Esayr sent a quick message to his friends through the ship's systems. It surprised me that they didn't have something similar to a phone, instead, they relied on the computer or the ship's systems to relay any messages that they might need to send. It felt inefficient, but maybe that was just coming from someone who's lived a life engrained with handheld technology.

I glanced back into the maze that Lirin and Cece had retreated to, "I suppose we should go find them, especially seeing as they can't speak to each other without us."

Despite the concern, it seemed as if technology —or at least the appreciation of it anyway— was something that could be shared language or not.

Cece stood cataloging everything her eyes landed on, staring in that intent way of hers that told me she was committing it all to memory, storing it in the files in her mind as if she were in some small way similar to the electronics she found herself so soothed by. Kirin tracked her wherever she went offering the names of things in Vallan. When she didn't repeat them back to him, too engrossed in her exploration, I could feel the bitter tang of disappointment in the air.

"Tell her she handles tech like she was born to it," his voice was quiet while he watched her.

Esayr glanced to me before relaying the message, though softening it into something a little more friendly and less...intense.

Cece hummed a response back, tracing her fingers over a nearby metal container that housed coiled wiring.

Esayr and I watched his fascination for a second longer until he finally broke the silence again, "Do you like her?" Speaking entirely in Vallan.

My words were a hiss, "it's rude to talk about someone when they're right in front of you whether they can understand you or not"

They both at least looked moderately ashamed of themselves. Lirin's tanned skin flushed a quiet rose color along his high cheekbones, "Apologies. This isn't...an everyday occurrence."

"Is she yours?" Esayr glanced back to Cece where she stood off to the side, dwarfed by the servers and other machinery around her. He only just caught the movement of my hands and the expression on my face that was so clearly asking "did you not just hear what I said?"

"No. She's not." Lirin was a melancholy ache in my chest.

The conversation ended with that and the remnant soreness in my chest stopped me from being too snippy about their quick conversation about Cece. That and the fact that Lirin very gingerly handed me my phone with a brighter happier look in his eyes.

"It took some unconventional thinking, but with the addition of the base mechanics the ship uses I was able to boost the normal processes on the device," he shrugged, "downside is you're hooked into shop communications most likely, though I haven't tested it. And the Aarond Form could perceive the device as a part of itself. It might react...unfairly...but I'm hoping it will consider the addition nothing dangerous."

"That sounds ominous," I held my phone at arm's length. When the screen tilted slightly it still powered on, waking up from the darkened sleep mode —seemingly none the wiser about any internal changes.

"All things considered, I want to believe the ship likes you."

"Believe it or not, Lirin, that's even more ominous."

He laughed with me at the declaration, none the wiser to the concepts of sentient artificial intelligence that haunted human consciousness enough that we'd made countless movies on the subject. Though, the shop had never treated me anything but kindly.

I swiped at the glass screen of my phone and it lit up beneath my fingers, filled with notifications: emails, texts, and phone calls --most from unknown numbers. I deleted everything that I didn't recognize. Keeping only those things from my friends, but even those things drifted off after the confirmation that I'd been taken, save a few texts from Natalie that were dated somewhat regularly after I'd come up to the ship.

The last one was only from a few days ago and just said: "I miss you."

I typed out a response to see if whatever Lirin did worked. "I miss you too. Talk to me next time the others call?" When I pressed send, I watch the message flip up onto the top of my screen, the loading bar nonexistent. In faint lettering beneath the message my phone told me it had been sent and then that it had been seen at 9:47 AM. Dots appeared at the bottom of our text chat and another message came through. It was a deadpan, "who is this?".

I didn't blame the suspicion. I'd been out of contact on the phone this entire time. I'd have been more inclined to think that someone had either stolen my phone to get to my friends, or my number had been hacked. "It's Addy." I hit send.

"No, it isn't." Was Nat's immediate response. It was sharp and quick. She'd always been that way when it came to saying no. Got it out fast so that you didn't have the time to argue with her and she could consider the conversation over and done with.

I snapped a selfie giving her a peace sign and sent it her way. Just like the texts it sent flawlessly over the distance. I looked to Lirin while I waited for her response. He was watching me with a smile on his face. "It works perfectly, honestly probably works better than before. Thank you."

He nodded, his smile wide on his face, "It was nothing --a fun challenge. Bring me more toys in the future." His eyes cut to Cece for a moment.

"Hey, Cece, did you bring any technology up here that you wanted Lirin to take a look at? He did a really good job with my cell phone."

She look surprised by my question for a moment, "No I didn't have anything to bring. I don't have a phone."

I knew she did. We'd spoken to her on it when I'd asked her to come to the ship. Cellphones were commonplace now...almost mandatory to be able to live normally. I stopped my line of thinking, Cece wasn't living normally. It was easy to forget that she was on the run, bouncing from place to place and not staying long enough anywhere to gather too much attention. "Well if you ever come up again, you should bring some of your stuff, and maybe Lirin could upgrade it. Make it harder for anyone to follow your online presence." I joked. I doubted Cece would come back after she got the information that she wanted, but I wanted to plant the seed that she was welcome on this ship --anyone was-- even without a mate waiting for them.

