The Smeet

The Lullaby

Besides, most of his attention was actually on Ilk, as she kept pointing at certain characters and repeating their names.

Then the movie took a rather... surprising twist. The deer-thing and its mother fled from an unknown enemy, then a loud sound echoed in the background, and in the next scene the mother was gone to never appear in the rest of the film. The deer-thing's father said 'Men have taken her'.

Ilk clearly didn't understand it, but Red had an idea as to what had happened. Mental note: delete that movie from the tablet.

After tucking in Ilk for her nap when the movie was finally over, Red went over to the cafeteria to get those silly songs out of his head, but to his bad luck most of the crew (Purple included)were watching another movie, gathered around Stink, who held the irkpad. I swear to Irk, if it's that stupid crustacean singing underwater again...

To his confusion, however, many of the irkens were... weeping? What is this?!

"What is going on?!" he asked with a snarl. Irkens don't show weakness in public. Again, Ilk doesn't count, she's just a smeet and it's not really her fault.

"POOR DUMBO!" Skoodge cried, bursting out into a fit of tears and startling Red in the process.

"Who on Irk is Dumbo?!" he asked.

Seeing he'd get no reply, he pushed some soldiers out of the way and took a peek into the screen. There was a big, gray, fat animal with an unusually long nose being rocked in an even longer snake-like nose. "What's the big deal?" he asked, uninterested.

"His mom got locked just for defending him!" Tenn cried out, wiping some tears from her eyes with a napkin.

Larb yelled. "Damn you, humans!"

"We should put THEM in cages to see if they like it." Purple commented, to which he was met with nods of agreement.

Red took a hand to his temples. "Sweet Irk, we do that to inferior species on an almost daily basis, so what's the big deal with one earth-beast being locked up in a cage for her kid's fault?"

"We're not crying for that!" Purple exclaimed. "We're crying because that parental female unit is showing a level of affection that's very moving!"

Red blinked. What was that supposed to mean? Well, he better do something before all the crew became mopey. "Okay, that's enough earthen-movies for you." He said, snatching the Irkpad from Stink and turning it off, earning groans of disappointment.

One of the cooks called from the kitchen. "Everybody, here's another batch of trimisu!"

That was enough to instantly lift the mood, and the crowd rushed to the kitchen counter in a frenzy. Naturally, Purple somehow managed to grab most of the trimisu, leaving only a few pieces to the others, who started fighting for it savagely.

Red rolled his eyes. He'd make sure to delete all those silly movies from the databases; he wished he could say the same for his irkpad, but sadly even if he did Ilk always found a way to download them again.

Perhaps he should consider getting her an irkpad of her own.

A few hours later, after managing to eat some of that trimisu (he could understand why everyone liked it, it was tasty) he returned to his quarters to check on Ilk. Once again, she was already out of her basket, irkpad in front of her, and she was watching yet another movie...

He couldn't believe his luck.

"Seriously? Now you are watching that dumb movie too?" he half-groaned as he approached her.