There was no hesitation at all. No stuttered moment while she considered some other possible reason. She just simply said: "I wanted to see the ship," with a shrug.

She managed to get the fastenings on her shirt closed then turned to us as if remembering, for the first time, that we were still standing there. "As far as I can tell, the opportunity to experience the Aarond Form first hand is relatively hard to come by."

I had expected her to say something about getting to the bottom of this whole Temani Bercari.

"In actuality, it would be quite easy to come here." Esayr began from beside me, "We've offered on multiple different occasions to host discussions with your leading parties." I glanced at him just in time to catch his nod in my direction, "What's stopped us from outright offering asylum to females on your planet is the fact that it would likely be received poorly, like many other aspects of this searching has been."

Cece nodded at that, "Yes, this did get quite screwed up didn't it?"

"So, you're on our side?"

Cece's gaze settled on me with an eerie singularity, "I'm on the side of honesty." With a casual raise of her shoulder, she advanced into the living room with us, "I've seen a lot of leaked video feeds, some of them I've never uploaded as I feel like there was very little additional information gleaned from them. What was striking to me, was the fact that in every instance you--" Cece's glance toward Esayr was the bares flick of her eyes, "were forthcoming and honest with every question. It's something I admire. Logic, neat and orderly unmussed by complicated nonsense that seems to crop up amongst less advanced things-- technology and creatures alike."

She'd turned only slightly to look back at the metal wall near the doorway to what was now her room, "The interesting thing about technology, is that there's a fluency to it, whether that's due to a natural progression or from some underlying similarity in the minds of our races, I'm unsure," She pressed her fingers to the interface that I was only just becoming familiar with, "but, if you are asking me point blank with whom I will side, the answer will always be the ones that value those core beliefs as well --as much as they are able."

"And that's not humans." My voice was barely above a whisper.

When Cecelia turned to me, she had her arms neatly folded across her chest, "At least, insofar as this moment, no. It is not humanity Humans? In the singular? Them I will consider."

It was a sentiment that had rattled around in my mind more often than I cared to admit, spurred from a childhood that was spent watching 'unalienable' right after right get taken away until there was barely anything left except those few people around you that had kept you from falling to the ground entirely. "You sound like you speak from experience?"

"Something like that. I had a...very sheltered childhood. I only had one friend and sometimes she considered it a chore, though I don't blame her. She practically raised me. Most would have probably considered her more of a sister than a friend. It opened up a lot of free time, most of it I utilized to snoop around in anything mechanical or electric nearby," She shrugged again, the dismissive gesture fluid enough that it gave me the impression she did it often, "Then I moved on to figuring out how the technology itself was working. After that? I believe the phrase is 'It grew from there'."

The bits and pieces of her story revealed a Cece that, while odd, did inspire flutterings of kinship within me. "I understand."

"You do?" Her surprise morphed her face into something more vulnerable and softer. I felt like I'd been standing at a wall all this time and I'd only just now found a gate inlaid into the mortar and the bricks.

"I understand being raised in an unconventional circumstance. My parents passed when I was young and I had no immediate family. I bounced around between a few places, but I barely remember any of them. I was lucky enough to get settled in a girls' home that was attached to a convent and small catholic all-girls school. Because of it, I didn't have many friends or any opportunities to really make any outside of the school and the few girls in a similar situation to me. I was lucky that the one girl who stuck to me like glue is a true friend...and was also a little more adventurous than me. She helped to socialize me better than the circumstance would have usually allowed." They were some of the few memories from early childhood that were vivid, all the others blended into muted smears and a few clear bits that rose out from within the fog every once in a while. But, Gabby's whispers and the look on her face whenever she'd planned or done something she shouldn't, those memories always came back to me easily.

"It's tedious isn't it?" Cece searched me with a renewed interest, "How the circumstances of how you're raised can so easily brand you among your own people."

I wouldn't say I'd particularly been 'branded'. There were certainly times early on when others had thought I was an oddity. It usually went one of two ways then, people either were cruel or curious. I just so happened to get lucky and those curious ones stuck around. "I was lucky and I fell in with people that didn't mind the oddities, whatever they were. We accepted every bit of each other."

She took that in, in silence for a moment before finally murmuring, "very lucky indeed".

My mind returned to that wall with the gate. It was rusty from years of abuse, weathered in such a way that I'd be hard-pressed to open it again, but I was stubborn and maybe just slightly too empathetic for my own good --that thought had me casting a glance over at my mate, who just quietly stood watching over us-- but I knew I'd keep wiggling the latch until it either broke off entirely or opened. "If you ever want to try again, you have a friend in me. I know your situation is different and more dangerous than mine, but I know my friends as well and they would welcome you too."

She nodded, but I could tell that information was too much, by the way her gaze moved away from me and back to the technical bits of the room--the displays and the interfaces.

"I have something you might find interesting," I was grasping at straws trying to think of something to settle her again, to help assuage that awkwardness that was just beginning to seep into the atmosphere around us and cause the muscles in my shoulders to knot with phantom strain. I turned to the table where I'd dropped Kayle's coin from the other night. The one with the little clever arrow on it."

The metal was polished and cool beneath the pads of my fingers and for the life of me I couldn't imagine this was anything more than a simple metal coin, but as I lifted the coin and spun it, without a doubt the engraved arrow always faced in the same direction.

I stepped toward Cece and was gratified to see that she didn't shy away from me, but stood her ground; the faint inkling of interest and curiosity making her dark eyes glow. "It's a token. I think of it like a Val'Dornn equivalent of a business card, for one of the guys in Esayr's Riniere, Kayle." I held it out to her and she opened her palm, allowing me to drop it into her hand. "His brother made it. No matter where you are on the ship, the arrow will always point you back to his media hall, Neseve Saille (Clever Arrow). I know the plan was to let you get settled here, but if you'd like we could go and see if Kayle is working and maybe he could tell you a little bit more about how it was made."

She was quiet for a while, absorbed in thought as the coined danced along her fingers. She tested the smoothed edges and traced the line of the engraved arrow with her nail. She was quiet for long enough that I'd begun to think she wouldn't respond at all, but finally, she uttered a simple "I think I'd like that."

When she smiled, I found nothing odd about it.

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

Do you know what's crazy? Two years in a row now we have had two nearly direct hits from tropical storms/hurricanes, this year's is slated to make landfall directly overtop of my home on Tuesday. Currently, it's nothing concerning by 'Florida' standards, just a tropical storm when it should hit. We'll have heavy rain and some slight coastal flooding.

But, that's still actually like crazy unheard of for any of you unfamiliar with where I live. There are old wive's tales that it's because of the magic in the Earth from long before the area was colonized and the first nations that lived here respected the land more than those of us here now do.

It's such a thing in local lore, there's a harbor nearby where I live called "Safety Harbor". It got its name because it was a place where boats would come to flee the storms whenever Hurricanes made their way to the area.

In living memory --which is 27 years now-- I can remember only one other hurricane that was going to be a direct hit, but if I recall correctly it turned at the last second and went up the middle of Florida. Hurricane Charlie would have been in like 2004 or so? Now we've had two in two years.

Wild.

Reminds me to treat the Earth better. Sometimes I get stuck in the mindset of "I'm one person. What can I really impact?" This is so dangerous because if every single --singular-- person thinks that, no change will be made. So, I've been trying to push myself towards eco-friendly alternatives to my usual. It's slow going, but progress is being made!

Progress, no matter the size, is progress.

~Layla