Challenge #01476-D015: Historical Hysterical First

the madness has begun -- MaxMundan

The Tri'li'ol had heard the news. Having a human aboard a vessel, especially a vessel in uncharted regions of space, was good luck. Even though they were Deathworlders, they were a statistical anomaly. They would pack-bond with the crew, adjust their interactions for the benefit of others, and generally behave themselves. And if one human aboard a vessel was good luck, then more had to be better.

And it worked. For a short time.

Nobody else had explored with multiple humans. Nobody else had gone so deep for so long. And absolutely nobody knew what happened to multiple humans in an enclosed space for far, far too long.

C'rrt woke first to the noise of human music. It was tribal in nature, with a heavy beat and some high-pitched noises that bordered on painful. Ze investigated the ship for the source of the noise and found that the Mess Hall was... well... just that. A gigantic mess.

The aim had been to be colourful. Reels of wire ribbon had been unrolled to string it all around the hall in sagging loops. Some of it was tied in bows. The lights had been painted over in varying colours and programmed to flicker randomly. And in the middle of it, were the humans. Wearing ridiculously-coloured and hastily-fabricated cones on varying parts of their bodies, but mostly on their heads. One of them was wearing some sort of scarf made out of bright pink feathers. Another was wearing a glaringly yellow tuutuu.

"What is happening?" asked C'rrt. Ze had to shout to be heard over the music.

"We're having a Flakkit party," cheered the nearest human. They were gyrating bizarrely, and vaguely in time with their... music.

"A... flakkit... party?"

The humans chorused, "Flakk it, let's party!"

One of them swung C'rrt into their arms, and danced with hir. "Come on. We got nibbles, we got music. We got decorations. It's all good!"

C'rrt felt a peculiar elation overcome hir. It was the difference between not caring about anything and not having anything to cause care. And gradually, the needs of the ship were outweighed by the need to have some fun for a change.

Security Officer T'k't, investigating a mere half-hour later, found the Mess Hall thronging with dancing humans and crew. He had just enough time to send a text message to the Captain. It read, verbatim, the madness has begun as he did not have time for the formalities of a proper message.

The... 'flakkit party' wound down after all the humans exhausted themselves and the remaining crew recovered their sensibilities. A similar incident would not occur again for some Standard Months[1]. This was Galactic Society's first encounter with Silly Season. It would not be their last.

[1] The Galactic Standard Calendar holds a twenty-four hour Day, a ten-day Week, a four-week Month, and a ten-month Year. This is only confusing to Terrans.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Rastan

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