Part 2: House and Home

Mae was roused from her sleep by a sharp pain in her head. She couldn't open her eyes. Much as she tried, the pulsing and pounding against her skull forbade it. She knew what it was and knew it well. A headache. The worst she'd had in a long time, and it certainly wasn't helped by the cacophony that surrounded her. An assault of loud, weighty laughter came from all sides. She made out three voices, each with their own distinct cadence and location within the vehicle. A man's voice above her head managed to pierce the wall of sound, speaking English in a peculiar accent.

“A PS2? You're blowing smoke!"

A high, somewhat nasally female voice on her right said something in return, unintelligible due to the language barrier in play. A stark reminder that she'd taken her translation earpiece out before she slept last night. Another male's voice came from somewhere above the foot of the bed, stammering over himself while he told his bizarre story.

“Oh, just you wait. This guy, this fucking guy. He takes the PS2, and then he just snaps it in half! With his bare hands!"

“No way." The first voice returned, rattling her head with its volume. The second voice continued.

“He did, I swear to god! Then, oh my life. He takes the top bit, right? And then with, like, no hesitation he goes, and he shoves it right up his-"

Mae hissed in pain as she forced herself upright. The change in altitude left her dizzy, and when she could finally see again, she saw Toby. He was outside of his cabinet, snugly rested on the shelf above the foot of her bed. Despite being pale as ever, he was in good health and high spirits after telling his little story. How she envied him.

Mae craned her head to the opposite shelf to see none other than Cass. She first met him and his guardian when they were studio engineers. Nowadays, he was Toby's bass tech, the band's resident mech operator, and one half of their road crew. He and Toby were similar in height and complexion, but Cass's yellow hair and green eyes were enough for her to tell them apart at a distance.

“Oh, Mae. You're awake." She heard Toby say. His voice was much more pleasant now that he wasn't shouting.

“Yeah, thought you might've died in your sleep or something." Came Cass's voice, playfully chiding her.

“Lay off, Cass." Toby scolded, far too noisily. Her temples flared up again.

“Please. Not so loud." Mae moaned, forehead resting in her palms.

“Oh. Got a headache?" Toby asked, voice much quieter and glazed with worry.

Mae nodded slowly, hoping not to entice more pain. A high-pitched series of indecipherable noises came from the driver's seat behind her. In it sat the other half of the road crew, a light brown Ashar named Endi. She was Cass's Guardian, Mae's drum tech, and the band's part time chauffeur. Her furless hands were locked on the steering wheel, dull amber eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.

The white curving houses indicated they were in the suburbs of Catho: one of Tebeish's busier settlements. A fleshy pink tail crept over the back of the passenger's seat, very nearly brushing against Mae's legs. Endi tried to tell her something, still not realizing her friend lacked an earpiece. Mae put a hand on Endi's shoulder to make sure she was listening.

“I can't. My yutri isn't-" She trailed off, groaning and taking her hand away to nurse her temples.

Endi understood immediately and stretched her arm towards the side of Mae's pillow. Still focused on the passing city streets, she pulled out Mae's earpiece and dropped it into her lap. Mae mumbled some quick thanks and dug the device into her ear.

“Can you hear me now?" Endi asked her, her airy voice now fully understandable.

“Perfectly." Mae said in her native tongue, feeling free to speak it knowing that everybody had their translators on. “How long have I been sleeping?"

“Ten hours." Said Endi.

For a second, Mae was too baffled to feel the pain in her head anymore. That couldn't have been right. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd slept for so long. Yet the ashar were a race known for their inability to lie. If Endi said she slept ten hours, then ten hours she must have slept.

“We all tried to wake you. We really did. Nothing worked. You even slept through the shower." Endi continued, nonchalant as ever. Mae did a double take.

“You showered me? Again?" Mae barked at her, though she immediately regretted it. Hearing herself shout made her feel like her head would split open.

“Clothed you as well, this time." She added, bringing a cheerful tone to her voice.

Shocked, Mae held her arms in front of her. She found herself in her favorite dark purple shirt, long sleeved like most of her wardrobe. Her legs were clad in black pants and black, open toed boots that reached halfway up her shins. If anything, she was relieved that she was in her own clothing and not Endi's much looser wardrobe. Mae didn't like to let her fur breathe too much.

