This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/BortoRico on 2026-04-17 01:48:32+00:00.
A/N: About 12 hours after I posted the last chapter (24), I went through and made some slight adjustments to Millie's point of view. I try to keep the narrative third person limited, but I feel I might've strayed a little too far - it sounded a bit like I, as the author/narrator, was absolutely trashing Millie for being an idiot.
That was not my intention.
Millie's convinced she's the most worthless person alive, and I was trying to reflect her own self-hatred in that part of the chapter. I apologize if I bungled that a bit when I first posted.
Anyway, if you didn't notice, carry on!
Enjoy!
P.S.
I reckon we're headed back to Letura for the next chapter...
January 5th, 5366 CE
Great Spruce Isle, Home of Alex and Ellie Wyeth, The Sitting Room
North American Continent, Gulf of Maine, Earth
Rafferty Mainz
Raff eyed the Earth human sitting across from her warily.
Much like herself, Ellie Wyeth was sitting idly on one of the plush, cream-colored sofas situated in the reasonably spacious drawing room of the Wyeth family home.
Sitting idly – because the girl hardly seemed interested in answering her questions, or even holding a conversation, for that matter.
Raff sighed and looked around the foreign – the alien – drawing room. It all felt like such a waste of time. They needed to be discussing the means by which she could return home, not sitting down on a pair of sofas while fidgeting about like scolded schoolchildren.
She took a deep breath and tried to relax: to remain both patient and polite.
Late afternoon sunlight was streaming through window at her back, warming her neck and shoulders as its luminous rays passed through the large expanse of glass behind her. Motes of dust hanging in the air were illuminated by the sunbeams that brightly lit up the home’s interior despite the wintry scene outside.
Despite the severity of the situation, she couldn’t help but feel her tense muscles relax in the warmth – even if only slightly.
Were it not for the fact she’d just been teleported outside in the frigid cold of another planet’s winter not half an hour earlier, she might’ve been inclined to think it was too warm in the well-appointed space.
She had a million questions for the other young woman in the room, but nearly every thread Raff pulled seemed to snap off at the slightest of tugs by the seemingly disinterested Earth human.
So much for divulging something. Ellie hadn’t properly answered a single question she’d asked!
After ten minutes of stilted conversation, she as beginning to think the girl had a screw or two loose.
Or actually, perhaps it was an entire bag of nuts and bolts.
Ellie Wyeth had spent more time looking up at the ceiling with a scowl on her face than actually attempting to hold a conversation. Raff hadn’t the faintest clue what the girl found so fascinating about textured plaster, but she wasn’t about to ask.
It didn’t help matters that she was dressed as if she’d just escaped from an insane asylum. Gray cotton trousers and a sweater to match? Was that what passed as fashion on Earth? As something a reasonable person would don voluntarily? The girl’s father’s attire wouldn’t have looked too far out of place in Leiftenburg.
Raff pushed those wasteful thoughts from her mind.
She glanced back towards the home’s kitchen. Her host had taken the two Sahkhar girls to the basement – which was already disturbing enough – and she hadn’t heard a peep from them since.
Alexander Wyeth had quietly requested that she remain put while he took the two girls downstairs to god knows where, and she’d complied without any objections. Now she was wondering whether or not she should have requested to join, insane as it sounded.
There were many unspeakable reasons he might wish to separate the group and Raff shuddered at the thought. What if…?
If didn’t matter that they were Sahkhar – they deserved to be treated fairly.
No… It wasn’t as if she would be able to do anything about it in the first place, even if she wanted to. She was on the smaller side of average, and she didn’t have a weapon. It’d be foolish to even try.
So, there she sat, awkwardly waiting around for something, anything, to happen. Raff let her eyes continue to wander around the room. The home was spacious enough, and while it wasn’t nearly as grand as Windcliffe back in Stuekbroad, the estate she called home, it was clear that the Wyeth family possessed a fair amount of wealth.
Or at least she thought they must.
