Emmon just about choked when he saw Aleck walk up in her military grubs. “You’re not really intending to go before the Council in that? Aleck you’ve got to make a good impression and old blood-stained war gear was not going to cut it.”

“What’s wrong with it? It’s not like I have a wardrobe to choose from anyways.”

“Oh, I’m definitely joining you, General. If nothing else to see the look on the high king's face when he meets you!” Markus held his side laughing with tears streaming down his face.

Emmon pleaded with her. “Aleck, it is imperative you make a positive impression on the high king. Are you sure you don’t have anything else? I’m not sure he’ll let a girl wearing an old bloodstained war gear into his presence let alone accept a blood debt from her.”

“Relax Emmon I’ve got this.” The colonel came in with two women and an older gentleman who were carrying different-sized packages. “High General,” he said and bowed in respect. “This is Mark Palouski, Maria Cotton, and Chet Fremont from the civilian Borg ship. They wish to give you some gifts before you go before the Rillian king.

The older gentleman stepped forward and bowed respectfully. (This was a habit the Borg took to honoring her instead of saluting. It drove Aleck nuts but, she was unsure of what to do about it.) He opened up a package that had some scissors, a comb and brush, and simply jeweled berets. “I am a hairdresser, High General. These berets are of gold and diamonds. If I may fix your hair before you go before the Rillian king?”

Aleck gave Colonel Mires a glare. He smiled, shrugged, and mouthed “you don’t want to hurt the man’s feelings do you?”

Aleck rolled her eyes at the colonel and smiled a tight smile. “Thank you for the gift. You may proceed,” she said with a poor attempt at being gracious.

Emmon sighed, “Aleck, it’s super important, and they are being kind.”

Aleck flinched at the rebuke. “Sorry, I’m a tomboy at heart. Even when I was a civilian I wore just jeans and t-shirts.” She turned to the trio. “Sorry if I came off as rude.”

“Um where do you want me to sit.” Aleck asked looking around.

“If I may, High General, the men on the ship have set up a kind of beauty shop,” said Mr. Fremont with a smile as he gestured toward the door.

Emmon frowned as he noticed half a dozen men scatter as the door opened. The men who must have been in on the colonel's plan had curious ears to the door.

Aleck sighed and politely followed Fremont’s thin frame while throwing evil looks at the Colonel, who judiciously ignored them.

Emmon sighed a sigh of relief. “Leave it to the Colonel to manipulate things neatly.”

Markus still had a huge Cheshire-like grin on his face. “The Vandarian seem to rule their own general out of their love for her.”

Emmon laughed. “I think right now Aleck is wishing for a little less love.”

____________________________________________________

After Fremont was finished, Aleck smiled politely and looked up from the barber, who was standing looking very pleased with his artistry (which, given the mess her hair had been in, had taken over an hour to fix). Next was the Makeup artist. Aleck mouthed toward the colonel, “If I end up looking like my sister, I’m totally washing my face.” The makeup artist raised her eyebrows curiously, and the general quickly sent a picture over to her vision scanner of her sister’s overdone face. (Even with Borg vision, it looked bad.) The artist nodded understandably and then worked quickly.

After she was finished a tech came in thrilled with his new device. “It will create a direct connection from the vision part of your brain to a specialized mirror. Since it was directly connected, it would give you true vision. It is your’s to keep High General.”

Aleck nodded as he hooked up the mirror to her so she could see herself in it. Aleck looked up, surprised in part at how much she had changed since she’d last seen herself with real vision. She was also impressed with the differences she recognized even with her inaccurate Borg vision. Her hair was neat and not wild for once, and her makeup really surprised her. She touched her face, surprised. The differences were subtle and nice. “You can’t even tell I have makeup on!”

The makeup artist smiled, pleased. “You’re not supposed to, High General,” she said with a small bow.

.

Last of all was a tailor. She handed her a packet and pointed to a small dressing room in the back her men had quietly arranged for her. “It’s your size, high general. “I saw there was no proper dress uniform for a woman so I designed it myself. The tech has modified the mirror in there as well.”

“Thank you kindly, all of you. I’ll go put it on now”.

Aleck put on a bright white shirt, over that went a dark blue jacket with subtle red stripes running through it. The outfit included a knee-length dark blue skirt, pantyhose, and navy blue pumps that were not too high but were sharp looking. A blue scarf acted as a tie with a slight silvery sheen. On top of that were the medals and insignia that marked her as a high general. Aleck hooked up the sensors and looked in the mirror stunned at what she saw. She cried out when she saw her mother staring back at her. Except for the red hair and the freckles she didn’t realize how much she came to resemble her, especially her eyes. “Caja,” she said to the medical scanner as she found herself shaking. She struggled to push the memory of her mother to the back of her mind.

