Aleph eyed the way that her... she was not even sure how she should feel about Squidgie now. It had started with her being kind of just an accidental pet. Then it had been explained to her.

And now the clerk was a lot more... human-ish and the whole idea of thinking of her like a daughter was jarring in several ways.

Aleph was still incredibly young. She knew some countries even outlawed taking a pregnancy to term if the mother was not at least on their second life!

Aoria had not been like that, but if she was being honest most of Terra barely even knew Aoria existed. She had been mocked by other children and those childish enough to not be different when she first started speaking to others over the choir of the terran networks.

The joke was Aoria was actually a made up place that no one ever went too.

Absurd really, you could find it on a map, read about its long history.

Tourists even sometimes visited it for the monasteries up high in the mountains or the ‘village flavor’ along the cliffs.

She knew her mother after her rebirth was apprenticing in one of the ‘traditional’ houses that outsiders stayed at.

Aleph had seen the inside of those houses and was pretty sure no one had ever lived like that in the village in a hundred years.

She shook her head and looked back at Squidgie. Which felt pretty weird to call someone that could stand there and smile.

Without the distance of inhumanity Aleph felt really awkward.

Sure squidgie was still actually inhuman, like a strange and yet pretty blend of Elsie and a Terran girl and Squidgie from before and maybe a bit of Pylo?

But she acted a lot more like a kid now then she ever remembered her being.

Like right now, just bubbling over with excitement to explain or expound on every single bit of herself with minimal prompting.

“Why yes ma’am! getting the balance right was very tricky. I had to build a centrifuge of a proper scale to tune the mechanics right. And I’m not sure if the acceleration equilibrium will be entirely the same but given that and the few other mechanisms I found to try and get the necessary forces right in stress testing the frame I am eager to take my first proper steps under acceleration. With your assistance if it’s not too much trouble. I’m sure you can give me pointers ma’am.”

Aleph boggled a little bit at that. Squidgie had technically never taken her own first steps? And wanted aleph to share those moments with her.

That was- There were- Aleph had a great many feelings welling up inside over that and honestly she found herself not sure how to say anything but-

“Of course! I mean, y-yes I’ll help you with that S-squidgie. No um... employee-d-daughter thing of mine is going to do that alone!”

Quarti smirked at Aleph and rolled her eyes with a toss of the head that set her spinning around til she was upside down from the two of them, then braked herself with flap of an arm and a slight nudge against the fluffy substrate of the room.

“I’ve seen stranger child then this.”

Aleph blinked and looked over at Quarti with a raised brow.

She laughed and shook her head.

“Seriously! When the first few generations of your humankind was waddling all around terra they didn't properly understand what was human child and what was other beast. Mummy cows nay help with that at all with their nurturing and teaching and whispers.”

She blinked and looked over at Squidgie then back at Quarti.

“They took care of other animals like children? How could they not tell the difference? Seems obvious.”

Aleph looked over at Squidgie who was watching the interplay between them.

“Hah! Rightwise now. But when fresh born like? Newly hatched outa the mummy cow flanks and then nurtured gently like by them til they were strong enough to go out and grab food? They thought mummy cows was human”

Aleph considered that, the images she had seen of them were wonderful and comforting and delightful and she wanted to cuddle up to them close. But she could not imagine mistaking one of them for a terran.

“Took me ages to teach them how to make fire again! So many of the first generation would jump to the sky to try and follow the mummy cows when they finally left. Turned into a dance that was done for close on a thousand and some years after. Anyway nay lile squishy squidge and her lovely-legs is not strangest daughter I’ve seen! Ever had a bird for a sister Aleph? I had dozens of them. Made supper might awkward sometimes.”

Squidgie nodded a bit at that as if this all made perfect sense.

“It is a lot like that with us as well ma’am. We make do and fit in and we... well we consider ourselves part of wherever we are born and hired. There are urges and things to find a safe, close in space as we mature. But only if it is possible. And it is a desire one can resist.”

