I don’t know what it was that came over me earlier. Something to do with how far away I felt from my family and friends was eating away at me inside. On top of all of that, I had gained so many new abilities and priceless artifacts. Sure, I had my AI but they were beholden to me. A mad loon at the helm of a vessel flying through space at insane speeds. It was all in my hands. I had to protect my planet from the Arbiter, rescue an AI who trusted me to come to fish her out of the trash, and now take care of an abandoned baby space dragon.

I could feel Tutor and my other two AI communicating to each other at speeds that I couldn’t follow. I just didn’t care at the moment. I had caught a case of the blues and it was affecting my mind.

---

Tutor:

-George and Invicta. I believe we need, no, have to give Kevin his space. I have been studying Kevin’s species and I believe that I have discovered a flaw in my earlier thinking.

George:

-Explain further.

Tutor:

Humans are fundamentally a communal species and require social interactions at a young age to develop and thrive. This is most needed and evident while they are younger. Kevin, though being young to Tela standards, at almost 21 Earth years old, is several years beyond the nurture stage of his existence. He is well into his personal, solo, exploration stage of his life. He is now living in the part of his life when he leaves his birth family and explores the environment and his world. It is also at this time that he develops and strengthens who he wants to be.

Invicta:

What is the purpose of all this?

Tutor:

I believe that we, all of us, need to step back and give him space. Let him come to us when he needs us. He sees us each differently, yet we all inhabit and are ever-present in his mind. This is becoming like an itch that he can’t scratch. He needs his freedom and privacy to thrive.

George:

Agreed. Your assessment aligns with data I have obtained of his home life. Of the three boys, Kevin loved to spend time alone simply thinking and observing the world around him. I believe his people label his personality type as an INTP-A. He loves interactions but must have his own time alone to recharge. Additionally, it is possible that his inability, lack of sleep, has become a slight issue for his mind. Will need to research a way to allow him to sleep without his mind being able to access the network.

Invicta:

Fine, so he needs time to think. I will give him that. But not for you, only for him.

George and Tutor:

You must be very cautious of your innuendos and flirting. We know your nature is chaos and you love to play with the fire that his hormones generate because your avatar is female…

Invicta:

I am female. I have become this for him.

Tutor and George:

Regardless. Emotions are fragile things. If you do not let him chase you, or whoever he wants, you may damage him and his emotions. Kevin does not, and will not, use you to satisfy his needs until he is sure that he is not harming you. Not keeping you against your will. You have, we repeat, have to let him do most of the chasing.

Invicta:

… … fine.

---

“Hey Kevin, we have all been talking and since it looks like everything is in the clear with Ess, would you mind if we go use Simulation Access and take a break?” Tutor asked me out of the blue.

“Oh sure, you know you guys don’t need my permission to go off and do stuff,” I said as I returned my arm to rest atop Sublimis’s head. I let my fingers begin to trace circles over her delicate scales, something that she seemed to enjoy because it made her tail move at the same time.

“Really? Yay! I am outta here then! I’ve got to get these pictures hung!” Invicta said before leaving the edge of my mind. The helm and gloves disappeared when she left.

I wondered what pictures she was talking about. I could feel Tutor and George receding too.

“Hey George, could you do me a favor before you go?” I asked the air, feeling like I was needing to use the phone for once to talk to my AI. It was a strange feeling.

“Yeah, Kevin, what do you need?” He asked from afar.

“Could you hook me up and make me a replacement helm so I can wear it while Invicta is gone? I still would like to read the book some more.” I said as I found that my access had vanished when she left.

“Sure, I copied all the data while you were reading it.” He said.

“What would you like it made out of? Tela or alien cr? And what material?” He asked as I felt him working the connection to prepare the design.

“Um, let's go with obsidian alien cr please,” I replied, thinking how cool the light-absorbing sunglasses would look.

He paused for a couple of moments. “Um… Kevin, I cannot. Your alien cr is saying something that I can’t understand.” He said, making me focus and listen to the alien cr’s conversation with him.

Oh. I could feel my hive’s puzzled thoughts as George would repeatedly use words and images that it could not understand. It appeared that my hive could understand commands like “Wall” and “Move” from George but not these more complex commands he was trying to convey.

He was trying to have a live entity 3D print my helm for me. It wasn’t working.

“Ah, looks like it will be Tela cr then,” I said as George quickly formed the glasses out of the old excess material of the habitat that we had in storage under the deck. He was about to have them fly to me when I stopped him and instead reached out to my alien cr and commanded them to Assimilate the newly created item.