As soon as she got herself back together emotionally, she walked out and bowed graciously to the three civilians. “Thank you so much.”

“If you don’t mind you highness if we could be allowed to photograph our work?” She nodded.

Everyone Bowed as Aleck approached the shuttle bay.

______________________________________________

“At last, she is finally ready to approach my father,” Emmon whispered to Markus.

“Yes, who knew she would turn out to be so pretty.”

“She is nothing looks-wise compared to my brother Jareth’s first wife who was an absolute raving beauty. Yet he put his claim on her with the Starguard?”

“You’re comparing the wrong things. Look at the heart.”

“Heart-wise? Heart-wise. In that, I am envious my brother found her first.”

“heart-wise, Aleck was a beauty beyond all others, and Jareth’s ex-wife was downright ugly.” Said Marcus. “You Realize Prince Emmon she’s going to have your head when she discovers who you are.”

“She’ll get over it. I’m a little bit more concerned about how the cyborg people view her.”

The amused look on Marcus’s face abruptly vanished as he nodded. “Ah, you noticed it too. These people did not treat Aleck like a general. They treated her like a queen, and as far as I’ve seen, loved her like a queen.”

“Which is no small thing. The cyborg people consisted of individuals from numerous worlds who’d been displaced by the Sharlakar. And given my fathers mental state I don’t believe the Rillians will currently welcome them as Refugees. The civilian ships have grown under her command just on this small hop into Rillian space. Many of them are non-Rillians had been rescued from Sharlakar food storage facilities.

Marcus nodded “ I believe thought the non Vandarian races would rather have been on a world of their own race.”

“Yes but a lot of those who have worlds to return to will return to the worlds of their races but many of them had most of their worlds destroyed and those show a strong loyalty towards Aleck. And the Vandarians themselves are displaced people who despise their government and were despised by their government.”

Marcus frowned as he saw where Emmon was going with it. “A whole Borg race loyal to a general whom they saw as a queen. They were free at last from their slavery, and not a single one had true loyalty to Vandar and now all of them are in Rillian space.

Emmon was grim. “For now, they are focused on the Sharlakar, but drive the Sharlakar out, what then? There was no way they were going back to being willing slaves.”

“I think,” Marcus said. “The Vandar directorate had a huge knife at their throat, and if they did not make a better choice of leader this term… the Vandarians would have a civil war on their hand the likes of which they hadn’t seen in a millennium.”

“And with the blood debt, she’s about to incur all of Rillia would be dragged into the war against Vandar.” Said Emmon.

“Right now there is no need to put any more stress on her. But in time I think we can address her honestly with the problem. She does not love either power or war and respects our opinion. “ Emmon said and then he left to join Aleck in the shuttle.

“Yes’ Said Marcus to himself under his breath. “but she also has no love for the Vandarian government and will not allow herself or her people to be enslaved again.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Jareth was exuberant with excitement. They had found Aleck. She would soon be standing before his father according to his brother Emmon’s last reports. He was dressed in the black and silver dress uniform of the High Rillian Admiral. It was sleeveless with his armbands shimmering. On his chest were the medals that marked him as a high-ranking officer, and on his head was a silver band that represented the position of a high prince. Jareth double-checked to make sure everything was perfect in the mirror. He grinned. Aleck was going to be surprised.

Jareth walked up and stopped stunned as he saw Aleck, sharply attired in dress uniform, walk formally up to the king. Emmon was escorting her, and he bowed formally before the king. He did the correct hand signals to show honor to his father. “My father, May I present High General Aleck Morganson. She’s here to take the blood debt for the crimes of General Wallock, whom she ordered executed for the crimes against his people.”

“The crime is not yours,” said the king graciously. For a second, Jareth swore he heard a warm tone in his father's voice he hadn’t heard since before that snake Conoth became his high advisor. Jareth smiled warmly. Just as Aleck had unconsciously done to others, she had touched his father deeply through her actions. “You are terribly young to take on such a burden.”

Jareth looked at his father with his streaks of silver running through his black hair and wrinkles around his golden eyes. He was tall and strong and still looked rather handsome in the white and gold outfit that was the high king’s to wear. Perhaps asking for permission to marry Aleck would be easier than he thought given her effect on him.

“I am Seventeen, my King. A legal adult among the Borg. And I know the crime is not mine. But I do not wish you to war with our worlds, to harm many for the folly of a few. So I willing take the blood debt and will serve as your General until the last of the Sharlakar are driven from your worlds.”

