Part 3: Pet Human

'Impossible' used to be one of Mae's favorite words. From adolescence to adulthood it was 'impossible' this and 'impossible' that. It always felt so final, the perfect excuse not to try anymore. Only recently had her usage of the word begun to wane. Befriending humans often had that effect on people. However, following nearly an hour of failed attempts, 'impossible' was about to crash land back into her vocabulary.

“Are you kidding me?" Came Toby's voice in an ear-splitting rage.

Toby was marooned on a table beside her kit like always. He was so frustrated that he nearly threw his instrument away, though he did think better of it in the end. Cass sat in a folding chair nearby, watching the chaos unfold as he replaced the strings on one of Toby's backup basses. His mech rested against the table, cockpit open and full of tiny tools. To his credit, Cass didn't bask in the schadenfreude like she expected. In fact, he seemed entirely disinterested in anything other than his work.

Mae brought her play to a quiet stop. She and Toby had hit a major bump in the road with their final track. 'Peace' was one of their most elaborate and energetic songs, thanks in no small part to how Saos had indiscriminately chopped it up in the production phase. All previous attempts to replicate the studio version saw no success. It was the day of the big show. Every track played back to back. Yet sadly, their luck hadn't changed a bit.

“Can we really do this, Toby?" Mae was near limp atop her kit, tail curled behind her in defeat.

“We totally can, I've just gotta stop fucking up that last bit." He said.

Toby gave the top of the table a weak, frustrated kick. She knew he was wrong. The blame went both ways. She hadn't even attempted singing and drumming at the same time yet. If she had, their attempts probably would have failed much sooner.

“Take a break." Endi's airy voice ordered them.

Her drum tech leaned on a wall in the far corner of the stage, observing her like she tended to during sound checks. A break sounded very appealing, but Mae didn't want to take one without Toby's vote. Mercifully, he voted wisely.

“Alright. Take five, everyone." Toby said, holding up his fingers.

Endi's eyes nearly popped out of her skull. “Formation five, I completely forgot!"

She practically sprinted over to the drum kit, and very nearly pushed Mae off the stool along the way. It seemed a motivated ashar could summon some frightening strength. Slightly ashamed of getting pushed around by someone nearly half a head shorter than her, Mae gathered her wits and made the short journey over to the two humans on the table. Toby had his back to her. Cass still had his nose in one of the backup basses. She doubted they would even notice her unless she alerted them on purpose.

“I told you, lad. That song's too fickle a beast to play live." Cass said, a touch of sympathy in his voice.

Toby gently set his instrument on the table top beneath him.

“Bit late for that, Cass."

Having noticed an opportunity to raise her spirits a bit, Mae got Toby and Cass's attention with a soft, yet very noticeable pat on the table. Toby yelped, whereas Cass nearly rocketed out of his seat. Some small fraction of her always got a bit of a thrill from sneaking up on people, despite her better nature.

“You OK?" Toby asked her, already recovered from the initial shock.

Mae told him no. Her high drained as quick as it came.

“We'll get it, Mae. No pressure."

He walked up to her and put a little hand on her fingertip. Mae remained unconvinced, which she broadcast with a flick of her ear. “It's hard not to feel pressured in a place like this."

Unlike the Hands of Beish, Gicea Way's performance hall was an indoor venue, and often served as a vertical slice for the rest of the area. Big, white, and expensive. Spotless white pillars and ornate hanging lights were entangled by decorative ornaments. Vines grew in safe, sedate areas around the building, grated off to stop children from picking at them. Mae doubted that her nervous disposition could have survived failing in one of their most lavish venues yet.

“Yeah, I get you." Toby said, a sympathetic air about him. “How are we gonna do this, Mae?"

She brought a hand under her chin while she thought through the situation. The hall had gone eerily quiet, enough so to make her tail stand on end behind her. She tried to think of solutions and constantly came up short. All she could find were old pieces of advice.

“A good drummer has to be a good problem solver." Her finger pattered on the table. “That's something my music teacher told me once."

“So you'll be solving this problem?" Cass prodded her, finally fully cognizant of the world around him.

