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ritualistic-raven · 6 years ago

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The Miys, Ch. 16

This is the shorter of the two chapters I wrote this week, clocking in at a wee 1875 words. What a big difference from chapters 3 and 5, which were less than 900 words combined! In this chapter, we have more of my non-verbal autistic character, and I really hope I did him justice. If I have any fans who are on the spectrum, your feedback would be absolutely invaluable so I can edit this and make necessary changes to my next chapter.

Also, full credit to @seperis, from whose work I totally cribbed “Insert Winter Holiday of Choice”. I did not make that up, I took it from their series Down to Agincourt (Very awesome, huge work, please go find it on ao3 and read all of it. Like, rightnow. I’ll be here when you get back).

“Mac the Christmas Cat” became quite popular on the ship, unsurprisingly. Within an hour of the clip being made publicly available to the ship, Mac had become the ship’s official harbinger of Insert Winter Holiday of Choice Here. Within a day, I was starting to worry if the Miys was capable of a mass-aneurysm. It just did not understand Terran humor and was constantly rubbing its smaller hands together in any given body, a gesture I learned was the equivalent of a human pinching the bridge of their nose.

“I don’t understand the humor of a cat riding a tampered cleaning droid,” Noah huffed next to me as we walked down the corridor a week before the holiday.

“Well, it’s the two individually,” I started as I tried to get my thoughts together. While I knew they were capable of seeing what was going on in my mind, we had established that conversations were easier when I spoke, so that the Miys knew which thoughts to focus on. “First, you have the idea of ‘Mac the Christmas Cat’. While there is nothing particularly festive about Mac, he came to my quarters in the midst of a conversation around the holidays. Add to that the fact that there are several winter holidays celebrated on Earth, and a big, friendly black cat is a really good compromise for an avatar of a generic holiday. The tampered Roomba is an old Terran memetic device, so most people on board are delighted just as an automatic reaction. Put the two together, and the combination appeals to just about everyone on the ship. Terrans really do delight in the absurd.” I gestured at a small, shrub-like plant in the corner that had not been there the day before. “That’s new.”

My observation only elicited a groan from the massive hippo-spider next to me. “Human Conor and Human Derek have been very – efficient – I see. They have been relocating coniferous botanicals of various sizes all over the ship. I also suspect they are behind the improper appropriation of lights and large requisitions of various papers.”

“Christmas trees and lights, Noah. They are very important!” I failed to keep a smile off my face. “And I hate to be the one to tell you, but the wrapping paper is me. It’s custom to exchange gifts in most cultures, and we cover them in pretty paper first so that we can have them on display and build anticipation. I’m just more… enthusiastic, than most, about wrapping gifts.”

“Do you mean the paper sculptures you made this morning?”

“Mmm hmm. They are actually folded around gifts.”

“I will concede. The paper sculptures are actually pretty impressive.”

“Thank you.”

As we continued our walk, I saw several more trees, some already decorated, along with lights that were strung up in a few of the public areas. Bows of all different colors were suspended in every available corner, by whom I had no idea but I suspected that was Sam. His favorite form of stimming was making intricate knots and the most beautiful bows. Noah and I were approaching a bend in the corridor, when I suddenly heard a thickly accented cry of “Bring me… a SHRUBBERY!” followed by shuffling and a mumbled “thanks, mate.” The Miys next to me sighed again – they were definitely picking up more and more human mannerisms – as I stifled a giggle.

True to my suspicions, around the bend was Conor, Derek, and a flat cargo transport full of potted trees. Conor was adjusting the tree slightly per Derek’s signed directions. I schooled my face before clearing my throat gently. The Irishman stood up suddenly with an expression like a spooked horse, while Derek just dropped his hands and lowered his head, back still toward me. “Why am I not surprised to find you two distributing trees?”

“Sophie – “

“Councillor, Conor. I’m here in my official capacity.”

“Councillor, then. Insert Winter Holiday of Choice is in less a week! We need the decorations out, ASAP.” He glanced down at Derek’s flying hands. “And Derek says you secretly love it. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that part.”

“Derek, please turn around. You two aren’t in trouble, I just want to make sure things don’t go overboard.” Derek did turn around, but kept his face down towards the ground. “Now, just how many of these trees are there?”

Conor just scratched his neck and started to find the ceiling incredibly fascinating. When I looked at Derek, he shuffled before responding. <400. 200 fake 200 real. Allergies.>

“Oh,” I was slightly surprised. I looked up at Noah. “That’s not so bad. The artificial trees can go back into resource allotment after the holiday. Only half the trees are real. Apparently, they were being considerate of people with allergies.”

“The pollen will make extra work for the atmospheric scrubbers, Wisdom.”

“Actually, the trees are immature and don’t produce pollen, Noah,” Conor corrected. “The allergen concern is around the sap: it’s very strong smelling, and some people have bad reactions when they touch it.”

