SWNOVELS Mandy and the Tentacle Monster: Chapter 6
Tiny is the cutest, cleverest, most adorable pet. Admittedly, I do not have extensive experience with pets, but I am sure mine is objectively the best. She is so smart; I only need to show her anything one time for her to learn it and remember it from then on. Urshteck, who is an expert on all kinds of pets, always speaks of the time and effort it takes to train them. Tiny has pretty much trained herself. All I have to do is maintain a safe and healthy environment for her.
I hum as I pat her head and brush my claws through her hair. The only area she could improve upon is her eating habits. She is neat and clean in all she does, until she enters the dining room. There she will grab fistfuls of noodles in her tiny hand and push them directly into her mouth. This results in getting sauce all over her hands and face. I was hoping she would grow some proper claws so she could eat her food neatly, but they remain short. I decided to start feeding her from my hand, but she objects and resists me.
First and Second find my interactions with her baffling and hilarious. They do not understand why I care if her face is a mess of noodle sauce. To me, it is obvious that she is a pretty and clever little creature. And so, such an undignified, messy face is incongruous with her character. Usually, she will eventually allow me to feed her. When she does, I lavish her with praise. Sometimes I feel like she understands me when I say things like, ‘Good job, Tiny! You are such a good girl!’ She will tilt her head and a small smile will pull up a corner of her plush little mouth.
I have grown quite attached to her. Grooming her, feeding her, and petting her has become the highlight of my days. I do not want to return her to Urshteck. Why should I, when he was going to kill her? It hurts me to think of Tiny’s life snuffed out. And what would he do with her? Trade her to some unknown person who may or may not take proper care of her? I have been thinking about this a lot. I am going to bring it up with First and Second. We will never return to Homeworld 2. After the experiences we have had, we would never be happy in some boring job. Or on a planet where nothing ever seems to happen, and everybody looks and acts the same. They all feel the same about everything and say the same things over and over. We could renounce our citizenship and emancipate ourselves. We could become citizens of the Federated Trader’s Guild instead. My two favorite trade partners, Urshteck and Treem have suggested this course of action to me. They have both renounced their home planets and are now citizens of the guild. I need to learn more about it, but the guild has no home planet, but a series of space stations and one star shield. I have never had reason to follow their advice until now. The many benefits of citizenship are a powerful lure. Especially the access to the manufacturing hub on the star shield. And secured trading grounds on their stations. If we had access to the trading grounds, I would not have to venture onto other ships to trade. Best of all, if we were no longer allegiant to Homeworld 2, I could keep Tiny. I do not understand the taboo against pets. To me, it seems to be a holdover from a more barbaric time. In our distant past, when they first mastered interstellar travel, our ancestors would abscond with some of the aliens they encountered. They were enslaved and compelled to act as breeding hosts. This behavior precipitated two great wars. The last of which culminated in the destruction of the original Homeworld. After peace was sought and reparations were made, my people settled on Homeworld 2. They established a code of conduct for interacting with alien species. Among the many prohibitions in the code, the most stringent is that we may not house or own any slaves or pets. This is overkill. Not the slave part of course, but the part about pets. Non-sentient animals were never sought as breeding hosts. And nobody breeds in the old way anymore. No clutch has been hatched outside of the artificial hosting chambers of our breeding facility on Homeworld 2 in four generations. The very idea of a living host is abhorrent, nobody seeks out a host for clutch anymore.
The reason I want to keep Tiny is that I enjoy taking care of her. Why should I be denied? I take such exemplary care that she would surely miss me if we are forced to part ways.
I am lost in thought as I gather Tiny up and escort her to her nest. The first night she was here I had worried that she might cry all night. Urshteck has spoken of this. Many pets get terribly lonely during their rest period and need to sleep with their owners. I could not have that, so I was prepared to close my earflaps to her suffering. She was fine though. She rooted around in the nesting materials I had left in her pen for a few moments. Then she burrowed in, and went straight to sleep. I was the one who did not rest well. Waking at least four different times, I was compelled to check on her via the camera I have set up in her pen. She was resting peacefully each time. It later occurred to me that it would ease my mind if I moved her nest to my cabin. That is a selfish thought though. Tiny has settled in so well in her pen; it would be a shame to move her when she is already comfortable.
As we approach her pen, the door opens automatically and I huff a surprised gasp. Tiny has decorated her room. She found a set of markers in our storage area a while ago and she must have used them to make these marks on her walls. These markings are very sophisticated, much more so than I would expect from a creature such as Tiny, no matter how clever. I cannot know exactly what I am looking at, but I recognize at least one stylized Urf Oomon like Tiny. There is also a landscape.
My chest warms to a happy pink color. Tiny excels even at nesting. Every animal nest I have ever seen was bare. Except for bedding and litter, I have never known a pet to modify its space in an artistic way. Some will mark floors and walls with deeply scratched grooves. Or they will scent mark their area. What Tiny has done is more than that though. She has decorated with skill and precision. And in a way that even I, someone completely alien to her, can understand.
She notices my attention to her nest, and she pulls on my upper arm, tugging me into her pen.
‘Urf!’ she chirps, waving an arm toward the landscape, ‘Urf! Waater, beeesh! Ooomon, wohman, erf!’ She’s pointing to different aspects of her mural, seeming to vibrate with excitement.
I decide to get her more art supplies to decorate with. She has a talent for it and she seems so happy. She did this with six markers that are not for artistry but marking drill sites for a mining laser. If she had a supply of tools and media for art, she could do so much more. She is tugging me around, showing me, ‘Saahnd, beech, ohchun, urf.’
‘Very nice, Tiny,’ I praise her, patting her head, and petting her mane, ‘Very pretty.’
Her joy seems to seep away at my praise. Her face seems to scrunch up in frustration and disappointment, ‘What is the matter, little one?’
‘Dumeeleeun. Estoopud churk. Ur naughtee ventraying.’ She huffs and chirps at me. She is tired and soon gives up on chirping at me to burrow into her nest.