Mae let out an aching whine. Her chin thudded onto the table with force that would have crushed a man flat. She was far enough from the humans that they were safe, of course. A little bit of bone rattling never hurt anyone.

“I don't know."

Laughing, Toby sat himself in front of her. He laid a hand on her nose, but she felt too deflated to fully appreciate it. “Well if you don't know, a dumb bass player like me won't either." He admitted.

She always liked how he could sprinkle humor into dire situations like this. It helped her morale, if not their chances, more than he knew. Their conversation was pierced by a clatter of noise from the drums kit. Endi had configured the electronic kit to the fifth preset on her yutri. One that created a softer sound from each possible point of impact. Unfortunately for Cass, Endi needed to test each individual drum when she made those types of changes.

“Cripes! You scared my socks off, Endi." Cass admonished his guardian.

Endi's only response was a thumbs up, earning that strange half-smirk half-shrug Cass did when he was impressed. After recalibrating each percussion sample, Endi tapped out a snippet of '21/16', played far slower than Mae ever would have thought to. Mae took full advantage of her above average endurance behind the kit. She played fast and aggressive, throwing in plenty of fills and little touches to keep things interesting for herself. But even stripped of all that, Endi's play still sounded pretty good to her. In fact, the more she listened, the more it sounded like a solution.

“Toby." She said, tail excitedly thrashing behind her. “Saos said we had to play every song on the album, yes?"

He nodded, though the look on his face made it clear that he didn't know where she was going with this. “Well, who said we had to play them exactly like the album?"

An impish little grin scrawled across Toby's lips. “What've you got in mind?"

Rather than boring them with every little detail, Mae all but bolted back to the kit. She would have thrown herself right into the thick of her solution if Endi weren't there. Unfortunately, Mae's issues with asserting herself didn't stop, even with her. Having somebody else sat where she wanted to be was a textbook 'nervous Mae' situation.

“Endi. Can I have the kit, please?" She questioned, barely louder than a gasp.

Endi stepped aside and moved to the human's table with no complaints. Mae hopped onto her stool with the kind of excitement that she rarely got from full gigs, let alone rehearsals. She was chomping at the bit to see her synergy with Toby thrive again.

“Toby, try playing over this!"

Compositionally, nothing had changed in the pattern she beat out for him. However, one key difference made the entire thing more manageable. She slowed it down by about a fifth. A propulsive beat became soft, subdued, and brimmed with understated confidence. Toby jumped onto the track not long after. He instantly locked into the slower pace. The bass carried its same aggressive, distorted attack, but the last few notes that he struggled with before now rolled off his fingers with ease. Mae was thrilled. They had been so fixated on matching the recording that even simple solutions like these evaded them. At least, that was until Toby stopped them again.

“Something's off." He insisted.

Mae's heart sunk. For a moment, she thought they were making real progress. “What is it now?" She keened.

“It's this." Toby pulled his bass guitar's strap off his body and held the instrument at arm's length. “I've got to figure out a new tone, the regular crap won't cut it."

Not a moment too soon, Cass tapped him on the shoulder. His other hand held the answer to Toby's worries. An instrument. Six stringed like the rest, with a distinct hole that marked it as his one and only acoustic bass guitar. Toby hadn't used it since he recorded the band's very first demos. Cass just kept it tuned to keep himself occupied. Despite the rather greedy way he snatched it from Cass, she could tell Toby felt that same nostalgia for it that she did. Like an old friend paying a visit after far too long an absence.

“What is that thing? Endi asked, desperate for either human to guide her.

“My acoustic bass." Toby showed it off with salesman-like aplomb. “Haven't used it in a while, but it should sound alright if Cassidy over there's doing his job properly. Listen."

Toby graced her ears with a few scattered chords. They rang out in hollow, ghostly tones that made Mae's fur stand on end. Mae hadn't realized how much she missed the sound. Though Endi didn't seem quite as impressed.

“How will anybody hear it?" Was her only response, stiff as a board.

A very self-assured Cass stuck a trailing wire into the bottom of the bass's body. “That's where I come in."