“Thanks." Was the only reply she could find. Mae wasn't entirely sure how much she meant it. Endi already knew about the hang-ups Mae had with her body, so she hoped that her 'pink ass rat fingers', as Toby once called them, didn't get too grabby. She quietly promised that she would talk to Endi about it later, preferably once the boys were away and her headache went with them.

“That show must have really exhausted you. I've never seen such a heavy sleeper before." Endi told her softly, underscored by the gentle whipping of her tail against the passenger's seat.

“Prolly never heard such a heavy snorer, either." Cass added, the English he spoke now transformed into her native tongue by her yutri. Endi managed to see the humor in it, unlike Toby.

“Lay off, Cass"

“Lay off yourself, Tobias." Cass spat.

Toby went reeling. “Oh, so Cassidy's gonna start calling me my full name now?" He shot back with a smirk.

“ Boys."

Endi cut in, bearing one of sternest glares she's ever seen. Reluctantly, the humans quieted down, and Endi was left as fed up and confused by their antics as she ever was. Mae could empathize. Toby and Cass's relationship was an enigma to her. All she knew was that they were university friends who stopped speaking after the move to Tebeish. The humans constantly got into these 'verbal sparring matches' since reconnecting through Sixth Eye, and yet their friendship always came out just as sturdy. Their latest playfight was about to get very loud, so she was glad that Endi broke it up when she did. The boys were a handful on their own. With a headache, they were a nightmare. Not that Endi was entirely off the hook for her little showering stunt either.

“So, why would you shower me in the first place?" Mae asked, still lucid enough not to expect a decent answer.

Endi's arms tensed up on the steering wheel. “Handler meeting at Cal-Gea HQ." Her voice was laced with pity.

“Urgent, too." Cass added, his tone just as grim as his Guardian.

Handlers. Every act had a bevy of them, though they were mainly faceless budgeteers and logisticians. Meetings with musicians were only called when high tier staff wanted them. Exactly the kind of people that could end careers like theirs at a moment's notice. Mae didn't like it, but she could forgive Endi under these circumstances. If there was one thing the higher ups hated, it was wasted time.

Mae hauled herself over the bed and into the passenger's seat, careful not to block Endi's view of the road with her tail. The tilting and sudden movements didn't help her head, but she powered through the pain until she could dig her hands into the glove compartment. She had to sift through what seemed like a thousand discarded food wrappers until she snatched up her relief: a box of fast acting headache tablets. A meeting was enough of a headache already. She didn't have room for two. The moment she hit the backrest, Mae found herself with a water bottle in her lap. She had one guess as to who the guilty party was.

After Mae dropped two tablets into the bottle, Endi leisurely parked their vehicle next to a pane of dark translucent glass. Unfortunately, they had arrived at the Cal-Gea building. Home to Tebeish's branch of the music conglomerate known as Cal-Gea Sound & Consumer Relations. She couldn't stand looking at it for too long. Thus, Mae checked on the bottle's dissolving contents. The water was cloudy, and the last few bubbles had simmered away. Ready to drink. It took everything she had not to gag, as the warm frothy liquid blazed a trail down her throat in two unpleasant gulps.

With all the necessary preparations made, Mae turned in her chair to face the shelves behind her. One hand gripping the top of the backrest, she leaned towards the one on her right and ensured she got as close to eye level with Toby as possible. He'd just finished grooming his orange hair with a comb so small she couldn't even see it.

“You ready?" Toby asked her with that same calm, reassuring smile on his face.

She answered him with a hand held up to his shelf, waiting patiently for him to hop on. Toby obliged her without fear or further consideration, but Mae was once again struck by the enormous responsibility she'd taken upon herself. Protecting a tiny life. If she willed it, every thought, feeling and experience he ever had could disappear on a whim. The power intoxicated some and exhilarated most. But Mae didn't feel powerful. She felt no thrills. Nothing ever made her feel more prone than having Toby in her hands.

Mae didn't get much time to ponder. The fleshy finger prodding her shoulder saw to that. With a flick of her ear and a turn of her head, Mae was greeted by a face full of Endi. The steely, analytical look her drum tech gave her was only slightly undercut by the fact that Mae's twitching tail was in her face.

“Endi?"

Mae was struck by a tiny sting of panic. Friendship aside, Mae had to wonder if she had slighted Endi somehow.

“You've made a lot of progress with holding Toby."

Her tone was entirely serious as she pushed Mae's wandering tail aside. “Show me." She ordered, arms crossed.

