In Search of Home

Chapter 58

They didn't spend a lot of time at Blacksmith's place in the next few weeks. The day after she had called Vok'Rul, they had gone over there for a short visit. It couldn't have been more than an hour. They placed the earpiece in Viktor's ear again - thankfully, it was much more comfortable this time, though it was still pretty cold and made his ear hurt after a bit - and flicked it on. 

Viktor immediately noticed how quieter it had gotten. Whatever Blacksmith had done to the thing made the electronics inside less likely to make him go deaf in one ear. He appreciated that. 

He was still a bit wary about Blacksmith, but he couldn't manage to find it in him to hold a grudge against her, especially since Pedro was so fond of her. He had apologized on her behalf, of course, and Viktor had easily accepted it. Still, he couldn't help but twitch, just a little, when she moved a bit too suddenly. 

And at least Vok'Rul wasn't at her throat anymore. That was a relief for everyone involved. 

They spoke gently to him, and the device in his ear immediately started to get a bit louder. Viktor had scrunched his face in preparation for another round of high-pitched squeals and whines coming from the device, but it didn't happen. Instead, it just made an odd fizzling noise and started smoking. Viktor quickly pulled it out of his ear, yelping at the hot metal against his skin. He dropped it on the table, where it charred the surface. 

"Nothing?" Pedro asked him. He forcefully turned Viktor's head to look at his ear, much to his irritation. Vok'Rul had opted to let Viktor stay on the floor for this one. He, too, reached out to inspect the human. 

Viktor gave a wordless groan, flapping his hands at the pair of mother hens. They both retracted, wearing similar sheepish expressions on their faces. "No," he bit out with a sigh. "Just hot metal." 

Pedro made a grumpy noise in the back of his throat, defeated. He seemed to cheer himself up, though. "Well, kid," he said, almost cheerfully, "they always say Rome wasn't made in a day, don't they?" 

"You're so cheesy." 

But the phrase was founded in truth, after all. Viktor supposed that making a translation device was difficult by itself. The aliens didn't even know if they were sentient or not. Viktor secretly thought that Vok'Rul got the idea when he was drugged up on medicine in the hospital and it had taken root so firmly in his mind that he wouldn't be able to rest until he's at least tried. 

And well, it was true. Eventually, if the device really was a translator, his ideas would be proven right. Beneath the excitement at the thought of being able to communicate for real, Viktor could feel some dread about how righteously smug Vok'Rul would be. 

They left soon after that failure, though in much higher spirits since the first try. It helped that Vok'Rul hadn't almost attacked Blacksmith in her own home. Viktor waved goodbye to Pedro with a grin, who returned it wholeheartedly. They were both indescribably excited about this project, too. 

However, in the face of the undetermined wait in between tests, Viktor could feel some of that excitement waning. He didn't know how long translators took to make, but it had been almost five days since the second test. 

In the meantime, he had slowly worked on his worry about leaving Vok'Rul. It certainly helped that he had sort of successfully been away from the alien for a few hours at a time. He simply needed to... expand on that. 

So, each day, he'd extend the time spent away from the alien. It wasn't too hard to convince Thruul, who was still trying to get on his good side ever since Lilac's visit (Viktor certainly enjoyed the cuts of meat he snuck him at mealtimes), to bring him outside while Vok'Rul worked on the papers and called other aliens on his phone. Viktor got to be away from the screechy ringtone that Vok'Rul insisted on keeping and spend some time outside.