Serenity looked down at himself and saw a carapace clean of rank-marks and achievements; the only mark on it was his own Lordship symbol. It was more complex than he’d realized when he looked at Ita; not only was it his own wings, from his dragon or chimera forms, colored in the bluish-purple of his scales and glittering with moving motes, but the wings rose to either side from a circle that Serenity knew represented the darkened new moon.

It was obviously the freedom of magic-in-flight rising from the night of Death and Time. Entirely too on point for Serenity’s taste, but something he doubted anyone else would read the way he would. It was likely that someone else would simply see it as either a winged sun or perhaps an eclipse, given the darkness; all he had to do was not explain it.

It was less blatant than the Final Reaper’s symbol, and he couldn’t think of anything that fit who he was now better. He really shouldn’t complain.

The odd thing was that the entire image shimmered. Darkness in both purple and black drifted across the face of the new moon, while colors hid behind the image; mostly the wings, but as he looked closer, there were colored motes on the moon as well, though never when he looked directly. It took some time for Serenity to realize that both mana and essence made their way across the image; it was the most obvious on the wings, but even the strange shimmering of the moon vanished when he stared at it with only ordinary vision.

It was a Lordship mark suitable for a Shameful One; only they would have a mark that showcased power and meaning over utility. The rest of his carapace’s blankness reinforced the effect; even a lowly no-rank soldier would have some achievements, but they weren’t allotted to the Shameful.

He wondered if Ita’s mark showed the same detail even at its smaller size.

Ita! He’d let Janice get her settled at the hotel, then planned to visit in the evening after he talked to his father. That hadn’t worked out as expected, because he’d talked well into the morning. It was afternoon now.

Without considering his changed form, he tried to call Janice, only to realize that he couldn’t. The phone wasn’t there. It was the first time it simply hadn’t been there in quite a while, and Serenity spent a useless moment wondering where he’d put it before he realized it had to be because of how new his Sterath form was. It probably resembled one of the Sterath he’d merged with more than it did Serenity; given how important the markings were to Sterath individuality, it made a lot of sense that that would be the first thing to change.

Serenity reached for his ability to shift; there was no difficulty reaching his chimera form this time. He wasn’t wearing armor; he’d gone to bed in his chimera form. He glanced down at his chest where the sigil appeared on his carapace as a Sterath.

It was there. Smaller and far less obvious, since the coloration of the wings matched his scales, but it was still there.

Well, there were worse things. It was generally covered by armor anyway; even if it appeared on his human form, which it probably would, it would just look like a tattoo and be easily covered by wearing a shirt.

He was starting to think he actually liked it.

He had a moment of doubt as he wondered if it was Serenity that liked it or just the Serenity that was influenced by Sterath opinions? Not that he could tell the difference until he finished cleansing his mind of their influence. Maybe he’d know better then.

He shook himself and called Janice.

She answered the phone on the second ring, cheerful and upbeat. “Serenity! Good to hear from you. Doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all right. I was thinking about Ita - I sort of abandoned her yesterday.” What time was it anyway? 1:17 PM. Urgh; no wonder he felt terrible. Not only was his schedule off, he also hadn’t gotten even close to enough sleep. He really needed to get some coffee.

There was one completely awesome thing about having his phone in his head instead of his hands: it was even better for hands-free than normal. He pulled on some fresh clothes as they talked.

“Ita’s the one you had me pick up yesterday, right? She’s still at the hotel. I had to walk her through how to use everything; I don’t think she’s used to the same setup we are.” Janice paused, then said something that surprised Serenity. “She didn’t understand me at first, until she cast some sort of talking spell on me. You seemed pretty protective of her, so I let her … maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“Probably should have at least asked me first. In this case, it’s fine, but normally it’s a bad idea to let people cast spells on you unless you trust them or know the spell well enough to know if there’s something wrong with it.” Serenity trusted Ita. It wasn’t even a question; he knew that she wouldn’t do anything to deliberately harm him or his people.

That was one of the things the Lordship mark on her carapace meant. It had formed through her acceptance of him; if she hadn’t made that decision, it wouldn’t have happened. Serenity had a strong suspicion that if she were ever to decide to leave his service, the mark would disappear just as suddenly.

He still didn’t understand why she’d sworn to him so easily.

Serenity refocused on Janice. “Now that you mention it, Sterath set things up differently. Ita ought to be able to use everything once she knows how. I assume she was able to figure it out once you showed her?”

“Yep. She seems pretty smart. She seemed really happy for some reason. Even happier when I showed up with hot food; I think she was expecting to go hungry.”

Serenity couldn’t tell if Janice was concerned about Ita or mildly scolding him for forgetting to have her taken care of. Maybe both? “Thanks for taking care of it. I need to talk to her today. Are you available to give me a lift?”

