Hello everyone, dear fellow humans! I am here once again to forge these my memories of my early days as the coolest human on Earth, the first to open her heart and soul to a Akken, helping to forge a new era for us and our… our worlds…
I'm sorry … Hehehehe… I can't go on!
Today it isn't Fiore who is writing, no sir. Fiore is right now in the cargo bay of my dear, precious and best ship in Acheron's diplomatic fleet, the Midnight Swarroff… why was I saying all this? Oh yeah, that Fiore was helping her parents and siblings carry everything they were going to take to Acheron on the first trip. I have offered them help, several times too! Unfortunately it seems that Albert's human pride is greater than I thought and he has managed to convince Fiore that he and his brothers are more than strong enough to carry and secure everything for the trip. (I think that more than convince her, Fiore has decided to give in to avoid the argument)
At least they have been attentive to my instructions on how to activate the projected barriers so that the furniture does not move during the trip ... it isn't that I'm going to turn my precious baby into that thing of those that you humans have... roller coaster? That should be.
The best pilot of the diplomatic fleet has standards to uphold, even more in front of my family's family.
I suppose that by now you will have been able to deduce who I am, even so I believe that I will allow myself to introduce myself properly. My name is Melia Nazub, personal pilot of the KJCMCF team, future expert in Earth sports and I suppose now it is impossible not to be obvious but I am an Akken.
Great change from that little hybrid that you are used to reading, right? The real deal is present, in all its enormous figure! Please, if you are still here after that attempt to imitate human colloquial language, let me explain the reason for my presence.
As you are, I am one more reader of Fi's memories, technically I am the second reader (Fiore sent me the draft before posting it on the internet). And since in addition to being a reader I am one more character in this story, one who has been there watching those two idiots all this years, I have taken Fi's account while she was with her mother and father in the town hall to tell you the truth about what happened the first night.
Because enough is enough that Fiore makes you believe that she handled the situation with security and confidence! The truth and the whole truth is that Janivell and Fiore were and are the spitting image of that meme that humans have ... what was it called ... AH YES!
Useless lesbians!
Let's go back to the last memory of their first meeting, okay? Specifically after closing the door of the ship to begin preparing the connection with Acheron. We were all extremely nervous, the satellite prepared on the edge of your solar system was the latest model and none of us had had time to do tests ... Keep my secret but until a few minutes before landing we were still preparing Kalliah's first speech and deciding how we were going to get behind her. Good times with no established protocol ... I hate protocol.
After the appearance the five of us went straight to the ship's kitchen / meeting room, none of us finding words for what we just experienced. And as fast as the climate change of your planet we all burst into talk, talking non-stop interrupting our speeches among us, the experience we just had to be so overwhelming that Kalliah and Caedence burst into tears.
All ... except Janivell who was totally silent in an unusual way for her! And I can promise you that I have worked with her many years before and many after, and if there is something that Janivell does not stand out for, it is to respect the speaking turn of others.
"Janivell, Jani!" I remember Caedence became concerned about the third attempt to get Janivell to answer us, and after a fourth attempt our dear friend decided to bring Janivell back to Ache- to Earth, sorry. Bringing her back means in this context shaking her by the shoulders and slapping her.
Janivell then emitted the most ... feminine cry, do you call it? I'm very sorry for all these doubts but I try to use your language as much as possible and the issue of gender is something that I still have trouble remembering how it works. Coming back just a seconds before, the most in love cry I've ever heard, flopping back onto her seat while holding both hands to her chest. "HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN HER?!" The scream was thunderous, I don't know how any human outside the ship avoided hearing it. "HOLY EPHION, how can such a beautiful human exist?!"
"...who? There were a lot of humans out there, and I still can't quite distinguish who belongs to which gender," I asked, trying to mentally review the assistants in Janivell's visual field. (All Akken naturally possess what you call an eidetic memory)
“In the left sector of the party, third woman in the elevated booth next to the entrance of the great building, the one wearing helmets and wearing a dark blue ball gown! FUCKING HOLY EPHION: PLEASE TAKE ME WITH YOU!" Janivell yelled while Calrie prepared the panoramic images of the contact gala on the projector (don't be angry but we were recording everything at all times until we left the planet ... mainly for the protection of us the crew) until she focused on the person who had affected my friend so much. And as soon as he saw her, Janivell let out an even louder cry. "THAT IS! THE ONE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR! SHE WAS LOOKING AT ME!"
The remaining four crew members looked at each other, none understanding what was happening beyond the obvious. I don't mean to offend Fiore but… but she wasn't particularly remarkable on a first visual impression, no more than good… any of the female humans in the same overhead surveillance room. “Of course she has stared at you, Jani… everyone has stared at us like that! We are literally giants compared to them!" I aimed wisely, or so I think.