Feeling a bit of determination spring up inside her, Mae turned her back to the door and slowly brought Toby to stomach level. She curled her fingers around him in a cup-like grip. Her free hand waved over him, fingers extended in a gesture that invited Endi to check over her well-practiced guardian's carry.

“Aww, you're feckin' adorable Toby!" Cass cooed from her left, earning a laugh from Toby amidst some of his half-translated ramblings about an 'Irish twat'.

Endi brought a fingertip to her chin, rotund ears twitching atop her head in focus. After a few agonizingly slow moments, she finally came out with her assessment: “Thumb's too low."

Endi leaned towards Mae's hands. She hunched over, making herself appear smaller as per proper guardian etiquette. She gently gripped the underside of Mae's thumb and pushed it up, heightening the barrier it formed between Toby and the elements. It wasn't a massive difference, but little details and little people tended to go hand in hand.

“Amateurs." Endi muttered as she pulled back.

Mae knew that Endi was joking, but 'amateur' wasn't entirely wrong. Mae wasn't a guardian. She signed up for the training, scraped past the psych eval, got her human handling certification, and even became semi-fluent in English. However, her rapidly increasing workload left her without the time or mental fortitude to care for a charge, so she dropped out. Mae remembered plenty from her training, but she was still very thankful for Endi's critique. Anything that made carrying Toby safer was gold dust to her.

Endi stretched her way past Mae's waist and opened the door. Giving her one final 'thank you', Mae brought herself and Toby out of the vehicle, turning around as carefully as she could manage. The second her tail left its radius, the door slammed shut behind her with a violent thud. She knew they were short on time, but Mae couldn't help but drink in the sight of the Cal-Gea building in its full glory.

From top to bottom it was nothing but clear glass and clean, polished metal. It felt out of place. Standoffish, almost. Like a piece of another city, or even another world, had fallen out of the sky and landed in the middle of the street. A tug on her shirt broke her from her musings, and a pair of concerned little brown eyes met hers.

“Your head feeling better?" Toby asked, still standing next to her stomach. His tender voice was barely above a whisper.

She nodded. The headache wasn't entirely gone, but she could feel it clearing up.

“And the meeting. You gonna be alright for that?"

Mae frowned. She didn't want him to fret over her more than he already did, and thus she answered him with a non-committal, “I'll live."

Her stomach roared in protest, putting Mae on alert and giving Toby the shock of his life.

“Oh, but I might not live if I don't eat something!"

Before she knew it, the vehicle's door flew open and she felt something slip into her back pocket. By the time Mae fully realized what had happened, the door was shut tight and the brown furred culprit vanished onto the bed behind the seats. Baffled, Mae reached into her pocket to find one of those protein bars that Endi swore by. She sheepishly raised it to her mouth and tore the packaging open, then spat its wasted top onto the sidewalk below. A strict voice coming from her hand stopped her just before she took her first bite.

“Hey!" Toby snapped, and she froze.

Now she was alarmed. She must have done something truly awful if Toby of all people was upset with her.

“You just littered." His voice trailed off into a whine.

Mae could almost feel another headache coming on.

--

For Toby, seeing the Cal-Gea building on the inside was like stepping into another world. The entire floor was a deep blue, covered in a rich fabric that nearly stretched past the limits of his vision. From floor to ceiling stood ornate pillars, possibly hundreds of feet tall and incredibly imposing. Countless luxury chairs swarmed the room on either side, universally occupied by bored souls in expensive suits. Despite the austerity of their surroundings, the room was abuzz with chatter. Anybody not in a chair was speaking to somebody else. It seemed even these titanic businessmen liked to unwind with some idle conversation.

Mae still had him close to her stomach as she crept towards a metal countertop in the far-left corner. Behind it sat a smartly dressed attendant. A red kiori, with his prominent cheeks and a great big curved tail. Toby instantly thought back to the squirrels that peppered his old university campus. Kiori were supposed to be one of the shorter races, certainly shorter than most ralai. This one must have equaled Mae in height, not that she would have appreciated him pointing that out. He was nose deep in ledgers, feet kicked up next to a bus sized photo of a human woman with black hair. The man was well and truly blind to everything else around him.

