An HFY Tale: Drop Pod Green

The morning after Rhidi's date, she woke up to a Kafya pile on her bed.

Imridit had claimed the position of big spoon, Oin was snoring next to her, while Anfilid, Saffi, Uppil, and Dimili were snoozing around her in different stages of in-process yoga maneuvers.

Rhidi's bed had only been designed for one, and there were far too many bodies for her liking.

Replacing herself with Oin so that Imridit wouldn't wake up, she wiggled free of the many tails and limbs. Her mouth had a horrible sour taste, likely due to what she had been drinking, so her first stop was her little washroom that was attached to her berthing.

Still as small as it ever was, Rhidi sidled up in front of the foldout sink with a scratch of her yellow furred belly. Yawning into the simple square mirror, Rhidi fumbled at the lock with her sleepy fingers, lowering the sink with a metallic thunk. The entire washroom was steel and aluminium, a metal storage cupboard with a toilet in it, but she had managed to dress it up somewhat.

On the floor she had bought a small rug from the Moose via her data-slate some days before, a Squid deliveryman popping onto the ship with the rest of her purchases. This kept her pawed feet from freezing on the cold steel floor when using the toilet, and the magnetic baskets allowed her to store bottles and other toiletries along the bare metal walls.

Her toothbrush was hanging on one of the hooks, so she retrieved it and squeezed out a measure of toothpaste. A lot of the Kafya liked an odd peanut butter flavored toothpaste, but Rhidi had found one that tasted of bubblegum.

Plus, the bubbles were pink.

Spitting a mouthful of rosy suds into the sink, Rhidi popped her lips under the stream of water and sucked some into her short muzzle, swishing it around to clean her teeth. Her bladder gave a quiet pulse of urgency, likely due to all of the water noises, so she folded up the sink.

The drainage vacuum kicked on for a few moments as the water was drained and the sink dried, then Rhidi kicked up the lid to the toilet, looking down into it.

Human toilets still vexed her, as they were not really designed for Kafyan anatomy, and they seemed to all follow some kind of… type. As Rhidi pulled down her garments, gathered her tail in front of her, and sat down, she looked down and right to the little remote.

As far as she could remember, these were based off a Japwanese model, which had been deemed the best toilet ever made before the Pactless wars, and was seen as the base standards for all Human waste removal platforms.

Rhidi shivered in the chill of the room, did what she needed to do, then started using the remote. The advanced "targeting system" kicked into effect, cleaning the offending areas with warmed water while scanning for any material that shouldn't have been there.

An odd anecdote she remembered reading was a Reg soldier being alerted to the presence of a fragmentation wound that had slipped in between his butt cheeks, and buried itself into the flesh. As it was failing to bleed or really cause more discomfort than an odd itch every once in a while, it had gone unnoticed until the Reg had to use a proper toilet once getting back from the field.

Rhidi preferred the toilets to field latrines, as fur made things rather annoying.

Receiving a quiet, affirmative chirp from the toilet, Rhidi stood, dried herself off, then pulled her pants back up.

Despite the fact she had been hoping her room would be empty by the time she got out of the latrine, or "head" as the Squids put it, her bed was still a mess of female Kafya still snoozing.

She checked her Edition 5 data-display, spying that the time was just at breakfast starting, and figured she would get an early jump on eating.

Slipping on a pair of loose cargo pants she had also ordered, a pair of lightweight paw boots, and wearing the same shirt she slept in, Rhidi made her way along the alleyways of the ship. Her unit was on a short leave due to the fact they just got back to the ship and were about to start skipping back to Earth, so everyone was likely sleeping or cleaning their rooms.

All their gear was being cleaned and receiving work in the shops, so it's not like they could even take care of that if they wanted to.

Rhidi got in line between two male Squids, the pair of Humans giving her a respectable clearance of space. It was this way for all of the Droppers, but more so for Rhidi; She was developing a bit of a reputation, afterall.

After announcing "Dropper" to the cooks, she got her tray and slid down the line, her plate piled high with the usual breakfast foods championed by Humans: Chocolate chip pancakes the size of her face with butter, breakfast bacon, spam musubi, fried potatoes, a bowl of appled oatmeal, and last a massive cinnamon roll with dates.

"Seems like a lot of sugar this morning." Rhidi murmured, even though her mouth was watering from the smell of the pancakes and cinnamon roll.

Humans had such a command of cookery that it still surprised her what they came up with, and the cinnamon roll was no slouch. Bread was nothing new, even though the Kafya no longer really ate it, but the Humans had a secret up their sleeve; Butter.

