Ccsf story - The shee and his true home

(This is the story I posted -too late- for the 2024 ccsf. Afaik it never made it on the ccsf page, so I'm posting it now. Enjoy!)

It was still in the engineering. The only sound were the slow echoes of the ships lung reverberating through the empty halls. Gadgets were neatly stacked by the machinery, some toys lay by the splicer. A thin layer of microscopic dust coated it all as it had for ages. Up until now. 

A whirling breeze tugged at the dust, slow motion slowly shifted a bouncy ball, and a tiny blue dot shone in the center of the wind. In an instant it grew to be a swirling blue hole, cleaning the engineering and somehow breathing life into the ship.

The turmoil died down and the portal stabilised. A lanky shape stepped through, dressed in a sparsely adorned cloak and robe. Washed out stains of ink, alchemical compounds and bio-liquids filled in gaps where embroidering fell short.

The lanky figure turned around and a warm smile glowed on his blue face. “This has been too long for my taste.” 

The short elevator ride up passed windows showing a wide vista of stars. The feelings of nostalgia were already strong, but the twinkling made him giddy even. He had seen far more complex machinery than those he was passing and did not care much for the dust catching metal. What he did care for were the images of the norn home he carried in his head. Civets, bruins and bengals cheerfully laughing in the sunlight. The ticklish grass under his feet. The homely woods and animals reminiscent of albia. He had carried out so many experiments, build many machines, placed animals from far away ecosystems there. Once he had even flooded it just to see if the grazers would grow fish tails.

Imagine his surprise when they actually did.

He passed the door to the marine terrarium. The calmness of the slow motion of underwater animals comforted him. The hot sand under his feet. He had modified the palms there to actually bear coconuts. He had kept many aquatic creatures there, just not at the same time for it was a rather cramped space.

The lone shee had reached them years ago in his even stranger ship. He had brought with him a technology that even the advanced shee had considered to be science fiction rather than a real possibility: warp portals. This had opened all realities and spaces up to them. No longer did they teasingly mock the lonely shee. They embraced the technology with both arms and used it with enthusiasm. 

The ettin desert was next along the hallway. The metallic tunnels below were a swift method of travel. Here he could always reliably find machinery if he needed it. Or if it was missing elsewhere. The gravel like sand was surprisingly comfortable on cold nights spent staring at the stars. Great desert beasts populated the cliffs of the place and fiery explosions were a consistent entertainment here. Productive worker ettins, sticky fingered desert ettins and vain poodle ettins had called the place home and their goofy deep cheer was heard across the years to him. Currently it was full of sunflowers and a home to thorny lizards. Stone idols and crystal skulls must still decorate the coarse sands.

He passed the grendel jungle door. A short moment of shock overtook him when his geigerteller went off, rapidly and with gusto.

A sheepish awkward grin flew over his face. “A youthful whoopsy daisy. We all have at least one don't we?” he said to himself.

In turn he entered the norn home door. The norns had long been sent to the wild when he and the other shee had pursued other experiments and left the ark to be, but everything still sat as the day he had left it. Toys and gadgets in the forest itself had been overgrown or pushed about by grazers, but that only meant the ecosystem was still running! He took an elevator up into the treehouses, sat on the porch of one overlooking the open spot and took his tea kit out of his bag. 

With a steaming cup of tea in his hands and some cookies on the plate he was running ideas through his mind of how to set up the first breeding pairs. For a moment his mind wandered. The lone shee had opened up all realities to them. The lone shee that had found them was likely not even the one from their own reality! But the contact with thousands of other shee all over the warp had been a beautiful thing. He had been grateful for all the cheer and shared experiments they have had together, and hoped for many more to come.