"Thank you for the offer," She turned to Lirin when she said it and though he couldn't understand English he still brightened and nodded to her.

"I do miss it," She murmured as an afterthought.

"Miss what?"

"The internet and my updates," Cece got a faraway look on her face when she glanced back to the towering boxes that looked like what I would have considered servers. "I miss the connection."

I could understand. Having nearly grown up with a phone in my hand, it felt like an extension of me. To have lost that access, that communication, hell even the resource of answers that the internet acted as was devastating. I handed her my phone, "Here, see if you can access your site from my phone."

She held it gingerly and I almost laughed. She held it like she had no idea what to do with it, her fingers brushed the screen delicately and the phone went back to my home screen. I turned back to Esayr to leave her to do her thing, telling myself that if she got to her webpage it would be the beginning of a better public image for the Val'Dornn.

"Do you always get an influx of news stories on your device?" I'd turned back to speak to Esayr for only a moment before Cece's question had me turning around again. When I glanced at my phone she had it open on a news app, one that I was fairly certain I didn't even have on my phone from before, but the screen was filled with news about the Val'Dornn. It was filled with news about another woman being taken from Macedon.

I turned to Esayr, "The new match, has the woman been brought up here yet?" Surely I'd have heard about it. I can't imagine that there wouldn't have been at least some consideration about having me there to ease the second woman brought up to this ship for a match.

"Not that I'm aware of," He was reading the headlines over mine and Cece's shoulder, an air of concern throbbed down our bond.

"It says she's been taken, already. She's disappeared. Do you..." I don't know what I wanted to ask. Whatever it was I knew Esayr wouldn't have had the answer. Did she run? Was she abducted by some group on Earth? Was she in transit here and we just hadn't been told?

Esayr's eyes flicked to mine for a moment and I could read something in them that told me there was more than concern there he was trying to smother it, "Can you ask Laene?"

On nod and he had returned to the interface at the entrance to Lirin's rooms, relaying a message to Laene, asking him if he knew anything about the circumstances of the female.

His response didn't take long to come through, "We have no contact with her. Callin is beside himself. "

We were crowded around the interface reading the messages with Esayr when the alert went out ship-wide. It was a punch to the gut and I wasn't even one of the males on this ship relying on this being a smooth process.

Cece tapped away at the smooth screen of my phone, hesitancy forgotten her fingers flying over the screen like she'd always had a phone.

Another message came through from Laene, "We're hoping she's run and not that she's been taken."

Esayr's hand wrapped around my hip, half to remind himself that I was safe if the feeling I got through our bond was right.

"I've posted a message on my resources regarding the girl." Cece pressed my phone back into my hand, "You received a hail while I was dictating it."

When I looked down at the screen there was a message from an unknown number. The text itself read, "Addison, you've received a summons from your government, requesting communication." A trail of barely discernable swirling lettering followed it in Vallan.

When I showed it to Esayr, he inclined his head to Lirin. "Comm team. Vailen's identifier. The message came through the Aarond Form's communication line." Even the fact that my phone worked kindly with the ship, didn't wipe away the stress that bled onto Lirin's face.

"It's about the girl I'm sure."

Esayr nodded but it was slow.

I took a deep shuddering breath as everyone waited on me, "Let's go to see them then. I don't want to keep them waiting." Especially if we can learn anything about the girl that could help her.

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

Since I've been pushing myself to write something every day, I've found that it's easier for me to sit down and keep focused on writing larger pieces at a time. I still look back in wonder when I first started this story for NaNoWriMo. I was writing 1,667 words a day, sometimes more. I genuinely don't know how I did it at the time. But, now that I've mostly cemented down a habit for sitting down and writing something each and every day it's made it easier to see how it was I had managed that kind of perseverance.

I've been working on slowly giving myself more concrete goals. Now instead of just writing 'something' every day, I'm trying to get into the habit of writing at least 100 words. I've done pretty well, all things considered, I think. I'm not at a point where I'm making it my main goal --that's still just the act of writing-- but I'm getting there. And once I'm comfortable with 100 I want to increase it to 2 and then 3 and so on and so forth however high I can go. I've felt a lot happier of late. A lot more accomplished and I think it's because I can see larger chunks of this story finally being written out on the page in front of me. I'm finally seeing pieces of something I'd never quite believed we'd get to all those years ago.

Keep Persisting,

~Layla

In other news, I am in omegaverse hell. I'm obsessed with the genre. I'd tried to steer clear of it for exactly this reason too. Add onto that the fact that there are so many reverse harem stories in the genre and ya girl is in hog heaven.

I'm obsessed enough that I haven't been able to stop myself from writing bits and pieces of an omegaverse story myself. I ended up writing 2,200 words last night on my phone of all things, which is crazy because I never write on my phone. Maybe I'll make it a background thing that I work on for this year's NaNo while I finish up First Contact. I'm still not sure. I have a ton of drafts for things on my Wattpad. I think like close to 10-14 drafts for random stories that I occasionally pull up and write in to help overcome any writer's block I might get on Val'Dornn updates. It's worked out pretty well for my creative process I think.