We exchanged pleasantries under the watchful gaze of the males in the room. While I was only just familiar with the concept of soulbinds in Val' culture, I was almost certain that if any of the males in the room were going to be bound to Cecelia they'd already have been aware of it. It didn't stop them from watching her, having their gazes pulled back to her whenever she moved or spoke.

I glanced toward Esayr, trying to see how he was gauging the room since he had a better feel with his empath abilities. When he noticed my interest, he shook his head lightly. If I had to guess, he was telling me that none of the males were mated to her, but I wasn't certain.

Regardless, I'd be grateful if we got out of this room and back to our quarters unscathed. An unexpected mating would cause untold problems with this little excursion, especially if Cecelia had never entered the lottery.

My heart stuttered up in my throat. If she has a mate here and has never entered the lottery then she's not obligated to stay. Will they let her go? How will that work with the withering of the soul between them? It would be a downright clusterfuck. One that no one had really considered, not myself or any of the males on the ship.

Wonderful lack of foresight, Addy. It made me wonder where Roan was, and why he was conspicuously absent for such an event as this; and —for that matter—why it was he never seemed to be here to give me or anyone immediately useful advice.

"Shall we go then?" Cece's voice was lower, lacking the lilting tones of the Val' people that I'd become so accustomed to. When she asked the question, she directed it to Vailen. Not to either myself or Esayr, though that could be because we'd been holding our silent communication, oblivious to her the ongoing chatter of her and the males.

Vailen seemed somewhat surprised she'd addressed him, but he took it in stride, "Of course. I believe the plan," he glanced towards me though we'd made genuinely no plan at all for this moment past the bare minimum, "was to give you time to rest after the transport as it can be quite draining. After that, Addison could show you around the Aarond Form and answer any questions you might have, allowing you a more in-depth understanding of our position here."

"Whatever you think is best," Cece turned back to us again. She smiled and it was one of those cordial affairs, kind but without the warmth of a kinship behind it, but I told myself that would come in time. I had to remind myself that humans were wary cautious creatures in a way that the Val'Dornn seemed not to be.

"If you'd like to be shown around we're more than willing," I had to reconcile the fact that there were people that were more adventurous than me in the world. People who could get beamed up to a spaceship and be ready to take on the world...or the universe. "We can play it by ear."

Cece's head canted in the slightest wisp of a movement, but she smiled. "Like I said, whatever you think is best. I'm more than comfortable with either option."

There was a muted warmth in the room that I was beginning to think might be attributed to the tentative smiles on the males that worked in the transport.

"Let's start at our quarters," Esayr's soft hand at my back had me turning to look at him. He was focused on Cece. I envied his sure voice and the way his words came out unrushed by nerves or anxiety, even though I was sure they tangled somewhere in the pit of his stomach similarly to mine. "After you're settled we can decide what we'll do from there." I watched as Esayr glanced behind Cece then around the room, "Do you have any belongings that you've brought with you?"

Cece shrugged, "I have little. I've found that, for those in my position, existence is safer with very little rooting you in one place." Cece turned then, mirroring Esayr's glancing look around the room, some of the males in the back straightened imperceptively, but she righted herself --turning to look at us. "Besides, from our communications, I'd gathered this wasn't to be a permanent situation, only temporary."

Red flag. Reassure her. Let her know she's not being kidnapped or held here against her will. "Of course. You're free to return to Earth at any point in time whenever you're comfortable. The time frame surrounding your stay here on the ship is entirely up to you." The words bubbled out quickly, in the wake of those resurfacing emotions I remembered feeling when I first got to the Aarond Form. If I could give any other woman that stepped foot on this ship a measure of relief that I had originally wished for I'd make it my mission.

She gave me a quiet nod and a small smile, "To your quarters then? Thank you for hosting me."

I reached behind my back, linking my hand with Esayr's, and pulled him to my side. "It's our pleasure." Esayr was right. Cece would be better off staying near to the both of us. I was her anchor in this space as a human, the one thing she could count on to be familiar, and being nearby us would give her unbridled access to the ins and outs of our mating, that she could bring back to the populace.

"Absolutely!"

Vailen let us leave him, then, opting to stay and discuss something with the transport team. If I had to guess it was probably some manner of very diplomatic begging for them to behave themselves and not cause other males to flood the hallways for a glimpse at Cece.

It didn't quite work, though Cece took it in stride. To be fair, the males were very covert about it. Had I not know myself, how empty these hallways in these areas had become during the wait for mates, I wouldn't have realized it either.