“And how did you successfully determine who has these reactions?” If it had been my sister speaking, an arched eyebrow would have accompanied that tone.

Apparently Conor heard the same thing, because he blanched slightly at the question. “Well, about that. You see – “

<I got them from medical> Derek interrupted.

“But you aren’t assigned to medical, Human Derek.”

I sighed and placed a hand on Noah’s lower shoulder. “Derek, did you hack into the ship’s medical data again?”

“You cannot keep doing that. It’s a violation of their privacy. They don’t want someone else looking at their medical records, just like you don’t want the Miys placing recording equipment in your quarters. We talked about this.”

<This was faster. Are you going to put recorders in my quarters?> His hands trembled slightly now.

“What? Cheese and rice, no. You don’t want them, they aren’t going in there. End of story. We respect your privacy. I need you to respect other people’s privacy, okay?”

I ran a hand down my face. Truth be told, Derek was only a teenager. Which meant he spent the majority of his life in the After. To him, the concept of ‘in trouble’ was terrifying. It was a constant struggle when he did things he shouldn’t. Disciplinary action was one thing, but the first time we used the term ‘in trouble’, he actually thought we were going to torture him.

“You’re grounded from Mac. For two weeks this time. And you have to fix every hole you used to get into the medical database. Don’t bother leaving any back doors, I’m going to have Zachary Khan triple check it this time.”

<Mac will be sad> he tried to wheedle.

“Mac will be fine. He’s a celebrity now, so he’ll get plenty of attention.”

<But Christmas> Damn it, he had me there. It would be monstrous to keep Derek from his best friend on Christmas.

“Get the database fixed, let me have Zach check it out, and I’ll consider visiting privileges on Christmas.”

<Fine>

“And Zach is going to make sure you deleted the data you took.”

<Fuck. I hoped you forgot that part>

“Nice try, but no dice, dude. Now, y’all get the rest of those trees up. Conor, don’t let him get into any more trouble, please? You’re supposed to be an adult.”

Conor waved us off with a cheeky grin as he and Derek headed to their next drop off point. Noah made a sweeping gesture at them as they departed before asking “Why do you encourage their behavior? This entire ‘holiday’ seems a dreadful waste of resources. Wars have been fought over it in your past. And yet, all of you insist on continuing the practice. I find I am baffled.”

“As far as continuing the holiday: Wars were never actually fought over the existence of a winter holiday. Sure, there is an entire group of things that are termed ‘The War on Christmas’, but that was really just a sort of social campaign in the early days of the Political Correctness movement. We were treating the symptoms while we worked on solving the overall problem of non-tolerance. So, you had a very vocal group of people who believed Christmas was the only proper winter holiday, who spoke out against anything that was meant to include people who celebrated any of the other winter holidays. At the time, I’m sure it was quite important to them, but looking back now, it’s really rather silly. Eventually, as people became more tolerant of those who believed in different religions or none at all, the so-called war fizzled out. We continue it here because it is really a celebration of hope in most religions, maybe all. And what better time to have hope than on an alien ship, saved from our collapsing world, on our way to set up a colony twelve-hundred light years away? It’s amazing, really.

“And that’s honestly why I encourage Conor and Derek. And Sam. And anyone else who is throwing their efforts behind celebrating the holiday. Because it is uniting us, it gives us hope, it makes us focus more on our fellow beings than on ourselves. The holiday is really a celebration of all the best parts of humanity, and we could use that. We’re having to start over, and it would help if we remember that we are worth saving. The rest of the Council agrees with me. So, in all public spaces, we have Insert Winter Holiday of Choice, with Mac the Cat as it’s face. Festive decorations of all colors, foliage, lights, just wonderful cozy good will all over the place. In private spaces, each person or family celebrates whatever holiday they observe personally, and include anyone they wish to. Which reminds me, there is a proposal I need to discuss with you regarding the public dining areas: the Council has approved a motion to have each dining area serve traditional food aligned with one of the various holidays, sort of a cultural exchange. How would we best go about doing that?”

The Miys buzzed as it thought the problem over. “Ideally, you would have someone from each religion go to their respective dining area and ensure the consoles are programmed to serve the needed foods. Do you have sufficient programmers prepared for the task?” The humans on board had shown a remarkable preference for learning to do everything on the ship, and performing as many of the tasks as they could on their own. The Miys had already suspended three-quarters of its bodies due to the lack of work for it to perform.

“Well, I have a few. I could probably get Derek to help, and use that to shorten his restriction from Mac.”

“That was an incredibly cruel punishment, Wisdom,” the Miys teased.

I threw my hands up in mock defense. “Hey! What he did would have been a felony in the Before, and he would have been locked in a prison for a long time given how many times he’s done it in the past. Grounding him from my cat was really not as bad as it could have been.”

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