In Search of Home

Chapter 55

The book in front of him had cutesy flowers, just like the ones out in the front of the mansion. They were orange, small, and plastered all over the cover. There was some bubbly text, much different than any handwriting or engraving he's seen. The book was thick and heavy, but it didn't have pages; there were just two thick covers on either end. It was pale yellow in color, mimicking the sky outside. It looked...

Well, it looked pretty childish. Like any children's book in the kid's section at Walmart.

Vok'Rul was holding it up to his face, mere inches away from his nose, yellow eyes eager and excited. He smiled when he noticed Viktor looking up at him skeptically, teeth too sharp and grin stretched too wide. The alien was really excited about this, then.

"Vok'Rul," Viktor said slowly, pushing the book away from his face. The alien still had that eager, bright-eyed look about him. "Why do you have a kid's book in my face, right now?" 

It had been a few days since they had returned from Pedro and the blacksmith's place. In that time, Vok'Rul had been pouring over his computer in the office, alien-Googling stuff right and left. The one time Viktor had gotten curious and looked at what he was doing had shown him electronics and technical plans so baffling that Viktor had had a hard time even comprehending that they were electronics and technical plans. 

Needless to say, whatever plans that Blacksmith and Vok'Rul were cooking up had the alien really fired up for it. He had shifted his focus entirely from the papers that the alien had managed to take to this new project, something that Viktor suspected Rukka wasn't too happy about. Maybe it was a waste of time to her, but Viktor didn't see the harm in it. After seeing Vok'Rul comatose for five days, and nearly comatose for another five days after that, he relished in anything that brought back some life to the alien. 

Though, he supposed, that Rukka might have just been annoyed with having to do his whole job for him. But what did he know? 

Hardly anything. Vok'Rul has been teaching him some more words here and there, but the alien has been too preoccupied with whatever it was he and Blacksmith were building to really do anything more than point at something, say the word for it, and then promptly forget he was teaching Viktor something. 

He couldn't hold it against the alien. Plus, it wasn't like he got annoyed with Viktor whenever he forgot the word; he just happily taught him it again. 

During breakfast one day, Blacksmith had called on Vok'Rul's phone. Viktor, thankfully far away from the abomination that was Vok'Rul's ringtone, had thrown a piece of jerky at him. Surprisingly, it had hit its mark: right in the middle of the alien's forehead. 

"Yeah! Nice shot!" he had heard Pedro call from the phone. From then on, it had been a struggle for Vok'Rul to even speak with Blacksmith on the phone. He and Pedro had chatted until Vok'Rul locked himself in the bathroom. The appeal of shouting through the door to Pedro had worn off rather quickly, but it had been nice to hear from the other man again. 

"Keti," Vok'Rul said imploring, shaking the book in front of him and bringing Viktor's attention back to the matter at hand.

"I'm keti-ing, relax," Viktor rolled his eyes. 

He watched as Vok'Rul sat beside him on the couch (heavily; Viktor was nearly launched off) and opened the book on his lap. Viktor leaned in close, despite his derision at being shown a children's book. He had not seen a book from this planet before, so it was all pretty new. Most of the stuff Vok'Rul looked at was on his computer.

He shouldn't have been surprised when a hazy, low-quality holographic image of a flower popped up when he opened it. But he was. It hovered over the book, occasionally fizzling out of focus before righting itself. Viktor reached out to touch it, wondering what it felt like, but Vok'Rul's claws intercepted him, gently pulling away his hand with a murmured "corfa, Kohgrash."