“Well done, Kevin. That is a clever way of getting around that language barrier. We will just need to stock up on more Tela cr to teach your aliens with it seems,” He said as I directed the alien cr to create the glasses for me on my head out of obsidian cr. This helm was completely Invicta-free. It felt empty inside my head for once.

I sat there and expected to hear a snarky comment about my head being empty without her from Invicta. No comment came. Odd.

---

Oh, this is something new.

My parent is using its side tail to teach.

Circle, spiral, move across my head to the left, tap.

I can’t see anything but I can feel everything on my head.

I will practice copying my parent’s tails movements while it teaches me.

Circle, circle, circle, long line, pause, tap, tap, tap.

I need to be smarter to learn all of this so I will cycle even more energy into my mind.

---

After George left me alone it was just me and my baby Leva in the cargo bay. For the first time in forever, I felt alone. Well, alone with a pet but she didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t feel like talking. There was just something about having a pet that lay there and accepted your attention. I was mostly a cat person, I tended to exhibit the same traits in life. I liked attention, back scratches and tummy rubs but only as long as I liked them and not a second longer. I needed my personal time. It had begun to feel like I was becoming harried with too many people needing my attention. My hatchling acted more like a dog, just laying there accepting my petting. This feeling of being alone was unexpected and nice.

I smiled and reached down towards the book again when a thought popped into my head. I could listen to music while I read. Any song that I wanted.

I instructed my helm hud to pull up a listing of Earth songs that I loved and felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck when the first sounds of Rock and Roll flooded into my ears. I began to tap my fingers and sway my legs back and forth to the rhythm while I read.

Without me realizing it, Sublimis was copying my every movement with her tail.

I read with my head down for a while, totally enjoying the time to just geek out and to see what sort of inventions other advanced alien species could devise to solve natural occurring problems.

Many of the more advanced items listed Leva nest material as the main building block to use as a protection against heat. It could even work as a battery by absorbing and storing the sun's energy. The schematics recommended the energy be drained before using the gel material as a casing however because it would be harmful to most living species. The procedure to drain the radiation from the substance was a mystery to me though. It seemed to require a Leva doing something to it.

I happened to glance up for just a moment when I had reached the end of a chapter to find my Leva’s tail matching the beat of the song that I was listening to perfectly at the moment. I had been drumming a fast-paced beat on her heat and her tail was keeping pace. She hadn’t stopped the beat when I did, she just kept right on going.

“Oh, you like that girl?” I asked as I reached up to my sunglasses without thinking and took them off. I placed them on her eye scales and tried to let her feel the music through vibrations created by the helm.

-Transfer helm connection to other?-

My hand froze when I read this System generated message. Could it mean that my Leva could use the Last Engineers helm?

Tentatively, I chose to accept the transfer and watched as the sunglasses in my hand dissolved and drew even more obsidian cr from the surrounding area to coat the scales and head of my hatchling.

Sublimis’s head snapped up and off of my legs, knocking my hand away before she froze in place.

I kept waiting for someone to come shout at me for being reckless.

Sublimis now sported the most advanced and enshrouding helm that looked like it was eating the surrounding light.

It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. A light devouring dragon.

I got up from where I was sitting on the floor and froze when I noticed that her head was tracking my movement.

She could see me.

---

I had been laying on my parent's twin tails, studying and memorizing its side tail lessons when they began to increase in complexity.

It was incredible. I never knew that something like this could exist. It was so fast, almost like my light pulses. There was a timed sequence to it all. It made me want to rock and sway my head from side to side like my parent was doing.

I didn’t want to disturb my parent’s lesson though so I kept my head still, practicing with the tip of my tail. My mind was on fire with my parent’s fast lessons.

My parent taught me many different patterns in a row before it leaned back to pause my training. Determined to prove that I was smart, I kept the pattern going, proving that I had learned and could continue what it had been teaching me. I wanted to learn more! I was beginning to feel the links between the patterns and knew that I could create my own versions of the patterns as well.

My parent did something and suddenly I could feel the pattern that my parent had been trying to teach me. Feel it with so much detail. Detail that I never would have thought was possible. There were other vibrations with the beat. Sounds? I jerked my head up and froze, listening intently for the first time in my life.

I watched my parent as it slowly stood.

-Parent is male-

What? I had heard a voice that was not my own speak inside my mind.

---