Jareth’s jaw dropped. His Aleck the high general of the Borg army? All a sudden the words of the conversation hit him hard. She was actually of a rank that she could take on a blood debt. Did she understand how serious that was?

He very cautiously touched her mind and cringed when he felt how sad she was. Yes, she understood too well, yet she was going to take it on anyway. His stomach rolled. How could he protect his love from that? The answer came simply, yet at the same time not so simply: help her defeat the Sharlakar and pay her debt.

The king nodded graciously. “You and your army will then serve under the command of my son and my high admiral, Jareth.” Jareth stepped out of the shadows. He smiled brilliantly at Aleck and bowed respectfully.

“Now, High General, please give an oath of loyalty to my son,” said the king with pride. Jareth could tell she was in a state of shock as she knelt before her best friend and swore an oath of loyalty to him.

She stood and bowed respectfully she barely heard the King say “Blood debt accepted. You may be dismissed to your ship, High General.”

“Please Jareth go home. I can’t have what I love in this war. Please go.” Her mind screamed at him.

Jareth sighed as he realized that she’d kept her sanity by separating in her mind the war from those she loved at home.

“Focus Aleck,” Jareth said to her mentally. “We’ll talk later. I thought you’d be happier seeing me” Aleck frowned then bowed again and left.

The high king turned to Jareth as the king’s high advisor came back in. “You wish a conference with me, my son,” said the king. The warmth in his voice that he had for Aleck disappeared as he addressed his son

“Yes, my father,” Jareth said, kissing the king’s ringed hand and showing the proper hand sequence to honor him.

Jareth knelt humbly before his father. He was so nervous about what he was going to ask that he missed the change in his father’s expression. No Rillian prince had married outside of his race in over a thousand years. Not since the dark times when Raleck ruled Rillia. All races the Rillians had come in contact with had been invaded and their people used as sex slaves. Since the fall of Raleck the Black, few Rillians had married outside of the race, and even then only with the strictest of rules to ensure it was a willing partnership. “My father, I have thought of remarrying,” Jareth started to say. His father waved him to silence.

“I thought as much,” he said simply. “Bring out the Duchess of Marn.” A young Rillian woman wearing a Rillian wedding dress came out cringing in fear. Jareth’s jaw dropped in both shock and rage.

The insult was more than one. First, his father obviously did not truly believe him innocent of harming his first wife or he would have never tried to push a duchess from a minor world province on him. Second, the girl was obviously terrified of him. Third, his father must have thought that he was so out of control himself that he needed to marry at once to have her literally waiting in the wings.

Jareth was almost speechless with rage. He gritted his teeth. “My father,” he tried again. He was cut off with a gesture, and the girl was ordered forward, along with a wave for the minister to come as well. Jareth couldn’t take it anymore. He turned on his heel and stormed out without even a sign of honor departing.

………………………………………………………………………………………

In the shadows, Zane stood watching. The counselor next to the king smirked, misinterpreting Jareth’s reaction to the planned physiological attack. The girl looked confused but relieved. Good Father’s own insanity would mask Jareth’s return to sanity. Not that his father’s insanity was good, but Jareth was a knife in the dark that Zane was depending on.

---------------------------------------------------------

Jareth seethed and shook all the way to the Admiral's flagship. He couldn’t believe his own father fell for all the press. His seething fell away as he glanced toward the ship Aleck was on with his brother. He thought of Aleck’s reaction to him when she found out who he was. Her emotions were not the welcoming ones he expected nor were they a rejection. They were feelings of confusion, and pain, amidst love for him. He sighed. Until he could find a safe way for Father to approve his marriage to her he’d have to keep it professional between them. That would not be easy. How he hungered to take her in his arms and comfort her. He loved her enough to keep the control his father thought he lacked.

Uncle Donny trusted him more than his own father did. As his heart turned to earth he found he missed that man’s wisdom and kindness and wished he could turn to him now with his problems. But contact was limited given the state of the Vandarian government, and possibly even dangerous to Aleck's family. He sent out a short encrypted message to Vandar to the family informing them that Aleck was okay and no longer under the old General's command. That was all he could do, for now, other than to keep his promise to Aunt and Uncle that he would update Aleck on everything and share Odette’s whole load of new pictures and messages for her. He arranged for a beam over to her ship.

………………………………………………Worlds away………………………………….

General Wallock shuttered in pain as the Sharlakar’s high General stood over him. “Your plan to use the borgs for your own power failed and because it failed they are ruining our raids. Give me one reason I shouldn’t feed on you now.”