A glossy red button sat at the bottom of the counter, close to Mae's hip. Toby could have jumped on the thing from his vantage point, but, even then, he doubted he had the mass to push it. Beneath it lay a caption reading, 'If you want Vye-Shi you'll have to go through me!" in the UTO common tongue. Toby always liked the idea of stuffed shirts with senses of humor. Mae tapped the button gently, like it would bite her if she hit it too hard. The jarring buzz that blared from the table did nothing to alert this 'Vye-Shi' to their presence. Mae stared down at Toby. She was utterly lost.

“Say hello." He whispered to her. In a surprisingly human gesture, she cleared her throat.

“Hello?" She called out cautiously, sounding even more vulnerable thanks to the dainty, posh accent his translator saddled her with. Vye-Shi didn't twitch an ear, let alone bat an eye. Mae peered back to him once again, her own ears turned sideways in disappointment.

“I'm sorry, Toby. Can you please get his attention for me?" She pleaded, apologetic like a scolded kitten.

He ran the scenario through his head a few times. A sixty-foot cat wanted a six-foot human to get a sixty-foot squirrel's attention. It was ridiculous, he was well aware. But it wasn't like he was going to turn her down.

“How am I supposed to do that?" He asked her, more curious than anything. Her request came with some pressing practicality issues, after all.

“Do what comes naturally, I suppose." Her voice got quieter with every passing word. With a shrug, he took her suggestion. For better or worse.

“Oi!"

Toby yelled at the top of his lungs, startling Mae and Vye-Shi both. The kiori yelped in surprise and stood at attention, red eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

“Vye-Shi?" Toby asked, feeling a tad embarrassed at how much he'd spooked the attendant.

“Speaking!"

Vye-Shi looked like he expected to be pounced on at any moment. His electronics hit the floor, thus he snatched at the photo on his desk in a death grip, likely for comfort. Toby instantly felt guilty for spooking him so badly. He couldn't justify shouting at Vye-Shi, not when he was an innocent bystander, and especially not when he was a fellow ginger.

“State your business."

Vye-Shi had drained any and all emotion from his face, voice following in lockstep. He pressed his enormous tail against back as if in salute.

“We've got a meeting here, high tier staff." Toby said, rubbing his neck. He still felt bashful after his little outburst a moment ago.

Understandably suspicious, Vye-Shi reached for the yutri in his pocket and checked over it dutifully. He came to a certain clarity not long after that.

“Lucy's Favourites?" He asked, finger hovering above something only he could see.

“Sixth Eye." Toby corrected him quickly. Perhaps a tad too quickly, judging by the odd look Vye-Shi gave him. Toby didn't care. He'd rather take all the odd looks in the world than be caught dead in some band called 'Lucy's Favourites'. Vye-Shi held a red furred hand up to his earpiece.

“Ah, Hello Ma'am."

He paused.

“Yes, one of your new acts."

He shook his head.

“Not Lucy's Favourites. Sixth Eye."

His eyes burst open again.

“Oh. Right away! Farewell, Ma'am."

Vye-Shi's hands fell at his side.

“You've been fast-tracked." He told them, quite impressed.

With a click, two white doors in the far-right corner slid into the walls, and lead to a red carpeted corridor that Toby could hardly see the end of. He felt some of the businessmen glare at them. Hostile stares, each and every one of them. These men surely didn't appreciate their handler's 'hospitality'.

“Wait outside of room one." Vye-Shi ordered, inviting them into the open doors with an arm outstretched.

“Don't keep her waiting."

Vye-Shi returned to his seat and busied himself with recovering his trinkets. Toby thanked the kiori as Mae walked him into the corridor. She cupped a second hand over him protectively when some of the businessmen began to mutter amongst themselves. Toby was well out of earshot, but a human was near deaf compared to a ralai. He was lucky to be missing out, if the dour face she pulled was any indication.

Aside from the dark red carpeting, the corridor's décor was near identical to the previous room. Its vast stretches held nine bright white doors. Five on the left. Four on the right. All of them orbited by pairs of plush chairs just like those from before. Mae made her way to the chair closest to room one. She kindly offered him the other seat, which he refused in favor of staying in her hand. Her enormous tail filled it instead, and Toby found himself in her lap, watching it tap against the fabric. Slow, soft, yet clearly agitated. One of her tells, and his cue to distract her with some light conversation.

“You know what? It's still kind of funny."

“What is?" Mae asked him, the translator still making her sound like Queen Victoria.

“A rat bossing a cat around." He said with a chuckle.

