Warning: spoilers for the Vulcanus Saga.
You are Lavender, and you’re having a good time right now!
The whole family, you and your daddeh and mummah, your other daddeh and auntie Amy, your hoomin bwuddah James, his special friend Lilah, your other hoomin bwuddah Keith, and all of your fluffy friends are on vay-kay-shun right now. Even Daisy and Elm’s babbehs, who are almost big enough to not need milkies anymore.
All the other hoomins who work on the fawm, and the Kay-oh-tiks, are keeping a see-place on the fawm for all of you.
You’ve been on a couple of vay-kay-shuns before. Back when it was just you, Daisy and Rose, the family went on vay-kay-shun to a place called Messy-koh.
It was kind of messy there. And warmies. Daddeh told you not to drink the wawas there, because you’d get “dai-yuh-wee-yuh”.
Apparently, some of the Kay-oh-tiks went on a mishun to Messy-koh later. They had to get a glowy red thing from a housie full of vam-piyah boneies.
And mistah Cal’s gwamma told you that the vam-piyahs in Messy-koh are really mean. They’re not as nice as mistah Henry, or his fluffy Carmilla.
But this is an unusual vay-kay-shun.
Because you’re not on vay-kay-shun anywhere on Uwf.
Your family is on vay-kay-shun on another pwanet, called Aw-kay. You went there by going to the Tewwuh-Powt.
It’s a really pretty pwanet. Looks a lot like Uwf. Lots of fawms, just like the one you live on, and lots of fowests, like the one Blueberry’s herd lives in.
Daddeh said that going to a pwanet with lots of fawms felt like a “busman’s holiday”, but you don’t know what that means.
And the ayy-wee-enn not-hoomins living here, the Aw-kay-dee-yuns, are all reddies, like dee-muns, but nicer. You’re all wearing thingies on your earsies that let you understand them.
They’ve got four armies.
That’s just not fair! Fluffies don’t even have two!
But you can do a lot of stuff that usually needs handsies with your floaty thing, so you can live with that.
And fluffies have got four leggies. The Aw-kay-dee-yuns only have two, like hoomins.
So there’s that, too.
Aw-kay wasn’t always pretty, apparently.
A big burnie munstah called Vuw-cah-nus made something called a “dwowt” happen, and it almost made everything on the pwanet go forever sleepies.
But mistah Cal undid the dwowt when he won the Intergalactic Tournament. He asked the dwagon to fix everything, and bring everyone who went forever sleepies back.
So everyone here seems to love mistah Cal. The sitty you’re staying in has a big stat-choo of him.
And since the Kay-oh-tiks went to a place called Woss Vay-gus and mistah Cal gave Vuw-cah-nus forever sleepies, the Aw-kay-dee-yuns love him even more.
It turns out that Vuw-cah-nus was the big munstah inside Uwf. And that he made it so that hoomins and fluffies can have Fuh-numma-num Ecks and get powahs.
You’d been wondering how it happened.
You were helping to eee-vak-yoo-ate Woss Vay-gus too. You had to use your tewwuh-puffy to make hoomins who wanted to stay leave the sitty. You didn’t like it, but Vuw-cah-nus ended up giving the whole sitty burnies, so you had to do it.
A lot of them were sitting at mash-eens that weren’t turned on. You don’t know what the mash-eens do, other than that they’re used for something called “gam-bwin”.
Mistah Victor had been asking your daddeh to let him take you to Woss Vay-gus for gam-bwin. Apparently, your tewwuh-puffy would have been really helpful for that.
But just when your daddeh decided to say yes, Vuw-cah-nus landed in Woss Vay-gus. You all saw him, he jumped really high.
So mistah Victor didn’t get what he wanted.
But he’s not the only one who is isn’t happy after what happened in Woss Vay-gus.
Mistah Cal’s been saddies since then. His bwuddah, mistah Scott, went forever sleepies.
You all saw it happen, when you were all in the Forever Sleepies Valley. Vuw-cah-nus was about to give mistah Cal forever sleepies, but mistah Scott pushed mistah Cal out of the way, so Vuw-cah-nus gave him forever sleepies instead.
Mistah Cal was angry at Vuw-cah-nus. Really angry. So angry, he was calm.
“You’re going to die for that.”
Then he used a magic wockie to give Vuw-cah-nus forever sleepies.
It’s a whole thing. You didn’t see everything, because you all went home to “hai-dwate” like mistah Cal told you all to.
