He sat alone in the long, empty corridor on a bench made of high-grade plastic that was common in military vessels. Coated the way it was not only added durability, but made it resistant to dirt, moisture, and dog hair, which was helpful for a Haukeff in the summer. Despite his meticulous grooming, the student still found himself shedding at alarming rates. It wasn’t as though they had seasons on board, either, but his body responded to the changing seasons of the academy’s station planet, anyway, and that caused problems among his classmates.

Not that Saguru had any choice in the matter. He couldn’t help what his species was any more than he could change it, and he was only half to begin with. Genetic splicing wasn’t something that they allowed on that side of the interplanetary territory, and he wasn’t about to abandon the Embassy for the Alliance. Not when he was on track to become the youngest captain in the Academy’s history. 

So he sighed and picked another clump of fur from his textbook and watched it float down to the polished metal flooring. At least dressed in his uniform, it was really only his head and tail that he needed to worry about. But he wondered if it was why he was always so alone, or if the aversion had less to do with his physical features and more to do with himself as a whole.  He wasn’t really willing to do the legwork necessary to find out either way; there were enough things to worry about without that, too.