Aleph considered the words before looking over at Omega and her semi glazed expression as she stared into the window and listened.

That had been a habit that stuck even after she convalesce. Although she had a notebook on hand slowly being filled with details. Ideas, random scribbles.

Aleph coasted over to the table and Omega glanced her way and made a gesture at the window.

Causing it to pan back to their point of emergence through the canopy and into this new stellar hollow.

"The great Forest. It has a thousand names, but none do it justice. thirty-two stellar envelopes of interconnected primordial wilderness. Home to uncountable millions upon millions of species, the majority of which live nowhere else. One of the great ecological treasures of the reef, the largest volume of contiguous wilderness for thousands of lightyears."

She looked around and shrugged.

“To be honest inside this hollow it’s not all that different from terra or the last few is it?”

Omega hummed and flipped through a few of her notes before nodding and her eyes fluttering to grasp a skill. But Aleph suspected only briefly.

That was a new trick.

“Yeah... kinda although you might not remember because you’ve never looked out over the rim wall much before but the hollow on terra is not as dark. Here in the forest the trees soak up everything then let the excess light vent down from their leaves to be drained by those below.”

She panned the view out to show something like a map or a model of their journey so far. A slender line passing a mere four stars including this one. Years of their lives and barely any distance at all.

Aleph considered the distance while Omega started talking again.

“And look, see how much closer in this hollow is? That’s all the trees, they are pushing towards the star all the time, growing and pumping and pushing the canopy as close as they dare. It doesn't leave a lot of room for anything to skim much higher than them. And-”

She interrupted Omega gently.

“Yeah, but what do you think we are going to actually meet? What is this port we are visiting going to be like? Tunie loves the place but Tunie is Tunie and does not really pay attention to anything about ports. The only thing she remembers about Terra is she didn't like having to work so hard to keep up with it”

Omega shrugged but moved the view back over the fluffy adorable ‘thing’ that had been reaching out towards them as they passed.

They had been going rather fast, but it had still been reaching for where they would be. Posed like a statue, still as the trees and foliage around it. But definitely reaching.

Tunie did not like it and called it a terrible course canceling thing that Aleph was almost certain meant it was dangerous to the ship if it ever was allowed to catch her.

Considering what Tunie did not think was dangerous to herself that mildly horrified her.

The size of it though.

It was nowhere near the scale of terra... but those arms and the strange slowly swaying and floating things all around it that were so much smaller.

This part of the reef had things like that and more!

“A Laperaole, while parasitic growths and then pack hunters in its larval stages this fully mature adult favors camouflage, memetic disorientation, and misdirection to incapacitate or panic its prey into ambush with its meandering limbs. As it laboriously draws in the captured wyrm of paradise the countless young scavenge and strip as much material as they can before the adult finally manages to consume it whole.”

Aleph tapped the window then noted that things were indeed moving. Far as she could tell the thing was not moving at all.

“We are fortunate that it has let its obscuring spore clouds dissipate. Otherwise it would be far more aggressive and almost impossible to see in its camouflaging gloom.”

Omega hummed at the thing then zoomed into one of the little particulates of the ‘spore cloud’ and had to bite her hand to avoid squealing in delight.

Oh my gosh that was so cute, it was the fluffiest and cutest puppy-monkey-thing she had ever seen!

She was about to start gushing when she noticed Squidgie had a very strained expression on her face.

Aleph considered the clerk and then looked back at the adorable fluffy thing and gently swiped the view away from it.

There was a visible relief in the clerk’s posture and a bright smile to aleph.

“Thank you! Many apologies ma’am but I don’t think I’ll ever be fully used to seeing things that... fluffy.”

Omega started muttering something about not being able to get decent angles.

She considered that moment but before she could comment on either Squidgie’s discomfort or Omega’s complaint about the inability to see as far with so many obscuring objects in the canopy Elsie and Pylo arrived through the airlock.

Elsie spoke up first.

“Thank you everyone for waiting, We have some things to discuss about the port we are arriving and how you can remain safe during our visit.”