#iniphineas

              He frowned slightly at the sight of dust collecting in them, but dismissed them as well without thinking about it too much. He went about his routine and got ready for work like he would on any other day. It wasn’t a particularly pressing problem, and thus it didn’t press on his thoughts.

            However, a week later, when he saw that the carpet was starting to get torn up in the main walkways, he started to think about it more seriously. It certainly was not normal for a carpet to go from moderately worn out to having bare patches and tears in only a week. There were strands of fibers from the lowest layer sticking out and stretching on for inches.

              Glowering, he followed the usual path into the kitchen only to find more scratches in the tiles. A certain freeloader greeted him over zealously from the kitchen table, but Locus didn’t look up from the floor for a long moment. Instead, he followed all the scratches to six certain claws that were idly tapping against the tiles. The situation fell together in his head as his frown fell deeper. He looked up from the claws, to the Altairan’s breakfast bowl of – he wasn’t even sure what, but he was content to keep that ignorance – and then to the man’s face.

              “Why don’t you wear any shoes?” Locus demanded.

              Looking mildly offended, Korona shook his head. “What are you talking about? I always wear shoes.”

              He glanced down to the foreigner’s ankles and feet with a perplexed expression. They went around his legs like boots would, but that was about where the similarity ended. There was a small portion of the uncomfortable looking material over the top of his foot, but nothing more. It didn’t do so much as shield the sides of his feet, never mind the bottoms or those horrible claws.

              “Those aren’t shoes,” he said, shaking his head in disapproval.

              “Of course they are,” Korona disagreed. “They aren’t all confining like your Lyran shoes and they won’t smell bad when I take them off.”

              “They’re barely on your feet, they’re just like ankle decorations,” Locus retorted. “And your claws are ruining the floor, have you looked at the carpet lately?”

              “It’s not my fault your inferior flooring can’t stand routine usage.”

    ~

                          Locus frowned while trying to extract several corn chips out of the control panel on the cockpit of his ship – an unfortunate gift from the children on the last flight. Lia was standing in the doorway watching without making any particular attempt to help, though she was more than eager to complain about Korona with him.

              “I don’t think he understands what shoes are supposed to look like,” Locus said sourly while prodding at a flake with a pencil. “Those claws just tear everything up, even the sofa is suffering. It’s worse than having a pet.”

              “You can declaw a pet,” she remarked thoughtfully.

              “I think they need those claws for balance,” he said absent mindedly as the flake disappeared deeper into the controls.