I found myself back in the civilian area of the ship, half-heartedly searching for Bask. He was a surprisingly difficult male to pinpoint. I'd found Roan easily, in the heart of the atrium, but he had always been fairly predictable, following his guidances to that sacred place whenever he was unsure how to handle the present. Roan had once joked that dealings in the present eluded him. He'd hedged that he much preferred the variability of the future to the stationary present.

I found myself nearly entirely at odds with the idea, but Roan had cracked that joke at the beginning of our Searching and never again. It made me wonder if he still felt that way.

I turned down a side road, absently wondering if I should have stopped to speak with Roan about our ideas. He likely had an inkling that we were up to something, at the very least I assumed he did. Or, maybe I was being presumptuous to believe that our upstart Riniere might have a significant enough impact on the future that he'd be warned of it. As my Prince, I certainly should tell him. Even simply as a male capable of giving sage advice and his own guidance, I should tell him. And yet...my mind returned to Bask.

I had searched the bar we'd had our altercation in, but it was closed for the time being. There was little damage from the uproar, but society had always been like that. The establishment would take time to close and reflect, hopefully, it would dissipate some of the sentiment and the resentment as males split up to drift to other media halls and cool off before it reopened again.

As I passed yet another video hall that was empty of Bask, I began to consider the option of asking the ship to track him for me, which was easily not what I wanted to do. He would be notified of my interest...and frankly put: although I knew I should reach out to him...there was still a part of me that didn't want to.

It felt too much like coming to apologize. I'd never considered myself stubborn, but maybe that was foolish. Regardless, I wasn't sorry and I was disinclined to even consider that I was.

If I couldn't find him within the next quarter of the day cycle, I'd return to my quarters to check in with Addy and Laene. I meandered through the streets slowly, dropping in at the various entertainment buildings, yet I found Bask at none of them. Something niggled at the back of my mind, which immediately set me on edge, but as I searched mine and Addy's bond I felt no disturbance in the little pulses I could glean that had slipped through the wall cracks in the wall that had been built. Whatever it was that troubled me was something of my own creation.

Males drifted around me quietly as I puzzled through my thoughts about Bask. He hadn't been with Roan. He hadn't been in the entertainment quarter. Where else could the male be? If he were in his room he was likely sleeping and I was disinclined to show up at his door. As annoyed as I was, he didn't deserve me accosting him in one of the few safe spaces we males had.

Where else would a male be?

What would occupy his time other than himself and his Riniere?

His family was a reasonable option, but I knew Kayle and Lirin were out with their mother for the morning, and Hylar owned and managed long-distance communication lodge in the civilian quarter which could tap low-level communications across other Val' ships during the free broadcast morning hours. So, he was likely busy scheduling comm broadcasts between families across the tangible universe.

What else would occupy Bask's thoughts?

The same thing that occupied anyone else's on this ship. His female.

And like that, I realized I was a fool. Searching the entertainment quarter for a male that didn't seek entertainment. I was too used to a lighter Bask, a happier Bask. One who'd been more similar to his brothers. How I could have forgotten the tendrils of that darkness that swirled around him. That likely he wasn't even aware were so prevalent when he was lost in his thoughts. He wasn't a male that would seek the kind of fleeting solace in the entertainment quarter, the kind that simply made you forget for a time. The solace he was seeking was the permanent kind. He'd seek news of the females, news of new matches and statistics of new donations added to the pool of study.

I turned on my heel toward the central terminal. The question now was: what science bay would he be at? Would he have gone to see Kados? As the head of the genetics team, Kados was the best equipped to give him answers, but Bask was prideful to a fault, would he want to see Kados again after our mishap? Would Kados entertain him again?

If it was in the name of genetics, Kados would likely entertain him. Try as I might to insinuate myself into Bask's mindset, I couldn't. Though my job had me considering the emotional conditions of many males, I had never been assigned to any of Kayle's family, so I was hard-pressed to have an accurate idea of how Bask's emotions frequently intermixed. So I took a guess and navigated to the secondary genetics suite.

The walk was longer than I would have liked. It gave me time to reconsider my assumptions and doubt the validity of my assessment of Bask's character. If I were right, and he did regularly check in with the genetics bay, it would lend credence to the amassing of the negative emotions that clouded around him. To have gone planetside and been rejected was a blow that barely any of us males handled well, to then go regularly with hope to the genetics team, only to have that hope yet again dashed each time? It would only compound upon itself.

My steps echoed off the metal walkways of the corridor rhythmically, bouncing down the empty hall. Kados, true to form, was nowhere to be seen when I would have welcomed his presence at my side to ease the gnawing anxiety I felt at confronting Bask. But, it was for the best, likely.

Ghosts haunted these halls, ghosts of hope and celebration. These sectors of the ship had been highly trafficked in the beginning. Males had crowded in conversation near the genetics department when we'd first come to this planet. Discussing dreams and desires, present even when there had been no matches to bring them to this area, only the excitement. Here we'd discussed the "ifs" of a future we could have never anticipated.

Once upon a time ago, we'd had to fight through a crowd of males just to meet with Kados. Now here I was searching these hallways hoping to find just a single male.

I found Bask in the third genetics bay. It was an auxiliary bay that mainly focused on the study of genetic abnormalities amongst the donation pool. What Bask could have had to discuss with the leader of those studies, I wasn't privy to, but I found them speaking in hushed tones overlooking a spread of information.

Their conversation lulled at my entrance into the bay. The ship chimed a notification of my entrance. It was a testament to the nature of infrequent visitors to this place that all the males in the room turned to face me as I entered.

Most greeted me amicably, despite the fact that I knew none of these males personally, but Bask only gave me wary glance before he resumed his conversation.