Butter was something that their arm of the galaxy had never seen before until Humans decided to shake the hell out of milk gathered from Earthen cattle, creating the epitome of flavor. To be fair she could not think of a single race that would have the stones to grip and squeeze the nipple of another creature, but that was Humans for you.

With butter, bread was made softer, combined with refined granules of the sugar cane, spices from tree barks and seeds, and a pinch of salt, and suddenly the little coil of bread turned into a die-for dessert.

Rhidi gathered her drinks, sat down, and placated her mildly throbbing head with the cinnamon roll first. It was hard not to smile at that first bite of crispy edge and soft center, the soothing taste of sugared cinnamon and vanilla icing nearly causing her to over-salivate onto her fingers. Despite the portions of her meal, she found herself as ravenous as usual, wolfing down the cinnamon roll with speed and sucking her fingers clean.

The pancakes fared no better, being consumed by the mouthful with short pauses to drink at her ice cold milk. By the time she had licked the chocolate from her lips, she was ready to tear apart her musubi, a dish that still caused her to chuckle.

Wrapped in dried seaweed, the meal was nothing more than rice, fried "meat" in a sweet sauce, and egg. Rhidi found the square shape oddly comforting, likely from what she had grown up eating, but this little rectangle held a hundred times more flavor and texture than Kafyan nutrition squares.

With a large bite, Rhidi took half of the musubi into her mouth, the salty fried amalgamation of animal flesh cutting through the sweet sauce and pillowy egg. Then there was the rice, which was seasoned with vinegars that made Rhidi's cheeks talk to her in glee. The thought came to her once again, of why her people's food was so… nothing.

The Humans had managed to pack so much flavor into this little rectangle, why couldn't the Kafya?

Rhidi chewed as she mulled over the thought again, and how much better she felt eating Human food. She always had energy when eating the gels and bars, sure, but she never felt this good. It was like Human food had unlocked an ancient part of her, a vestigial part of her brain that perked up once she stopped eating the food of her people.

She looked at her bowl of oatmeal, also called "burgoo" sometimes if they put meat in it, and pondered that as well. Oatmeal, by all Human accounts, was bland. They put sugar in it, spices, fruit such as today's, or whatever they really felt like… but even then, it was tasty on its own.

The most "bland" food by Human accounts, but it was still full of flavor to her, even in its basic, oaty form.

Rhidi popped the other half of the musubi into her mouth and pulled the bowl over, looking down into it as she slowly chewed, her tail swaying behind her.

She had never felt this good until she had eaten Human food… even her body was changing.

Hell, it had changed.

She had well corded muscles, her legs and posterior were thicker from being properly fed and toiled, and then there was her urgings…

Rhidi had never felt so charged before. Her people's males normally had to take a cocktail of drugs to mate, and female Kafya always mentioned mating as a chore rather than a pleasurable experience. She had never met a male Kafya that made her heart beat like Morris, or had met a Kafyan male that made her feel longing in… other places.

Was it the food? Or was it just Kafyan society that had her feeling so complacent?

It seemed like every month she spent around Humans, eating their food, living their lifestyle, it was like she was slowly being unlocked, tumbler by tumbler.

Rhidi pushed the thought away with her spoon, filling her cheek with appled oatmeal and chewing happily. Whatever it was, or whatever was happening, there was one thing she knew with every inch of her heart.

She was never going back, and would rather die than be forced to.

With a full stomach, Rhidi rounded off her morning with a workout.

These were not short ventures, and she managed to polish off her exercises in just under two hours. She hit her legs hard with hack squats, moving along her arms and toiling away at the machines. Despite their appearance of torture devices, they were overdesigned to the nines, targeting muscle groups with the same accuracy as Void Navy strike craft. Hauling around the round weights was enough of a workout as it was, but Rhidi loved the feeling of her muscles stretching and getting stronger.

With her pump well in hand, she made her way to the showers, rinsed off, and grabbed a spare set of clothes in her locker. Her IB suit was waiting in there as well, still packed in its plastic shroud along with the rest of her spare clothes. Any clothing left in the lockers that was detected as soiled was run through the sanitation bay, automated washing machines and dryers that delivered the refreshed laundry back to the locker.

Refreshed and primed for her lunch meal, Rhidi made her way back to her berthing only to find it was still full of sleeping female Kafya.

Rolling up her sleeves, Rhidi tossed the lazy creatures out of her room and sent them off to go grab a fast-meal and then work out, having apparently slept through breakfast proper. As they were being removed from her private domicile, they rapidly filled her in on what had happened the night before, and Rhidi knew that she was going to have to deal with those stories for a while.

