Welcome back to the past, that is.
Transcript
The view pulls back to show three people seated around the coffee table in a kind of break room, with a sink and cabinets in the background. An e-panel on the wall with a mangled pen cord shows smiling human children and the name "Garriton Teen Village." Mel is younger, with less grey in their hair and no beard. Otília is a middle-aged tabby catgirl, with striped hair in a loose braid over her shoulder. The other person is a bald man with a thick white beard, black metal band shirt, ear piercings, and sparse eyebrows.
Mel: Yes, I’d love to talk more with her.
Otília: I texted her, but she’s still in her room. Even alien teens are moody, apparently.
The man looks over his shoulder out the window and mutters to himself in Portuguese.
The man: Hm. Ela está nos espionando…
Otília: Mel, anything you'd like to ask before your prospective foster arrives?
Mel: Well… Is it true she was anonymously surrendered in a pet carrier?
Otília turns to look at the man on the couch.
Otília: Ask Doug. We only got her at 15.
Doug: Yes. She was six months old, recently pupated. Only this tall.
Doug gestures with his hands, showing a height of about 30 centimeters.
Inset panel: A pet carrier shows two familiarly round eyes peering out of the darkness behind the wire door.
Mel: Wow.
Doug: Could run, though. Like a little cat.
Doug smiles, Mel strokes their chin incredulously.
Inset panel: A little naked creature covered in a coat of wiry spotted feathers runs out of the pet carrier on six long knobby legs ending in tiny four-toed bird-like paws with hooves, with round staring eyes above dark eye-stripes, a tiny tucked trunk, and two tiny spinnerets where a tail might be on an Earth animal. It is familiarly Talita-shaped, but of infantile proportions.
13 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 214”
un_pogaz
The comments from others speculating about a conversation on Dirtball made me doubt myself, but I should have trusted my instincts that it was indeed a flashback: Doug’s hand was far too recognizable.
Also, the fact that the characters are easily recognizable just by their hands, bravo, great design feat.
Else, I love how Talita can’t fool Doug’s because he know her too well.
JoB
I just noticed that I have no idea how much effort centaurs spend in childcare for imagoes; larvae and pupae are rather literally glued to mom, but imagoes could range anywhere from “still the matriarch’s prerogative”, to “let them run, the more bugs they catch on their own, the less we have to feed them”, to “I swear, those tykes keep the entire clan busy!”. Do the depths of the lore hold any info on how large a hoofprint Doug had to fill?
bryn
seeing talita as a baby makes me so incredibly happy ;w; <333
blythe
oh so mel was gonna adopt her…
TheOneandOnlyVoid
Foster not adopt. Talita never got adopted.
edenmachine5457
.omg the portuguese. my girlfriend knows portuguese so she translated for me- it says “Hm. She’s spying on us…” FASCINATING implications. im guessing talita has access to the cameras here or is just looking through a window
Atuada
More likely she can hear them
Teod
Okay, who can read the metal band logo?
TERRA[SFA?][TY?]
JoB
I’m reading “TERRAFATY”, but I’m not 100% certain that the remaining strokes around the “F” are indeed ornamental (to make the logo look symmetric), rather than a particularly dismembered letter …
Falconette
Baby centaur, built for grabbin’. I want to chase her like lizard and hold her like cute lizard that probably doesn’t want gentle head scritchies but will get some anyway.
astrobun
scrunkle toddler SPOTTED
sugar-goat
DOUG!!!!!! I love Doug so much I’m so happy he’s here ^-^
PedraGata
seeing the Portuguese in this makes me smile 🙂