Toby had pointed the surface level irony out a few times before, and Mae was just as unamused by it as ever.

“Toby, I would have dropped you ten times by now if not for that 'rat'." She warned him, though enough levity swam in her voice that he knew he wasn't in trouble.

“Oh, I'm aware. But that doesn't diminish the humor at all, does it?"

He leaned back into her thumb, giving it a few friendly pats. Mae tutted in mock disgust.

“Your sense of humor is horrific. Yours and Cass's." She scoffed.

“How come?"

Toby raised an eyebrow, not that Mae could see it.

“Well…" Mae began, pausing to collect herself. “You both get so vicious. I can't even keep up with all of your insults, sometimes. Has it always been like this?"

Toby nodded.

“Yeah, pretty much. Been like this since uni." Toby admitted. He knew she obsessed over his wellbeing, and he appreciated it. Even if he felt she was being overprotective with him at times.

“And you still consider yourselves friends?" Mae asked, bringing him closer to her chest in a display of sympathy.

Toby almost felt bad for her. He wasn't used to this kind of questioning, but she was worried about him. She deserved some explanation if she was genuinely confused about something.

“Of course! We can get vicious, yeah. But we wouldn't say half the shit we do if we meant it. It's all in good fun." He told her, sincerely. Mae's ears flitted in thought.

“The boys back home said similar things."

“Really?"

Toby was keen to listen. She'd hardly even said the word 'home' around him, let alone talked about it with him.

“Mm-hmm!" A tiny smile snuck onto Mae's lips. “The boys from my music class, especially. Calling each other 'tail biter' so much. You only heard their real names when the teacher said them!" She suppressed a giggle. “I'm sure you would have loved them, Toby."

“Ha! Us boys. All the same, right?"

Mae laughed loud enough that it echoed across the corridor, and thus she slapped her free hand over her maw to hide her embarrassment. Toby didn't show it, but his heart became a puddle. The door opened with a click not long after that. The only notice that their handlers afforded them, and a stern reminder of the reality of the situation. Hesitantly, Mae dragged herself to her paws and marched into room one like a man at the gallows.

The room was far from the flashiest thing on the planet. Décor wise, it matched the corridor note for note, housing only an expensive wooden desk and a swivel chair occupied by a silver disk. Two guest chairs begged for him and Mae to fill them, but Toby didn't know what to think. The door had opened for them. Somebody should have been in that seat, and yet he could probably have heard a pin drop. Certain that Mae felt as silly as he did, Toby was about to suggest talking to Vye-Shi again when a peppy, digitized voice burst from behind the desk.

“Hello there!"

An AI's holographic avatar poured from the silver disk, filling the chair with the form of a yellow female Asishi. To him, she resembled a hyena in a tie-dye shirt, with spots immaculately emulated from her organic counterparts. Naturally for her species, she dwarfed Mae by at least ten feet, and nearly doubled her in width from her sheer simulated muscle mass. Mae practically threw herself into a guest seat upon seeing her.

“Saos!" He and Mae hollered at the same time.

Saos was the Tebeish branch's CEO, only answering to Cal-Gea's main branch on the planet of Anatalay. She was by far the most hands-on of all of Sixth Eye's handlers. There was little contest, considering that she had produced their debut record, amongst many others. She was always happy to see them, and for the most part, Toby and Mae returned those feelings.

“Mae'eliis! Tobias! So glad you kids could make it."

Her arms extended as if to hug them. She couldn't, of course, but the sentiment was appreciated. And yet just as quickly as she appeared, her excitement waned. Saos became grim. Fast.

“I hate to bother you with this. But the thing is, my off-world superiors still want to know why Mae'eliis didn't read out the speech last night."

The speech. They had completely forgotten about it. Toby's gut wrenched seeing Mae tense up again. Saos must have picked up on her nerves, since she gave his bandmate her unfettered attention from there on.

“What happened, Mae'eliis? People have lost their contracts here for less than this." She grieved, her head cocked in pity.

Mae couldn't quite get her reply out before her nerves killed it in her throat. Her trembling came back in full force. He could feel her breaths get shallow and sharp around him. Mae was about to shut down. He had to intervene.

“It was my fault." Toby said, stumbling into the conversation a tad more messily that he'd have liked. Still, Toby had to summon some more courage when Saos bore down on him. Hologram or not, staring down his boss wasn't exactly easy.

