Common Experiment #2285
For all that, I love my desert home.
I'll take any odd job the locals have to offer. No job is too complicated or too dirty for me. The snakes in my fur serve as a hundred extra arms for completing detail work that would drive the average Subetan mad.
Take, for example, the first job I ever completed. I was barely more than a kitten when the call went out for mosaic polishers with the patience to help restore the Oracle's temple to its former glory. Hundreds of Subetans showed up with buckets of water and tiny little brushes.
I was placed before an image of the kindly Oracle spreading her hands before a sunburst with a promise that the rest of my crew would be arriving shortly. I set my snakes to work with a word of command, instructing them to leave not even one grain of sand to dull the bright paints. While I am a creature of greater nutritional needs, my snakes can survive on any form of matter.
By the time my team arrived ten minutes later, every crack was cleaned and polished. Their dreams of giant bags of wizard tokens were shattered by my efficiency.
One of the Oracle's helpers brought me before the great lady. You'll think me crazy for not asking some ridiculous price. My hunger is not for wealth, but for sandwich cookies.
They have the perfect balance of creamy sweetness and crunch. I personally prefer to pull them apart, eating the plain half and taking the time to savor the cream base.
Word soon spread. I was invited to all corners of the Sacred Lands, lured with offerings of mint, strawberry, and chocolate cream. The very rich would even spring for peanut butter and vanilla. Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookies are high rarity for good reason. They have a divine flavor.
Blake invited me to the Crypts once to track down minions that were eating the frankenpie pieces intended to draw tourists that would help him complete his master map. It was in those confusing tunnels that I met Kuki.
He may be an ant but he's got serious muscles and a love for sweets to rival mine. When he offered to join my constant quest for employment, I couldn't say no.
His ability to track is astonishing and his tiny legs allow him to do detail work that is beyond the skill of even my most slender snakes.
Kuki is great but he does have a tendency to disappear during those jobs that neither of us wants to do. Take the Wizard incident. That great man of magic has the occasional memory lapse that causes a spell to go wrong. A water spell left his tower flooded and his panty collection in serious danger of shrinking. Guess which one of us spent three hours stringing panties on magical clotheslines that dry and soften fabric at a touch?
It took me almost a month to get the smell of detergent out of my fur. Kuki insists he became trapped in a water bubble that Luna mistook for a kumos toy. His laughter at the static cling that made all my fur stand on end made me want to find the nearest oasis and throw him in but I offered him a smile and allowed him the usual perch on my shoulder for the walk home.
Today's task has us sorting scrolls in the temple basement, separating the fresh from the frail. Some will go directly to Alexander's library while others must be copied over in order to survive the journey.
My snakes unpack crates with careful jaws while Kuki works six brushes with ease. It is up to me to do the heavy lifting and to re-write his translation in larger characters that will not cause the average Subetan eyestrain.
A large Bake Stop box awaits us when we finally stumble through the torch-lit halls into the temple main. I give Kuki only a crumb from the Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookie I pluck free, leaving him a double chocolate for his main meal.
Okay, so maybe I'm not quite over that whole panties incident.
Credits:
Profile by 
Ziva
Background image from here
Story by 
Pureflower