With her room now clear, she flopped down onto her bed for a nap, breathing in happily. Her nap did not last long before there was a knock on her door, and Rhidi let out a quiet, grumbling groan.

She hefted herself up off the bed and opened the door, and her eyes narrowed to find no one there. Rhidi turned her head left and right down the alleyway, but did notice a letter was taped to her door.

Rhidi grabbed it, opened the flap, and pulled out the piece of paper. Inside was a simple message, one that made her tail flick back and forth behind her.

Movie tonight?

-Morris

Rhidi grinned to herself, flipped the letter around and wrote "My place?" in the middle of the paper, then tucked it back into the envelope. She trotted down the alleyways to where Morris's room was, sticking the message to his door before quickly knocking then sprinting back down the passageways, and out of view.

She felt giddy for some odd reason, like she was young and once again playing in the tallgrass.

Rhidi ran back to her room and closed the door, sitting on the bed and staring at the door. Her tail thumped next to her as she waited, a dumb smile on her lips and her nose flaring as if trying to smell Morris through the door.

After what felt like an eternity, there was a knock, and Rhidi started to count, giving Morris enough time to get away from the door.

When she had counted to twenty, she opened the door to an empty passageway and snatched the letter once again stuck to her door, quickly opening it before the door had the chance to fully close.

Be there after dinner.

-Morris

"Yeah, you better." Rhidi murmured through her smile, then started tidying up her room with a rapid pace.

Morris wasn't there at lunch though, despite Rhidi looking around for him, and she finished her meatloaf in record time so she could go buy snacks for her little movie date. With the taste of brown gravy and tomato sauce still on her tongue, she quickly filled her basket with tasty things she knew Morris liked.

It was not a mystery one could keep from a Kafya, as Rhidi could smell what he ate and drank just from him breathing around her.

He had an odd penchant for sour peach rings, and was a near constant smell on his breath besides his toothpaste.

With snacks in hand, along with drinks, another thought crossed Rhidi's mind. She slowly turned her head towards a very particular shelf, one that the Humans made use of constantly.

"I don't…" Rhidi whispered to herself, her eyes tracing down the racks of birth control pills, contraceptives, condoms, lubricants, and odd looking devices. "Do I…?

Rhidi had never done anything like that before, and while some of the other female Kafya had… she wasn't really sure where to begin. Kafya and Humans were purely and scientifically incompatible when it came to creating offspring, but there was still the risk of diseases and other fauna that Humans had a chance of giving non-Humans.

At the same time, she was pretty sure Morris was clean… right?

"You okay there, Dropper?"

Rhidi snapped around to face the checkout clerk fully, her eyes wide and tail fully fluffed. "Help with what?!"

"You're staring at the sexual wellness shelf like it's going to attack you." He said, chuckling politely. He was middle aged, just reaching into his thirties and wearing a trucker cap of some company down on Earth. "If you need something just grab it, no one cares on this boat. You should see how many condoms these people buy through the week…"

Rhidi rocked back and forth on the balls of her pawed feet, swinging her basket as she leaned her head towards the shelf. "Do I… need, any of these?"

He shrugged. "If it's someone you just met, maybe, but you Kafya ain't gotta worry about babies. As long as you know the guy ain't dragging his log through any river he comes across, I'm sure you can enjoy the experience raw."

"Raw?!" Rhidi said, her ears slowly growing stiffer as the word slithered its way across her ear drums. "You make it sound… gross."

"Sorry." He said with another chuckle, pushing a finger against the bill of his trucker cap. "Either way, it's up to you. If you want to be super safe about it, choose that red white and blue box right there, its one size fits most."

Rhidi stepped towards the shelf, sweating bullets as she picked up the box. "Bared Arms" was written across the front of the box, showing a pair of oddly phallic looking missiles in each corner pointing towards the center. The box boasted the "thinnest and closest one could get to bare skin" condoms, as well as a free voucher for a six pack of beer in certain brands.

"T-These?" Rhidi asked, holding up the box towards the cashier.

As she looked towards the man, she locked eyes with Saffi across the store, the green Kafya placing her hands to her mouth as her eyes lit up mischievously.

With lightning speed, Saffi cleared the store and was right in front of Rhidi, snatching the box out of her hands and looking at it.

"Rhidi!" Saffi giggled out, looking from the box to the basket. "Peach rings? And chocolate wafers!" She then slowly looked back up towards Rhidi's panicking face, her eyes wide as Saffi leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose. "Are these condoms for Morris?"

With a flick of the elbow, Rhidi sunk her fingers into Saffi's hip flesh, gripping a large pinch of fur and skin and pulling the green Kafya towards her. Saffi howled in gleeful shrieks of laughter, the pain dulled by Rhidi's embarrassed face.

