Ballpen

I sat in the same chair, staring hopelessly at the sketches and drawings made by Alyatara. Mechanically sorting through them between my fingers, peering at the smooth, confident lines and strokes, and trying with all my might to figure out what to do next.

Today, for the first time in two days, I was alone in the apartment. Alyatara, half with gestures, half with drawings, managed to explain to me that she had to go to work. Well, at least I assumed that she had to go to work.

Judging by the drawing, which schematically depicted a large stone building, a cat-horse very similar to Alyatara at an easel, and cat-horses coming out of the doors of the building with newspapers/letters/postcards, in general, with some kind of written sheets in their... teeth. Yes, oh my god, in their teeth.

Although, it looks like they were newspapers.

Because there was a newspaper, very similar to ours, that I found on Alyatara's table yesterday morning.

Well, what do I mean similar? With some kind of curly ligature like Arabic script on the pages. On the headings, the ligature broke up into large rounded elements like semicircles, stars, lightning bolts and hearts. Perhaps these were letters?

In some places there were numbers. Which I easily distinguished from letters.

Because, damn it, these were our own, familiar, Arabic numerals!

Well, almost familiar. Somewhere the tail is pointing in the wrong direction, somewhere something is stretched or flattened. But still, recognizing the familiar set - from zero to nine - was not difficult. If it were one number or a letter, I would still assume a coincidence...

How? How?!

I'm in kind of a parallel world or an another planet. They write in incomprehensible gibberish. But they use human numbers?

And on the other hand. If there is a New Year in this world, and one just like ours, with a Christmas tree and garlands, what prevents it from being Arabic numerals?

And there were also black-and-white photographs on the pages of the newspaper.

I grabbed hold of the photograph with a death grip.

Half of the first page was taken up by a large photograph. It depicted a round hall with several rows of chairs. The chairs were filled to capacity with creatures similar to Alyatara, only they had no horns. One of them, standing on a podium in the center of the hall, was peering (reading?) at a sheet of paper lying in front of it. Two or three, rising on their hind legs, were shouting something from the rows and waving their front legs.

A government meeting? A public lecture? Something else?

The second one depicted a port. There was no doubt about it – masts rose above the long, low, windowless buildings, and in the distance a ship could be seen, as if it had come straight out of the pages of the «Tom Sawyer» – large paddle wheels, tall funnels, a pair of masts with furled sails. Crates and barrels were piled up in the foreground, and two more hornless cat-horses were thoughtfully examining them.

The third one depicted… someone. Even three someones. A horned cat-horse like Alyatara. A creature like… er… a bird-horse? It had an eagle’s beak, clawed feet, and was half covered in feathers. On the front one. The back one was hard to see, it was facing the photographer, but it seemed to me that it had at least one horse’s leg. Well, the third creature was a bird-cat – with the same bird-like front half and a cat-like half, with a long lion’s tail with a tassel – on the back. All three were posing against the backdrop of a fountain, with a mountain slope visible behind them.

And on the fourth page, there was an airship hovering over some industrial landscape. A real airship with a pair of some kind of blades like wings or oars. Long black cables stretched from it to the ground, and by the side there were a couple of floating…

Carts. Yes, carts. Each harnessed to four cat-horses. Hanging at a distance of one hundred meters from the ground. It didn’t seem like the cat-horses were very worried about this.

Perhaps because they had wings. Two feathered wings each.

The newspaper fell out of my hands, I closed my eyes and looked again. The flying carts, the flying cat-horses and the flying airship were still there.

Although there was nothing strange about a flying airship for a change.

I looked pitifully at Alyatara. With a silent question in his eyes, I pointed my finger at the photo.

Alyatara grabbed a pencil and paper - the stack of sheets of paper stuck to her hoof, as if magnetized.

She began to explain animatedly. By this time, we had learned about fifty words from each other's languages with great difficulty, and some semblance of a conversation began to take shape.

By the end of the evening, I knew a little more about this world.

The planet was called Eokyaz, the country on it where we were - Eokeyrati. The continent was also called the same, apparently for simplicity.

The population of Eokeyrati was called loti. It was divided into three... peoples? races? species? - in short, kem-loti, pax-loti and cer-loti. Alyatara herself was one of the Cer-loti, whose distinguishing feature was a twisted horn in the middle of the forehead. Pax-loti had wings and could fly – I decided to put the question of how they stayed aloft on not-so-big wings in the back of my mind. Kem-loti were… well, they were just regular cat-horses without horns or wings.

