[h3][b]Sarvenolos of the Third Fane of Tekumo[/b][/h3]
[hr]

Waiting was the worst part.

Sarvenolos didn’t sit in the same way humanoid sapients would. Or, rather, sitting by itself is a foreign concept to him. It was as foreign to a Morelian like himself as slithering would be for the two-legged people that he had spent most of his life accustomed to. Instead, Morelians coiled. They coiled around the branches of the trees that their ancestors based their lives around. They coiled around poles that the humanoid races would usually use for strange dances. Right now, Sarvenolos was coiled around a seemingly arbitrarily placed pole in the docking bays; if there was one thing that all Edenite colonies and Eden itself had in common, it would be that infrastructure wasn’t built with the Morelians in mind. Or that of the other predominantly primitive alien races of those worlds, for that matter.

Everything revolved around those three. Human. Dhasath. Kiellar.

And now, for all Sarvenolos knew, he might be the last of the Morelians. Maybe there were other Morelians aboard the other ships that had fled, he hoped. Right now, though, there was no way to know for sure. Communications to the surface were down; that, or there was quite literally no one left to receive messages down there. They would all be digested within the stomachs of the ravenous Metacer right now. They’d be protein slough, biomass, flesh soup, liquified meat ooze; whatever the hell the Metacer turned their victims into after digestion.

Damn the Metacer. 

Why did those creatures have to enter his life? Why couldn’t they have come after he was already dead from old age? That way, he could at least just be watching from Providence rather than experiencing these events for himself.

Such are the tests of faith.

Ah, well. At the very least, he got to the space station before he was unceremoniously converted into Metacer groundchuck. That should at least count for something. 

Sarvenolos’ ruminations would be interrupted by the last voice of his old life. “Meow.”

“Yes, I know, Verminslayer, but we are yet to get aboard the ship,” Sarvenolos turned his head to look back towards his cat, who had been sitting on his back. “The crew is still retrofitting it so that it may be worthy to cross the sea of stars and not sink into the tides the moment it lets the anchor loose.”

“Meow.” The cat nudged her head against her owner’s, communicating the need to be petted. Sarvenolos was only glad to oblige.

Instead of using his tail-that-is-also-a-hand. Sarvenolos used the other form of articulation that Morelians had: a pair of prehensile tongues. Cats were, of course, very accustomed to having a tongue touch their fur, as licking is how they cleaned themselves. Verminslayer purred as a pair of prehensile tongues rubbed against her fur; Sarvenolos didn’t mind that other people were watching. They are the weird ones, after all, using only their [i]hands [/i]to pet their pets. Cowards! It is only proper that a cat’s affectionate licking be returned twofold. 

Either way, there wasn’t much else to do. Sarvenolos doubted that people waiting to get aboard the last starship would be in the mood for a musical performance…