Chapter 3:
A start of a friendship
I found a buyer for the bittersweet thing. It turns out that it is not unheard of, but still a rare emotion. We, Naga, are creatures of extremes. If we are happy, then we are happy all the way. The bittersweet feeling is something of a half-and-half. Half happiness, half bitterness. Perhaps even with a pinch of sadness.
Anyway, I spend the day playing video games, and role playing with my guild. I need to bottle some happiness. Besides, who’d choose a bittersweet feeling, over being happy? So, when the day is over, I put on the headset, get a playlist with dance songs, and begin to tap my feet.
Yet, my mind keeps wandering back to Daniel. He is a human. Someone I will never meet. Yet, he told me that what I believed in, putting the wellbeing of the Naga over that of the megafauna, was wrong.
He wasn’t even sarcastic about it, as I’d expect him to be. On a whim, I check my email. The one I left on the Tor chat.
There is plenty of spam in there. Sexy singles in my area, something about penis enlargement. Cryptocurrencies. The usual Earth crap. I scroll, until I see the email from Daniel. I open it up, and read the content.
Dear Tine,
I know that you must have been approached with this before, but please — give me the time of day. Your ideas about a Cosmos that hides itself from humanity is both realistic, and something that can become a sci-fi fantasy.
Can you answer a couple of my questions? Are there goblins, out there in Space? Slimes? You say you are a Naga; do you experience problems moving around? Sorry, if the last one was rude.
I offer you my hand in friendship. You have quite the imagination, and I’d like to tap into it.
Kind regards,
Daniel Sanrel.
(This is not my real name, as I’m certain that Constantine is not yours. After all, you are a Naga from a different planet, and Constantine is the name of a Roman Emperor, who started a brand-new empire: Byzantine.)
I see something yellow from the corner of my eye. The bottle has taken onto the bittersweet feeling’s color. I bite my lower lip, and try to think happy thoughts. Yet, it doesn’t work.
I can make a friend...
I can never see my friend...
The feeling threatens to drown me. I mean, I am happy, and I know it. Naga are social creatures. There are Naga who had died because of loneliness. That is why, there are no isolators in our prisons. Rather, we preprogram, instead of doing a traditional prison time.
On a whim, I give this fact to Daniel in a private message. He takes a bit to respond, but when he does, I can only blink at that.
Loneliness can kill humans as well. But first, it drives us insane. - DanielS.
We spend a couple of hours chatting, and I can’t help but think, that there are too many parallels between the humans and the Naga. I mean, I already knew that humans valued family, and liked to believe in a higher power.
He seems to be accepting of the fact that I worship the Great Snake of the Sky. Just as I am accepting that he worships a nameless god, and his son.
Could you please send me a picture of you? - Tine.
I don’t know why I asked him that. It is all too sudden. Yet, I am curious. What is the face that goes together with that open mind of his? What tales will his eyes tell me? I see a photo, and I blink. Huh, I didn’t expect that he’d actually send me something.
He has a soft smile on his lips, which accents the laugh lines under his eyes. I try not to think how those lines mean that he is not exactly the youngest around. Neither am I. Of course, Naga live for 1,000 years, while humans can be lucky, if they reach 100. Myself? I am 100 already, so Daniel is probably younger than I.
His hair is brown, with a slight dusting of white.
It makes it look like a brownie with powder sugar on top of it. I rather like brownies. There is something about the smell of butter that brings me back to the days of my youth, when I would spend the entire day in the trees, watching the birds and trying to hum along to their tune.
But his eyes. They are amber colored. I have seen emotion potions with that color before. Usually, we call them content. There is a twinkle in those eyes, almost hidden, but it can’t escape me. I was looking to see if his smile reaches his eyes, and it does. Before I know it, I smile. The timer beeps, and I look to see what my potion looks like.
I am surprised. It is yellow, with orange bubbles. I think about taking a sip, but then think better of it. Instead, I label it, bitter joy, and leave it at that. My last buyer paid less, than what he would have normally because I drank from the former potion. I really can’t afford to get a price reduction now.
Especially since I am going to donate to try and get the Gigantoboa into Ursula 591. There seem to be eggs still lying around that aren’t fossilized, and the scientists are hopeful that they can hatch them.
Now you. - DanielS.
I drop in a picture of me, from my last birthday party. I look silly in it, still my tail is on display. So is the body paint. Hopefully, the human will think that it is my natural color.
Human baiting might not be illegal, but we can’t ever let the earthlings get close to the truth. They can’t be allowed to call it by its name, instead of thinking it is a fantasy.
Beautiful. - DanielS.
I blink at that. I notice that my headset is loading, and am quick to load another bottle of solvent into the headset. So, I spend the hour chatting with Daniel, as I steal glances at the bottle. It is orange.
Bright orange. I have never seen an orange this bright before. But there is something else. Red bubbles, playing in the solvent, and a red glow around the bottle, despite the liquid turning orange.
It confuses me, but I try not to think about it. Instead, I regale Daniel with some common fairy tales of Ursula 590. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Just the most famous ones: Skippy and the Caltea House, Annie and the Rice Quest, The Naga That Cried Gigantoboa. By the time that the timer beeps again, I have a strange potion on my hand. Still, I don’t feel like selling it. It just seems...wrong to.