“I can help you still. You can still have your feeds and I can have my revenge and my worlds to rule. You’ll fail without me. The girl is too good of a tactician and your people are not trained in the science of war. I am. I can show you key points to attack the Rillian worlds that can turn the tide of the battle.” The General pleaded.

The Sharlakar General smiled coldly at him. “You have been a good little traitor so far.” He sneered. “So I’ll give you a chance to help us again if you can give me some key worlds to hit so we can send more supply back home. Though I suppose you’ll be no good to us if you die from shock before you can help us.”

“Medic!”

“But do understand my dear General Wallock if your advice fails to be as good as you claim, I’ll enjoy the feed. If it is as good as you claim, you will have your choice of worlds as long as you keep sending us some people to feed on. General Wallock shuttered, nodded, and then passed out in pain as the Sharlakar medic reached him drooling.

“Can I have at least one taste?” Begged the medic. “Several parts of him are so severely damaged they are useless to him now. Can I have that?” The medic begged eagerly.

“The High Sharlakar General laughed. “Only after you’ve healed him dear Medic and then you can have your fix on the parts of him that you could not fix. He is right. We need him, for now.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Soon the Rillian battleships joined with the Borg ones as they started toward the next Sharlakar-infested world on Jareth’s order. Jareth watched as Aleck worked the tactics bubble. He rose from the command chair and commanded “wait” as he observed her space battle plan. “You missed some.” He said, adding some points and connecting some points and soon finishing up the bubble. Now she saw some slight imperfections he missed and adjusted them. Soon, between the two of them, they had it perfect. She nodded satisfied. She had to admit Jareth was very good at what he did. Jareth sent the information out to the pilots so they could get into the correct formation.

Jareth left to suit up with the pilots while Aleck went to prepare for the ground battle. Between their two brilliant minds, the Sharlakar never knew what hit them. The main space battle was over in a few short hours. Aleck looked up in grateful surprise. The ships overhead attacked major shield fronts providing support for her ground troops in ways she never thought of. In her mind, Jareth moved up from very good to brilliant at what he did. Yet she could not help but wish he would go home and be safe. She shook herself mentally. Her men needed her here and now not with her thoughts on her best friend.

The ships above finished their run and Aleck ordered her men to action. She fought shooting the Sharlakar down in repetitive order, blowing up tank after tank. The Sharlakar came in like a sea of grey but her men never backed down. These were still the easy ones though, she knew. She heard rumors the Sharlakar had a tactical genius that had taken some of the major worlds. But they first had to fight through the wall of the smaller ones to reach the major ones in this border section of space between Rillian and Vadarian worlds. She synchronized her men perfectly and only a handful was lost in each section and even more were saved from the death camps than ever before. Still, the blood began to run in little streams on the ground.

Jareth got off the ship and headed to the infirmary to see personally his people who had suffered. The smell was terrible and he gasped in horror. He sloshed through ankle-deep blood. He pulled himself together as he felt Alecks touch his mind with concern and then understanding. “It’s not as deep as it used to be.” She said.

Jareth walked by each person with octopus-like tentacles over them as medics worked quickly to restore lost limbs with cybernetics. He heard screams of pain mercifully silenced with anesthetics. Tears streamed down his face as he wept for his people. “Still too deep” he answered back as the blood sloshed upon his pant leg. Then he remembered the psychologist warning on mind touch even in the midst of his sorrow for his people, he said mentally. “Aleck.”

“I saw you remember.” She whispered back. “I’ll withdraw. The doctor has his reasons and they are usually good. Wait I’ll be there in a second.” He paused over a child and touched her sleeping face as the cybernetic arms of the doctor worked busily. Aleck walked in blood-soaked from head to toe until she faced Jareth. They walked silently through the medical halls. They stopped occasionally to speak comforting words to those who woke up from the surgery frightened and confused.

Aleck wearily moved on. On the ship, they were constantly arguing over every little thing. Jareth would be more concerned than he was about it if he couldn’t feel the emotion behind the words. It was love and fear that created frustration and anger, not hate. But now that he had to face the pain of watching his people suffer, she was by his side as a true friend in silent compassion. She had to live in this nightmare since she was a child. She was used to it but he couldn’t help but wish he could keep his love from this terrible war.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The argument grew heated. “Look it is only a small sidetrack. We can save those people on that world!”

“As I’ve said before Aleck, one or two small sidetracks lead to a dozen which will prevent us from reaching the main worlds! We are not stopping again!”