Janice’s laugh was honest and open. “Serenity, that’s literally my job. So is taking care of random aliens, apparently; I admit I wasn’t expecting that one. I can be there in ten?”

“Better make it twenty. I haven’t eaten yet, and the coffee maker takes a few. Oh, and can you stop somewhere and pick up some paper maps of the area? I think I’m going to need a few.” Serenity already knew directions to a couple of the Sterath hideouts, but they were memories without reference points. A map would help him narrow down where they could be, and it would also help with Ita.

He needed to finish clearing out those Sterath memories, but he also needed to talk to Ita about what she knew. Not to mention what she expected of him; this was a completely new situation for Serenity, and he didn’t want to fail.

Ita was sprawled on one of the two beds in the motel room when Serenity and Janice entered. The room itself was a bit worn but clean; it wasn’t even close to the best hotel room he’d ever been in, but he’d also been in far worse.

Ita sprang off the bed and crouched as low as she could go when they walked in. Serenity suspected that she’d been very close to throwing herself on the floor again, but she’d clearly refrained. “You don’t have to get up when I enter, Ita. I don’t demand that.” He deliberately spoke in English; it was a good way to test if the shared understanding spell on Janice was still working; she’d apparently reestablished it that morning when Janice delivered breakfast, but not at lunch, yet she was still able to understand Janice.

Ita replied in modeless Sterath. At least she’d managed to relax that far. “Is that your command? It is strange to not show full respect. The Kaelitha are very punctilious about it. We - no, that’s not right. The Unkaa were less rigid, but crouching before a Shameful One as though they were only a superior would have been seen as disrespectful. Not moving would be inviting punishment.”

She still hadn’t straightened.

Serenity shook his head. He could tell they were going to have this conversation again. “I don’t see the need, at least not unless we’re in front of other Sterath. If it makes you more comfortable, you can, but please don’t feel like I’m requiring it of you. I’m no different from anyone else.”

Janice started snickering behind Serenity. He turned around and found her covering her mouth with her hand, trying to stay quiet. She wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“What’s so funny?”

Janice took a deep breath and let it out, mostly suppressing her chuckling. “I think it was the idea that you’re normal. You’re standing here talking to an alien that doesn’t know the language and she’s understanding you and you think you’re normal? Never mind everything else.”

She didn’t seem to be quite over her amusement.

Serenity tried to look aggrieved, but he was certain that he didn’t manage it, because he couldn’t suppress his own smile at her antics. “She can understand English, it’s her spell … Fine, fine, have it your way.”

As Serenity turned back to Ita, the Lord’s mark on her front carapace caught his attention again. In the better light of the hotel room, he could see that the space between the wings was circular and dark, like the new moon. He concentrated enough to look at it for magic and found that, just like his own version of the symbol, both mana and essence moved across it, with the mana mostly in the wings and the essence laid more strongly over the moon.

He dismissed the magical sight and looked around the room. It was clear that it wasn’t set up for meetings of any sort; the only flat surface was a tiny desk that looked like it was there more to hold the phone and the TV remote than for any actual use. “We’ll have to use the bed. Janice, do you have the map?”

Janice reached into the messenger bag she carried and pulled out not only a city map but an entire set of colored markers. “I assume you want to ask her about locations?”

Serenity nodded as he spread the map out on the bed and hunted for the church. There it was; the buildings weren’t on the map, just the streets, but it was easy enough to see where the abandoned building with the portal circles had to be. Especially since he still had the GPS coordinates and could look them up in a mapping app while he looked at the physical map. “Ita? This is where I found you. Do you know where the invasion portal is, or anywhere else we might find Kaelitha Sterath?”

While she examined the map, Serenity started tracing the route the Sterath Strike Group had taken to reach the building backwards. It wasn’t easy, since the map didn’t show individual buildings; after a couple of minutes, he decided he’d be better off trying to work from Street View.

“I know how a map works,” Ita asserted. “But this is so abstract. Is your city truly so large and messy?”

Serenity looked at the map, puzzled by what she meant. Washington, DC was no worse than any other major Earth city; in fact, it was far easier to navigate than some. It took him a moment to realize that he was comparing it only to Earth cities; most offworld cities tended to be smaller and less dense. “Yes, it is. DC isn’t even a particularly bad city. Would a view from the ground be better? We can trace it out on the map once we know where it is.”

Serenity pulled out the dummy phone Aide had rigged up to act as a second screen and flipped it to the same Street View he was looking at, before turning to Janice. “Janice, can you run out and get me a nice, large tablet? Android OS by preference, but past that I just need a big screen.”

Janice nodded. “Does it need to have a cellular plan?”

Serenity shook his head. “Wifi’s fine. I can tether my phone.” Not that he would, exactly, but he would be using his phone’s data and that was close enough.