Challenge #01488-D027: Unrealised, Unrequited, Unrecognised
“If [he][1] was unable to see that I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven)…” - Carrie Fisher -- RecklessPrudence
Lyr watched Ambassador Shayde attempting to flirt with Rael. The impossible force against an oblivious stone. There had been more than one instance of interspecies dating that floundered heavily on the sending a signal stage. And not merely because of cultural difference. Subconscious body-speak could cause the most inconvenient miscommunications.
One species' flirting is another's aggressive manoeuvre. And in Rael's case, all signals were lost in the aether because he didn't even know what was sexy for his own species. ELF's whose essential data were proprietary information had a lot of that problem. Once every other decade or so, someone had the bright idea to make The Enlisted Man again, or create some gene-slave that bordered on the very cusp of legal. What followed when such efforts were discovered... Chaos was the mildest term. Rael faced years of legal purgatory with unreleased infants held hostage in cryostorage and essential medical information debated over as intellectual property of a company that was, in essence, dancing as hard as it could to stay out of the coals in their shoes.
The end result was that everyone on the station could tell that Shayde had a Thing for Rael. Except for Rael. He was almost more clueless than a writer, missing every obvious signal that Shayde sent. But he caught the occasional signal and attempted to shut her down. He avoided dating. Dating lead to mating. And thanks to the people who made him, he didn't have the slightest idea of what to do or if it would kill him when he got there.
Even the littlest of things could get ugly when one knew that one was the 'most-failure success'[2] test model.
But here was someone clearly in love. She stopped when he told her to stop. She tried her hardest to avoid the behaviours he despised. She even argued that mating didn't need to be in the cards. She wanted him to be happy. And she took care to make sure he had what she knew would cheer him. Which included giving heart-stopping cake recipes to Nik the Gyiik, who ran Unsuitable Food Eat.
Some people spoke to their haptic therapist. Some people spoke to their bartender. Rael spoke to his favourite chef. And Shayde, spoke to Rael. And hardly anyone spoke to Shayde unless they wanted a headache from the culture shock. Weirdly enough, some people sought her out. Her ancient wisdom was so nonsensical that it bordered on zen.
Ambassador Shayde leaned in Rael's general direction and laid her hand on his. Not holding it. That would be too much. And she didn't quite lean into him. Just leaned towards him. He, in turn, shifted his position so that he was leaning slightly in her direction.
It was going to be fun to watch when Rael realised that love was not only possible between him and her, but also that it had been happening for such a long time already.
The two started bickering. Vigorously bickering. Almost to the point of all out war.
Assuming, of course, that they don't kill each other first. Lyr stepped between them to mediate. Ah the good old double-S, double-D. Some things never changed.
[1] Edited out Harrison's name so I could make a better prompt out of this, I do not apologise very hard.
[2] Gengineers working on a new species genome deliberately insert failed or warped genes into their perfect gene model to see which variations are the most tolerable. The test run that has the most genetic flaws and is still viable is the 'most-failure success'. Or the stress-test version. Most euthanise this variant before it achieves consciousness, but Wave of the Future was obviously not that ethical.
[AN: Sorry about the lack of blasts from my past, lately. I dropped the ball, there. They shall be resuming tomorrow.]
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Rastan]
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