He then took the liberty of spinning a little knob on the instrument's side and plucked a string or two, much to Toby's chagrin. The effect, however, was immediate and devastating. Its former whisper became a deep bellow that shook the very air around them.

“Good job, Cass!" She cheered for her charge.

Cass turned his head away, though he was unable to snuff the embers of a smile before Mae caught it. Much as it pained her to do so, she broke up the with a hit of her kick drum. Sixth Eye still had a song to sing.

“When you're ready." She said to Toby.

The second he got back into position, she counted him in. Toby's new accompaniment set the track worlds apart from the studio original. Transformed as well was Mae's mental state as she played. She chose drumming as an outlet. Whether it be old memories or fresh experiences, anything that made her angry or excitable came out on the kit. In that moment, she had begun to draw from a different place. Prewritten words were given meaning through images of someone she lost, and the longing she had always felt since.

A friend of mine wanted emancipation

Let me tell you all about her frustrations

Mae filled the verse with a marching beat that stayed in her kit's lowest possible range. Toby matched her nearly note for note, though he occasionally snuck in a quick flourish now and then.

Thought she was at a safe distance

Thought she'd built up a resistance

Now recollections gnaw her heels

She's down again

I think she wanted perfection

Erestal masked her intention

Burned out and wasted

Now she can't turn back

A small clatter of drums brought them into the short chorus. Her voice could have bounced off the walls even without a microphone.

I'm on my knees!

Do as you please!

Come on and sing me to sleep.

And with a final forlorn note, their first successful attempt at the verse and chorus of 'Peace' was complete. Mae ran straight to Toby's table, leaving her melancholy on the kit. She offered Toby another ride in her hand in a fit of excitement, which he accepted.

“Toby, we did it! We made it work!"

She kept Toby level with her chest. It took a surprising amount of willpower for her to resist the urge to jump for joy.

“All thanks to Cass!" Endi ran two furless fingers down Cass's back, stroking him softly.

“Not in front of him, woman!" Cass warned her, red with embarrassment and joy.

Toby, of course, laughed right in his face. Endi made sure to sneak in one long final stroke with the back of her fingers before she let him go. And just like that, Mae was struck with that same urge again. She had Toby in her hands, they were both in a good mood, and she even saw Endi do it to Cass with no real fuss. Now was the time to try stroking him again. Mae snuck a paw closer to Toby's side. She could feel herself approaching her mental wall, but she believed in herself. She could push through.

All until Toby noticed.

Her hand recoiled to her side in an instant. She didn't just hit the wall again. She crashed into it head first. “Sorry." she muttered, tail and ears slumped in defeat.

She turned her back on her friends, but she could still see Toby in the corners of her vision. She couldn't place his emotions when he noticed her. But to her, he almost seemed disappointed.

“So, what's next?" asked Cass, still somewhat red from Endi's impromptu display of affection.

Toby offered a shrug, and not much else. “Sound test 'Peace' some more, I guess. Doing the whole song is kind of important."

“Wait. Endi? Cass?" Mae said, timidly.

Toby's suggestion made perfect sense, and yet Mae was left feeling unsatisfied. She still had a burning question for their road crew. “Our first after party is tonight." She trailed off.

Mae opted to stare at a hanging light in the hopes of avoiding eye contact. “Do you want to come?"

“I do," Endi's face caught Mae completely off guard. “But we're low tier staff. They would never let us in."

Mae felt like she'd been kicked in the teeth. Toby was already a big help, but she really wanted some familiar faces at the party. Endi and Cass's absence would have been an awful loss.

“But we could vouch for you" Came Toby's voice, warm as ever. “You'd be our plus ones."

Endi hummed in thought, putting a finger on her chin. Mae felt a small spring of optimism inside her.

“Will you be going?" Endi pleaded for his approval.

Approval that he wouldn't give, judging by the hand wave he dismissed her with. “Feck that. You two can cozy up to the upper crust if you want, I'll-"

“I'm going." Endi interrupted him.

Cass's mouth hung open for a moment, but an understanding had come over him, and thus he crossed his arms to get the sass across. “Spying on Mae again?"

