Black out

"I want that backup generator up and running! All power on essentials only! Engines, med-bay, defenses, everything else is secondary!" the Captain roared to all those in the command room.

"Calis! What's our status?"

"Generator is 5 mekrons away from being ready, dispatch has covered 30% of the ship already and distributed lights. No report of any injuries yet, although there are several dozen passengers stuck in the elevators. We are in contact with them and they are all alright."

"And the-"

"The youngling centre is fine, Kim and Max have reported to me that they are fine as are the younglings." the first mate smiled knowingly.

"...good. Alert me should anything change."

"Of course Captain."

.

"10 mekrons away from the station Captain. Repair workers are already at the dock ready to board and fix our power and the station has prepared board for us."

"Excellent. Calis!"

"Yes Captain!"

"Care to join me in getting our young?" the first mate smiles and nods.

..

"How do you think they faired?"

"Well, it's hard to say. According to Kim and Max they have light, probably flashlights, but for the children to be stuck in a mostly dark room for 6 horvaths..." Calis shrugged.

"True...I assume that Nova is a tad nervous by now...she never liked the dark. Even if we can see well enough in the dark." Captain lightly smiled.

"I am certain that the humans have thought of something to keep her and the others calm."

"Without a doubt!" He laughed. "Probably introduced them to some new game I'll be no doubt playing for the next few weeks."

"As will I, Dali will no doubt-what on earth is that light?" as the two got closer they noticed a warm orange glow seeping out from under the door. The entrance to the youngling centre.

"...that's not a flashlight..."

"...do you smell smoke?"

The two adults looked to one another before rushing the door.

"Dali?!"

"Nova!"

"Mapa!"

"Papa! Look look! We're roasting mars-millows!"

"...Captain...Calis...care to try a marshmallow?" asked a sheepishly smiling Max.

For a moment neither the captain or first mate spoke, too confused by the sight before them. A circle of younglings sat in the middle of the centre, all of them holding out little sticks with marsh-mell-ohs on the end. In the centre sat a youngling whose head and shoulders were on fire holding his own stick and marsh-mell-oh.

"...Max, is that...is that youngling a Fyreian?" slowly asked Calis.

"Yes, yes he is."

"And are you using him...to cook?"

"...he said it was fine." the youngling in the middle of the circle of younglings eagerly nodded.

"...good to know but why are you...roasting marsh-mell-ohs on him?"

"...it was Kim's idea!"

"Hey! ...Okay yeah it was my idea and in my defense we've kept the kids busy like this about 2 hours and it was a last resort."

"...alright. Now how does one roast one of these white squishy things?"

...

"So how did you come up with this idea?" the captain asked, glancing away from his roasting marshmallow.

"Well after doing every game we could think of we had to take a break to think of what else we could do. That's when the first kid actually had time to realize that we're stuck in the dark...and then we had a mass panic."

"We tried everything to calm them down but the both of us were too tired to do that properly," winced Max apologetically. "since well, we're well past our usual shifts. But luckily Kim came up with this idea!"

"Marshmallows! Now obviously we couldn't use a real fire and we can't just let 20 kids use candles to roast them so-"

"Wait wait wait...a candle?" Calis asked.

"Yea, during blackouts I would light a candle and roast marshmallows with it."

"...carry on."

"So we decided to use Fure since he can control how hot he gets and he's easier to manage than a fire."

"Told you they would have the younglings entertained." Calis whispered to their captain who snorted.