Chapter 8 #7
There was no judgement in the grey-blue eyed male’s look. He was merely curious, and maybe a bit confused.
“If Sunny is to be believed, I’m half alien bunny person, a Lepyr, part Lo denaii and part human,” I admitted. The second the words left my lips, I heard them and laughed at how silly that sounded. Hi, I’m Poo, the half alien bunny, part Lo denaii and human freak of nature. Nice to meet you.
I felt like poo after everything I’ve been through lately.
“I Celuk.” Celuk cradled the baby in one arm with ease so he could point to himself with his freed hand. Immediately after, his hand went right back to the baby.
“Do all Lo denaii-human babies look like her?” I asked.
“No.” Celuk shook his head. “She Lo denaii, hu-man, more.”
She was more? So then maybe they all weren’t so fuzzy wuzzy?
“Are there any human-Lo denaii only people around here?” I asked hopefully.
Maybe someone that could help corroborate Dad’s writings and Sunny’s crazy stories.
“Wouldn’t, uh, happen to have any alien bunny people hopping near or far, would you? Heh… heh.”
“What budny peoples?” Odix asked in an overloud whisper.
“I don’t know, baby cakes. I came onto the scene after you,” the woman, their Jo, responded in kind with the same volume. Her lips twitched, telling me she knew what she was doing.
“You know they can hear you, right?” the dark haired woman beside Jo murmured softly. “If she’s part Lo denaii, her hearing might be as good as theirs.”
Was my hearing good? Or better than a human’s? I’d never considered that… Not that I’ve had a lot of time to consider much of any of this.
“Should I not be able to hear their overloud stage whispers?” I asked Kehlor quietly.
Kehlor shrugged his massive shoulders. “Kehlor hear the females just fine.”
Celuk grinned and leaned in to confide with a twinkle in his eyes, “They think they speak soft, think we not hear.”
“I told you we were too loud for them,” the petite blonde chirped in her squeaky voice.
“We’re a work in progress,” their Jo quipped, laughing the whole thing off. Glancing around, she asked, “Hey, where’s my Buu-berry delight?”
“Stop, help Boog. Bink have blowed out,” an insanely deep voice rumbled from the back of the pack.
“Oh! That’s my cue! I better see if they need any help!” a red headed woman, whose hair was the only thing I could make out of her, the attention drawing bundle of fluff in her arms aside, called out. “See ya later, guys and gals!”
“Later, bitchscuit!” their Jo called back.
“Bye, Mal!” the darker haired woman called out.
“Later alligator,” the blonde woman murmured softly.
One curious peek over in the direction of that insanely deep voice as the red haired woman took off, and my eyes bugged. Holy crap, that dude was a monster.
“You can have horns?” I blurted, gaping and trying desperately not to at the male.
“Lo denaii mix with others, yes,” Celuk answered softly.
“Man… I got the short stick all the way around,” I muttered.
Celuk’s lips ticked up into a small smile, as if pleased with my reaction. His eyes seemed to smile more than his mouth unless it had something to do with his mate or his babies.
“Horn head with what my Jo calls unitatos but they really kep-keps, kepkies, lives over there,” Rek gestured to some place beyond the forest behind him.
“Him not friendly. Meanie head horn head. Only talks Celuk and sometimes Crazy Face but he mad at Crazy Face and they not friends no more.” His knowing nod induced eyerolls from his fellow furries. “No budnies peoples here.”
A long-suffering sigh from the small blonde woman drew my attention to her. “I wish you’d stop calling me that, and announcing my business like that to everyone,” the woman muttered under her breath.
“‘Pologies, Candy-ass, Rek not tell everybody you have no friends ‘sides my Jo, her Rosa and Mal, and Doodie’s Carr-rie,” Rek said quickly, which had Odix and Gofur shaking their heads at him, and Celuk shooting him a look over his shoulder that had Rek throwing his hands up and shutting up.
Even their Jo was puckering her lips to hold in whatever it was she wanted to say.
The blonde woman rubbed at her forehead like she was getting a monster of a headache, like the one I already had.
“Low blow, Karen,” I muttered in return, in the woman’s defense. “Snitches get stitches.”
“Hah!” Jo pointed at me and grinned.
This earned me a dirty look from Rek, a round of laughter from Celuk, Odix and Gofur, a big guffaw from behind them, and a snorted round of giggles from the blonde woman.
“She called you Karen,” the woman he called Candy-ass spluttered out between piggy-like snort giggles.
Rek let out a laugh to mock hers. “She say I have snots eyes too. Kehlly-Roo female hits head. She no know better. Forgets. Poo thinks Rek name Karen. She get it wrong. Not nice make funs of her, Vurhg beats her up, hurts her head and makes her hairs fall off, Crazy Face.”
“Is any of that craziness my Rekkie poo just spouted true, Kehlro?” Jo or Jojo or whatever her name actually was, asked as she glanced at Kehl and me.