Chapter 3:
A start of a friendship
I found a buyer for the bittersweet thing. It turns out that it is not unheard of, but still a rare emotion. We, Naga, are creatures of extremes. If we are happy, then we are happy all the way. The bittersweet feeling is something of a half-and-half. Half happiness, half bitterness. Perhaps even with a pinch of sadness.
Anyway, I spend the day playing video games, and role playing with my guild. I need to bottle some happiness. Besides, who’d choose a bittersweet feeling, over being happy? So, when the day is over, I put on the headset, get a playlist with dance songs, and begin to tap my feet.
Yet, my mind keeps wandering back to Daniel. He is a human. Someone I will never meet. Yet, he told me that what I believed in, putting the wellbeing of the Naga over that of the megafauna, was wrong.
He wasn’t even sarcastic about it, as I’d expect him to be. On a whim, I check my email. The one I left on the Tor chat.
There is plenty of spam in there. Sexy singles in my area, something about penis enlargement. Cryptocurrencies. The usual Earth crap. I scroll, until I see the email from Daniel. I open it up, and read the content.
Dear Tine,
I know that you must have been approached with this before, but please — give me the time of day. Your ideas about a Cosmos that hides itself from humanity is both realistic, and something that can become a sci-fi fantasy.
Can you answer a couple of my questions? Are there goblins, out there in Space? Slimes? You say you are a Naga; do you experience problems moving around? Sorry, if the last one was rude.
I offer you my hand in friendship. You have quite the imagination, and I’d like to tap into it.
Kind regards,
Daniel Sanrel.
(This is not my real name, as I’m certain that Constantine is not yours. After all, you are a Naga from a different planet, and Constantine is the name of a Roman Emperor, who started a brand-new empire: Byzantine.)
I see something yellow from the corner of my eye. The bottle has taken onto the bittersweet feeling’s color. I bite my lower lip, and try to think happy thoughts. Yet, it doesn’t work.
I can make a friend...
I can never see my friend...
The feeling threatens to drown me. I mean, I am happy, and I know it. Naga are social creatures. There are Naga who had died because of loneliness. That is why, there are no isolators in our prisons. Rather, we preprogram, instead of doing a traditional prison time.
On a whim, I give this fact to Daniel in a private message. He takes a bit to respond, but when he does, I can only blink at that.
Loneliness can kill humans as well. But first, it drives us insane. - DanielS.
We spend a couple of hours chatting, and I can’t help but think, that there are too many parallels between the humans and the Naga. I mean, I already knew that humans valued family, and liked to believe in a higher power.
He seems to be accepting of the fact that I worship the Great Snake of the Sky. Just as I am accepting that he worships a nameless god, and his son.
Could you please send me a picture of you? - Tine.
I don’t know why I asked him that. It is all too sudden. Yet, I am curious. What is the face that goes together with that open mind of his? What tales will his eyes tell me? I see a photo, and I blink. Huh, I didn’t expect that he’d actually send me something.
He has a soft smile on his lips, which accents the laugh lines under his eyes. I try not to think how those lines mean that he is not exactly the youngest around. Neither am I. Of course, Naga live for 1,000 years, while humans can be lucky, if they reach 100. Myself? I am 100 already, so Daniel is probably younger than I.
His hair is brown, with a slight dusting of white.
It makes it look like a brownie with powder sugar on top of it. I rather like brownies. There is something about the smell of butter that brings me back to the days of my youth, when I would spend the entire day in the trees, watching the birds and trying to hum along to their tune.
But his eyes. They are amber colored. I have seen emotion potions with that color before. Usually, we call them content. There is a twinkle in those eyes, almost hidden, but it can’t escape me. I was looking to see if his smile reaches his eyes, and it does. Before I know it, I smile. The timer beeps, and I look to see what my potion looks like.
I am surprised. It is yellow, with orange bubbles. I think about taking a sip, but then think better of it. Instead, I label it, bitter joy, and leave it at that. My last buyer paid less, than what he would have normally because I drank from the former potion. I really can’t afford to get a price reduction now.
Especially since I am going to donate to try and get the Gigantoboa into Ursula 591. There seem to be eggs still lying around that aren’t fossilized, and the scientists are hopeful that they can hatch them.
Now you. - DanielS.
I drop in a picture of me, from my last birthday party. I look silly in it, still my tail is on display. So is the body paint. Hopefully, the human will think that it is my natural color.
Human baiting might not be illegal, but we can’t ever let the earthlings get close to the truth. They can’t be allowed to call it by its name, instead of thinking it is a fantasy.
Beautiful. - DanielS.
I blink at that. I notice that my headset is loading, and am quick to load another bottle of solvent into the headset. So, I spend the hour chatting with Daniel, as I steal glances at the bottle. It is orange.
Bright orange. I have never seen an orange this bright before. But there is something else. Red bubbles, playing in the solvent, and a red glow around the bottle, despite the liquid turning orange.
It confuses me, but I try not to think about it. Instead, I regale Daniel with some common fairy tales of Ursula 590. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Just the most famous ones: Skippy and the Caltea House, Annie and the Rice Quest, The Naga That Cried Gigantoboa. By the time that the timer beeps again, I have a strange potion on my hand. Still, I don’t feel like selling it. It just seems...wrong to.