From Alyatara's drawings, the Kem-loti were engaged in growing crops - at least, she drew them plowing (harnessed to a plow, yeah) a wheat field. Or not wheat - the drawing was schematic and depicted a row of stalks. Pax-loti did something connected with rain and clouds (perhaps they predicted the weather?). Cer-loti ... here Alyatara had a pause, she drew a Cer-loti with some kind of winding lines coming from its horn, like radio waves. Then she turned on her telekinetic light, raised a pencil in the air and twirled it in front of me.

Telekinesis? Cer-loti move objects?

The Kem-Loti - here the hostess put the atlas into action - lived in a city called Manis’hata, where we were, and, as far as I understood Alyatara, in several other cities in the eastern part of the country. The city of Pax-Loti (I decided to call them Pegasi. Why? They look alike) was called Difrinkuml and was located somewhere in the northwest, with a dotted line with arrows going around it, encircling the entire Eokeyrati. Probably, this was how the Loti designated some kind of transport route. Cer-Loti (continuing the analogy, I called the Alyatara race unicorns for myself) lived practically in the middle, near a high mountain peak in the center of Eokeyrati. Their city was called Kerkant, and, judging by the large golden crown drawn on it, it was also the capital of the state.

There were also creatures that Alyatara called Elker-Loti. It was one of them, as I understood, that was depicted on the top of the tree. They looked like ordinary horses, even without any special cat features, but with a long horn and wings. Alyatara drew a trinity of Elker-Loti over the country, drew kneeling (for them it looked like they were crouching on their front legs) representatives of all the Loti races, and drew small crowns over each of the Elker-Loti trinity.

Local kings? Feudal lords? Ruling caste? I shook my head.

Alyatara, who had been watching my attempts, began drawing again. She drew a sun with rays in all directions over one of the Elker-Loti. Over the second one - a moon. Over the one in the middle - a six-pointed star. Then she crossed out two Elker-Loti, with the sun and with the moon.

I sighed.

“Listen, I guess you want to tell me something about your politics. But unless you have a coup d'etat here and the Jews have seized power, I don't understand anything.”

“Not understand, Evgeniy? Yes?” "Yes", "No" and "Not understand" were the first words that Alyatara learned in Russian. There was a fourth, but then I felt ashamed that I was unwittingly teaching an alien race such expressions.

“I do not understand, yes,” I responded sadly.

Alyatara drew another Elker-Loti, added a crown and a picture of a heart to it. Next to it was a second winged horse, only several times smaller. She poked her hoof into the drawing.

“Riktara Patnay,” she said. “Grissamira. Gris-Loti.” She pointed first to the top of the map, somewhere near the northern border of Eokeyrati, then drew another kem-loti on the sheet, only covered with tiny stars.

I spread my hands. Looked at Alyatara. “You know, this is all very interesting, I understand that you want to tell me about your world... But let's leave it until I learn to speak yours a little? Okay? Later? You see, later?” I pointed my finger at the atlas and the drawing.

“Evgeniy later,” the unicorn agreed. She stood up. “Evgeniy Alyatara eat? Yes?”

Thank God, by this point I already understood that this was an offer to treat me to dinner, and not to eat me for dinner.

And so the rest of my second day in this world passed. I got a little acquainted with the local geography, social structure and found out that fried potatoes and celery in this world are no different from those on earth. It's even a bit offensive. I was counting on something more exotic, like blue apples or black strawberries.

Well, this morning, Alyatara went about her mysterious business, and at the end, with gestures and a few learned words, she took a solemn promise from me not to go out the door or approach the window. Actually, it boiled down to energetic hooves poking the window and door and an insistent "Evgeniy, no!".

I just nodded gloomily. The day before yesterday and yesterday, Alyatara, as best she could, conveyed the idea to me - humans like me are known in this world. Humans like me are tracked down here and put in prison. I still didn't understand for what offenses, but the drawing of a man behind bars was clear.

I still tried to ask why humans in this world are so disfavored. Alyatara helplessly shook her head, drew a picture of a man swinging a stick at a kem-loti. It didn't become any clearer.

Did their ancestors fight with humans? Maybe humans kept them in slavery? Or something else?

More questions than answers.

And the most important one - what to do next?

On the one hand, I won’t last a day alone in this world. Not knowing the language, not looking like the locals, completely dependent on the mercy of my hospitable hostess… By the way, how long will this mercy last? It’s not even clear why Alyatara, thank her very much, of course, is so friendly towards an uninvited guest. Is it really only out of gratitude for fixing the lock?

On the other hand… At least there are humans here. Maybe they will know the way to Earth? I need to find them. I need to get my bearings in this strange world a little better.

I need to try to learn Alyatara’s language – so far she’s learning mine more successfully. From the Loti language, I’ve only managed to remember “Borayo!” and “Meyo nay!” – “Good morning” and “Good night,” respectively. I heard the first from her yesterday, when I was stretching my limbs after spending the night in a chair. The second was from her yesterday, when she was spreading a tiny mattress for me on the floor next to the chair. The mattress was frankly too small, but after a sedentary night I was immensely grateful to her for it.