“I overstressed my bass before the show, so we had to fix it. Took so long that we forgot about the speech! Sorry, won't happen again."

Toby made sure he sounded firm and believable. He masked it well, but internally he was sweating bullets. Mae pulled him closer to her stomach. Her ears peeled back, yet something about her body language told him she was grateful he stepped in. Silence bit the air while Saos processed Toby's story. Her expression softened, and her upbeat demeanor returned.

“I get you. Sorry for scaring you both."

Success. Toby and Mae could rest easy once again, and relief filled the room. Then Saos began to loom over the two of them. Her toothy grin didn't bode well for them.

“I'm sure you two are ready for some good news. Check your messages." Saos ordered without losing a drop of her cheer.

Toby heard a ping from his yutri's earpiece. He and Mae brought up their holographic interfaces to see nearly thirty new messages from Saos. Even skim reading the titles painted a stark picture. They'd just been told how their lives would pan out for the next month or two.

“Everything you need to know for the coming quarter: Tour dates, hotel addresses, budgets, timeframes, afterparty locations. All of that wonderful nonsense." Saos went on to explain. “The first gig is at Gicea Way. You're going to play your whole entire album from front to back, how exciting!"

Toby and Mae glanced at each other, the dread they felt potent in the space between them.

“Anything else?" Toby asked.

He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to hear the answer. Though thankfully, Saos was at the end of her rope.

“No. That will be all, you two. Have fun!"

Saos's image then evaporated, never to be seen again. The door clicked itself open behind them. Seeing the exit, Mae didn't delay in getting them out of the Cal-Gea building. He couldn't blame her at all. The two of them were silent the whole way back to their vehicle. They had too much to think about. Playing the entire record. He knew that they had to do it eventually. Even still, they were both banking on having more time to figure the material out beforehand. None of that seemed to matter, though. They did what Saos said. No exceptions.

After unlocking the vehicle, Mae slid herself into the passenger's seat, and brought Toby back up to his cabinet. On his way there, he got an eyeful of Endi as she slept. She had rolled herself up into a ball, cozily tucked away on the mattress behind the seats. Her ears often twitched in her sleep, earning an adoring coo from Mae. Toby wanted to coo along with her, giant rat or not. He managed not to do so in the end. Toby knew Cass would never let him live it down if he overheard it. The man himself was fast asleep in his cabinet, and he snored loud enough that even Toby could hear him from behind the shut door. Ignoring the racket as best he could, Toby gave Mae his fullest attention.

He hated the thing with a passion, but being inside his cabinet was his only real opportunity to see her from above. And he savored every chance he got. His bandmate had settled in the driver's seat, tail snugly splayed along the backrest.

“Where're we headed?" He asked her, careful not to disturb their sleeping road crew.

She pointed at her earpiece and gave it a gentle tap. 'Turn off your translator' is what the gesture meant. As if he wouldn't have done so at the drop of a hat.

“Well, I have the hotel marked on my map. Unless you want me to take us somewhere?"

Her tone was dry as dirt. Not that he minded as long as she had her proper voice back. Toby took a moment to think. His memory was hazy, but he knew he had something back at her place that he wanted. Then it hit him. Those packs of strings he couldn't find. Invaluable for a heavy period of touring like theirs. They must have been there.

“Oh! Think I left some bass strings in your apartment. Up on, like, a super high kitchen shelf. Can you get them for me?"

Mae flicked an ear in confusion.

“Why can't you get them yourself?"

“Vertically challenged." Toby said, raising an arm above his head to hammer the point home.

His partner only rolled her eyes.

“You wouldn't be quite as 'vertically challenged' if you had a mech."

“Bah! Mechs. Don't believe in 'em!" He told her, only half joking.

Mae faced the windshield. Her stocky fingers tapped along the steering wheel.

“Believe in mechs? The more you speak, the less sense you make."

She let out a heavy, affected sigh, which soon exploded into joyous, melodic laughter that would have saved the entire day for him on its own.

“How human!"

Before he knew it, Mae hit the ignition and Sixth Eye was back on the road. Now that the destination was settled, Toby nested himself in his mattress and initiated his special 'long drive routine'. Headphones in, app open, he hit 'search albums' in his yutri's music library, punched in a random letter and hoped to find something he could sit through. 'D' was the letter of the day this time.

