Free Waiting for the Sun by Alyx Shaw

Waiting for the Sun
    By Alyx Shaw
    "RARF!"
    "Noooo..." I said patiently. "Not 'rarf' , it's a ball. Can you say 'ball'?"
    "ARF! ARF ARF RARARARF! ARF!"
    I sighed. "This is pointless."
    The Faylan shook his head while blowing a raspberry. I looked at Tiff, who was lounging on a Romanesque couch under a simple shelter of woven branches, reading.
    "So what is this thing?" I asked, referring to the little red humanoid before me.
    "You know what it is, Sebastian. It's a Faylan."
    "But what is it other than a Faylan?"
    "A right pain in the ass," said Tiff dryly.
    "RARF!"
    I looked at the pretty reddish creature. If you took an Olympic gymnast and crossed him with a greyhound, you'd get a Faylan. They're beautiful little beings, but they make me crazy, and have done so since I arrived on Sferkkaa. No one seems to have any idea what they are, and what really makes me insane is no one much seems to care. It's a Faylan. Well that's not good enough for me; I'm a natural scientist, I want to know what it is related to and how it fits in to the eco system. But I'm already boned right from the start because they're not native to Sferkkaa, and don't seem to fit into any category of which I can think. They're little hermaphroditic barking boneheads obsessed with small flying things, have a voice that can cut glass, and come in two varieties: arboreal and not arboreal. I refer to them as 'he' because that's the most obvious gender of the two, but even that piece of information is not technically correct as there is a second fully functional set of parts that only becomes evident when the creature is pregnant. And at the end of the day, with all my years of training, all I can say is, "Yes, it's a Faylan."
    "ARF ARF!"
    "Stop that."
    "RARARARARF!!! RARF!"
    If Hell had Pekinese, they would be Faylans.
    "Leave the poor creature alone, Sebastian."
    "But I want to know what it IS!"
    "It's a Faylan," said Tiff, his tone implying I am a complete knob.
    "Yes I know it's a Faylan, but what is it precisely?"
    "Off hand I'd say about four feet tall when standing erect, arboreal, and probably in heat, which is likely the only reason he's putting up with your persistent attempts to teach him to speak."
    I looked at Tiff. "They have a heat cycle?"
    "They do when the outside temperature and humidity is right."
    "Well there, my life hasn't been a complete waste; I learned they go into heat."
    "RARF!"
    I gazed at the pretty red creature with the little foxy face. He gazed back at me, exhibiting no 'heat' behaviour that I could see. No trilling, rubbing, flirting, no enticement of any kind.
    "So why isn't he coming on to me?"
    Tiff flipped the page of his book. "Because he doesn't know where you fit into the grand scheme of things, either. Faylans have a very carefully structured pack life. He doesn't know if he ranks high enough to mate with you. For that matter he's not about to have sex with you if you don't rank high enough to have him ." Tiff closed his book and gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, Sebastian, if you really must learn about them, I have a distant cousin who lives not far from here; he has a pack of about forty. Frankly, if there is anything he does not know about Faylans, then it is not worth knowing."
    "The nut case, right?"
    "That would be him." Tiff smiled.
    "I thought Draephus lived up north?"
    Tiff smiled. "He does, but he comes down to make sure his Faylans are all right. So shall we go?"
    "Yeah, why not? How often do I get to learn about a new species from a crazy man?"
    "Faylans are not new, my love."
    "They are to me."
    "They're not new to you either; they've been in the trees the entire time you've been here."
    "RARF!"
    I looked at the Faylan I had been trying to teach to speak. "You just have to take his side, don't you?"
    "Hrrrph."
    "To you too."
    I tossed the ball to the Faylan. He watched it go up, then down, then roll to a halt. He then gave me a look that implied I was some sort of moron before leaping roughly twenty feet