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Hyas: Ex Astris : 1

by limniris

limniris Hyas is born and makes a friend! Sorta.
They spent their earliest beginnings sleeping. Curled up as tight as they could, floating, only vaguely aware of the feeling of orbit. They did not know of strong gravity until later in life.

As they slept, they dreamed. Colorful, vibrant patterns, in groups of threes. Something about that was nice and familiar. Eventually, they opened their own yellow eyes and had the dilemma of suddenly being able to see.

Creativity is an inherent trait in Elgyem, so although the only things they saw were the blue-white of their sun and the speckled black behind them, they successfully developed thoughts. At first, they consisted just of the most distant sense of comfort and home, but quickly they grew more intricate.

I am Hyas.

Naming themself was the easiest thing to start with. Their signal lights glinted out, “I am Hyas,” and they looked around at their surroundings instinctively for a response. Eyes squinting a little against the sun, they felt muscles in their head tense, and they used their psychic energy to rotate their body in order to look back and scan the blackness. Small white dots shone back, but nothing was in a pattern that made sense.

Hyas was awake, though, and it was unlikely they'd feel tired again for some time. The sun they had orbited in birth did not have much in the way of nearby planets, just a few pieces of sunburned, cauterized rock that were on a steady inwards spiral to utter demolishment.

I could’ve been the same.

It was a small thought, a minor realization, but it scared them. Hyas knew that the sun was the reason they had been able to survive long enough to wake up, but they also came to the conclusion that it was something to stay on the watch for. They moved a little bit away from it and willed themself to slowly calm down.

---​

Peering at their surroundings and trying to come up with new conclusions about the same things was growing boring. Hyas acknowledged the fresh emotion like they had the others, but it didn’t go away as quickly as they expected. It stayed stuck onto them, restlessness spreading through their very being. They decided that they had to do something new. A tug of the right cranial ligaments, and off they went.

It was an interesting feeling, traveling around the sun. There were several objects in orbit that Hyas hadn’t seen from their previous position. They came close to one of them, a giant piece of light gray rock, and was assaulted with a violent pull coming from the surface of the object. Whatever was holding them to the pale rock was stronger than their psychic power. The moon was spinning, faster and faster as they grew closer to another, larger planet. If Hyas had been able to feel dizzy, they would’ve. Instead, they lay there face down for some time.

Eventually the strength was gathered to turn their head to the side. Upon doing so, they saw something they’d never seen before. It was mostly a dark shade of pink, unassuming, but it moved. Excitedly, Hyas shone their lights in what they were pretty sure was a greeting pattern. The creature before them opened a cavity on its face, below its eyes, and produced sound waves.

“Hihi! What’syourname!!!”

Perturbed, Hyas flashed their lights again. The pink thing’s sound waves bounced right off of them, still totally incomprehensible. Maybe the issue was that only one of Hyas’ arms could actually face the new friend? The other was pinned beneath a rock. They managed to shift it, resolutely concentrating on their psychic power to the point that their entire hands emitted a faint glow. The viewer to this spectacle clapped.

“Woow! Youmovedit!”

It was hard to hold up both their hands, and they had to levitate their upper body to get into the right position. Their legs remained prone on the ground. The force pushing down on them was all the worse now that they were upright. Hyas managed to do it, though, and sent another exhausted greeting signal to the creature.

“Prettylights!” It bounced, jumping up in the air with effortless strength. It treated the pressing weight of gravity as if it were barely a nuisance. Hyas stared in shock. What sort of creature was this, that it had so much power? How much psychic energy would it take to do that? They didn’t know, but it must have been immense. It was that thought that caused Hyas to try reaching out with their own power, to try and get a sense of what this being was like.

The pink thing’s mind was… different. Very different. Energetic beyond belief, despite what Hyas now knew was an utter lack of psychic energy. It survived by being compact and muscular, underneath a thin coat of fur (what?). Cleffa communicated through those sound waves it had been producing earlier, and they had horns which interpreted the sounds for their brain to decipher. They lived in groups, but this Cleffa had found Hyas when she had gotten lost looking for her family.

