Special Delivery (QuickSilverPheonix)

[Anonymous]

Fulvus had crawled into a crate, lured by the fruit flies and such hovering around the fruit. True, fruit flies weren't much when considering he was closer to human sized than bat sized, but they were better than nothing and kept him from starving, or at least slowed it down. He hadn't been coming across many bugs recently, and it was starting to become rather obvious as he lost weight from his already small frame.

Fulvus had never quite caught on to the fact that he'd been locked in a crate. He couldn't see when they put the lid on, and he was fully distracted by his meal and then eventually just drifted off to sleep.

Later...

The crew was unloading the crates for the station, stacking them on the loading dock to be sorted by station employees. In a hurry to get out of TRIM, they scarcely took note of anything more than required of them. The correct number of crates had been delivered, and all of them had the correct label on them. The crew got their paperwork signed and took off as soon as they could. There were too many stories about TRIM to content all of the crew that there was nothing to worry about.

Having been jerked up out of the ship and half-dropped into the station, Fulvus woke and couldn't find the opening he'd come in. He tried to feel for it, but only succeeded in tipping his crate off the top of the stack, landing with a sharp thud and crack as the crate took the abuse.

Now, he was more upside-down than he was right side up, and as the fruit began filling in space around his head, he was starting to panic, trying to get himself righted and out of this mysterious confined space. He squeaked frantically.

[Anonymous]

(Apologies in advance, I'm doing a weird time skip thing of a few minutes about halfway through the post... pretty much to just get to Vesk.  If this bugs you, tell me.)

It was inevitable that a self-moving crate that suddenly began to rattle and squeak would be noticed.  It was a few moments later that, despite his shifting, the crate was righted, the top immediately pried off by one of the security guards.  And boy, were they surprised to find a large bat... thing.  There was a moment of hesitation before Fulvus would be seized and detained.  This hadn't happened before... and the shippers had already left, leaving them with this bat.

One guard began to question him.  It was apparent that the guard believed that Fulvus was somehow hostile, because his tone was not at all nice.  He inquired rather rudely about what Fulvus was doing.

One of the managers just rolled his eyes.  "I'll go get one of the doctors."  He said, heading off.   There wasn't much they could do about the bat being on the station, but maybe the doctors could put him to use.

About a minute later, the heavy footfalls of the manager could be heard returning.  Accompanying the footfalls was an odd clacking noise, sounding more like claws impacting the floor than flesh.  Vesk didn't carry much in the way of scent, as the fruit more than overpowered the scent of his bones.  It seemed that the guard hadn't really let up, until Vesk pushed him aside, a surprised yelp coming from the guard.  The Lich had almost clawlike bones, so rough handling often left gashes.

There was a pause as the lich got near Fulvus.  "HELLO.  DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?" he asked, his voice unnatural, seeming to carry a chill upon the very words.

[Anonymous]

(no worries. Doesn't bother me)

Fulvus cowered in the box as random men started yelling at him and so many sounds came from all sides. Everything seemed far too echo-y and it disoriented him.

"No" The bat squeaked uncertainly, without uncurling from his ball. He was mostly encased in his wings now. His fur was patchy, parts of it never really having grown back properly after some of the experiments he'd been through. "Where?"

He felt along the edge of the box and found the top edge and lifted himself up enough to get a 'look' at this man with the strange voice. He opened his mouth just slightly, revealing very pointy teeth. He released a sound, higher than the range of most human hearing and his ears perked as he read the sounds that came back to him. Well, this man talking to him was certainly different, but maybe the echos were making his sound image distorted.

His green eyes had milky whitish patches over them, covering most of the pupil and making his iris look rather milky green. Despite not functioning, they still darted around as if he could use them to see what all these huge figures around him were.

[Anonymous]

The blue flames that constituted the lich's eyes looked carefully at the bat's eyes.  Blind, probably.  He really didn't know where he was.  "WELL, THEN... WELCOME TO THE THANATOS RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF METAPHYSICS."  He said simply.  He very well could have called it TRIM, but there was no point.  That was just conserving time that he had plenty of to spare anyhow.  Unlike most of the people on the station, he wasn't going to die anytime soon.

The lich twitched faintly as the bat released a sound.  Blind, yes, but he still had echolocation, it seemed.  How interesting.  "WELL, IT SEEMS THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE HERE ANYTIME IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE."  The lich said.  "COME, LET'S GO FIND YOU SOMETHING... BUG-LIKE TO EAT."  He said.  The lich lacked most forms of compassion, yes, but anyone that had been around him long enough knew that he cared for his subjects, mostly to not break them.  And that probably meant that Fulvus might end up on the receiving end of some kind of test sooner or later.  For the time, though, Vesk was simply aiming to get the bat to look a little better than he currently did.

[Anonymous]

Fulvus crept along the floor towards the rather booming voice. He was most comfortable with all limb on the ground. His legs were much shorter than a human's were, and so his steps were awkward at best, and he tended to tip over anyway, running over some unseen item, snagging a wing on a table and was quite clumbsy in general.

"Research?" He asked, sounding oddly hopeful about this. "Is there a lab here?" His voice was somewhat squeaky, the words not quite perfectly formed through his bat teeth.

He crept closer and would bump into Vesk's feet if the Lich didn't move. Despite echolocation, Fulvus was better at running into things than he was avoiding them. "Bugs? They're my favorite" He said, trying to smell bugs through the somewhat bruised fruit scent filling the air.

[Anonymous]

Vesk straightened up at the bat-creature came towards him.  He observed it.  This was something he hadn't seen before, so it was interesting to him.  He made a mental not to write down what he could observe here.

"AS I PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, THIS IS A RESEARCH INSTITUTE."  Vesk replied.  "THERE ARE MANY LABS HERE, VARYING IN USE."  He said.  He reached down, and pressed a hand to Fulvus's shoulder, aiming to stop him.  His hand was skeletal, and chilling to the touch, quite obviously not human.  "I GUESSED AS MUCH." he replied to the statement about bugs.  Of course the station had bugs.  They kept all kinds of food for all kins of creatures, and so insects were not in short supply.

The lich paused, removing his hand from the bat.  "I ASSUME YOU NEED NOURISHMENT.  LET US GO FIND SOMETHING MORE... APPEALING TO YOU."  He said.  "ARE YOU ABLE TO FOLLOW ON YOUR OWN, OR SHALL I GUIDE YOU?  AH, BEFORE I FORGET, I AM VESK, HEAD DOCTOR OF THIS FACILITY."  He said, finally introducing himself to the stowaway.

[Anonymous]

(*mutters about stupid post-eating website*)

Fulvus flinched as he was touched, having not expected anything to touch him, particularly not a claw. But Vesk didn't smell like a predator, so the claw didn't fit his mental picture, but then Vesk didn't smell like a human either. He lifted his nose to sniff the air a moment, but relaxed a little.

"Yesh, let's" Fulvus agreed, blindly looking around the room. Occasionally he still caught shadows of things, but mostly, he ignored them. They weren't often right anyhow. "Well, I can't see, and I don't where we're going, so you should probably guide" He said "I usually run into things and fall into boxes and stuff." And get packed in a fruit crate and shipped off to who knows where

"I'm a Hominidae-Hipposideros Fulvus" Fulvus replied with his full species name, since he had no given name. "But only the scientists called me that. Everyone else just calls me Fulvus" He admitted. "that's easier to say."