"You didn't see anything, Saffi!" Rhidi hissed at her, letting go of her hip and instead pulling on one of her green braids. "You only saw me buying candy!"

Saffi's yellow eyes never stopped glittering as she kept giggling, wiggling the box back and forth out of Rhidi's reach. "Oh my gosh, oh my gooosh I have to hear everything after!"

"Damn it, Saffi!" Rhidi growled, finally snatching away the box and shoving the green furred Kafya away. "Go away!"

Saffi cackled and sprinted out of the small shoppette; She knew that Rhidi would likely tear a hunk of her fur out if she told anyone, but that didn't mean she couldn't pre-write some data-messages and get ready to send them out.

Smoothing down her tail fur and hair, Rhidi tossed the box in the basket and placed it on the counter, feeling as if she had just sprinted three miles from the amount of sweat tickling the small of her back.

"You silly aliens." The cashier laughed out, starting to ring up her purchases. "Never a dull day."

She paid the total, and hugging the bag to her chest Rhidi left the cashier behind, going straight to her room. She stored away the drinks in her little fridge, laid out the snacks, picked out a movie called "Onward", and set out her extra pillows along the ground so Morris had somewhere to sit.

As she thought about it, she looked at her bed… and slowly put the pillows on there instead.

She made a little place for Morris to sit, a place for her, then looked down at herself. She was still wearing the clothes she put on after working out, and knew she should look cute for their little movie date.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Right?

She did own cute clothes… right?

"Shit." Rhidi hissed, turning towards her cache of folded clothes like they were suddenly enemies and rifling through them.

Unlike Imridit or Saffi, she had chosen rather muted, neutral colored clothes that fit with the Western aesthetic, but that didn't leave her with a lot of cute clothing. Time was ticking down until evening chow, so Rhidi hopped back onto her data-display and quickly began looking at her options of clothing from the Moose.

The store she found in the end was more standard fare, but they had more loungewear than the others she had seen on board. A quick search on the data-streams found the current "classic" flirty items, a blue long sleeve hoody that ended at the ribcage and a pair of white cotton athletic shorts.

The time crunch was becoming a little more frantic now as she had spent quite a while looking at clothing, and the order was having difficulty being filled. Whoever was picking the clothing was having trouble finding the correct sizes, and the whistle for evening chow came.

Rhidi's heart high fived her throat as she realized she was running out of time, skittering out of her room to eat as quickly as possible.

Snatching up one of the "on the go" meals, Rhidi raced back to her room to meet the delivery worker, the woman having sent her a message on her data-pad to announce her imminent arrival. With little ceremony, Rhidi clung to the bag of food with her teeth and took the bags of clothing, mumbling through the paper her thanks and ducking back inside her room.

Chewing through a meatloaf sandwich and arranging the clothes on her bed, Rhidi was fighting to not sweat while agonizing over what she was going to wear. It was harder still due to how hungry she was, and Rhidi mentally kicked herself for not grabbing two bags like the cook had told her to.

Tipping back the plastigel cup and depositing macaroni salad into her maw, she chose the white cotton athletic shorts and the short hoodie, allowing herself to stay cool but also look cute. While Rhidi had never liked the fashion stuff her mother pressed onto her, that didn't mean she never learned from it.

Keeping a close eye on the clock, Rhidi inhaled what was left of the food in the bag and got ready. After putting on the clothing and standing in front of her data-display's camera function… Rhidi decided to also put on a shirt.

The outfit was cute, but showing nearly all of her lower ribcage made Rhidi incredibly self conscious, and one wrong move would mean more than fur popping out into view.

A lighter cotton shirt filled out the rest of her ensemble and she felt far more confident, being a little cheeky and rolling up the shirt's hem so the bottom of her bellybutton was exposed. Rhidi was admiring herself in the camera feed when a knock at the door snapped her out of her musings, and she leapt over to open it.

Morris was smiling as the door swung, standing there in pajama bottoms and a relaxed fit shirt that must have been from his old job, judging by the oddly colored stains. Rhidi figured he must have purified the shirt over many years of using detergents, because she couldn't smell a whiff of oil on it.

"Hi Morris!" Rhidi nearly shouted, giggling and surging forward to hug the Human around his chest.

Morris chuckled, patting the yellow furred Kafya on her back. "Hello, Rhidi."

"Hi, Morris." Rhidi chuckled back, leaning back and looking up at him. "We're on hugging terms, right?"

Morris raised a brow. "I guess. I did carry you all the way back to the ship after you got sloshed."

