A Day with Olivia and Gauss
The Emaleid Citadel
Late one night, as Olivia hummed to herself while wandering the streets of the citadel, she heard a voice from around a corner turning onto a narrow lane. Mildly surprised a human other than herself was out walking, she peeked around.
“Oh, you’re all just the cutest. Eat up, go on!” There, stroking a pack of kittens and looking smitten, was Gauss.
“Wow, you like cats?” Olivia asked, peering over his shoulder. Gauss jumped so badly it was funny to watch.
“Captain! I wondered who’d be out at this time of night...” Gauss replied. “Could you not sneak up behind me like that? You almost gave me a heart attack.” He made a show of rubbing his chest.
“It’s not like I did it on purpose...” Olivia said. “But Gauss, you like cats?” she repeated.
“C-Cats?” Gauss replied, his eyes darting around wildly. “Whatever are you talking about, ser?”
“I mean, those kitties that are rubbing themselves against your legs?” Olivia pointed at Gauss’s feet. They looked unmistakably like kittens to her, but she wondered if perhaps they looked like some other animal to Gauss. He looked down at them as though he’d only just noticed they were there.
“Huh! Where’d these rascals come from, all of a sudden?” he said. He tried to shoo them away with his hand, but the kittens ignored him, continuing to weave around his feet while mewing sweetly.
Olivia watched this for a moment, then said, “You were giving them bread, right?”
“What, this? Uh, this is for me! I fancied a snack.” Gauss hastily shoved the remaining bread into his mouth, then started coughing furiously like it had stuck in his throat.
Olivia, while patting him on the back, asked, “Do you not want anyone knowing that you like kitties?”
“I... I don’t...” Gauss mumbled, looking guiltily at her. Olivia was utterly bemused by his behavior, but she knew that there were lots of humans who couldn’t talk about the things they liked. Claudia, for example, definitely liked cute soft toys, but she vehemently denied it any time it was pointed out. Olivia thought she had a pretty good grip on the human psyche by now, but it seemed she still had a way to go. You really do never stop learning, just like Z told me, she thought.
“Come on, ser,” Gauss continued, “A big, rugged man like me getting gooey over kittens? That’d just be weird.”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s weird at all.”
“Thanks for that, Captain, but I’ve got a lot of rough types under my command and if they saw me like this, I’d be a laughingstock. It’d ruin my reputation.”
“Really?” Olivia replied, gently stroking the kittens that came to rub themselves against her. “I like kitties too. Does that mean if everyone knew that it’d ruin my reputation?” She wasn’t sure if she had this so-called reputation in the first place, but figured it was best to find out everything she could. For future reference.
“In your case, Captain, it doesn’t matter what anyone knows about you. You’re operating on a different level,” Gauss replied, his face twitching a little. Olivia wanted to know what he meant by “a different level,” but for some reason, though she really wasn’t sure what it was, she decided not to ask.
“Huh. Well, I’m going to continue with my walk now,” she said, then made to leave. Gauss called hesitantly after her.
“Captain, please keep what you saw between us.”
“Okay, got it.” She waved back over her shoulder, then walked off.
The following day, as Gauss ate breakfast, a smirking soldier came over to him.
“Hey, guess what I saw last night,” he said. “Sergeant Major Gauss, feeding a bunch of kittens! Even the tough guys have their soft—” Before he could finish, Gauss’s fist sent him flying spectacularly across the mess hall.
Olivia, watching this, pulled a pen and a notebook marked Human Observation from her pocket, and added a new line.
Silence is golden.
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