Submission

An outsider to everything talks about seeing something they shouldn’t, fully knowing the ramifications of their seeing will impact the entire world they live in.

Shayde knew she was on time. She checked the chrono four times after she heard Rael’s voice in the negotiations room. He was, apparently, talking in some variety of Bird. One of the languages that gave her ‘universal translator’ ability trouble. Something about beaks…

This was one of those negotiation rooms that had been repurposed from an interrogation room and, as luck would have it, the neighbouring observation cupboard was empty.

She swallowed her claustrophobia and ducked in for a quick peek.

Rael was talking to a gigantic Rhode Island Red. Six foot tall if he was an inch. Beady little eyes, crest, wattle and shiny black tail feathers.

Sure, the rooster also appeared to be wearing an ornate golden dressing-gown, but he was still a rooster. Shayde ducked back out into the hallway for some better air and tried to think through this.

Five hundred years had passed since she left Earth. More, if you counted time from the one-way wormhole colonies that crossed great physical distance by going backwards in time. Anything could have happened.

She had to say something. Even if it caused a war.

She snagged Rael by the elbow as he emerged and whipped him half a meter down the hall to whisper, “Ye ken ye been talkin’ to a giant chicken, yeh?”

“Ambassador Bu only appears to resemble the Terran bird Avis Domestica…”

Shayde waved a frantic arm at the six-foot bird. “He’s a chicken, I tell ye. A giant chicken.”

Rael cast a pleading gaze at the bird. The bird gently pulled her away from her something-more-than-friend with his wing.

With the scaly, chicken-claw hand that had been hidden by his wing-feathers.

Then he spoke GalStand. He had trouble, because of his beak, but he still spoke. “It’s all right. I get this all the time.”

Shayde boggled. She knew she was boggling. It was just one small step from outright culture shock and screaming down the hallways. Keep it together…

Ambassador Bu trilled out some very un-chicken birdsong.

“Ambassador Bu T! (descending whistle) (low whistle) would like to invite you to lunch and a trade of rude questions,” said Rael. Then he explained, “It’s a regular thing when he manages to disturb someone.”

Public place. Food. And rude questions? How could a gal resist?

[Muase food remaining: 3. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Include anywhere in the story this line: “Anywhere was home, unless the place included her.”

Josie was a wanderer. Anywhere was home, unless the place included her.

She did not use her name. It was always she, her or, in extreme situations, that woman. Just a glimpse of her, just the thought that she might be there, that she might have followed her across oceans, continents, rivers, towns or down the endless roads… had Josie packing her bags and