"I figured that's how I got back, not that I needed much thinking." Rhidi mused, standing back so Morris could walk through the door. "I had a lot of voices in my ears once I got all of them to wake up and leave."

Morris nodded, closing the door behind him. "They weren't at breakfast, so I assumed they had slept in. Had a solid chuckle watching you snatch up that dinner bag though."

Rhidi grinned at him sheepishly. "I uh… had a delivery to meet."

"Was it the new clothes?" Morris asked, tilting his head towards Rhidi's outfit.

"These aren't new, I've had these." Rhidi said, placing her hands on her hips as her ears began to stiffen.

"Rhidi, they still have the tags on them." Morris laughed, reaching over and pulling the dangling clothes tag into view for her.

Rhidi, suddenly furious at herself and embarrassed, turned around and began ripping the tags off of her clothing, ending the movement with a long "shrrriip!" of pulling the nearly ten inch long size-sticker off her hoodie.

Balling them up in her fists and fast-pitching them into the corner of her room, Rhidi then turned around, ears fully erect and face held in a strained smile.

"I've always had these." Rhidi said through gritted teeth, producing another laugh from Morris.

"Of course, how silly of me." Morris replied, turning to look at her data-display.

The camera was on, and facing the bed.

"... Rhidi, I thought we were watching a movie." Morris quipped with a raised brow. "Were you planning on making-"

A streak of yellow fur flew in front of Morris's face as Rhidi scrabbled at her data-display, rapidly closing the camera function and instead pulling up the movie.

"Movie!" Rhidi called out, gesturing with upturned palms towards the screen. "Classic uh, classic movie."

Morris grinned at Rhidi, but turned to look at the screen. "Aah, I know this one, it's a brother adventure about a couple of Elves. I think their dad is cut in half or something."

"Cut in half?" Rhidi asked with a bared fang look of confusion, screwing up her face at the movie with a wrinkle of the nose. "I thought this was a family film, not a horror movie."

Morris smirked. "Nah, you'll see. Where do you want to si-"

The ship's warning klaxon rang through the communication speakers, both Morris and Rhidi freezing and looking around.

"Emergency skip in progress. Emergency skip in progress. Ship is on lockdown. Everyone to nearest quarters."

"What in the hell?" Morris murmured, pulling out his data-slate and opening a communication line as Rhidi stepped up beside him, the already closed door locking down with rhythmic clicks.

"What does it say?" Rhidi asked, watching as Morris quickly made his way through the alert channels.

Morris blinked down at the block of text, dumbstruck. "Command override, the Void Fleet Admiral issued our entire group to immediately skip back to the docks for… emergency repairs?"

"Emergency repairs?" Rhidi asked, squinting her eyes at the tablet. "Everthing is fine though, we only suffered minor damages."

"Odd." Morris said lowly, scrolling down the text inch by inch. "Command overriding an entire group of ships back for emergency repairs… that is very odd indeed. When an emergency skip is ordered, we all have to hunker down in our rooms."

Rhidi nodded. "They put all the power into the engines and take that power away from sub systems, we're gonna be in here for a while it looks like."

"Until they come out of their first skip to cool down, but they keep the ships skipping until the hull starts to glow from all the heat buildup." Morris intoned, then turned to Rhidi. "You got snacks right?"

Rhidi smiled up at the Human, her eyes smug. "Why yes, yes I did."

"Thank goodness, we're not going to be eating for a while." Morris sighed out, then shrugged as the battle group's skip engines began to hum to life, all the ships turning and running their calculations for the skip. "Hope you have more movies too."

Rhidi's ears twitched as she slowly looked towards the data-display, knowing that its storage was stuffed to the gills with either war, scifi, or romance movies of Human designs. "Uhhh… yeah, I got some we can watch."

As the skip engines whined, and a hole in space was torn via the Dedorik Effect, Rhidi and Morris settled down side by side on the floor, using the multiple cushions and blankets to get comfortable.

Ships hit the unknown plane and were launched forward through space at an incredibly fast rate of speed, far more than the ships were "allowed" to handle, but that was beyond Rhidi and Morris's scope.

They instead watched the movie as the pair of brothers had to find a special magical stone, all to bring their father back to life for a single day.

Rhidi thought the movie quite sad, as the younger brother had to sacrifice his time to see his father, and the older brother only having a handful of minutes to speak to the long departed patriarch. It was a happy ending, technically, but it still felt somewhat bitter to her.

This was how Humans did their movies though, as she found. They were not always clean happy endings, nor were they always sad endings where everything goes wrong. Much like the race itself, Humans made their movies to reflect their broad spectrum of emotions; Victory in defeat, defeat despite the victory, gaining despite the loss yet losing everything they had… Rhidi could understand why Human movies were so popular amongst the stars.