"Not that kind of scared and dreaded look, you idiot!" All this… I think it is evident that we were speaking it in our language, so it is more than anything an approximation using similes in English. Believe me, the insult that Janivell used was much, much more serious than idiotic. "It was something else ... I don't know how to say it ... I haven't felt anything like this in my entire fucking life!"
"Janivell, we've been out there for literally 30 Earth minutes ... tell me that's not what I think you're trying to express," Kalliah said, sighing and starting to tuck her hair back, a gesture that means she is beginning to give in to the pressure. Janivell sighed in agreement without raising his head, his gaze fixed on the image of Fiore. “GREAT, ABSOLUTELY GREAT! We have only had two conversations with humanity officially and we already have a first love between aliens, love at first sight between Akken and humans! You couldn't have left that for… what do I know… ANY OTHER TIME, IDIOT?!" This insult was even worse than the previous one.
Janivell denied getting up from his seat, walking slowly until he was in front of the projection. "It doesn't make sense, okay? I know perfectly well! I know we are two different species even though we are physically so alike- ”
“Except that they are practically a tenth of our height and who knows what the difference in weight will be! Humans do not seem to possess a quarter of body mass in proportion to us,” Caedence pointed out quickly.
"I already know that too! It's the first thing I thought when I saw her looking at me! She is so… small… but at the same time just looking at her has made my heart stop more than before when we finally entered Earth's atmosphere! She is small but her beauty has made me lose contact with reality for a moment, has made it possible that for a thousandth of a second on Earth there would be no one else here but both of them… it is just what my míma described when she met my díma! You had to feel the same when you met Yve, right?!"
Caedence then lowered her head, silently admitting those same feelings years ago. At that time I had not felt that yet but I knew the description of the "moment" well, I suppose that humans will also have something similar when your heart finds the right person. "I'm so happy for you, Janivell…" Kalliah admitted with a sigh, reaching over to put a hand on her close friend's shoulder. "But it had to be now?! We don't know who she is and we have no way of finding out! The last thing we can do now is give the impression that our intentions are not 100% peaceful by starting to ask for identity and their presence on our ship of random humans! For some reason humans are absolutely terrified of being abducted and any wrong move will make us the target of their fury! This is partly why I have prepared a little joke as a gift, so that they see that we are not dangerous"
Janivell knew perfectly well, all of us actually, that Kalliah was totally right in that situation. "I'm going to ignore my heart for a while, Kalliah ... for the sake of the mission and the future of our worlds," Kalliah couldn't resist throwing herself into hugging her friend and co-founder of the Mission to celebrate her reasoning, just in time to find herself Janivell staring at her with his arms crossed. "But you have to promise me one thing, okay?"
"The what?"
“Ephion is capricious and we all know that if there is one thing he enjoys, it is playing with destiny. If there is only one chance, a small and real one, that I can speak to that human ... will you allow me to introduce myself not as an official Acheron emissary ... but as myself? I can swear it in the name of our empire, Kalliah, I know what I'm feeling"
"Of course, why not? Not only that, I offer to get that if that human corresponds to you, she can accompany us back to Acheron! I even offer to get permission to make your wedding official as a representative of Ephion! You know why I'm so sure of making so many promises, right?" Kalliah smiled, placing both hands on Janivell's cheeks. "Because there is exactly 0% chance in which a situation occurs in which you and that human can speak in person"
To this day Kalliah has kept her promises and honored them, I must admit that. And that getting permission to officiate a wedding on behalf of Ephion is not easy at all!
Hello again, I'm still Melia! I'm sorry for the interruption, I had to run to the cargo hold to rescue Fiore's brother, I think it was Alex. A piano had fallen on him, I didn't want to ask how.
Although now that I see it… you have no way of seeing that there has been an interruption in this written journal. You should trust that this bar above is the equivalent of a 7 Earth minutes break. Where were we going? Oh sure, I can see it just above.
With her previous promises in mind, Kalliah had to swallow her pride when precisely Fiore was among the translators who were going to help us finalize the translator program for the next Earth day. Caedence, Calrie and I had to use all our will not to start laughing at the wrinkle of concern that formed on Kalliah's neck, and most of all not to laugh at the "courtship" between Janivell and Fiore. Reviewing the chapter where the two meet in person for the first time I have noticed a deliberate lack of dialogue omitted by Fiore, and I think it was a human who said the phrase: "I will publish the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth!"
Do you want to know what they said? There it goes, enjoy it!
Janivell: Good… evening… night...
Fiore: Hey… I say good night to you too! And welcome to… to… Mars… no god! To Earth! Welcome to Earth!
