The Courier (2/2)

    It at first seems kind of boring, but then you realize that couriers love their jobs- After all, working with children is their favorite part.

    Just as often as they are asked to carry irreplaceable things, couriers like Aloene here are asked to carry irreplaceable people, and for her at least, this is a privilege disguised as a responsibility. Sure, she has to get up at 3:00 in the morning, but the cool night air of planet Ohi never bothered her, and Mada, her passenger in need of safe transportation to her teacher's house, has Aloene's fur-lined pouch to curl up in.

    Whatever one's first assumption, Aloene is in fact an embis, a species the webcomic has already somewhat briefly mentioned and will feature again, but she does cut an odd figure. Embis are Irtum's first intelligent humanoid species. Their mammalian appearance, behaviors, physiological similarities and mannerisms were all evolved as a method to blend in with other groups of creatures, and eventually defeat the aggressive monsters they were oppressed by and make way for humans to evolve. Now, while some genetic restrictions mean they cannot have hooves, horns, beaks, short tails or any form of birth different from placental, other genetic restrictions are more lenient, allowing for winged arms, pouches and plantigrade feet to better imitate bats and marsupials respectively, as well as odder mutations like centaur builds, longer tails, multiple tails, significantly larger or smaller proportionate size, quadruped builds or even just thicker, fluffier fur. These mutations are almost as old as embis themselves, and in the old days of embis civilization, were considered signs of blessing from the goddesses to the parents and the child. That might still be true...

    Aloene is a mostly average snow leopard embis, save for pouch and centaur form. Less normal is the pouch mutation's reaction to the centaur mutation- Unable to find its usual stopping point just above the groin, the already roomy pouch keeps going until it reaches that actual area further down , getting wide and taking up all the underside as it does so. This does beg the question: What happens to the belly button? Quite simple really- every embis with a pouch has two belly buttons, as the umbilical cord passes through the pouch wall... But you can only sort of actually see one of them.

    This all while interesting and mostly relevant, means little to the current scenario. After all, Aloene is not weird to the colonists of the unnamed settlements of Ohi, nor to any regular citizen who calls The Councilship their leader. She takes this trip just about every weekday, autumn through spring, and has taken to living on this beautiful, very dangerous planet. Why? Because she has the privilege of carrying around Mada! Aloene never was a mother and probably would never have time to be one, but this decently paying job lets her play mom for a good eight hours five days a week, just walking her there and back. She is also likely the best for the job- Of all Councilship Adventurer's guild members, this warmhearted big cat is one of the sneakiest. Her four large paws barely make so much as a soft padding even on dried leaves or gravel, and though swift, she is so well balanced that her occupant barely even sways. She has even gotten good enough that she can go light on armor just so it doesn't rattle.

    But... Why is she naked? I mean, nothing really even shows, but surely there's a law against showing that much skin, even if covered in fluffy fur?

    That's a weird type of funny thing. Old Irtum laws passed from embis nations into Councilship law state that if the fur is as thick as clothing, then legally they cannot be called naked. Mind, plenty of establishments will not serve such customers until they have clothing on and most embis wear clothing in public for precisely this reason, but seeing an embis naked is not all that uncommon, and especially not if they are in the comfort of their own homes. In fact, most embis don't even bother with underwear under their clothes because nothing shows, and do you have any idea how much they charge for bras these days?!

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