Esayr walked in front of us at a leisurely pace, and I half questioned that he might have thrown his lot in with the other males just a little bit as well, though he might not have even been conscious of it himself, regardless he walked slower than normal and it afforded the thirty or so males the opportunity to pass by us and nod in our direction in a general greeting. Some even called out hello's in Vallen, which I returned and Cece nodded to.

"So, wherever you want to go the ship can guide you with inlaid lights on the floors." I pointed to the edge of the walkway, just inside of the silvered walls to the hallways. The lights weren't on just yet, since Esayr knew exactly where he was going, but I could at least give Cece an idea of where they would be if she ever eventually needed to go somewhere.

"Useful tech," she murmured with a glance that was more of an afterthought down to the floor where I'd been pointing, "It'll be interesting to learn more about the Aarond Form."

"I'm still learning a lot about it myself. The," I waved my hand unsure how to explain the mechanics of the ship in a way that would make sense.

Cece finished the sentence for me well enough, "Underlying technology needed for a large-scale symbiotic sentient mechanical tech?"

I'm sure the shock was evident on my face, even Esayr turned a surprised look over his shoulder.

Whether Cece noticed or not, I was unsure, she was busy glancing at the inlaid designs in the silver ceilings, ones I'd never even realized were there until this very moment. She kept musing, though, continuing with her steady stream of thought. "It far outstrips anything even considered on Earth, or would certainly have to, to have supported so many lifeforms for so large of a distance as effortlessly as it has. The AI would have to be unimaginable at the very least, much less the mechanics the AI would have to manage like millions of tiny gears and cogs. One mistake in the programming or the hardware and I'd imagine the entire interior ecosystem would be at risk."

"It's not nearly as fragile as you'd think." Kados fell into step beside me silently enough that the sound of his voice had me close to touching the ceiling from how high I jumped.

Kados never did anything halfway, never watered anything down. Whereas another likely would have apologized for the startle, only showing the barest ghost of a smile from the amusement of it, his smile was wide --the picture of amusement. It took up the entirety of his face and showed off the sharper teeth I only occasionally got glimpses of --not the delicate and thin tapered points of Vailen's, they were shorter but still unreasonably sharp...unreasonably animalistic. It made me wonder if Addric's were the same and I'd only never noticed because the brothers were adept at their smiles, only Kados gave them more freely than his brother.

"I would imagine that would be so, or the ship wouldn't have survived as long as it has." Cece returned to Kados.

His gold eyes searched her for longer than reasonable. His slit pupils widened and then shrunk again into slits, coming to some conclusion I'm sure I'd hear about later, though if the answer to the question I knew he was asking the universe was a "yes" I was willing to bet he'd make a spectacle of himself.

But after a minute the strain in the hallway around us lessened and the pull across the muscles along my shoulder relaxed at the same time that Kados' did as well.

"I take it you're a friend?" Cece asked him, giving him a once over in that odd clerical way as if she were filing away bits of information into the cabinets of her mind.

"What gave me away?" His polite smile was back, tighter and more controlled, though that was a hard description to ever pin on him.

Cece faced forward again as we walked, only just barely missing the warning look Esayr shot to him. "I'm familiar with your face, from one of the leaked vids I released on my site. Even though the vid came from an English speaking country you still spoke in Vallan and required a translator."

I thought back to those videos that had been released just before I'd entered the lottery. Kados had been one whose face had been plastered across phone screens for weeks, a byproduct of him being a high-ranking member of the Aarond Form.

"It was either a friend of Addison's or Comm team. And the leaked correspondence tagged you as a Geneticist, not Communicator," Cece shrugged, "It made me fairly confident I'd be at least somewhat right since none of the others that have passed have: 1 stopped for longer communication and 2 used any English at all. Therefore, I must assume they didn't know any and were not familiar enough with the party to stop and try and converse."

"Very perceptive, and you are correct. I am a member of Esayr and Addy's Riniere. And, though there were other things tempting me to come and meet you," I watched Kados wince just a little bit then roll his shoulders quickly while he shot a dirty glance at the back of Esayr's head, "I'm actually here on business." Those words he grit out just a tad bit begrudgingly.

I was surprised when he turned to me. Esayr finally stopped at that, pausing us just before the final turn that would take us down to our quarters, allowing Kados a spare moment to finish his thought.

"I mentioned more tests as an afterthought last night, but something my brother spoke of today piqued my curiosity. I realize you're busy," his gold eyes flicked to Cece and then back to me, "But, should you find yourself with a spare moment of time I'd appreciate your presence while I delve into something we'd never quite considered." Kados turned to Esayr, with a more sober expression than I'd ever quite seen on him, "Yours too possibly, depending on my findings."

