He’d honestly never seen such a beautiful sight in his entire life.
It had actually been quite gruesome if not traumatic and extremely fast once it started.
Three days of dizzy-spells, constant complaining about his hands feeling funny with other deteriorating health symptoms but still his master had refused to actually go to a doctor about it.
Vindi was sixteen and like most remaining beta fausts owned by a sentient that didn’t care one lick about the alien. His master was a mid-aged human named Fej Owon who had bad hygiene and just wanted something he could order around, abuse and clean up after him. Fej took his role as a slave owner to the extreme and had been severely unkind to Vindi in the worst ways since he’d acquired the faust at age twelve from a hunter who’d raided some of the last known groups of the species on Adana.
Vindi had thought he’d surely die by this human’s hands before he’d even reach adulthood and he could have never imagined something so tiny would set him free.
Three days of his master growing sicker and sicker were witnessed, having come back from a trip feeling miserable, until the human had been able to do little more than lay in his bed and groan. Vindi finally put a call in for a doctor and described the symptoms over the holocall. He was ordered to keep his distance.
Before the medic even arrived, Fej had started to shake and cry out. It had only been a few moments after that the human’s entire body had literally disintegrated into a fine ash in the bed; his entire form wretched in pain as it had happened. Vindi’s translucent inner eyelids flickering as he’d watched this wicked man fall apart to dust.
When the doctor did arrive, the Gran was wearing a breathing mask over her face and she looked in abject horror at the scene and the young faust still standing in the infected room. She pulled out a device and scanned it over Vindi’s form and made an astonished noise. “Looks like we can add Fausts to the list of species immune.”
“Immune to vhat?” Vindi asked still looking at Fej’s ashes with an admittedly happy light in his eyes.
“Rooze Disease - a virus, highly contagious to most species, especially humans.”
“A wyrus...” the faust murmured.
“You know, I thought fausts were all extinct, I haven’t seen one of your species in at least twenty years. You really shouldn’t be here. What is your relation to the deceased.”
Vindi turned his attention to the Gran. “He owned me.”
“Oh.” The doctor replied with an angry look on her face. She knew all too well the nasty slave trade business with certain species. “Well, never you mind anymore about that. You’re going to come with me where you’ll be safe and can be schooled and trained in any field you would like.”
“I vould like zhat,” the young faust said and turned away from the ashes. “Vill you tell me more about ze wyrus?”
“The wy--oh! You mean Rooze Disease?” she chuckled as she lead Vindi out of the human’s house toward her transport ship. “Of course, one of my secondary studies was in galactic plagues and illnesses, what would you like to know?”
“Everyzhing~”