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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Aeogeus on 2025-10-15 07:59:41+00:00.

First Chapter/Previous Chapter

A couple of days later, one day before they were scheduled to start filming again, Gabriel had decided he was not going to let the reigniting of his fame prevent him from enjoying the sights and sounds of Ambente. So, with Pista, Masar and Damifrec in tow, they explored the town.

Mostly, they let Masar show them all the places she found interesting.

Pista was just happy to be doing something with her dad, and Damifrec was at least feigning interest.

“You ever been this far south before?” Masar asked after she showed them the market stalls meant to cater to tourists. Most of them sold cheap junk, but a few sold art or traditional sculptures.

“Yep, we went to Gamnell to see the norbell emergence,” Pista explained.

“Wow, I always wanted to see that; what was it like?” Masar asked.

“Loud but fun,” Pista explained.

“What did you think, Damifrec?” Masar asked, looking back at the boy who was trailing behind the other three.

“Enjoyable,” Damifrec responded curtly. Ever since their chat, Damifrec had been willing to engage with people other than Gabriel. His responses were brief and to the point, rarely more than a single word, but it was an improvement, and Gabriel was proud of him.

Their next stop was at a small café. The building was pleasant but nothing fancy. “It doesn’t look like much, but the food here’s the best in town. Even Dad can’t make anything better, and he’s a chef,” Masar told them as she fluttered up to the first floor.

“I can’t get up there. I need a ladder,” Gabriel told her before she vanished over the lip. Masar looked down to see that none of them had moved. Pista would not leave her father behind, and Damifrec had no interest in being left alone with the two girls.

While Ambente was a tourist town that was mostly a supplement to its agriculture, and those tourists they did get were mostly tufanda. So unlike Tusreshin, where the whole city had such considerations in mind, in Ambente, they were an afterthought.

Masar informed one of the servers, and an old wooden ladder was lowered to allow Gabriel to climb up. The rungs were well-worn and a little slippery; they were designed more for a tufanda with their exemplary climbing skills than some random alien. Gabriel climbed up the ladder slowly to ensure he did not slip.

Once he was at the top, they entered and picked a table near the window. Gabriel had two choices: stand or sit on the floor; he chose to stand. The kobons were not designed for someone as heavy as he was, and he did not want a bill if they snapped.

“Once they were settled and their orders were placed, Pista nudged Masar and said, “You can ask; he won’t bite.”

“Mr Ratlu?” Masar said nervously.

“Yes, my dear,” Gabriel replied.

“What was it like jumping into that pit?” she asked, her voice getting quieter with each word. Gabriel knew that she was referring to him leaping into the enclosure back on Minagerad. Funnily enough, until his little skirmish, Masar had had no clue who he was. Apparently, she had missed the whole news cycle. Gabriel wondered if he should have moved to Ambente instead of Tusreshin.

“It hurt my legs; it was quite a big fall,” Gabriel explained as if he were describing the weather.

“Weren’t you scared?” asked Masar; she had a little more confidence this time.

“Very. I was in a cage with dozens of vicious predators,” Gabriel answered; he had no enthusiasm for dragging up those memories, but she was a child, so Gabriel sucked it up.                                                                                                                                

Gabriel then got hit with the usual questions: what was it like in there? Did you get hurt? How could you be that strong? His favourite part of the whole thing was when he told people that, by human standards, he wasn’t very strong at all. He did a little exercise to try to stay healthy, but Gabriel was no athlete.

“That’s why I’m so fat,” Gabriel explained as the food they ordered was brought.

“What’s fat?” Damifrec said, asking his first question of the day.

“It’s a soft energy store I have,” Gabriel explained, poking a little patch of flab underneath his suit. “You can poke it too if you like.”

Damifrec looked at Gabriel's face and then where Gabriel had jabbed himself before gingerly reaching out and doing the same. He gave the patch of Gabriel’s body a few pokes before retracting his finger and said, “That feels so weird.”

“Me next,” Pista said, showing none of Damifrec's hesitation, and prodded her father much harder.

