It had never occurred to me that Prince Roan could have a brother. Was his brother like him? Gifted with the same foreknowledge that Prince Roan had, or was he something else entirely?

The Prince seemed to shake himself free of whatever thoughts were clouding his mind, I could feel the echo of it in the air around us, resounding in a way that others typically didn't, as if there were more emotions in the space around the Prince than there reasonably should have been for one male. He turned just for a moment back to that rotating crystal sphere in the center of the room, brows pinched, before turning to face us again, his attention firmly on me and my mate.

"My sincere congratulations to you --the both of you. I'm grateful to see the knitting of your souls in the great tapestry and I'm grateful for the happiness that's plain on your faces."

Cece shuffled behind me slightly, moving out from behind the shield of my back, though I could feel the faintest pinch of discomfort like a muscle that was just slightly too tight.

"It's good to see you too, Prince Roan." He returned my smile. "You were right, though I'm beginning to suspect you already knew you were." My words were rueful, but I was rewarded with a brighter smile from him.

He shrugged, the action was lazy and a little inelegant. It made him more approachable. "There are many paths to any one outcome, whether this was where we were to be standing at this moment in the end, I can't say, though I'm grateful for the path you've taken to get here." His hands, usually stashed away in the long sleeves of his robes, raised up and clapped once, startling in the quiet of the massive room, "A tying ceremony, yes?" His golden eyes positively glowed, "Yours will be my first."

I squeezed Esayr's hand and turned to him, "I think you know a little bit more about this subject than I do and you'd mentioned there were things you'd dreamt about."

Esayr's eyes were bottomless as he watched me. I'd have told you he was up on some cloud high above us, "I think for now we should start with a date. All other plans we'll make together."

"A date then. Sometime soon," So that we could air the event in close enough proximity to the media coverage down on Earth that it would make a big splash. Though, when I thought it, that wasn't quite true. Certainly, the sentiment did linger above us, but it wasn't what had caused the giddy flutterings in my stomach that made me want to bounce on the balls of my feet. No, that came from the pure unfiltered, radiating joy at the idea of being married to this male.

Was this what Petra felt when she thought about Landon? I'd have to ask her sometime, though thoughts of my friends brought on a heavy blanket of disappointment. They'd been banned from the ship, banned from 'fraternizing with the enemy' so to speak. They wouldn't be able to be here for the ceremony.

It made me wonder what would happen if someone found out that they'd been in contact with me.

Esayr's thumb brushed the back of my hand and it prompted my thoughts to spill out, "My friends -- my Riniere -- they won't be able to be here."

"One day they will be, and once they are we'll have a true meeting of Riniere's like we should have had all along," Ever the staunch confident support system, Esayr's smooth positivity sank into me.

Prince Roan made no comment to my mate's declaration and I wondered if he had any inkling of those kinds of details in the future. Did he know who would come to the ship exactly, or did he just get vague glimpses of what could be? He struck me as the type never to completely elaborate, so I swallowed the question.

"Should we plan for a Solsticine Tying?"

The word startled me. It was decidedly Vallan since it routed through the translator in my mind, but the English word it supplied back was nearly identical Solstice.

"It would give you both about two Earthen weeks to make your final determinations for the ceremony," Prince Roan continued, oblivious to my surprise over the similarity between our cultures.

Esayr had mentioned there were particular overlaps between sentient races, especially between those they'd engaged in Temani Bercari's with. But, that seemed too on the nose. Though Esayr had mentioned that there were humans out in space, and the Val'Dornn had a predilection toward assimilating words that meant something. To a race that venerated light, it seemed logical their race might pick that word up.

"Addy?" Esayr's voice jarred me out of my spiral.

"Yes?"

"Is two weeks acceptable to you?"

"Yes...of course." In all honesty, I'd have wrapped the cord around us both right here and right now if given the chance, though two weeks would be the more reasonable option. Just enough time that it wouldn't seem like the Val'Dornn had forced me to marry the very second after the disastrous Comm broadcast.

"Then we shall be tied on Solsticine, in two of your earth weeks."

After that was settled, Esayr traded some last few words with Prince Roan, who seemed similarly lost in thought, his attention straying back to that crystal planet in the center of the room more and more often. In the end, we said our quiet goodbye and returned back the way we had come, leaving the Prince to return to whatever he'd been doing before we'd found him.

Cece, for all the awkwardness of her position during the whole conversation, visibly eased the farther we'd gotten from Prince Roan until she yet again stood beside us while we walked. She almost felt like she was building something in the space around her, a crackling pressure filled the air making the hairs on my arm stand on end whenever she stepped too close to me, though for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was.

The sensation was disposed of quickly though when Kados rounded the corner ahead of us. It deflated like a balloon until I almost scarcely believed it had been there in the first place.

Kados, radiated his own pressurized emotion though, and it bowled over us from at least thirty paces. It was frantic frenetic energy that turned the air just a little bit wavy -- like the lines in the air you'd see on a hot summer day. It was one part annoyance and the other was a raw burning curiosity. "I'd have at least liked a personal message," he approached us quickly, "though I'll forgo my downright anger in light of the Comm news." His eyes narrowed as they jumped between me and Esayr focusing on all the tiniest details of us that I was sure only Kados would have noticed.

"You're not unexpected," Esayr laughed as Kados shot him an accusing glare, "why bother with a summons when you'll make good on it yourself whether asked for or not?"

"Yes, well believe it or not I do like to be wanted sometimes, Esayr," Kados scoffed out the words, but they held no menace, "Though now you'll just have to indulge me to ease my wounded ego. My Science Bay. Now. All three of you." Kados eyes were thinned to slits as he looked at each of us in turn. "I want a study of all of your genetics and how they've changed and whether they differ from an unmodified human," his attention swung to Cece who just shrugged in response I'd imagined grateful to finally have someone speaking in English again in her presence.

"You could ask you know, Kados," I gave Cece a look but she smiled enough that I felt that she was at ease with her surroundings again.

"But, that would give you the opportunity to refuse," already he was herding us down a new hallway, back toward -- I assumed -- his offices.

I whispered a quiet "Sorry," to Cece, intent to offer her another option since legally she had no ties to the Val'Dornn and their studies nor their searching.

"It's fine, Addy. It seems like I'll be stuck here for longer than anticipated, anyway, seeing as the leveled judgment of your government means I can't return either."

Cece can't go back. Or, she could, though it would be even more dangerous for her than it had been. Cece was as stuck here as I was. I just had the benefit of a mate in my circumstance.

It had been a worry when I'd first optioned her arrival. Cece would come up here and trigger someone's bond and get stuck on this ship without her permission. While it hadn't happened exactly the way we'd worried it might -- instead it was Earth that had marooned her -- she'd still ended up stuck here in the end.

There were a lot of sorry's to be said on my behalf and it seemed like I'd only just begun.

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

Here's a pic of the cats! I was able to get them after my interview and they've been doing great. They had their first vet appointment this past Friday and aside from some worms that were easily cleared up, they look perfectly healthy! Clockwise around the circle starting with the all-black kitty their names are Hollow, Atlas, and Orion. This was my happy news for the week.

In less happy news, we found out on Tuesday that my mother's biopsy from her mammogram revealed that she has breast cancer. They think we caught it early and it's a very common variant of cancer, so we're hopeful, but it's been a rough few days since the news. We're all trying to keep spirits up and she's been spending a lot of time at my house with the kitties to keep her mind off of it. If you think about it, or if you're inclined, I'd appreciate good vibes/prayers if you're the praying kind for my family. She goes back for an MRI on the 3rd to assess the next step forward.

Small steps still step forward,

~Layla