I watched as Addy leaned over Vailen's other shoulder while she detailed her concerns.

"There's a chance she isn't the woman we think she is." She paused for a moment and I would have sworn I could see each thought as they flit by in her mind. "The more I think about it, the more concerned I am that it isn't actually."

I watched as she tapped the screen of her device with her delicate fingers, tipped with the chippings of a paint the color of her blush. "The fact that she was able to call my phone is really odd."

Vailen hummed out a non-committal noise. I watched his eyes dart toward her communication device and then back to his screen. The bitter tang of annoyance coated the back of my tongue. A product of Vailen's, I guessed in response to the fact that the human woman had been able to do something that he could not. "It is strange, certainly."

Addy chewed her bottom lip, worrying it more and more until it was a deep mauve. "It's something I'd imagine only our government could do...if anyone on Earth could I guess." A breath gusted out of her, leaving her shoulder visibly lower than they had been only a few seconds ago. "And, if whoever she is, is in league with the American Government, I don't think she's coming here with any goodwill in mind."

"I'll put an urgent order out for her to be searched for your earthen technologies." Vailen turned to face Addy again, this time going so far as to turn his seat entirely to face her. Even without the empathy it was easy to see that she was worried and I was gratified to feel those soothing tendrils of comfort leech into the air around us. "If it will put you at ease, I find it hard to believe that your technology capable of this communication."

"Even if we'd somehow found alien technology crash-landed on Earth and back engineered it?"

I watched Vailen's brow crease and I'm sure the look of confusion was mirrored on my own face.

When I spoke, Vailen did as well, "What technology?"

As far as the Val'Dornn were aware, prior to our contact with their little planet, Humans had been unaware of other life forms out in the cosmos.

Addy shrugged, "I don't actually know if we have. But, people like to think up crazy things in their free time and honestly--" she glanced around the Comm deck to prove her point, "I'm a little bit more amenable to 'crazy' than I was previously."

"Kashti Feras (Sumase no English equivalent)" Vailen cursed in his mother's tongue. Despite being Carabesk, there were things that males tended to resort to their first languages for.

In a flash, Vailen was back at that screen, pulling up arrest records, travel details and diagnostics of any known crafts that could have been within even a flash of the Terran planet, both legal and otherwise.

The tight bunch of his shoulders slowly eased. "There shouldn't be anything."

"How can you possibly tell? Are you able to scan for tech or something?"

"Not quite. The research isn't all encompassing but our system has record details of most ships use activity in the general area. Most of the traffic was far outside of the general vicinity of your planet thanks to the quarantine in response to your burgeoning space presence. Those ships that did illegally trespass were mainly stealth freighters and weren't equipped for longer range communication since that's easier to detect on modern sensor arrays. There shouldn't be anything that's dropped onto your planet recently enough to be salvageable."

"Then how'd she access my phone?" Addy turned the device on again and I watched the screen light up with an odd amount of fascination. The Aarond Form made handheld communication nearly obsolete, allowing us to communicate with anyone on the ship effortlessly, but something about the idea of having a similar small device like Addy's interested me.

"I do not know. But, I'll endeavor to find out."

Do you think it would be easier to contact Earth technology with other Earth technology? Is it possible your ship maybe amplified my signal on my phone somehow and still sent it out to a satellite and it was able to finish the call?"

Vailen's lips twitched and I noticed a telltale anxious tic of Sumase Val'Dornn, as he but the inside of his cheek. Whether he'd drawn blood or just caught the edge of it, I wasn't entirely certain, but it certainly was a surprising response from someone nearly as Spartan as Laene. "I wish I knew the answers presently, but until we can divine them those will simply remain guesses."

Silence yet again filled the room. Neither Vailen or Addy seemed inclined to remove themselves from the screens without prompting so the task was left to me. "So we are free then until Cecelia finds her way to the genetics lab and then to the ship tomorrow at some point?"

"That is correct, yes. If there's anything else needed I can Comm for either of you." I nodded at Vailen's gracious consideration.

Addy followed me out of the Comm Bay nearly lost in thought. It wasn't until the doors closed behind us that she asked, "Does he ever sleep?"

"Vailen?" I knew that who she was referring to but the question came out anyway.

"I don't think I see any of the other males on the Comm team there as frequently as I've seen him."

I wasn't honestly certain myself. The male certainly enjoyed working and being busy. "He's the Lead Communications Officer, so it would make sense that he's present more frequently. On top of that he's a member of the Prince's Riniere as well. He holds a high station on the Aarond Form and if I had to guess I'd imagine he's likely the type of make that wants to live up to that. Prior to our mating I'd had little to no interaction with him, though, so I can't say for certain."

If I were being honest I imagined that Vailen felt partially responsible for the miscommunication about our Searching in the first place even though it didn't fall squarely on any one set of shoulders. But that was merely conjecture on my part.

Addy slipped her hand into mine while we walked and my thoughts stuttered for a moment and I had to gather them before I began again, "He does certainly seem like he never sleeps, doesn't he?"

"He doesn't ever quite look exhausted, though! I just don't understand!" She sounded so close to amazement I would have imagined we'd talking about something less inane than another males sleep schedule. Speaking of sleeping.