After the movie was done, both she and Morris broke out the snacks for the next. As Rhidi keyed up the file, Morris tilted his head forward at the screen.

"A cowboy movie?" Morris asked, cracking the tab on a cola.

Rhidi shrugged. "I dunno, I guess they're mountaineers or something."

"I've never heard of this one before, must be older." Morris replied, taking a sip of his cola.

As the movie spun to life and Rhidi snuggled in close to Morris, she took that moment to really get close to him; She laid her cheek upon his shoulder and laid her tail down behind him, an obvious advance in Kafyan culture but Morris wouldn't have known one way or the other.

Rhidi wiggled her foot back and forth as she watched, her pinky toe knocking against Morris's shin as she narrowed her eyebrows.

"... this is a cowboy movie, right?" Rhidi asked, noticing that the two men kept giving furtive glances at each other.

Morris, eyebrows raised, was watching on as well with slowly dawning horror. "Uh… yeah, I think so. They're just… herding sheep and stuff."

"They're just really good friends?" Rhidi asked, recognizing even the open forms of Human eye communication.

"... Yeah?..." Morris replied, still watching the screen as if the tone had suddenly changed to a horror movie.

"Why is he going into his tent?" Rhidi asked.

Morris shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe he's cold."

"Oh he's hugging him… from behind."

"I think that's cuddling, Rhidi."

"Ah, see, the other one is upset! They aren't romantic! So the other Human is gonna fight him right?"

"I don't think they're going to fight."

"But they're clearly fighting."

The tone changed when the breathing got heavier and buckles started coming undone, and Rhidi's hands shot up to her eyes.

"They're not fighting!"

"Nope!" Morris called out, leaning forward to quickly shut the movie off as one of the cowboys was pre-mount of the other.

Rhidi began to laugh out in embarrassment as she kept her eyes covered, lightly kicking her feet as Morris snorted and pulled up another movie at random, a classic film called "Easy A".

"I thought it was about cowboys!" Rhidi called out, still giggling as Morris sat back against the side of the bed, running a hand down his face.

"Well, it certainly had cowboys in it." Morris replied, letting out a wry chuckle.

After a minute of awkward laughing and giggling, Rhidi got up to choose another movie as she had already watched the one Morris chose, her tail swishing back and forth as she scrolled back down the list. There was an odd little movie she had read about, one called "Palm Springs", and she put it on before jogging back over and sitting down next to Morris.

The movie was far less… salacious as the previous one, allowing Rhidi to cuddle up next to Morris and lay her head upon his shoulder again. The more the odd, romantic comedy played out, the more accustomed Morris became with Rhidi; The yellow furred Kafya's heart gave a contented purr when the Human had laid his arm around her back, allowing her to instead fully snuggle into his chest.

Rhidi had never in all her life known such contentment, the feeling warming her from the tips of her toes to the roots of her ears. Despite the movie being rather interesting, a take on extremely closed loop paths of time repetition, Rhidi's eyes began to slowly close.

The rhythmic beat of a Human heart next to her ears was like an audible drug, each thump of the muscle lulling her brain to a state of pure, blissful calm.

The feeling of Morris's fingers idly tracing up and down her arm fur a cool shot to her nerves.

His soft laughter a cold cloth over a too warm brow.

Rustling noises coming from her previous shopping bags caught her attention though, and she cracked open an eye to see Morris fishing around inside one of the shoppette bags.

A bag, as Rhidi's heart lurched up into her lungs, that did not have drinks in it.

"Wait!" Rhidi shouted, scrambling over Morris's chest as he pulled out the box of Bared Arms condoms.

Rhidi froze, hand still stretched out towards the box as Morris's eyebrows slowly moved skywards, reading along the label as a wry smile grew on his lips.

Rhidi exploded with embarrassed heat along her skin, her face burning and ears stiffening to the point they nearly hurt as Morris turned the box around, looking at the back text before swiveling his eyes towards Rhidi.

"I was unaware you had this kind of movie night in mind." Morris murmured, jiggling the box full of condoms so they lightly rattled. "Did you plan all this?"

Rhidi went to snatch for the box, but let out a whine as Morris held it out of her reach. "No! I just… I thought… give me the damn box, Morris!"

—

"What do you mean you falsified an engine leak report?" Mr. Radishow asked, turning his head slowly towards the screen on which Sparkle Otter the A.I. was currently presenting herself on.

The digital, Humanoid shaped figure shrugged. "I mean, there was a leak, I felt it prudent."