When Kados turned again to me, I could read the muted urgency that he'd left out of his tone, I could hear it as a heartbeat in my ear and could feel it as a tingle in my palms. I flexed my hands a moment to relieve that ache, "Sure, if we have a spare moment I'll make my way to your lab. We can figure whatever else from there."

Kados inclined his head, "Thank you. Both of you," he looked to Cece again with an air of distinct consideration. "All of you," he corrected.

Kados left us quickly then, having gotten what he wanted and Esayr ushered us down the last turn and to the door to our quarters. "You need only press your hand to the surface of the door and it will open." To demonstrate, Esayr opened our door himself, allowing Cece access to our quarters. "We will key your genetic signature into the system and give you access to our quarters through the interface inside."

He swept one arm out, a seemingly universal gesture for ushering someone into a space. Cece gingerly stepped into our quarters. Aside from Laene, she was the first person in here. she was the first non-Riniere member to ever step foot in our personal space as well as the first human visitor, too. "The ship should have consolidated a room and adjoining bathroom for you off to the left.

The ship what? I followed after Cece and sure enough to the left, nestled in the wall of what had previously been a hallway between the front door and the door to that study, there was the face of a new doorway that led into a new room that the ship had formed in the time we'd been away. I'll kill him.

I whirled on Esayr as quietly as I could, ready for another silent marital spat, but from the fact, he was looking anywhere but me, I could assume he'd at the very least anticipated this one.

Cece's quietly whispered, "Amazing" as she entered the room cooled my temper from a boil to a simmer that would last well into the night, though now because we had guests --an audience-- my male was going to be stuck in our bed with me when he --in a lot of ways-- had won the couch tonight.

*****A/N*****

The weather has been flirting with afternoon thunderstorms for nearly the entire week and I just need it to make the decision to go for it. There is genuinely nothing, NOTHING, I love more than afternoon thunderstorm season here in Florida.

I'm really lucky that my house has some nicely positioned large windows that make very satisfying "patpatpatpat" sounds whenever it rains really hard. I like to just lay with all the lights off and listen to the sound of it when it's dark and the temperature drops really low.

Also we just generally really need the rain. There's been a little bit of a drought for the last month to two months. We got one rain last week and now all the grass has changed from a dry brown to the bright green I'm used to.

Happy Father's day to those who celebrate it! Also if I'm not mistaken it's also the Summer Solstice, today? The longest day of the year on our little blue marble of a planet.

Is it odd to give a random world-building tidbit here? Something that just kind of came to mind while I was thinking about the Solstice. For a race that venerates the light, I'd imagine they'd have mythological stories that would coincide with celestial events. I like to think that the Val' year would revolve around the solstices and the equinoxes or their derivatives of them.

The year begins on the equivalent of the vernal equinox harkening back to the beginnings when all things were and are before Volla'Drannen and Vallo'Karain had come to their beginnings. There was Chaos but in all of the 'being' so to speak there was equality.

Then the summer solstice or the longest day of the year would symbolize the growing strength of Vallo'Karain and Volla'Dranen and the span of time between that equinox and the solstice is a time of growth and prosperity. Effectively a time of renaissance. In my brain, the Val' home planet which I think I named Var'Hallen, is very similar to Earth, though I would say the planet's rotation skews it toward periods of more intense daylight for some reason or another. I haven't done the research I really should to be able to give you a reason 'why' but I'd imagine this solstice --at least in the areas of the planet that were habitable to Val' people-- would have made this day nearly entirely daylight and the night infinitesimal. This day would also mark the beginning of the battle between the gods of light and Allo'Hira when he began his cut through that tapestry of light that had woven itself so tightly around the world.

Then the autumnal equinox would be that time mid-battle between the gods of their homeworld, When Alo'Hira wrestled control back and threw Vallo'Karain out in the stars, evening the playing field for light and darkness. I'd imagine this equinox embodies loss and the idea of gathering strength for the hardest part for the rest of the battle to come

Then the winter solstice, that final point when the world is so dark yet you still must press on. I'd imagine this solstice would embody that moment when Volla'Dranen realized that the darkness must be braved and he left the world with a decree before traveling out into the stars after his mate. Between the winter solstice and the new vernal equinox, as the days lighten and the world returns to equality in the chaos this is the time when the Val' people feel their spirituality the most, I think. I think it would be the time historically when most Temani Bercaris start to awaken and bonds start to tighten across the world because it's from those retying of tethers between males and females that the lightened tapestry across the world is rewoven, repaired in such a way that the light begins to beat back the darkness.

Then the process begins anew with the vernal equinox. An ever-revolving loop. I'd imagine.

The day is bright,

~Layla