I let Addy precede me into our quarters, "I do believe there's a fight to be had, dear Addy."

Her laughter filled the room and I knew I'd never get enough of it. This space filled her laughter; our laughter. "There always is isn't there?"

She tugged me along after her, toward the table in the dining area and motioned for me to sit. Once I did she dropped into the chair next to me. "So what's our fight?" She was close enough that her knee just barely brushed my leg, distracting me from the question that she'd asked, "Esayr?"

"Hmm?"

"How are we going to determine the loser who takes the bed tonight? You already shot down rock, paper, scissors."

"And you refused Aule."

The corner of her lips twitched upward, at odds with the tsk sound she made, "Of course I refused Aule. We're both trash at it."

"You're not trash at it." She wasn't. Not by any stretch of the imagination for having just tried to pick up the game.

"You're a very sweet liar," absently her fingers trailed small circles on my kneecap.

Had I thought her leg bumping into me was distracting? This was a new level entirely. "You're better than me" I stifled the urge to shift and adjust my legs, to ease the ache her wandering fingers were causing, but I didn't want to give her the idea that I didn't enjoy her touches when that was the farthest thing from the truth. "You're better than me and I've played on and off for years."

She laughed then again and I made an oath to all of our Gods that I'd spend the rest of my life devoted to hearing that sound, among a few others, here in our quarters.

"I think that probably says more about your skill than it does about mine. How about we do something different then?"

"What do you mean by different?"

"Every day we'll play a game, whatever we agree to in the morning to decide who gets the bed by the end of the night. We take turns choosing the game. Today I'll choose. Tomorrow you can."

It didn't please me. I wanted her in our bed every night, preferably with me, but if it had to just be one of us I wanted it to be her. But, I also knew she was a stubborn little thing that liked to win. "Deal."

"So I get to choose the game." I could feel sense of smug pleasure like I expected, but I could read it on her face. "And I'm going to teach you a fun little game we played as kids. Give me your hands."

Addy held out both of her hands, palms facing toward me. Instinctually, I pressed both of my own larger hands to hers. They were small and warm, easily dwarfed by me, causing a sense of protectiveness to settle deep in my stomach as a warm strength. "I like this game."

She chewed on her lip, but it was a different kind of reaction. This wasn't anxiety, not when her eyes were telling me she was doing something mischievous. "This is a game called 'Mercy'"

She threaded her fingers through mine in that way that always made me weak. Again, I was struck by the need to shift my legs to relieve that tightness that was steadily becoming more of a present sense of urgency. My swallow was a loud click in my ears, "I really like this game."

Addy's hands swayed in the air a little bit, bringing my attention back to them so I could admire this hand gesture that she still likely wasn't even aware was so intimate in our culture.

"The rules are as follows. We keep our hands connected. When I say go, we both try to break the others wrists. Loser is the one that begs for mercy first."

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

It's been a little while. I hope your holidays were wonderful if you celebrated! I'm hoping everyone is staying safe in this new year and despite everything that's still going on I want to believe that this year will be better than the last.

I don't have too much to comment on in regards to the basis of this part and what is happening. I do, however, have a Layla story I guess? A story from my childhood. I mentioned in a previous authors note about my brother and his wife getting COVID, they've both recovered fine! Thank you for your well wishes and your kindness.

But, this particular brother (my only brother if I'm being honest but he's certainly a character), is a few years older than me.He's just enough older that any time we ever played games it wasn't really ever a competition, and his absolute favorite game to play with me was Mercy. I remember being little and getting so frustrated going all out to absolutely destroy my brother's wrists --because honestly who doesn't go HAM when trying to kill a sibling?-- when he'd have me nearly in tears by simply tightening his fingers together. I was frequently too stubborn to say Mercy, though. Mom and Dad had to forbid us from playing those types of games anymore or we would get into fights.

I suppose I should be grateful my parents stepped in before we eventually moved on to Bloody Knuckles, right?

Anyway, thank you everyone for sticking around during my infrequent updates, and the personal/family stuff going on. I had wanted to make a fun Christmas story this year for everyone as a gift, but it got away from me. Maybe I'll work on something else cute in the future. If you have any ideas or scenes you'd want to see by all means let me know. I have a few in my mind brewing already so I might not be able to do those since those are planned to crop up in other books, but I'm always open to dreaming about my characters.

Also, I suppose if you have any questions about the world, or any of the characters in general don't hesitate to ask! As I'm sure some of you have noticed, I LOVE talking about my world building and my characters, so much so, that some of y'all have gotten responses that are paragraphs long from a random comment you've left on something lmao. Who's to say, maybe you'll get a dissertation on what a characters favorite color is lmao. I'll try to answer most anything that isn't like a spoiler or anything.

To New Beginnings,

~Layla

~Here's a fun secret tidbit~

Cecelia was the first character I ever wrote in this world, but I didn't realize that until probably March or so of last year? Until then, she was a random story idea I considered at 3AM once upon an eve. I think I might even still have a short bit of hers up on another personal account here on Wattpad that I'll eventually have to take down when I migrate it over here.