Endi nodded as if nothing was wrong with that. On its own, that behavior should have raised red flags, but Mae was just happy to have one more friend accompany her into this first tryst with Cal-Gea networking.

“Fine, I'm going too." Cass moaned, finally having given in.

Her friends were ecstatic. Endi even gave him a few more adulatory pets before Cass shooed her off again. She was truly happy that another familiar face would be there to soften the blow, but something felt off. She wouldn't have slept easy knowing Cass didn't come of his own volition.

“Cass, it's fine if you don't want to come." Mae tried to reassure him.

She immediately felt silly. Even to her, it sounded like a poor attempt at a Toby impression. She did receive some disapproving glares from him and Endi for her troubles. Rightly so, she thought.

“Nah." Cass looked at Endi with some of the most genuine affection she'd seen from him. “Endi and I, we're a duo. I go where she goes, and we'll be going after we're done putting your shit away. And somebody here ought to scrape up that mechless idiot if he gets himself squished!"

Cass pointed right at Toby with mirth drenching his features.

“Yeah, well... You'd better." Toby blurted out, pouting in that adorable way Mae always wished she could see more of. Regardless, they still had a song to rehearse. She made Toby take notice of her with a fake cough. It was a tiny gesture, but humans liked to do it, and she enjoyed interacting with him like another member of his species. Mae gave him a toothless grin. She'd just remembered one of the little phrases of his that she liked.

“Can we take it from the top?"

--

It wasn't every day that their venues had a built-in bar, but Gicea Way was full of surprises. Gicea Corner, as the establishment was called, bore a strong resemblance to the rest of the venue from the outside. Those same spiraling pillars were front and center. According to Mae, the architecture wasn't all that dissimilar from some of the bigger buildings in the city. It felt like a tease to Toby. A peek into an outside world that his contract locked him out of.

He would have thought it was the most lavish bar in existence if the door weren't open. But he saw no grand ideas when he looked inside from the front of Mae's stomach. Nothing but dark carpeting and fake wood grain throughout. He could almost have mistaken it for a pub back home if not for its size. But the size was a salient factor, and a bitter wake up call. They were here for business. He had to remember that.

Cal-Gea's afterparties were a notorious contractual obligation. Likely some higher-up's ill-conceived method of getting artists and handlers to network. In fact, 'afterparty' was a misnomer. They weren't celebrations of a successful performance as much as they were celebrations that happened to have been booked after one. Sixth Eye were on the list, but they certainly weren't guests of honor. It was no Cal-Gea building, and yet the fact that the bar served many of that place's regulars kept him on edge.

Mae was pretty rattled by the proceedings. He'd expected as much. If the venue and patrons didn't do it, then the mountain of muscle they called a bouncer certainly would have. He couldn't stop staring at the equine neishor as Mae cautiously handed him their identification. She told him long ago that most people considered her short. He didn't believe her back then, he could hardly have imagined any sapient being that had a head on Mae, let alone the thirty feet that the bouncer lorded over her. No wonder she was nervous. Even giants like her must have felt small sometimes.

“You're in." The bouncer rumbled in an affected sounding gravel.

Toby could scarcely fathom why somebody bigger than his old flat thought he needed to sound tougher. Not that Mae minded him much after he stepped aside and let them in. He even scantly saw upturned lips above him, the burgeoning smile only widening once they stepped into the bar proper. Dim ceiling lights and the occasional potted plant were the only things that lit up the sea of brown he saw when he peeked inside.

Most patrons were the kind of businessmen they saw back at the Cal-Gea waiting room, with a shirtless Lupari bartender and a few people in regular clothes to break up the monotony. The suits were already chatty, tipsy, and ever so loud. The noise might have deafened him if he hadn't kept his ear protection from the concert. Yet despite it all, Mae seemed just as happy as she'd been after they finished their show with relatively few hiccups. He had to pry.

“You're pretty upbeat tonight." Toby commented, tugging her shirt like he always did.

He saw some tension in her movements, even if that same cautious optimism stayed on her lips. “Upbeat? I'm so nervous, Toby." Her cheery tone of voice didn't match her words, but the sight of her ears tilted sideways gave the claim some credibility.

