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“Oh—you got a fertilized one,” Gur’fas answered before Nox could say anything. “That’s supposed to be good luck—it hardly ever happens,” he added.
“A fertilized one? So this thing inside the candy stuff isn’t a fruit? It’s an egg?” Seline demanded.
Nox shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling with the motion.
“I thought you knew,” he rumbled.
“No—I thought it was a kind of plum wrapped in candy dough!” Seline exclaimed. “I had no idea I was eating a living Scotch egg!”
As she spoke, the tiny pink inhabitant of the flur’fa hopped out of the remains of the candy and purple shell and perched on her arm.
“Peep-a-cheek? Peep-a-cheek?” it chirped, cocking its head to one side as it stared at Seline with its big, adorable, puppy dog eyes.
“Oh dear… What does it want? What do I do with it?” Seline looked at the tiny creature uncertainly. It was fluffing out its wings as it held onto her arm with two twig-like, purple legs.
“Oh, nothing—flur’fa chicks can take care of themselves,” Gur’fas assured her absently—he was still absorbed in studying the rare chips. “Once they imprint on you, they simply come and go as they please—though they always return to their ‘mother’—which is to say, the person they’ve imprinted on.”
“Imprinted on? But what if I don’t want him to imprint on me?” Seline demanded.
She loved animals and had been devastated to leave her cat, Mr. Floofums, with her ex when they divorced. But she’d been starting a whole new life on the Mother Ship and she didn’t think it was fair to drag an animal into the new arrangement. Especially when Mr. Floofums had a fit just going to the vet—let alone moving all the way to a spaceship orbiting the moon.
Since then, she hadn’t even thought of getting a new pet because she was too busy doing missions for the Kindred. And she didn’t see how an alien animal could fit into their current mission now—especially since it had gone so wrong and they were currently in a parallel universe and trying to get home.
“If you don’t want the chick to imprint on you, don’t feed it,” Gur’fas advised her.
As he spoke, the chick leaned over and pecked at the candy dough covering of the purple shell Seline was still holding in her hand.
“Too late, I think,” Nox rumbled, watching as the chick ate another piece of the doughy white stuff and then another and another. “Seline, I think you have a new pet.”
“But I can’t—this isn’t supposed to happen!” Seline protested. “I’m sorry, little guy, but you can’t stay with me,” she informed the flur’fa chick. She didn’t know why she thought of it as a “he”—the little creature just seemed male.
In response, the flur’fa chick stretched its wings and launched itself off her wrist to fly above their heads.
“Oh…I guess he listened to me,” Seline remarked. She felt a little sad—the chick had been ridiculously cute with its big puppy dog eyes and sharp, pointed, fox ears. But she supposed it was for the best. She really couldn’t have a pet during this mission when they—
Her thoughts cut off abruptly as the flur’fa chick zoomed down and landed neatly on her shoulder. He rubbed his tiny, fluffy cheek against Seline’s cheek and peeped softly in her ear.
“Peep-a-cheek? Peep-a-cheek?”
“Oh, my…” Seline reached up to stroke the soft pink feathers carefully with one fingertip.
“You were saying?” Nox asked, arching one black eyebrow at her.
“I was…I guess I was saying that he’s kind of cute, you know?” Seline sighed. “Though I don’t know how he’s going to fit into all this.”
“Don’t worry—as I said, flur’fa chicks can fend for themselves. They get their own food and find a place to nest every night. I should know—I’ve had the stall right next to Fendalli for years now,” Gur’fas told her. He had placed the gold-edged chips she’d given him in a special locked box and now he slid a pile of silver-edged chips across the counter to her. “There you are, Mistress—you can count them if you’d like.”
“Thank you. Nox—would you please count them?” Seline was still preoccupied by the tiny pink bird-creature on her shoulder. As he rubbed his soft cheek against hers, a new worry entered her mind. “Er—how do you, you know, housebreak them? Flur’fa chicks, I mean?” she asked Gur’fas. “I mean, I don’t need him leaving dropping on my dress,” she added.
“Oh, that’s not how the flur’fa chick’s system works,” the cred merchant assured her. “They don’t excrete waste like most beings—they simply shed it as down, from their feathers.”
He nodded at the chick, who had decided to hop down to the counter and watch as Nox counted the pile of silver-edged cred chips. Suddenly, he picked one up in his beak and took off with it, soaring above the crowd.
“Hey—that was a ten-cred chip he took!” Seline exclaimed. “Where does he think he’s going?”