Incidentally, I slept poorly. Not because of the hard floor and thin mattress. I just had enough going on. Alien names, alien titles, alien, another creatures... The first night I didn't notice how I fell asleep - I just passed out in the chair at some point, and when I opened my eyes, I found Alyatara snoring in the same sitting position on the sofa. The alien must have tried not to take her eyes off me while I was sleeping until she herself fell asleep.

But the second night - yes, I had enough. I tossed and turned, listened to the quiet breathing of the sleeping Alyatara, peered into the light of the street lamp through the curtains - and it seemed to me that I was already sleeping and dreaming. A very strange dream about alien unicorns.

That if I get up now and go to the sofa, it will turn out that there is one of my friends, who took me in after the metro closed, is sleeping here.

That if I look out the window, there will turn out to be a Moscow street.

Once I couldn’t stand it. I got up and jerked the curtains open. I made sure that the alien city hadn’t gone anywhere, only there were no passers-by on the streets. I went to the sofa, made out a four-legged body half-covered by a blanket and a blue mane scattered across the pillow. Alyatara tossed and turned and muttered something in her sleep.

I lay back down, embarrassed. If she woke up, she would definitely be scared half to death again.

I mustn’t interrupt her while she’s talking about her planet.

I must understand what she’s talking about. I must learn the language.

And so the night passed - tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep and trying to distinguish a dream from reality. Turning out in the morning with a headache and a sleepy haze in my head. And now I have been sitting in a chair for several hours now, leafing through Alyatara's sketches, trying to pick out something useful from them.

I stood up. With a sigh, I took a couple of books from the bookshelf huddled next to the sofa.

The first one turned out to be devoid of pictures, and the winding ligature of the local script did not mean anything to me yet. I was a little luckier with the second one - it seemed to be some kind of fiction.

On the cover was a sand-colored pax-loti with a gray mane, standing in the middle of the jungle and thoughtfully examining a bush with a purple berry on top. He was dressed in some kind of khaki-colored jacket, covering his chest and front legs, with two cutouts for wings. On the pax-loti's thigh, in the place where Alyatara had snowflakes, an eye and stars, there was a drawing of a wind rose.

I quickly leafed through the book and found a few more illustrations. One depicted a cer-loti, on either side of which stood two gray wolves with bared mouths. The cer-loti had a wolf's muzzle in the same place. The next illustration depicted the pax-loti from the cover flying over a crocodile's mouth sticking out of the water. The third depicted a tall cer-loti in a hooded robe, directing a beam of light from a horn onto the bush from the cover.

Wow. I feel like a five-year-old child. The pictures are very interesting, if only you could understand what they depict.

And so the day passed - looking at the few drawings and photographs, trying to watch city life out of the corner of your eye through a crack in the curtains. Numerous carriages pulled by kem-loti rolled along, and people walked along the streets.

Several times I saw pax-loti fluttering above the sidewalk with my own eyes. The winged creatures, it seemed, were not on friendly terms with physics and aerodynamics – because you don’t fuck your friends in the mouth, as Kesha the parrot used to say! Not only did they fly superbly on their small wings – they managed to hover in place, like some kind of helicopters!

However, the pax-loti still tried not to rise too high into the sky. And they stayed mainly above the sidewalks, not above the roadway. Some kind of traffic rules for winged creatures?

“Evgeniy!” I jumped up on the spot. I realized that I was too carried away by observation to hear the clank of the key in the lock. Turned around.

Alyatara looked at me reproachfully. She said something. It was not difficult to guess the meaning. Well, yes, I got carried away watching the local pegasi. So much so that I dangerously leaned out from behind the curtain and almost pressed myself against the glass. Idiot.

“Sorry,” I pressed my hand to my heart in repentance.

“Evgeniy not,” Alyatara glanced warily at the window. “Evgeniy fenero not!”

Seems clear...

“Fenero?” I pointed my finger at the window. “Fenero?”

“Fenero, yes,” Alyatara nodded. She shook her head. “Evgeniy not fenero?”

“Evgeniy fenero not anymore,” I nodded. “Please forgive me.”

Alyatara dropped two small bags hanging on her sides onto the floor. She opened one and stuck her muzzle in.

She muttered something, holding a bundle of thick wrapping paper in her teeth. Tied with twine.

“What? I don't understand.”

Alyatara headed for the kitchen, beckoning me with her eyes to follow her. She put the bundle on the table and began to untie the knot, helping herself with her hooves. The package contained a huge chunk of fish carcass. Salmon or trout, I think. I'm not an expert in fish, I can only tell carp from burbot.

