to what Joshua couldn't tell. "Uh..." Bran said, seeming to gather his thoughts.

"Isn't that... the report you wrote?"

Bran pulled it up and held it below his desk, looking both at Joshua and then to the paper. "Yeah... uh..." he said, his face looking more hesitant.

"Why do you still have it?"

Bran looked at Joshua, and stared for a little while. It looked like there was something he really wanted to say, to get into.

"Wait," Bran finally said, seeming to have decided on what was on his mind. "No, sorry, this is the first version. I wrote a second version to give to the General. I didn't get rid of this one."

Joshua wondered why he would've needed to make a second version for the General to read. But he didn't voice his curiosity.

Soon enough, the silence of the office was interrupted by knocking at the wooden door.

Bran seemed to have completely regained his energy and leapt out of his chair to find It'kara's head over and above the door-frame outside.

"This is your office?" Joshua could hear It'kara's voice questioning the contrast between the other door's in the hallway, and the relatively shorter frame height.

"It used to be a broom closet, don't worry about it," Bran replied. He then motioned Joshua to come out with him without looking at him, while continuing the conversation with "So... what are your thoughts?"

Joshua peered out of the office to see It'kara looking inquisitively at Bran, with Tor'me looking through the hallway both ways, up and down. He didn't think they'd be even remotely interested in seeing their architecture, but things were weird enough for him anyways.

"What do you mean?" It'kara replied, after a moment.

"Well, how do you feel about the General? How'd things go?"

"Oh! Uh..."

It'kara turned to Tor'me, clearly asking if they should talk about what happened. Tor'me looked back to the group, seeming to still have heard everything with his attention split, shrugged at It'kara, and gestured to Bran, indicating them to go ahead.

"...He mostly focused on trying to assert the 'authority of Galvana' in less words than that. He acted exactly as I was told of him."

Told??

"What?" Bran's face became curious. "Someone told you about him?"

"Yeah, the people of that town," It'kara clarified, and pointed their thumb to their right, in the vague direction of where their ship hangs over the planet. "Of course, he's not the only person we've heard of. Riand... well, there's a lot I'm still trying to make sense of myself." It'kara and Tor'me started walking back to the doors of the Tower, with Joshua trailing behind them, far enough to be somewhat more comfortable, but close enough that Bran didn't feel the need to hold him by the arm and drag him along. "Alongside old documents going over this general area's recent history, and even older artifacts related to these people's culture, I must admit I have my mind full of a lot to keep track of."

"Oh, I know something of what you mean. It's enough of a job keeping track of papers nobody uses or reads here." Bran's tone indicated sarcasm to Joshua, but included a hint of sincerity he couldn't help but feel everybody else picked up on.

As they reached the door, Tor'me stopped, and gently held his hand up to Bran, the motion indicating a question forming in his mind.

"So... are you an officer?"

The question caught him off guard. "Uh... yeah."

Tor'me's face did not change. "Why are you in a broom closet?"

The question clearly made Bran a little uncomfortable. It reminded Joshua of the times in the past where he (rather regrettably) asked him about his skin color, which this absolutely had some relation to. It didn't even occur to Joshua until now that that was why he was in that room in the first place.

"I think that's something we should talk about some other time. It's... uh..." Bran's voice didn't change much in tone, but his presentation said more than everything to Joshua.

It seemed to say more than enough to Tor'me and It'kara as well.

"Ah," Tor'me softly exclaimed, his voice and face showing some sense of... understanding? "I see."

"Oh," It'kara also softly exclaimed, visibly saddened by and apologetic to Bran's response.

What have they gone through?

"Well then," Bran said more audibly, clapping his hands together and regaining his enthusiasm, "what was it you two wanted to talk to us about?"

"Ah!" It'kara softly exclaimed, snapping their fingers with a strong sense of victory. "Right, right. Um... how-- how busy are you?"

Bran looked to his office, a bit absently, and turned back to the conversation. "Not very, honestly."

Tor'me and It'kara glanced at each other briefly. "Well then, we'd be going back to the ship, and I was... uh... admittedly, this feels like some non-sequitur, but would you be willing to come with us?"

Bran's face showed mild surprise. "To the ship?"

Oh goddammit.

"Yeah," Tor'me responded.

Bran looked over to Joshua, smiling.

Yeah, sure. Smile now. Promise you won't later.

"That sounds like a great idea."