Instantly I could taste the bitter tang of shame, but it dispersed quickly after Bask noticed my presence, smothering it quickly with focus as he returned to his conversation until it was so light I'd almost believed I imagined it.

Here, in this space, I could feel little of the dark aura that so frequently surrounded him. When he could channel his thoughts and actions into forward progress it was easier to muffle those emotions. "Bask," I called out to him.

A dark emotion flared, peppered with a feeling of annoyance that tightened along my neck, making it feel misaligned and in need of adjustment. He let the feeling linger a moment while he finished his conversation with the third genetics lead.

I felt my own annoyance fan out around me and I didn't waste the energy reigning it in. We were both sporting bruises, no doubt the entirety of the lab could insinuate some backstory to them if they hadn't heard the rumors.

He ended his hushed conversation and turned to me. The genetics lead he spoke to cast me a curious glance before hurrying back toward his machines.

I expected that Bask would stop with me to discuss matters, but he only continued past me and out into the hall with barely a glance. My annoyance boiled into anger quickly as I continued after the prideful male. I fell into step with him quickly. "I wished to speak with you, but I'll assume you knew that."

"I have nothing to say to you and it doesn't take a prying eye to know you have nothing of worth to say to me either." Bask bit out the words as if begrudged that he felt the need to justify himself at all.

My anger crested even higher. Still, I didn't reign it in. I wouldn't let myself get the point I did previously, but the clutter there --in our minds and the space around us-- would help to fog either of our fields of vision with our powers.

"Or am I wrong?"

That felt like hope maybe? But, I wasn't certain. The feeling was so small it only breached for a moment through my own anger. "I'm not here to apologize. Only to have a discussion."

"Then there's no discussion to be had. Return to your female." Bask's stride was as brisk as his clipped words, it ate up the distance in the hall quickly.

I cut him off quickly, blocking his way down the very hall that would lead him closer to the head of the ship. "Listen to me then. You're mistaken--"

I'd intended to continue but Bask cut me off quickly, with more fire than I'd expected or even felt. "Am I? Am I mistaken truly? Are all the males on this ship mistaken then?" He glanced at my face then and it took everything in me not to glance away, but I felt the chill of his light eyes as the searched for an answer to his question.

My anger pulsed and writhed around us like flames, I could feel sweat slide down my back from the heat of it.

The anger soothed only slightly when he began again, "You feel it. I know you do even if you won't say it. You've felt the indecision and I've read it clean from everyone's minds. Are we all wrong then?"

"It's the decision that we made and agreed upon."

"So dutiful. Yet when you look down at that insignificant little planet, even you think it feels wrong to be so far away." Bask sidestepped me, "If I were a worse male I'd say that there comes a time when traditions should be sacrificed for the greater good."

I grabbed Bask's arm quickly and there was a sharp pain that shot straight to my heart. I watched Bask's face wince as well. I didn't know which of us it was, but the grief was profound and quick. We'd been friends once before our ship had made it into Terran airspace. To feel like we were standing across enemy lines and looking at the other was painful to us both. "That's heresy and you know it."

Bask sobered quickly, "Yet we've already willingly sacrificed those sacred searching traditions already."

"For the sake of our females." I reminded him.

I watched a muscle in Bask's jaw tick quickly as he chewed on the thought, "No, it was at the word of their ruling class that treats them like chattel. But, I understand that for you that realization doesn't sting in the same way it does for everyone else on this ship."

It made me wonder if Bask's motivations would have been different. If we'd been closer or if he'd had the opportunity to listen to Addy's first-hand account as a human woman if he would have ever sided with us. It made me wonder if I hadn't have lost my temper if this moment would have played out a little differently, in a way that might have garnered us an ally. "It stings just the same Bask. Sometimes up close and personal when given the opportunity."

The heat of our anger dissipated into smoldering coals while Bask gently shook free of my grip. All I could glean from him was lingering tiredness, though he didn't show it on his face.

I suspected Bask would turn down my offer to assist with the roiling dark mass of emotions he was suffering from. And circumstances kept me from optioning that he speak to Addy in the same way that I had for Laene. Our quick tempers had left us fully on opposite sides of a chasm with little to no way to bridge the gap. "It will get better."

Bask shuttered tight quickly at my comment any free-flowing emotions I might have had access to disappeared quickly. "It's easy for you to think that, isn't it?"

Frankly, no. But I kept my thoughts to myself, Bask's voice was too quiet, giving me the idea that I'd said something wrong.

"I need to speak to Roan." Bask turned to leave me and return walking to the head of the ship and consequently, the communications bay.

"He's in the atrium."

Bask eyed me warily.

"I found him by chance while I was searching for you."

I was comforted by the fact that --while I might have said something wrong-- he took my words truthfully and turned quickly to head for the atrium.

My hope was only that Prince Roan could give Bask the answers he was seeking, to calm those dark thoughts and settle his spirit until its threads could finally be reknit

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

Firstly! Happy Father's day!

Secondly, back at it again with that update!

I struggled with how I wanted this part to play out, but I'm relatively satisfied with this conversation between Bask and Esayr.

As an aside, for insight into how I perceive my characters: I'd mentioned previously that when I first thought of Bask, Hylar, and Lirin, that they were little more than three smiling guys in my mind's eye, all pulled together with their arms slung over the other's shoulders. I still see them that way sometimes and it makes moments in this story like this oddly melancholy for me. I love Bask as a character with his traumas and issues included, but sometimes there's a part of me that thinks that he might be conscious in some way more than a fictional character normally would be, and somewhat knows the fact that he could have had a happier story.

Is it a spoiler to say he gets a happy ending one day? Maybe. Oh well. I rather like the right kind of spoilers anyway and maybe I'm just a little naive when I say I think stories deserve their happy endings.

It will get better,