Alder's Grove

Reyne tried to make a point of meeting all new visitors to the planet at the spaceport. For one, as cultural attache, it was part of the job. For another - Reyne liked the Mestaron, but they were extremely, extremely touchy about certain things - much as many humans were, come to think about it - and there had already been too many "incidents." Humans might be touchy, but it didn't mean they were cautious about others' touchiness when visiting other planets.

(It was a bit surprising that Reyne had been allowed to keep the position of cultural attache, once that first report, the one with the bolding and the caps-lock, had gone through, but part of the bolding-caps-lock-side-bar had covered the unusual situation of Reyne and others of similar unusualities.)

This particular contingent, however, Reyne made a point of taking a shuttle up to their ship and meeting them before they even thought about touching down. Dressed carefully, in clothing that was sufficiently formal to impress, sufficiently Mestaron-like to discomfit, and specifically and entirely androgynous, Reyne greeted each of the VIPs first in the current style of the Federation and then in the human-equivalent of the Mestaron style.
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Thimbleful Thursday is a new microfic prompt site (mine!). This week's prompt was "Beat Around the Bush" and the word limit was 200 (180-200).

I barely made it in at 467.

"Look, I know you guys like the social padding and all, but I don't have time to beat around the bush..."

Reyn knew the phrase was a mistake the moment it was uttered, but the "don't have time" part was true, and hurry tended to make Reyn slip into old habits, childhood habits.

The Jesharian clicked a blue tongue-equivalent and tilted her head in the manner that had originally made human explorers call the Jesharian
"Cat-people."

"What is this 'bush' you speak of? Is it the vestigial fur-remnant some humans have between their legs?" The Jesharian - Koyl, her name was Koyl - shifted the head-tilt to the other side. "Bush can also mean tired, exhausted, but I do not know why you would beat either of these things. A strange sexual ritual, perhaps?"
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