Today, Toby wanted something he recognized, though he couldn't find anything decent until he came across something special. A cover depicting a dilapidated cottage stranded in the desert, its orange hue contrasted the blue sky around it. Memories poured back to him. His father played that album for him all the time when he was young. He'd forgotten what it was called, all of the song titles, and even the name of the band. Now he'd found it again. At long last, he could see if it held up after all this time. With no further hesitation, he hit play. A familiar blast of French horns greeted his ears. Nostalgia wrapped him up like a warm blanket. Finally, home at last.

--

Standing alone in her one room apartment for the first time in days, Mae couldn't help but feel lost. The interior was about the same as she'd left it. A brown two-seat couch bed in the corner. A half decent kitchen with more cupboards than she'd ever need, and some unsightly dents in the carpet where her kit used to be. It didn't feel like the place she ate, slept, and drummed for years. Instead, she felt like she was breaking into some other person's home for reasons she didn't understand. That, if anything, motivated her to head straight to the shelves and waste as little time as possible.

She pulled out a shelf by her waist. Inside lay dozens of old electronics, broken drum parts, and discarded wrappers from Endi's visits. Toby had brought some human ephemera over during practice, all of which ended up here when they first packed up for their gigs. She immediately doubted that she would ever be able to find those bass strings of his. 'A super high kitchen shelf' was not exactly adequate signposting. She immediately regretted not making him come over and search for them himself when she had the chance. Those little brown eyes of his were to blame. They always made her better judgement leave her.

Searching the top shelf yielded nothing in the way of bass strings. Only dead batteries and a few miniscule brown boxes filled with old junk she'd never seen Toby use. Not that the old junk was uninteresting, quite the opposite in fact. She'd found everything from tiny, ancient computer screens to elaborate tangles of lights daisy-chained together. His trinkets may have been able to carry a conversation, but they certainly couldn't carry a concert. So she pressed on, pried the next shelf open and dove in.

This second shelf's contents were mostly the same as the first, discounting a much higher concentration of disused yutri peripherals. That was, until she gripped something chunky, metallic, and decidedly built for hands her size. A handheld camera; the same one she stole from her mother when she moved out, and an object that bore so many memories of her life before she gained her freedom. The device itself was unusable. The lenses had long since cracked, and its body was covered in some disgusting ooze that cloyed at her fur. However, it wasn't the defective lump of metal that she wanted. She wanted what it housed.

Claws extended and picked at the curved indentation on its side. Out popped an old memory card on the cusp of obsolescence, but still functioning and begging for yutri data recovery tools to snatch up its juicy innards. All it took was a simple plug and scan for her cloud drive to be invaded by hundreds of old pictures. After tossing the camera in the garbage and thoroughly washing her hands, she decided to give the gallery a quick once-over. Not one to delay her friends more than necessary, she skipped straight to one of the last pictures in its memory. And what a picture it was.

Two adolescent girls sat on a couch, posed against a dark blue void. Both were clad in the same gray and teal school uniform, and both were half breeds, as evidenced by the odd patterns on their fur. The first girl, short even compared to other ra'lai of her subspecies, had white fur marked with streaking black stripes that stretched across her coat. The second girl towered over the other. She carried the dark gray spots her sister was missing, but her pelt was burned a bright, reddish orange. The two of them smiled at the camera, their tails preciously interlocked behind them.

Mae could never forget the day that picture was taken. What they did with their tails was her sister's idea. She was always the scientist, the problem solver, the rebel. She had whispered it to her minutes before they sat down for the shoot. They knew their mother would hate it, but neither of them cared. For the first time in their lives, the girls finally had a picture that felt like it was theirs. Ko'eliis. Mae missed her dearly.

Her yutri rang and cut through her brief return to her past. She scolded herself for getting so caught up in that picture, but the search was likely a lost cause anyway. Toby picked up on the other end. Her ear was filled with the sound of rustling and upheaval. He must have been searching for something, if there was anything to search for in that tiny cabinet of his.

“Toby?" She greeted him, hoping he could hear her above the noise he was making.

“Mae! You won't believe this. While you were looking, I actually found some spare strings I hid under my mattress. Sorry about that."

Toby sounded far more awkward than he probably wanted to. She could almost feel him rubbing the back of his neck. It was infectious, that way.

“Did you find anything you wanted to take, at least?"

Mae's lips curled into a grin. Little did he know.

“Only my memories."