"They recalled that entire fleet!" Mr. Radishow exclaimed, now fully turning towards the A.I.'s screen. "They're skipping all the way to Human space! What kind of leak did you fabricate!?"

Sparkle Otter shrugged again. "Battery leak."

"Battery-?!" Mr. Radishow shouted, then slapped his forehead with a loud clap of the palm. "You were just supposed to get them here, not send all the ships into lockdown! Why would you do that?!"

Sparkle Otter grinned, a learned Human emotion that all A.I. used as much as possible, as she still watched the feed to Rhidi's room via her data-display camera. Rhidi was still wrestling with Morris for the box of condoms, and her shorts were getting shorter by the second.

"Ah, you know, just making sure they get back as soon as possible with that data-cache…" Sparkle Otter said with a smile on her voice, even though Mr. Radishow was rubbing his temples with one hand and pouring a fresh drink with the other.

—

"Give me the box!" Rhidi howled, now fully straddling Morris and trying to climb him in order to get the box of condoms out of his hands.

Morris, however, kept her in place with an arm around her back, keeping the box at the tip of his fingers as he laughed. "Why do you want the box so bad?! Planning on using them or something?"

Rhidi froze, looking down and coming nose to nose with Morris as the cosmic rift howled outside, the forces of death and life grinding along the armor of the Wild Hunt and the other ships currently sharing the tear.

It was at this moment that Rhidi felt Morris's hand resting in the small of her back, the cool air of her room brushing along the fur of her buttocks telling her that her shorts had ridden up the crack of her ass, and that she was fully straddling Morris with nearly fully bared thighs.

Something growled inside of Rhidi's spirit, a long dead animal now dragged to life with an injection of hormones it had not felt before in a long, long time. As she stared into Morris's face, she breathed in his own breath and her mind crackled with noise like ice breaking, pathways clearing themselves to areas of the brain once downtrodden, and kept under firm lock and key.

She had breathed in the breath of other races before, as it was not uncommon when sharing the tight spaces of ships or battlefields, but something about Morris's was on par with breathing in a deep lungful of redolent flavors. The scents of musk, incense, and a pure heat that she could not explain.

It was like Morris was a key unlocking parts of Rhidi that she had not felt before, and she sagged softly in his grip, letting her reaching arms instead fall around the back of his neck.

Rhidi breathed in deep again, and that old creature let out a low rumble, causing her heart to tap out a dancing beat as she settled onto him, letting her thighs slide down just a little further along his own until she was fully sitting upon him. Her skin felt like it was on fire, her tail settling down along Morris's feet behind her, and her ears were so full of blood that not even the bends from her helmet could stay in place.

She felt a pressure against her thighs, and that pressure sent crackles of lightning along her skin, flaring into her brain like a storm she had never felt before.

"So, Rhidi," Morris began, his voice low but his breath still washing over her like a comforting haze. "You have me. What are you going to do with me?"

Rhidi wasn't sure if it was the heat of his breath, the scent of it, or something… other that carried itself on his air, but the words wove themselves through her nose and right into her brain, turning her once solid logical centers to absolutely honey-covered pudding.

Rhidi placed her nose lightly against his, her eyes hooded as she gazed down into Morris's. "I was… wanting to try a few things."

"Sounds fair." Morris replied cooly, and Rhidi felt his fingers dig grooves along the fur of her buttcheeks. "How about I show you a few things as well?"

"I think I can agree to that." Rhidi whispered as her tail began to wag, which did no favors for her athletic shorts, but a sudden thought came to her mind. "What about the form?"

Morris grinned up at her, then gave her nose a soft kiss before chuckling. "We're under emergency conditions, what happens under them stays under them."

Rhidi giggled along with Morris, then tilted her head just enough so their lips could touch.

It didn't take too long to figure out the mechanics, and Rhidi soon found that Morris was a wealth of interesting knowledge.

—

"They're finally out of skip?" Miss La asked, looking up from her book and towards the screen near her bed.

Sparkle Otter nodded, resting her digital elbows on non-exististing surfaces. "They were under skip for quite a while, right up until the engines started to overheat."

"You are rather evil for fabricating a minor battery issue, you know that?" Miss La chuckled, looking back towards the book on her data-slate. "When I said we needed that data-cache as soon as possible, I figured you would just drum up some orders or something."

Sparkle Otter shrugged, slowly rotating around in the display screen as if she were in a rather slow washing machine. "What use is having advanced tech-ops protocols if I never get to use them?"

"Perhaps I should have chosen someone else, if this is what you're going to do with them." Miss La said, yawning and stretching out her arms. Her sweater trailed up along her stomach as she stretched out her thick legs, her muscles making the same strained groan as coiled rope under load.