“That right?"

She nodded, though her expression didn't falter.

“But we get to meet musicians just like us now! Aren't you excited, Toby?"

In that moment, he honestly didn't know. On one hand, countless things could have gone wrong. On the other, he felt incredible being out of the stuffy hotel room they'd forced him and Cass into. And if that wasn't enough, Mae was happy. Actually happy, without much in the way of caveats or creeping panic. And if Mae was happy, then he was happy too.

“Can't wait." He buried himself into the corner of her hand. No reaction, unfortunately.

Mae walked him over to an unoccupied table in the far corner of the establishment. Round and wide enough for him to be safely left in the middle without falling, much like the kinds he performed on. Curiously, Mae had completely avoided the counter, even if she still glared at it like nothing else.

“What, no drinks?" He asked her, as she tenderly dropped him off in the center of the table.

Mae shook her head and leaned onto the table top. Thick, white furred fingers rested next to him, ready to shield him from oncoming aggressors. “They don't serve drinks for humans."

She gave a disdainful glance at the holographic menu behind the counter, tail flared up behind her.

“Yeah, but Mae, what about you?"

Mae pulled out a chilled water bottle that she hadn't drank during the concert, not that he could see it with the way her huge forepaws enveloped the thing. “Holding humans and drinking alcohol sounds like a horrible combination to me."

It made sense, there was no disputing that. Regardless, the prospect of being at a pub with no beer was a potent drain on his hopes for a decent afterparty. “So, what now?" He asked, restlessly waiting on a table as he'd spent so much of his recent life doing.

“We wait for somebody to notice us." She lapped up another sip of her water.

“I see. Too shy to go up to them yourself?" He laughed and gave her index finger a playful nudge with his elbow. Once again, no reaction. A bit demoralizing, but he tried not to let it cloud his mind.

“Maybe." Mae sulked. Shy or not, she seemed to have caught the eye of one of the suits anyway. Mae straightened herself out the second she noticed him. “Look! Here's someone now."

Toby hoped against hope that Mae's optimism wasn't in vain.

--

“So the Human's effect on overall operating costs is negligible at best?" A suited ashar interrogated her.

“Yes, Toby and I cost about the same." Mae bit back the urge to sigh.

He was the fifth person in a row who had asked these kinds of questions. Each conversation had been hideously boring to sit through, tooth-grindingly concerned with stats and sales figures. But Mae especially hated it when these people called Toby 'the Human'. She felt like she had to use his name once a minute just so these people remembered that he even had one.

“A shame." He hummed, still uselessly coddling his drink. “The merchandising opportunities will fill the void. Your stripes are rare enough for consumers to gravitate towards them."

She'd have growled at him if she hadn't restrained herself so tightly. He wasn't the first who had brought up her stripes that night, either. She began to think the faceless number crunchers who handled their shows should have stayed faceless. Especially if they were all like the man in front of her. “I'm sorry. I think we've said all there is to say." She said quietly, and internally begged for him to take the hint.

“Perhaps we have." He nodded. “Well then, I wish you and the Human the best."

“Goodbye." Mae made sure to add an undeserved peppiness to her voice as he left, then hurled herself into the seat behind Toby and began her bellyaching. She was bitterly disappointed in nearly every way. Toby called her name again. His voice always caught her ear, even above the all-encompassing noise that the others were making.

“Sorry you didn't get what you wanted out of this." He comforted her, sounding genuine as could be.

Mae slumped back onto the table, near effortlessly crushing a bottle that Toby could have fit inside.

“It's alright. I don't know why I got my hopes up."

Meeting new people was part of the reason she formed Sixth Eye in the first place. Her friendship with Toby was a shining example, but him aside, that part of the project appeared all but dead on arrival. She was shaken out of her daze by the sight of two newcomers walking over to their table. An energetic Kiori, and a wingless arkatian near twice her size. The two women wore casual, albeit matching white outfits. They must have been an act, and if destiny allowed, the kind of company that Mae could get excited about.

“No way." The arkatian gulped, pointing a long, clawed finger at her.

“Are you the ralai from Sixth Eye?" Gasped the starstruck kiori.

