It had been exactly ten years since the Akûla had first stepped foot on Paraxus II. Since that time the Akûla had found a place and built a home on Paraxus and through hardship and hard work, they had finally come to the point where they had stabilised to the point where the first state visit was in order. Of course, since Aiëlla had a fair amount of personal interest and involvement in these affairs, she would have preferred to visit them sooner, but as the Akûla had come to know, there were many rules and regulations within the 44th that weren't always practical.
Aiëlla's mood was good, her simple, yet formal clothes were highly hydrophobic, so the rain was of little concern to her, apart from her having to wear the hood on her coat, which was fixed in position by two strings from the sides of the hood to the front main body of the coat, preventing it from being blown off by the wind in the open-topped transie. She was accompanied by her secretary, mr. Himvordal, and a translator by the name of mr. Freirikssen, just in case. To her protest, she was also escorted by a single Huskarl, which was completely superfluous, though, like all Huskarls, thankfully silent. Through the filing of a small mountain of paperwork she had been able to force the Huskarl to have his weapon systems not charged and therefore de-activated and safe. Currently, the huskarl sat in the co-driver position in the cockpit of the vehicle.
Though he was driving the transie and had been assigned the formal liason between the two nations, mr. Strangheim would not be joining the party during the state visit, he had a funeral to attend to. Aside from them there only two other passengers, an elderly lady with some groceries and a Saurai in an unflattering, dull grey templar cloak. The latter did not speak, and mostly hid his head and face behind a crude, heavy hood of similar fabric. Although they both could read standard saurai and some variants thereof, neither Aïella nor the translator could read the almost absent markings on the cloak. Aiëlla payed it little heed, she was reading one of her books, a theological classic by the name of 'Da er!'. It wasn't a datapad, but an actual physical book, a durable luxury alternative in the form of thin silicate sheets with pressure-moulded letters, sometimes in addition to preservative technologies discreetly hidden in the back of the book. Expensive as it may have been, it was not the customary gift she was going to give the Akûla for her first visit.
The kitchen knife she was going to give them was no ordinary kitchen knife. It was not technically even a kitchen knife - it was in fact a knife meant especially for the preparation and 'cooking' of raw fish suitable for human consuption. Needless to say, this kind of knife design was much older than the relationship between the 44th and the Akûla, but, to her, it represented a common, perhaps even unifying utility - a tool with which a dish suitable for both Akûla and humans could be made. To this end, the hilt of the blade had been adapted for ease of use and the edge had been sharpened to the point where safety regulations demanded a magnetic clamp-sheath rather than the usual synthetic leather or block type. Though not particularly light, the weight was, considering it's abundance of heavier elements, a remarkable feat of engineering and weight-saving. The blade itself was mostly composed of alumino-hexadite* with an overall hyperferrite abundance of no less than a staggering twelve goromril parts per million, whereas the outside of the handle was mostly an iridium adamantite. On the hollow inside of the handle resided a small conservation device of undetermined function, accessible by screwing off the small pommel on the bottom. The edge of the blade was, for a significant portion, composed of a heavy adamantium substance known as 'gorptir'**.
The old lady looked at the knife in the secretary's hands.
"That's a good looking knife you have there." She said
"Oh no, it's not mine, It's hers" " Denied the secretary immediately, nodding to the reading Aiëlla.
The lady looked at Aiëlla, squinted, thought visibly and concluded "Are you the young Lady Lawncaster?"
Unexpectedly flustered Aiëlla smiled and said "Oh you flatter me, I'm not that young anymore...though I guess compared to Mother I'm still quite young."
"It looks expensive, is it-a your first time visiting them Akûla?" Asked the old lady.
"yes, it is, though I've seen them before." Asnwered Aiëlla
"ah yes, I remember, I heard on the news that you handled business when they first arrived, it must've been like five years ago, the least." Remarked the old lady.
"It's been ten years to the day" corrected Aiëlla kindly.
"Time flies, doesn't it." Cackled the old lady amused.
The hooded saurai threw a chilling glance.
"but I digress, has it got an adamantium edge? since it's got the magnoclamps, you know." Continued the Old Lady on a different subject.
"Yes" Said Aiëlla, who was slowly falling back into her reading.
"Monomelecular?" inquired the old lady, her interest piqued.
"No, it's for cooking, not stabbing."
"Pity. I would've liked to see a 1-gauge again, you just don't see those around out here"
Aiëlla lifter her brow in hearing the misnomer, but did not correct the old lady, and continued to read until their arrival, which was about a minute earlier than expected. A timely arrival for public transport by any measure.
*: GorAl6[Al3Ti5Ir]12, counted as 27 (one of which hyperferrite) particles total for ppm counts.
**: 5-10 percent 24[Co, Rh] * GorPt2Ti4 in alloy with mostly iridium.