There was so much information to take in. Hyas let their body fall down against the rock, not wanting to waste energy when their lights wouldn’t even get through to Rosetta anyways. She took no notice of Hyas going through her memories, and finally they decided it was time to communicate.

‘I am Hyas.’

“Ohwow! You’reinmymind!” Rosetta spoke the words, but Hyas was able to follow along with her thoughts as she spoke.

‘Yes. I want to leave this moon. Carry me to your spaceship.’

“Okies!” Hyas was not much bigger than Rosetta, and she was able to put them on top of her head and carry the Elgyem without much effort. As she walked, she thought about how annoyed the Clefable would be if she did take a spaceship, and considered just grabbing one of the small pods. A clear ‘no.’ redirected her, and she approached the mothership.

Hyas didn't know how to pilot the giant steel vessel, but Rosetta did. She was too small to control it, though, so they sifted through her thoughts and used their psychic abilities to activate the ship’s control panel and life support.

The ship itself was buried under a great deal of rubble. Hyas knew that most of it would be cleared away when they launched. There were faults in the ship, damages from when Rosetta’s ancestors had landed on this moon. The main hull was severely dented. Hyas was able to pop it into place, and with a bit of effort they got most of the mothership airtight. A hard vacuum wouldn't do a thing to Hyas, but Clefairy had built this ship for a reason. Their species was far less resilient than Hyas’. Rosetta ran about, having left Hyas on the floor of the control room. She gathered the supplies she'd need for a long voyage, and soon the both of them were ready.

High-pitched shrieks resounded from below as Rosetta’s family saw the mothership take off. A Moonblast struck the side of the ship, and part of the cabins and the incubation rooms were destroyed. Hyas put the important parts back together as quickly as they could. There was no time to waste. Exiting the atmosphere brought a bit more strain to the ancient engines than Rosetta thought was good, but soon they were out of the moon’s range. Hyas switched off the artificial gravity that the Clefable had preferred, and relaxed as they floated once more.

“Gonnagofaraway?” Rosetta bumped into a wall and was sent slowly careening towards the other one.

‘Yes.’

“Where? Shiphasn’tgotfuel.” There was concern in her voice. Hyas looked a little closer in her mind and was interrupted.

“Stopthat!!!” Rosetta puffed out her cheeks as she yelled shrilly. “Don’t! Do! That! Rude!”

‘I can't make sound waves the way you can.’

“Don'tgottaknoweverythingIknow!”

‘We wouldn't have gotten the ship running if I hadn't looked.’

“Didn'tevenwanttheship! Youdid!!! Didn'twantit!” Hyas floated back a bit as she tried to slap them on her way by.

‘But what will we do now?’ The Elgyem had thought that Rosetta wanted to be friends. She had seemed pleased to meet them earlier. There was something Hyas had missed.

Rosetta was silent for a little while. Hyas could tell she was thinking deeply, but they acknowledged that memory scanning was somehow atrocious to her. It was instinctual for them, but they did concede to Rosetta’s wishes.

Finally the Cleffa spoke. “Findanothermoon.”

Only looking into Rosetta’s mind far enough to tell what she was saying, they nodded. That made sense to Hyas. It was why the Clefable had built the mothership, after all. To spread out across the galaxy and find new homes for colonization.

“Setthecontrols,” Rosetta ordered.

‘To what?’

“Moonfinding.” Hyas knew enough of the Clefable’s language (learned during their investigation in their ally’s mind) that they were able to rig the navigational controls to search correctly. There was almost no fuel left to power it, but once the course was set, Hyas used their psychic power to boost them, and off the ship went.

((It begins...
Hyas is the same Elgyem I've written some other short stories about. This one will be longer and have a stronger plot. More characters will be introduced in the next chapter.
Rosetta is not that strong; Hyas is just really weak.
I may edit this more later, but there will be no major changes to story and I'll post a status message about it if I do.
Thank you for reading!))
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