rattlerofthestars:

“Really,” Jim responded with mock surprise. “Only a few months? Couldn’t tell.” The boy rolled his shoulders as he leaned back into a relaxed stance. His hands tucked into his pockets. With a cocky smile, he eyed the boy in front of him. Morph seemed to really like the stranger. Ping, was it? It was an interesting name. Although, it couldn’t be worse than Mr. SHNEEEEEEEE from Montressor. Alien names were weirder. You had to screech the vowel and grunt the “S” to even get it right. 

“So tough guy, think you wanna take me back down to your camp?” He flashed a dashing white grin. His skylit eyes seemed to spark. Perhaps this would be a good time to practice that Protozoa charm. Could he convince another guy to do something for him? His friend seemed very good at it. He missed him. “Uh, I gotta have a few words with your captain any how.” 

Good job, Jim. You made yourself sad thinking about Protozoa and lost your charm. Epic failure. 

“You do?  Oh!  Well, uh - ” Ping scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully; it was still warm, and sticky with perspiration.  Though he’d looked doubtful at first about bringing a stranger into camp, it couldn’t be wrong if that stranger had business with Captain Shang, could it?  His eyebrows darted together as the recruit tried to figure out what to tell Jim.  "I don’t know if everybody is back in camp yet.  The captain was leading us on a run…I, uh, I got lost.“  Ping looked sheepish, but he was sort of hoping that - having found Jim on behalf of the captain - his punishment for wandering away wouldn’t be too severe.

"But we can head back on our own,” he offered, trying to sound completely helpful and guileless.  As it was, his eyes had a childlike wideness to them anyway - but Ping was thinking only partly about facing the captain and the consul with Jim in tow, and partly about the trek down the mountain with Jim’s smile.  In the whole of his life, Ping wasn’t sure he’d ever made a man his age smile on purpose.  He found himself wondering if he could do it now - even dressed as a man.  The circumstances didn’t seem very auspicious.