Sparkle Otter pursed her digital lips, her form more of a digital facsimile of the Human form than a defined nature. "No one else would volunteer, and I was tired of making clothing!"

"How is Rhidi doing, by the way?" Miss La asked, settling back down onto the couch and itching at her calf through her pajama bottoms.

"She's been busy." Sparkle Otter said with a long smile, currently holding herself upside down as she leered at Miss La. "Very busy. They've been under emergency hold for nearly half a day during that long skip."

"I'm sure she's rather bored." Miss La mused, glancing down to the next page of her romance novel. "You can only watch old Human movies for so long."

Sparkle Otter let out tittering laughter, layered with binary sarcasm, and that caught Miss La's attention.

"What?" Miss La asked, looking up from the page on her data-slate.

"I timed my meddling well." Sparkle Otter said loftily, looking at her vague digital hands as if she were admiring the nails upon them. "I made sure Rhidi would be well entertained on her long skip."

Miss La slowly turned towards the screen, her scaled brow ridges raised. "You didn't."

Sparkle Otter let out another trilling, binary laugh, happily kicking her digital feet.

"What did you do!?" Miss La cried out with a laugh, now fully turning her body towards the screen and leaning over the arm rest of the couch, her thick tail twitching in curiosity.

Sparkle Otter, still suspended upside down in the void of her screen, steepled her fingers. "While formulating the fake repair emergency for the Void Admiralty, I noticed Rhidi buying some rather interesting items from the onboard shoppette. To avoid spoiling her fun, I waited until her movie date began."

Miss La let out a bark of a laugh, then clapped her hands together. "Morris?"

"Quite." Sparkle Otter replied, returning to a normal plane of rotation and kicking her feet behind her vaguely Human shaped head. "If only you had seen the things I saw through her data-display camera…"

"Sparkle Otter!" Miss La guffawed. "Now you're just abusing your protocols! You shouldn't be doing stuff like that."

Sparkle Otter cackled again in devilish glee, still kicking her feet. "I had to! I'm timing the whole thing around that little dork."

"Speaking of which, she's likely asleep by now." Miss La said, tapping at her draconic chin. "And I doubt they did the correct paperwork, you should wake her up so they can make themselves presentable."

—

Rhidi's screen chirped at her, three bright barks of noise.

She cracked open her eyes to slits within the darkness of her room, breathing in deeply through her nose as she raised her head slightly. She had to raise it a bit more to see over Morris's chest, blinking blearily at the bright screen. She was laying on a bed of pillows and blankets, one leg cast over Morris's while her arm was draped across his stomach.

It chirped three times again, and Rhidi leaned up and away from Morris, grabbing at her data-slate with sleepy fingers. It took a bit of doing since her hair was a mess, thanks to Morris, but she managed to smooth it back enough to see the screen properly.

"Morris." Rhidi whispered, giving the Human a shake. "We've been out of skip for three minutes, we have to go report in."

Morris snapped awake as if he had been bitten, and he hissed, reaching over his shoulders and running a finger along the claw marks that Rhidi had left along his back. "We're out?"

"Yup." Rhidi said breathily, her head still fuzzy from all the activity before they had fallen asleep, and her mouth still tasted of both Morris, his blood, and… sour peach ring candies.

She had no idea why, but Morris's kisses had caused a fair amount of saliva to be shared, and she felt as if she were in a happy haze even now. She stared bleary eyed into the dark room with a lofty smile on her face, both her heart, soul, and other parts of her feeling an odd sensation of satisfaction.

"Jesus, Rhidi." Morris chuckled, looking at himself before he pulled on his old shirt. "Why did you have to bite me so much? Looks like I got attacked by a pack of wolves."

Rhidi giggled, her fingers padding around their little nest of blankets in search of her underwear. "Sorry…"

She found them under a pile of wrappers, and she couldn't help but hum in her throat happily as she spied the empty box next to them. "I guess I need to buy more."

"More what?" Morris asked over his shoulder, pulling on his pajama pants with a hiss of pain.

Rhidi scooted both the many used wrappers and box out of view, instead pulling on her underwear and shifting her tail into place in the waist band. "Nothing. Want to get dinner?"

"After we check in? Sure. If they don't have something ready for us, the Droppers are going to riot." Morris said, turning around to watch Rhidi pull her own pajamas up and over her yellow furred rump.

Rhidi turned to look at him, tying the waist into place with a smile. "What?"

"Nothin'." Morris said, smiling at her in a way that made her face hot again. "Nothing at all."