“Evgeniy, yes?” the unicorn asked with a satisfied look, staring at me.

“Er... is this for me? Well, thank you, of course.”

Hmm. In principle, it makes sense. At Alyatara's house, I only saw a typical vegetarian set of vegetables and greens. Apparently, ungulates-loti are herbivores. So she decided to treat me to a fish menu?

“Thank you very much,” I repeated once more, bowing.

Alyatara blushed. She pointed her hoof at her tiny stove and a set of several pots and pans.

“Do you need help cooking this?” I realized. I pointed my finger at the stove, made a motion as if I were cutting fish and putting it in a frying pan. The unicorn nodded.

I didn't consider myself a great cook, and there wasn't enough room for two people, even including the tiny unicorn, to move around in Alyatara's kitchen. But the gas stove in another world was like a gas stove, the oil was like sunflower oil (even if it was squeezed out of some alien worms), and soon the fish was merrily sizzling on the stove. Alyatara watched my manipulations with interest, trying to avoid touching me with her horn and sides.

“Well, it seems to be ready,” I picked up a piece with a small, toy-like fork. “Mmm, delicious. I don't know, though, if you can have this or not? Although if you sell fish...”

Alyatara sniffed the air above the frying pan, really looking like a giant cat. In turn, she pricked a piece and chewed it. She smiled - my culinary talents were clearly appreciated. However, the unicorn did not go for fried fish, perhaps my guesses about a plant-based diet were correct. On the table there was a head of cabbage from the refrigerator and a bowl with briquettes of something that looked very much like briquetted hay.

With a movement of her head, Alyatara ordered me to get out of the kitchen, and began to chop the cabbage into small pieces. I sank into my favorite chair, watching the unicorn bustling about in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye, and feeling my mouth water from the smell of fried fish.

Suddenly darkness fell.

“What?” I jumped up.

I clicked the switch. Alyatara looked at me in surprise, not at all embarrassed by the sudden disappearance of daylight.

“What is this?” I asked in bewilderment, waving my hand towards the window. Where the ghostly gaslight of the lantern was slowly flaring up. Or was it moonlight?

“Evgeniy?” Alyatara clearly didn't understand what I was asking. “Fenero? Mayo?”

“Yes, I understood that it was fenero. Why did it get dark so suddenly? Why mayo?”

Alyatara frowned.

“Mayo,” she shrugged. “Riktara mayo deyin. Understand?”

I sighed. A couple more days in this world - and I will become an expert in Very Heavy Sighs.

Okay, Alyatara doesn't seem too scared of the sudden night in the middle of the day. Actually, she doesn't seem scared at all. She's just surprised by my reaction.

Hmm. But yesterday it seemed to me that it got dark unusually quickly. Only, carried away by attempts to talk with Alyatara, I didn't pay attention to it. I was only surprised at how quickly the twilight closed in outside the window.

Oh, okay. Let's think about the oddities of this world on a full stomach.

Moreover, Alyatara made a gesture that could not be interpreted otherwise than as "I ask you to come to the table."

I was already moving a low stool, like everyone else here, towards me, when a loud knock was heard at the door.

The unicorn shuddered.

The knock was repeated. A high, demanding voice was heard.

“Oh-oh,” Alyatara breathed out. She glanced sideways at the studio. She grabbed my sleeve with her hoof.

“Evgeniy! Irya!” she breathed out in a whisper. She dragged me there, gesturing to the easel. Without explanation, it was clear that she was suggesting that we hide behind it.

Well... in the dark, if they curl up properly, and if no one peers into the corner... After all! I can't hide in the closets, I certainly won't fit in there!

The voice and the knock became more and more insistent. Alyatara shouted something in response. The key rattled.

Alyatara's voice said something puzzled - and stopped. Abruptly, as if a button had been pressed.

For some reason, this seemed suspicious to me.

The sound of hooves was heard. The bathroom door creaked, then the closet door slammed.

Closer, closer...

I didn't even have time to think about anything.

A short command rang out. The easel was thrown aside in a blue flash. In the same flash, I was thrown into the air.

And left hanging upside down, like a worm on a hook.

I screamed. I kicked my leg, trying to hit at least someone.

They deftly grabbed my hands and brought them behind my back. Something snapped - and cold metal grabbed my wrists.

The next second, I was turned back - and put on my feet. A sharp jerk threw me to my knees. Someone's iron grip grabbed my shoulder.

The light flashed.

A blue-colored Cer-loti, in a blue vest, with a badge pinned to his shoulder - a human silhouette against a striped heraldic shield - looked me over carefully.

“Do you speak English?” he asked. “Parlez vous Francais? Habla usted espanol? Vy govorite po-russki?”