Mae nodded, practically bolting onto her feet behind the table to greet them both.

“I'm Ark. She's Kio. Call us ArKio." Claimed the arkatian.

Kio the Kiori and Ark the arkatian. Mae surmised that they must have been marketing themselves on the mixed species angle. Kio was the next to speak. “We saw you at the Hands of Beish. You were an animal!"

Now that was a pleasant surprise. Not only were they fellow musicians, they were also fans. She had never gotten to meet fans in person because of Cal-Gea's strict rules regarding the humans, so a milestone like this was massive. “Thank you very mu-."

“Why are you so angry all the time?" Kio interrupted her, not seeming to grasp how odd the question was.

Mae was dumbstruck at how invasive the woman's line of questioning was. 'Angry' was the last way she would have described herself. Not that Ark allowed Mae to say it before she smothered the conversation further. “Theoretically, it could be the stripes. Half breed DNA making her overly aggressive."

“Gimme a break, the stripes are just dye." Kio asserted with immense confidence, not a shred of it warranted. “She does it because it's like war dye, or whatever."

Mae swore she was hearing things. Even beyond the arkatian's half-baked, offensive pseudoscience, they both sounded like they were talking about a completely different person. That was, until they fixated on a much smaller point of interest on the table in front of her. “It's your Human! I didn't even notice!"

Kio and Ark swarmed around him at their full, menacing heights. These two were the first to directly address him all night, and they had already committed a serious faux pas.

“Aww, look at him! It is a him, right?" Kio cooed.

“Who knows? You never see real humans outside of that little city of theirs." Ark answered dismissively.

Kio and Ark smothered the table with their hands, far too close for Toby to have possibly been comfortable. Neither of them caught on. They were far too enamored with a real human being present to care what he felt.

“I wonder why?" Kio muttered, drifting off in blissful ignorance.

“Cause of people like you, probably." Toby stole the words from Mae's mouth.

Kio sneered at him like she just stepped in something. “Maybe they should stay in their little city if they're all this rude!"

Ark pushed her smaller cohort aside, bent down, and loomed over Toby. The perfect position for an uppercut if Mae were brave or foolhardy enough to try it. “No, no, no, they like positive reinforcement."

Her body must have been all he could see, muzzle pursed like she was speaking to an infant. Or a pet. "Wow, you came all the way out of your city! How brave of you."

“Piss off!" Toby spat in return, refusing to humor her.

The arkatian recoiled in disgust. Toby still had that fire Mae knew him for, but internally she was screaming at him to put it out. These people could kill him with a finger. Getting on their bad side didn't bode well for him.

“I heard they soften up if you pet them." Kio said, as she stretched an arm towards him.

Even Mae would have found the gesture intimidating, so she couldn't have imagined how Toby must have felt. Sadly, she didn't need to. One of her spiny fingers accosted Toby's back. He was too slow to avoid her thoughtless violation of his space, and Kio was so rough with him that he nearly fell over. But that didn't stop a second finger from pushing past his arms and molesting his chin. He begged for her to let go, to no avail. Kio simply didn't care.

This woman was hurting him. Toby was powerless to stop her. Yet even in his time of need, Mae stood glued to the floor. Her lips were sealed. She couldn't lift her arms no matter how hard she tried. Her mental wall had come back at the worst possible time, and Toby had to suffer because she was too weak to push through it. He yelled and clawed with all his might. He must have known how futile it was, but that didn't stop him. It must have done some sort of mental damage, because after an agonizing amount of time, Kio finally took her revolting mitts off him.

“He won't stop screaming!" She sniveled, more irritated if anything.

Ark grabbed her cohort by the arm and began to pull her away. “Let's go. This is freaking me out."

Kio and Ark then shrunk back into whatever pitiful corner of the room they spawned from. Neither of them offered as much as another glance, let alone an apology. Mae was utterly disgusted. They didn't care that he was in pain. They didn't that they might have left him with bruises. They only cared about how his pain made them feel uncomfortable. If she weren't so worried about him, she'd have torn their faces off.