Janivell: Nice to be here, precious human… precious human! I wanted to say ... precious humans who are kindly going to help us save the destiny of our worlds and the Milky Way ... ignore that, I don't know why I said something like that. I don't want to downplay it either! I know how important this moment is for you humans and I want to be able to kindly receive on behalf of Acheron, the Via Lactea, the universe ...
Fiore: I hope to be helped ... help! I hope I can help and live up to it! I have no doubt that with how huge and sexy you are, your program will make a fool of our biggest supercomputers! ... JUST HUGE, I DIDN'T MEAN TO OFFEND YOU WITH MY COMMENT ... IT WAS JUST A MOMENTARY SLIP, I SWEAR! I ... I'm not objectifying women out there, I'm a progressive woman looking for gender equality!
I am sure that if the human man with the funny accent that I never remember the name had not run to end the conversation the thing would have ended with Fiore denying being homophobic and Janivell had ended up receiving humanity on behalf of the space-time fabric.
What a pair of idiots, it's like they were made for each other from the first glance!
The rest of us watched in silence, the humans who accompanied Funny Accent and Fiore going from fear and respect to disbelief, fear and slight anger at Fi's behavior. (Maybe that was the result of Fi being the youngest in the group for almost 10 years, I understand that humans are quick to marginalize and criminalize someone, whether because of their age, gender or variant of the species)
The purpose of this special meeting, I remind you, was to give some final touches to our Aekun-Earthly translation program, a variation of the program that we use in our schools when our daughters participate in programs of interaction with other civilizations and planets. Time was running against us (mainly because the parliament in Acheron was already assembled and prepared, awaiting the remaining 8 Earth hours debating minor laws) and Funny Accent decided to take the reins by beginning to separate its workers into groups, each one reviewing in the holographic displays prepared by Kaliah for different parts of the program.
Each revision passed to the central console of Janivell and Caedence who were in charge of the real bulk of the work: Updating all the information that 27 humans constantly gave them and testing that everything worked correctly after each update. Hard work, right? Hard and constant work that did not leave a second of freedom for Janivell and Fiore to continue the initial conversation attempt, especially since Funny Accent had expressly decided to sit next to Fiore for… how do you say humans? Keep her by the leash? Is that even a colloquial expression? It doesn't matter really, just knowing English, Chinese and Spanish to understand your sports is enough for me.
I have never seen Fiore or Janivell work harder than that night, both sweating (Akken don't sweat as easily as you humans, that's more than enough for you to understand the enormous work I was putting in for Janivell and Caedence) and “typing ” In their respective jobs. In case you were wondering, I was in charge of the surveillance, both inside and outside the ship.
I didnt like to be so passive seeing my friends so stressed but Kalliah insisted that my work was much more important ... I hope you do not get angry but the Herald of Acheron was very specific with not letting any human approach the ship, something that humans are very prone to crossing the boundaries of basic hospitality.
This continued steadily until 5 in the morning: 5 hours of stolen glances, cheeks flushed every time their eyes met, Funny Accent constantly having to shake Fiore's shoulder to get her back to focus on his work, Caedence constantly hitting his ankle from Janivell discreetly under the table to get him back to work…
A constant waltz between two morons who had met beyond the stars.
Ummm… no, technically at the time they were in the same star orbit.
A constant waltz between two morons born on either side of the galaxy who had met in the same world, the same place, the same room.
The fire that burned within both of them burned the sanity of Kalliah and Funny Accent, the scene before us and the humans would lead one of them years later to inspire one of the first highest grossing Akken-Terrestrial films in the history of both planets.
As you are, friends! "Alive in the name of love" is written by one of the translators who was on the ship that night!
The night was slowly coming to an end, the program was already revised and almost 95% updated. The excuse to continue seeing each other was fading before them, none of them knowing how to force a last word, a last look! Funny Accent announced aloud that everything was ready, all that was left was for Janivell to introduce the latest modifications and we could all go back to bed. (At that time, Funny Accent still didn't know about the differences in the dream cycles of our races)
The slight murmur of the humans ended as everyone looked at Janivell, expectant to see how the progress bar floated on the wall reached 100% ... And that meant that Janivell had no escape!
At that moment the miracle happened, the miracle that changed everything friends.
Springing up as fast as possible, Fiore took a step back so that Funny Accent couldn't catch her. "WAIT A MINUTE!" Fiore screamed with all her might, her arms extended towards Janivell to emphasize what she was about to say. “There is… there is an error that remains to be solved! In the human expressions, Spanish section!!"
