Rinlingsch

-THE ALIEN PRINCESS-

Rinlingsch –well, that’s what they call her since her name pronounced correctly sounds like the chiming of a bell followed by the crunch of an insect crushed underfoot. She’s an alien from a neighbouring galaxy who got run out of her planet for reasons still unknown. Rinlingsch is pretty tight-lipped about her fugitive space princess backstory (she has 4 sets of alien forks--that's definitely the mark of a princess), but besides that has a very dry sense of humour and a love of oatmeal. She only knows a couple words in Common so far, but the telepathy thing helps a lot.

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She walked into their campground early in the morning-time, as a couple dragons were eating around the cooking pit. Gracefully parting the bushes, she glided into the clearing and stopped a few paces away. Her stomach muttered a few incomprehensible sentences as she looked at the food in their hands. It sounded very plaintive.

It continued to moan in some foreign language until Crow passed her some oatmeal, which she cautiously took in her hands and stared at critically for a few moments. Then she opened her third eye and vaporized it in a beam of blue. She handed the empty, slightly smoky bowl back to Crow and pointed to the vat of oatmeal with an inquiring trill. Crow quickly ladled her another bowl of oatmeal.

They scraped the bottom of the cooking cauldron a few minutes later, and she vaporized her last (very smoky) bowl of oatmeal and slouched back onto her haunches. Her stomach spoke a few happy sounding phrases while she patted it contently and smiled at the others in the universal language of a meal well received.

After the cutlery was cleared away, Nye introduced himself and welcomed her to their home. Rilingsch, in response, tilted an eyebrow and let forth a stream of noises like a thousand ants cleaning their antennas in ebbs and flows that vaguely resembled irregularly lapping waves. They both stared at the other for a length of time. The tension was high but brief, as they simultaneously broke into happy smiles like something had passed between them in the silence.

Turned out something had indeed been said during the staring match, as when she turned to the rest of the commune now gathered around the pit, flickering images of a metal ship speeding through space mixed with flashes of adrenaline and pursuit, danced their way into the inside of their collective skulls like a flash film projected straight into the brain.

Sartra squinted at her, “So are you a friendly alien? Or like, are you out to get us like in that movie where alien babies explode out of your body. I mean you seem like a fine lady, but you also did just eat all our oatm—”

“Oh my God, please stop talking,” Elwy moaned.

“Hey, I don’t know if you saw that, but there’s definitely something living that lady’s stomach okay? I can hear it purring from where I’m standing.”

Elwy briefly looked skywards for patience and then turned towards the alien(?) lady(?) to apologize. She looked mildly amused though and not about to blast holes in them with her eyes, which suggested she might be leaning more towards friendly alien. She sure fit the bill for an extraterrestrial dragon, what with the twinkling constellations sprinkled on her skin. Elwy didn’t know any kind of metal that gleamed like the intricate piece she had on her face and wings, so the notion of otherworldly beings coming to Sornieth seemed a lot more plausible than it had been before breakfast.

Orison poked her long neck out from where she was standing. “You came in a flying saucer right? Can we go see it?”

The lady smiled rather dashingly and beckoned them to follow her as she turned and stepped through the bushes.

“Oh mannn, she’s taking us to her spaceship!” Orison turned around and frowned when no one else had moved from where they were standing. “What part of spaceship and advanced alien tech aren’t you guys excited about? C’monn, we fed a starving fugitive alien lady and now she wants to show us her ship. Get PUMPED!” She stomped through the bushes, not waiting for a response.

Nye stared balefully at their retreating forms. “It’s too early in the morning for this,” he said as he went to follow. The others fell in line behind him.

“Hey, you think something in that spaceship can get rid of our mosquito problem?”