Unlike them, Mae did care. Now was the time to help her friend, not entertain puerile revenge fantasies. She offered Toby her hand, when for the first time in a long time, he hesitated. It was only for a moment, but she saw something she hadn't seen from him in a long, long time: Fear. One of her dearest friends was afraid of her. It cut her deep.

Mae held him as close to her as she could. She kept her teeth in, made herself appear smaller, everything short of physical contact. He felt no better. He must have thought she looked down on him, just as they had. There was only one thing she could do that had slipped the minds of everybody else that night. Speak to him like a person.

“Toby, are you hurt?"

--

“I'm fine."

Toby had to dust himself off after all that trouble. Getting groped and humiliated by ArKio had to be the most dehumanizing experience he'd ever been through. He felt Mae's gaze on him, but he couldn't bear see her anymore.

“Are you sure? They were so horrible to you."

If he knew her at all, then she was giving herself a mental lashing. Lying stung, but he felt it necessary. Toby doubted he could have stomached another alien fussing over him, anyway. He couldn't as much as push that kiori's pinky away. Lord only knew what her scaly friend could have done. They never asked his consent, they just took what they wanted, and ran like he was a rabid stray on the street. “Look. I'm fine, really! Don't worry about me." He told her.

He tried to sound sincere, but he couldn't manage it. Mae wasn't there anymore. Only fingers thicker than his torso, ankles he could barely reach, and claws long enough to split him in two. It was so easy for him to forget the sheer scale of their differences before, and now every single one of them stared him in the face. He wondered if she could even feel him. They had their little signals: the tugs, the pats, everything of the sort. But she may have just been humoring him the whole time. He always pressed himself against her, always tried to get her to reciprocate his touch. But it never happened. The thought may never have crossed her mind for all he knew.

Toby might have stewed in self-pity all night if a brown ashar and a certain human in a mech hadn't found themselves in trouble with the bouncer. Even in his dour mood, Toby didn't leave his friends hanging for long. He called Mae's name, trying to sound as authoritative as possible, then pointed to the pair in the doorway. She understood immediately, and Mae moved towards their friends quick as she could allow herself to.

Whatever the neishor bouncer said beneath the room noise, it didn't make Endi and Cass back down. In fact, they only seemed to get defensive towards the living landmass that stood in their way. Toby felt he was in no position to judge.

“We're friends of the band." Endi shot the bouncer one hell of a stink eye despite the relative size difference, but the bouncer didn't move an inch.

“Yeah, Mae and Toby? Sixth Eye? You must've heard of 'em!" Cass added, sounding far more erratic over his mech's speakers.

The bouncer let out an angry huff, ready to give them both a good shove if nobody vouched for them.

“They're with us!" Toby shouted at the top of his lungs. It just felt silly at this point, like he was vying for power his species didn't have. The bouncer stepped aside, not wasting any precious time. Mae ushered their friends into the bar. They still had plenty of cheer, even after getting hassled by someone much bigger than them. Toby couldn't say the same.

“Pete's sake, this the welcome they give the stars, too?" Cass said, palpably sarcastic before he set his sights on Toby. “Just like old times, eh?"

“Sort of." Toby shrugged.

He was too mentally exhausted to try and understand what Cass was getting at, but his friend didn't cotton on. “Sort of? We feckin' lived in pubs like this! You, me, Don-"

“That's enough." Toby snarled, loud enough to put a stop to Cass's ramblings. The last thing he wanted to hear was anything about Donny. There was a silver lining somewhere in that equation. The night wasn't a complete wash if he could at least get Cass to shut up.

“Did something happen?" Endi questioned them while pity flashed across her face. She curled her tail around Cass's mech in anticipation. Mae opened her mouth, but Toby stole the moment from her. “No! The party's been great! Can't wait for the next one!"

He forced the biggest smile that he could. Endi seemed skeptical at best, and Mae was outright horrified. Toby didn't let it bother him. He was resolute. He didn't want pity. He just had to forget the pain and go to the next party like everybody else under Cal-Gea's thumb. One bad night couldn't, and wouldn't, make him exempt from that. He needed to adapt, and more importantly:

He had to bring his own his own drinks next time.