“Kehlor,” I blurtingly corrected. Looking to Rek, I shook my head. “I never said Vurhg is the reason my hair fell out. I lost it as a child.” There was going to be an echo around here with that one.
Celuk’s smile widened and he glanced over his shoulder at his female, who blinked at my soft rebuke, her mouth opening and closing in surprise.
“You mean I’ve been saying it wrong all this time?” Jo burst out. Glancing around at the males, she gave them all dirty looks. “And you guys just let me?”
“Kehlro lets my Jo— it why we say it wrong. It funny,” Rek admitted, earning a snicker from Odix and Gofur.
“Luk Jo no mean to,” Kehlor grunted out. “No mind, she not know better.” With a look Rek’s way that said he more than knew better, he met Celuk’s smiling gaze and gave a curt nod.
“Only let her say you Kehlro, Kehlly-Roo, ‘cause you scared of Luk,” Rek mumbled petulantly.
“Kehlor ‘spect Luk,” Kehlor admitted.
Celuk dipped his head respectfully at Kehlor, an action the male returned in kind.
“Oh, you friends now,” Rek grumbled. Huffing and puffing, Rek crossed his arms over his chest.
Jo leaned into him, nuzzling her face into his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rektal, you’re still Celuk’s number one princess bridegroom.”
“Yeah. Fine,” Rek muttered, his arms starting to loosen at his sides, but then her words registered and he looked at her sharply.
Jo let out a cackle she quickly muffled, grinning from ear to ear in the face of Rek’s wrath.
“Are they all… like that?” I leaned in to very softly whisper in Kehlor’s ear.
“Only fun ones,” Celuk whispered back just as softly, so the three of us were the only ones in the know.
My face pinkened in a blush. Kehlor began to rub his hand up and down my back comfortingly. My hand lifted to scrub at my face but I remembered the gash covered in mash on my head too late and hissed as I knocked it. With a groan, I squeezed my eyes shut tight.
“Rek not think him being funny… she really no have no hair,” the biggun named Odix garbled out.
“Odix! Rude, buns of fun!” Jo chimed in quickly.
Odix grunted and rushed out, “No mean no ‘fenses.”
With a sigh as curious gazes lifted my way, I slowly lowered my hood. I didn’t have to nor did I particularly want to. It was just easier, I felt, to get it all out of the damn way now.
With a rumble, Kehlor lifted his hand to cup the back of my head, like he was protecting it from all the surprised stares.
I held little doubt we didn’t look completely ridiculous with his catcher’s mitt sized paw covering my head. “Alien face hugger, backwards attachment addition,” I joked.
The two darker haired women laughed, glanced at one another, and laughed again.
“I don’t get it,” the blonde woman mumbled.
“Even Rek get it and Rek not watch those movies no mores ‘cause they give Rek the night scares,” Rek grumbled, like he found the blonde’s lack of pop culture knowledge criminal, punishable by mocking.
“‘Ey! What this all? What goes on?” a new voice called out.
“Doogie, come! Meet Kehl’ Purr-roo! Bring you Orrellie!” Celuk called out. “She want see the babies!”
“Doodie-face show everyone him baby girl prinnedcess spoiled pants, all the times,” Rek muttered with an eye roll.
“Oh, shut it. Like you don’t do the same with our brood every chance you get and hog Orrie just as much,” Jo laughingly chastised.
Rek grinned. “My babies perfect, like they daddy. My Anie a prinnedcess. Orrie Rek’s sweet pudge face.”
That earned the male a round of ribbing about who was the handsomest daddy and most beloved uncle.
I didn’t hear most of it. The second I saw yet another Lo denaii round the corner, this one holding a more heavily wrapped bundle in his arms, a little arm wearing what looked to be a soft hide outfit peeking, not a furry bundle like I’d been expecting, consider me intrigued.
A soft “Oh” left me as this Doogie person brought his baby closer and I spied a fuzzy but much less so face. Doogie beamed proudly as he showed off his baby girl. “She not spoiled too much,” Doogie informed me, like I’d asked or something.
Tiny little pale fingers, a thinner dusting of hair than the males around us, she was much less hairy than the other babies but still not as lacking in fur as my Dad had been.
“Do some babies come out looking really human?” The second I blurted the question, I worried someone might take offense.
“Most babies look Lo denaii,” Doogie answered, not offended in the least.
“Only two look most like hoomans, sides some Go seesters, Luk know of, not look more Lo denaii,” Celuk said after a long moment.
“Was one of them, one of the two, named Garth?” I wondered aloud.
“Tabaroth. Auff. They leave. No come back,” Celuk rumbled out after a long moment.
“Oh.” There popped that hope balloon. Trying again, I ventured, “Have you ever met anyone named Garth? Or Forest, maybe? Sunny?”
“My Joalee?” someone called out.
“Here, Buu-bear!” Jo called back.