Page 67 of Mazorium Buys a Human

At first I didn’t mind the storm and constant rain. I’d found it fascinating and beautiful. That enchantment evaporated by the third day.

I’d tried to talk Maz into letting me help him with his work, but he had the lab set up for one person. Having two people in there, even someone as small as me, didn’t work. I hated being crowded when I worked, so I understood and would only go in there for short visits.

Unfortunately, that left me without much to do when Nadia was napping.

After our movie night date, we’d reconfigured the empty storage room as a play space for Nadia. Maz had covered the floor with mats and had them going partially up the wall. Soft blankets, pillows, and a bunch of colorful items he’d bought for Nadia were in the room too.

I set Nadia down near the middle and moved a stride away before dropping to my knees. “Come to Mama,” I said, holding out my hands.

She was quick to reach me. I helped her balance and take a few steps, then let her crawl some more. After a little while of doing this, she decided it was nap time and collapsed down on her belly for a snooze.

I loved the way Nadia could be giggling and active one moment and sound asleep the next. It was yet another adorable thing she did.

The problem was I didn’t have anything to do while she took a little nap. After standing up and stretching, I moved over to the boxes and cases stacked at the far end of the room. We hadn’t opened all the items Maz had bought for us, and now was as good a time as any to unpack.

The first few boxes were nothing but food packs. I stopped looking through that stack and moved to the next one. There was a tomer bag on top. When I pulled it open I chuckled at the sight of many more tomer bags inside. I remembered wanting them to make outfits, but then Maz had bought us clothing and I hadn’t gotten access to any tailor machines.

Staring down at the tomer bags sparked a memory from my childhood. My grandmother had knitted in her free time. I’d found the process fascinating and begged her to teach me. I’d done it for a few years, but when I was old enough, I’d gotten a job and didn’t have time for knitting any longer.

I could see the weave of the tomer bags. I didn’t know what they were made of, but I could see how they were made. Would it be possible to pull them apart and try knitting using the yarn?

Nadia was still sound asleep, and Maz was busy. What else was I going to do?

By the time Maz joined us in the playroom, I’d successfully unraveled one of the bags!

“Look what I did!” I said, holding up one of the balls of yarn. There were six more, and that all came from a single bag.

“That’s nice,” Maz said, crouching down next to me. “What are you going to do with it now?”

“Knit,” I said. “Although I’m going to have to figure out what I can use as knitting needles.”

“My INT doesn’t have a translation for the word knit,” he said, falling back to sit next to me. “Please explain.”

I told him all about the Old Earth art of knitting, my memories of doing it with my grandmother, and wanting to take it up again. As I was finishing, Nadia woke up. Without hesitation, Maz picked her up and settled her against his shoulder.

“It seems your first task has been successful,” he said. “You have yarn. Now we need to find you needles.”

I eyed his quills as he shifted Nadia from his shoulder to the floor between us. “What do you do with the old quills when they break off?”

“Usually throw them away,” he said.

I tilted my head. “Usually?”

“I was fixing a bot and broke one off inside. I left it because it would’ve been too difficult to pull it out.”

“Can I try?”

“You want some quills?” he asked. I nodded, ready to assure him I wasn’t going to do some kind of evil magic ritual with them, only to have him casually break two off one arm and hand them to me.

“Maz, didn’t that hurt?”

He sounded a negative rumble and shifted Nadia so she could balance on her chubby little feet.

“I didn’t pull them out by the root, only broke them at the base. They’ll grow back.”

“Thanks, Maz,” I said.

I examined the quills. With a little sanding to reshape the tip into something more round and less pointed, I was sure they’d be perfect.