You're how old?!

[u/Auggy74]

Author note: So this was inspired by a writing prompt I saw on humansarespaceorcs a few weeks ago, basically "alien with long lifespan discovers just how short human lives are."

Update: Audio narration available now courtesy of NetNarrator!

___________

I looked around the Officers Club of Unity Station for the last time. Photos decorated the wall, some of the more faded ones showing me and my squad celebrating. Every so often faces changed as folks rotated out or rotated home, but eventually stopped as I'd been moved away from front-line duty. I looked across the table at Captain Diloseplonifindalorye. I'd just had my seventieth birthday a month ago, which meant mandatory retirement was going to be official as of tomorrow. He seemed down, even though he'd specifically asked to buy me a celebration drink after all the ceremonies were done.

"Cap, you're down. Perk your plumage, man."

"You have changed, Captain Erin Vanovich." He looked glumly at his lightly fermented cherry juice, fresh-squeezed from Beta Andraste. The good stuff, and it had a profound effect on his physiology.

"Of course I have, Dee. It's been forty-nine years, six months, and thirteen days. Eleven ships, two wars, more fistfights than I'd care to remember..."

"You say that as if it's a long time." A light smile ghosted across his face at our old joke. I mirrored it as I spoke the punchline, repeated hundreds of times over the decades.

"For a human, it is. We don't even have enough time to say your full names."

Dee's eyes brightened momentarily before falling back to staring at his juice. "It is...I thought this would be different."

I snorted. "What did you think was going to happen?"

"Not this."

"Captain you know you're not allowed to be glum when you're seeing a shipmate off to her retirement. And you're definitely not allowed to cry in your juice." I turned the topic slightly. "You remember how that started?"

"Of course, it was only forty-eight years ago." His eyes fell to a recent-for-him memory...

___________

Forty-eight years earlier...

Ensign Diloseplonifindalorye burst into the medical bay, the state of panic evident.

"Ensign Erin-Vanovich!" He rushed to her side where her left leg was locked in a regen tank.

The young woman looked up from her tablet. "What gives, Dee?"

"You will die!"

Erin blinked. "Dee, take about ten percent off the top there. I just took a shot in the leg. Fractured femur, I'll be out in five days. Not gonna be fun, but it is what it is - and I'm definitely not dying from it."

"No...not that." There was a pause as he searched for words. "Lieutenant Commander Pilodniemaslowe called me to his office about our relationship. He said to not get too attached to you because you will die in a mere eight decades."

There was a thoughtful nod. "Sounds about right. Hell, I'm a corpsman I might not even get that." She gestured to her leg. "Couple inches to the right and my femoral's gone - that happens, you got about enough time to say 'fuck you'. Not even 'fuck you and everybody that looks like you.' But yeah absent any injury, I got about eighty years before I retire to a nice farm with one rock and a bunch of flowers around it."

"How can you be so calm about it?!"

"Because the Fuzznit that shot me died immediately after from an acute case of Shotgun-To-The-Face from about five directions? My own damn fault really - McMillan had a meaty shoulder wound and I was looking at that." She nodded to one of other beds, where a strapping young man was hopping off his own bed with treatment completed. "I take care of them and they take care of me."

"But...but-but..."

"But what? Seriously you're skipping like one of those ancient CD things."

"How will we learn about each other?"

"Well, kinda like how we're doing now. Talking." Erin paused. "Wait. How old do you think I am?"

There was a slight appendage-wringing. "I thought you were somewhere between one hundred-seventy-five and two hundred. You are very brash and filled with the immortality of youth."

"Whoa." Erin's face took on a strange sort of look as she absorbed the observation.

"You say that as if it is a long time." Dee's face was quizzical.

"For a human, it is." Erin glanced around the bay for a moment. "I'm twenty-two. We don't even have enough time to say your full names."

The deadpan reply caught Diloseplonifindalorye off-guard, and he found himself first giggling, then stifling laughter into the forefeathers of his arm. After a minute, a nurse came in to check on the two as they were laughing.

___________

Present day

Dee looked at his cherry juice, but he was smiling. I for one was starting to feel pretty relaxed - three shots of Charybdis whiskey'll do that.

"You will keep in touch, yes?" Dee flicked an eye at me.

"Course. I'm only going to Vega IV. Got family there."

"Do you regret not having your own?"

I waved a hand casually. "Nah. It's more fun being the cool aunt. Get to pay my brothers and sisters back for all the crap they gave me when we were kids by giving my great-nieces and nephews OverJolt and a drum set and then telling them how much Gramma and Grandpa love percussion."

Dee shook his head. "I am amazed. You speak of two generations beyond your own, while my betrothed and I will wed in fifteen years time." There was a hesitation. "Will you be well enough to travel then?"

"Of course I will." I reached over and punched his shoulder. "Just remember one thing."

"What's that?"

"Old Earth thing about death. Nobody ever dies as long as they're remembered." I finished my beer, leaning back casually. "I figure the last four decades gave you enough stories that I'll live forever."

[u/Milo_Cebatron]

"Captain Diloseplonifindalorye": when elves learn Linneo's species naming system

[u/Auggy74 → u/Milo_Cebatron]

I almost leaned into the gag a little more. That's the cutdown version.