It was really warmies in the Forever Sleepies Valley. Even warmer than Messy-koh.
Miss Val threw a little silver thingy at the forever sleeping mistah Scott, there was a poof sound, and then mistah Scott was gone, and there was a big silver boxie where mistah Scott was, like the boxie they put your old munstah daddeh in. Then miss Val pushed a button on the boxie, it became really small, and miss Val put it in her pokkit.
Everyone in the Kay-oh-tiks is saddies for mistah Cal.
And even you can tell that mistah Cal has big heart hurties right now. He’s trying to act like he doesn’t have heart hurties, but with your powahs, you can feel how much heart hurties he has.
It’s so strong, in fact, that just being around mistah Cal makes you feel like you’re about to start crying.
And you don’t know what you can do to help him. You want to help him so much. He’s helped you so much.
You’ve tried giving him huggies. You even asked the other fluffies in the Kay-oh-tiks to give mistah Cal huggies too, and they happily agreed.
Of course, fluffies don’t really need a reason to give someone huggies.
It didn’t help a lot, but mistah Cal appreciated the effort.
Your daddeh told you that he knows exactly how mistah Cal feels. Your daddeh lost both of his bwuddahs, you haven’t forgotten.
Of course, one of them came back as a neff-uh-wim, and a nice version of the other from another timewine came back too.
So it’s not exactly the same, but your daddeh still knows how mistah Cal feels.
After the vay-kay-shun, your daddeh is going to have a talk with mistah Cal.
Right now, you’re all visiting a fawm-in viww-idge. Lots of fawms here. And a few wess-tuh-wonts, too.
They make lots of tasty nummies on Aw-kay.
You daddeh looks down at all of you.
“Stay close to us, alright? I don’t want you guys getting lost in space.”
“Nu woh-wees, daddeh. Wavendew am gud smawty. Wavendew nu wiww wet aneewun git wost.”
Daisy’s babbehs are riding on the other big fluffy’s backs. They’re too big to all ride on Daisy now without it giving her back owwies.
You decide to wander off, and explore solo. You’re not afraid that you won’t come back. You have powahs.
Of course, you tell daddeh where you’re going first. Just so he doesn’t worry.
But this is one of the safer pwanets. It’s a good pwanet for fluffies, he said. There’s a good few other hoomins on vay-kay-shun here too, and a few other not-hoomins, and some of them have fluffies too.
Rose and Rowan are chatting to a fluffy who looks like he’s made of wockies, and his mummah looks like that too. Her name’s miss Rhoobee. They’re both kind of reddies, like the Aw-kay-dee-yuns.
And you know daddeh will be keeping a see-place on your herd until you get back.
You trust him.
As you pass one fawm, you see someone talking to one of the fawm-ews outside a fawm-housie.
You know who it is without even having to get a close look, because you can feel the hidden heart hurties.
It’s mistah Cal! What’s he doing here?
He doesn’t notice you. He’s talking, and you know it’s rude to interrupt.
“It’ll be good to have you on board, Amitsu. We’re still getting things ready, we haven’t got a name for the space squad. We’re not gonna call it that, Vic’s not happy about that. But he’s even less happy about what happened to Vegas.”
“Who else is going to be on this squad, Cal?”
“We’re still inviting people, Bellikose is a definite yes. Their Klyntar half was on the fence.”
“What about Peeta?”
“He’s not really a fighter by trade. It’s the Pit-Fiend in him that does all the fighting.”
“I’ve heard rumors that he’s looking for a way to get control over his Pit-Fiend.”
“Okay, I’ll put him in the maybe column. I’m gonna go to Vajarsi soon, to invite Konba. We’ve already worked with him before. Would you mind working with him, Amitsu?”
“There are worse squadmates, Cal. But, ah, what kind of things would we be doing?”
“Well, I can think of a few. We’ll probably need to look for the other six Stones of Octavo sooner or later, and if they’re on Earth, I’ll eat Niv’s imaginary hat.”
“I still can’t believe those things are actually real.”
At this point, you waddle back over to the others, not entirely sure what that was about.
You know it’s Kay-oh-tiks stuff. You’re pretty sure that the teem will be getting some new mem-buws.
But the Kay-oh-tiks stuff on Uwf is complicated enough.
It’s a big yoo-nah-vuwse.
Much bigger than you thought it was.
You wonder how many pwanets there are in total.
Is there a sketties pwanet somewhere out there?
Oh, you really hope so.
As you return to your family, you sigh, and think out loud.
“A fwuffy can dweem.”