“Why are you so eager? You’ve done it hundreds of times,” Gabriel asked.

“He got to have a go, so I get to have a go. Masar get in on this,” Pista replied before instructing her friend to copy her and using a human colloquialism that did not translate well into Basic.

Masar looked at Gabriel and told her, “If you really want to, you can. But don’t let this little Jaka coerce you.”

“I’m the same size as you, probably a tiny bit bigger,” Pista countered.

Gabriel looked at her and stated, “And yet you’re still so very small.”

Pista squinted, another gesture she had picked up from Gabriel and said, “I’m gonna get you tonight.”

“Try it, sweetie, I’ve fought bigger and stronger,” Gabriel answered.

“But you haven’t fought smarter,” Pista said, getting in the final jab. There was silence at the table as the two stared at one another. Masar gave Damifrec a concerned glance, but he ignored it.

The Pista trilled slightly, and Gabriel chuckled. “This is the kind of stuff Mom won’t do with me,” Pista said happily. She then looked at Masar and told her, “Poke him!”

Masar did indeed poke him and found it an odd experience but not unpleasant; it was just peculiar.

Gabriel paid for the food, though he had not eaten anything; instead, he had brought a drink with him; the café staff had not been keen on it, but when Gabriel stated plainly that he had dietary requirements the business could not provide, their hands were tied.

“Let’s go to the market next,” Gabriel said as he took his final step down the ladder. “we need to get a present for your Mom.”

“What should we get?” Pista asked with a moderate level of enthusiasm, she would have been more excited if the gift was intended for her.

“She likes antiques; the older, the better. Ideally, it should have religious or mythological significance,” Gabriel said. “Are there any antique shops around her?” he asked Masar.

“A couple, though I’ve never been in them, I think they're boring,” Masar replied.

“They’ve never been my favourite places either, though I do have a thing for old bookshops,” Gabriel offered as the local girl led the way. Her memory of their locations was a little sketchy, but it was understandable, seeing as she had never entered them. However, Masar was able to lead them to the general area. Eventually, they found what they were looking for.

Unlike most buildings, this one had a ladder attached to the wall and getting inside was easier. Gabriel pushed open the door to see an elderly tufanda sitting behind the counter, reading a magazine. They looked up when the bell above the front door rang; they were surprised to see three children and an alien walk in.

The tufanda spoke the local language. Gabriel was pretty sure they had said hello, but he did not want to presume and make a fool of himself, so he asked, “Do you speak basic?”

“Little, not spoken it for time long,” the shopkeeper replied.

“I can translate for you,” Masar offered, and Gabriel thanked her for it.

“We’re looking for something old, preferably with religious or mythological significance,” Gabriel explained, and Masar translated just as she promised.

The shopkeeper was a little puzzled; that was a specific request and not something they usually carried, but they opened up their laptop to check the shop's catalogue. While they waited for a response, the quartet browsed the items on display.

“Don’t break anything. Don’t touch anything. Look with your eyes, not your hands,” he told the three children as he inspected a painting on the wall.

It was old, made during the tufanda’s industrial revolution over a thousand years ago, which, unlike the one on Earth, had been far less environmentally devastating. When your natural lifespan was two hundred and fifty years, and it took you thirty years to reach young adulthood, long-term thinking was a more intuitive skill.

It depicted many tufanda standing outside a factory, though what it made was unknown. The pallet was dark, gloomy and grey, so Gabriel assumed that it was meant to depict industrialisation as sour and incompatible with life.

He quite liked it.

Gabriel’s eyes began to drift over other items: porcelain vases, jewellery, watches, unusual nick-nacks, and war memorabilia. In one corner, Gabriel found an old army helmet with what appeared to be a bullet mark on the side. On a little card beside it was some information, but the only thing Gabriel could find out was a date. This helmet was over three hundred years old.

He found one or two items he was interested in, but he resisted the urge to purchase them. He was here for his wife, not himself.

The shopkeeper said something, and Masar translated, “They’ve found two items in the back. One is a religious text from some religion she does not know about, probably from far away...

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