"And why haven't you said it before ?! We had finished reviewing the Earth expressions an hour and a half ago!" Funny Accent screamed so furious that his eyes were bloodshot (something that apparently happens to humans) and his entire face was red. "Kalliah! ..." Funny Accent shouted again before realizing that he was talking to an Akken and not one of his humans. Trying to maintain control as much as possible, Funny Accent snorted holding his chest. "I'm sorry I screamed, Kalliah ... would it be possible ... would it be possible to see where the mistake this downright idiot has made?"
Kalliah nodded without saying anything, amazed at the intensity that humans could feel. Surprised ... and excited otherwise. With a quick glance at Janivell this quickly went to Search-
No! Don't you dare skip any details!! Tell them everything! Tell them what I said, it is very important to understand my master play!
Fiore! When have you ...-
I have returned to my parents a while ago and my brothers say that you've been yelling at the microphone for a while in an extremely excited way, so I came to see what happened.
Are you angry? I'm not trying to sabotage your memories, just… Holy Ephion, I feel like my míma caught me eating in the kitchen on the sly. I'm sooo sorry! Let me erase-
Don’t even think about it!! A whole chapter written by an Akken? God, Melia! That's amazing!
My memories are not just something that I want to write about my history so that the day I am a real Akken I can continue to remember the human that I once was ...
My memories are something that I want to serve so that both humans and Akken see what happens when there are no barriers of preconceived fear! That ... and laugh at how idiotic we were when we were young! I know we are still somewhat idiots but that is something to deal with at another time.
Please tell me about my great moment in great detail, I want you to see who the real fucking boss is between me and my version of that terrible movie and that I am not going to advertise.
Got it, mini-boss!
Kalliah commanded Janivell with a look that she will start looking for that supposed error, something the Akken obeyed while both of them thought it would be a simple minor typo due to the high speed at which she and Caedence had been working all night.
Lines of text sped past through her, everyone waiting without moving except for one person determined to change the course of her life and history.
Although Funny Accent tried to grab Fiore to sit her back in her seat, she managed to get away and run across the huge table until she was physically next to Janivell, human and Akken, staring at each other while a certain suspicion in them held their hands away from each other. "Have you ... have you found it?" Fiore asked almost breathlessly, the difference in size coming into play more than ever that night.
Janivell didn't answer as her eyes continued to race through the lines of code, scanning faster than some human computers for any errors ... until her pupils froze in place, her gaze fixed on an expression that nothing corresponded to the translation.
"Have you found it, Janivell?" Kalliah asked, walking until she was behind her seat, leaning on her shoulders to approach the holographic screen. Janivell nodded slowly as Kalliah understood that no matter how close she was, she was not going to be able to find the mistake, the words too small and written in a way that she without almost any programming experience could decipher. "Can we know what it is? Do you have an easy solution? We're running out of time.”
Janivell slowly shook her head, her eyes still locked on the sentence, her lips and throat slowly drying in disbelief. (Something that happens to us Akken)
“Agg, damn it, Jani! Caedence, can you see what happens?!" Kalliah grunted as she sprinted around the table to get behind her, Funny Accent starting to hyperventilate from the tension.
Caedence moved her screen away with a wave of her hand, drawing her finger over Janivell's screen to see what was happening. And while Janivell remained silent, this time looking at Fiore, Caedence found the error by repeating her friend's reaction. "Oh, come on! Tell me what's going on right now!" Kalliah growled angrily. Caedence slowly raised her hand to point out the mistake Kalliah read aloud, first quickly and slowly slowing down.
“I know it's rushed and I'm not sure if this will mean the same to you Akken ... but here I go, Janivell Mika. I ... you ... I love you ...”
Silence reigned over everyone, no one moved even slower as we all tried to understand what had just happened. Janivell's lips curled in confusion, pointing with the thumb of her hand furthest from Fiore.
Fiore nodded slowly, sweating like I've never seen her sweat!
At the time, I'm sure Kalliah and Funny Accent wanted to interrupt what was happening in an attempt to avoid the more than possible interplanetary scandal that followed. And despite wanting it with all their might, neither could interrupt the next words between Fiore "Fucking Boss" and Janivell.
Janivell: No… I don't know your name…
Fiore: Does that matter?
Janivell: No. My name is Janivell ... and I think I love you, unknown human ...
Fiore: My name is Fiore ... and I think I love you too, incredible akken ...
Fucking smooth, Fiore, so fucking smooth. My heart trembles just remembering it… Seeing you so small yet so fucking huge in front of all of us, daring to do what no one in their right mind would dare, seeing Janivell lose her mind for you… A fucking master class on how to declare your love!
20 years together and going up will support me, Melia. I will never regret knowingly sabotaging the translation program. And I should point out that it was an "error" easy to solve, don't go now thinking that I am some kind of criminal!
And what about that time we got drunk and-
All in due time, Melia… every story has its moment.