The ample float-glass windows that surrounded her on two sides of the room were large, possessing a level of optical clarity that matched the best Leiftenburg had to offer, and the room’s furnishings, while far from ornate, were clearly well made.
She scrutinized the construction of the coffee table by her feet. While plain in design, it possessed a precision that spoke volumes of the carpenter’s mastery and competence.
It was if the craftsman had intentionally refrained from highlighting their skill; rather, they had purposefully avoided introducing overly elaborate carvings and other inane accoutrements into their work – as if they were well aware they had nothing to prove.
Tucked over in the far corner of the room sat some kind of harpsichord, the swooping instrument finished in highly polished black in lieu of heavily polished woodgrain, as was common in similar instruments back home.
Part of her wanted to stand up and walk over to the instrument; to sit down and see if it was close enough to a harpsichord that she might be able to play, but it very clearly wasn’t the time.
Raff was staring at the beautiful instrument with curiosity when Ellie’s voice startled her.
“Have you got instruments like that back on Letura?” the girl asked abruptly.
Once her heart had descended back into her chest, Raff turned towards the blonde-haired girl, who remained sunken deep in the cushions of her sofa, seemingly without a care in the world. She almost seemed bored of the whole affair.
Raff cleared her throat. “Yes? Something similar in form at least.”
Of course, she actually had no idea if that was true or not. God only knew what the instrument’s keyboard – if it even had one – looked like underneath the polished lid.
The blonde-haired girl tapped her lips and furrowed a brow. “Huh. Could be convergent evolution, I suppose.”
Raff was surprised to hear the term. Evolution was considered newfangled science back in Leiftenburg. “Is that something your people believe in? As in, the origin of species, and how they came about?” she asked, intrigued. Perhaps the girl would actually start talking.
To her surprise, Ellie nodded. “Precisely.”
Raff awkwardly fiddled with her shirt. “Oh, it’s something of a new theory in Leiftenburg.” She cleared her throat, unsure of where she was going with this. “Most scientists believe the Sahkhar and humans share a common ancestor, but don’t tell the Sahkhar that.”
“Oh, why not?” Alexander’s daughter asked.
Despite the precariousness of her situation, Raff couldn’t help but let out a breath of air through her nose. “Because they believe they’re god’s greatest gift to sapient-kind. To imply that they shared any relation with filthy humans would no doubt send them into a tizzy,” she said sarcastically, waving a hand. “Those people are unbelievably vain.”
Ellie scrunched her face up and shifted in the sofa. “Oh, interesting. Humans often think the same thing here on Earth. Bit annoying to people like me, if I’m honest. I–”
She suddenly paused, tilted her head back up towards the ceiling, and scowled even more deeply than she’d already been scowling.
What was with the girl? And what the hell did she mean, “people like me”? Those above, she wished Alex would come up from the basement, preferably with the two Sahkhar girls safely in tow. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable by the moment.
Raff shook her head. The girl was far too scatterbrained to have any hope of receiving a proper answer. Instead, she segued into another, adjacent subject. “So, uh, are there Sahkhar here on Earth?”
Ellie shook her head promptly. “Nope, nothing of the sort, far as I know.”
“Oh.”
Raff had no idea where to go from there.
With that, more awkward silence ensued, and the blonde-haired girl continued with her utterly strange habit of looking up at the ceiling with a scowl every so often. Instead of trying to engage the girl, Raff allowed her eyes to continue wandering around the room.
At some point her gaze happened upon the wall directly behind Ellie’s head.
Standing there, on an interior wall, was a rustic stone hearth, and hanging above the fireplace there was a long rifle of beautiful make – something well in her wheelhouse as a daughter of the Mainz family. She wasn’t sure why it’d taken her so long to notice it before.
Raff cleared her throat. “What kind of rifle is that?” she asked before she thought better of it. Perhaps it wasn’t the time to be inquiring about weapons, of all things. She didn’t have the faintest clue where these people’s allegiance may lie.
Ellie frowned, looked back up at the ceiling for a moment, and turned her head. “That’s a Sharps Model 1874. Some kind of ancient weapo...
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