“We can help them! We can save all those lives…”

”Only to lose more in the long run because we are wasting time on a bunch of small stops. You know how important it is to hit the main worlds to divide their army in half!”

“Look I know that’s important but it’s only one small delay!”

“It’s the eighth small delay Aleck! All these small delays are turning into a huge one that can cost us the war! Look don’t get me wrong you’re a brilliant tactical mind but you’ve never had formal military training and I have. I see stuff you don’t.”

“But...” Jareth cut her off by slamming his fist on the desk and standing up. “That is my final decision. I outrank you and you will follow it. Understand!”

Aleck stood up herself and stormed out of Jareth’s office. The crew stared at the door and started to whisper. Jareth really hated ending their arguments with I outrank you and that’s that but she was so, so stubborn. Jareth turned to check his e-mail on his computer. He hissed in frustration. Still no response from his father from his continuous request to his father for marriage approval.

How he craved to reach out and comfort her, to hold her when her pain and confusion bubbled over and she lashed out at him with it. How he hungered to touch her mind. Yet he dared not. He was forced to face in the psychologist's office the true depth of his feelings for her. He knew if he touched her he would not stop until he had taken her. He had too much respect for her to do that without being married to her. He felt his blood heating just thinking about it. He grabbed his swim trunks and headed for the swimming pool. He set the temp for icy cold and jumped dead in.

Markus watched the prince head for the pool and followed. He took his military boot off and put a toe to the water and shivered as he waited for the prince to come up. Jareth came up and looked at the Azriangian watching with slightly amused eyes as he sat relaxed on a bench near the edge of the pool. “Well my prince, does it work? Does it really take your hunger for her away?”

Jareth shivered. It was sometimes easy to forget that Markus was a high priest among his kind given his sense of humor and viciousness on the battlefield. But this was a priest to admiral question and he knew it. “Is it that obvious? I have thought I’ve been professional about it.” He said as he dried off with a towel.

“The men have a pool on whether not you’re going to kill each other or marry each other given the severity of the arguments you have with each other. To tell the truth, the fights are starting to undermine the ship's morale. What are you going to do about the tension between you and the General?’’

“Well not to kill her for sure. I did put in a petition to my father to marry her with full permission gained from her aunt and uncle. But he has not answered yet. And yes it has been frustrating. But I fully intend to do things right by her. As for the current tensions I wish I knew the answer. She put a barrier in her mind between here and home to help keep the shellshock she was suffering from before from resurfacing. Because she knew me at home in her mind, I belong there and not here.”

Markus considered. “Does the General know of your intentions to marry her?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to gain approval before asking her. We were best friends on Vandar. I know she has not handled me being here well.” Jareth closed his eyes sadly and sighed as he shivered.

“Highness if I may say if you can’t ally it, that you need to try to do a better job of keeping the tension between you two more private. You need to end the negative impact it is starting to have on the morale of the ship. Though given the tension between you two I suggest you start having the colonel or me in your meetings from now on.” Markus said as he ordered some hot piping tea for both of them.

“Okay,” Jareth went to sip the tea and then paused to sniff it. He rolled his eyes and ordered some special syrup to be added to the tea. Taste buds from race to race could be quite different and nothing would amuse Markus more than seeing the prince choke on some Azriange cholac tea.

Jareth sat back and sipped with a smile while Markus chuckled at his little joke being caught. “You are very good at catching onto my jokes.”

“That’s because I had the misfortune of, more than once, being the target of Aleck’s younger twin brothers’ pranks. Those two managed to raise absolute hell when it came to pranks.”

Markus raised his eyebrows. Azrangians loved hearing of pranks as much as pulling them or getting caught at them. “The worst?”

Jareth was about to have his own short sweet revenge. “Let’s just say I actually get the willies around snakes now.” With that, he took a last sip of tea and he got up and left with Markus’s eyes bearing into his back with burning curiosity. Jareth smiled. Nothing an Azriangian hated more than to be left hanging.

He remembered the prank as he walked toward his quarters.

A piercing scream came from the girl's bathroom. Before anyone could say anything Aleck was on the move. She went the door of the bathroom and stopped, dead in her tracks slamming the door quickly shut. Jareth heard give the mental order for her cybernetics to analyze something. “What is it?” Jareth asked out loud for the sake of Ben and Odette.

“Erven grass snakes. Nonvenomous but unfortunately extremely rare. This girl is safe standing up onto of the toilet seats but we probably should find a way to get her out of the situation quickly without letting the snakes out.”

“Any idea’s?” Aleck asked.

“I remember the biology department has some special traps for capturing, studying, and then releasing animals.” Odette volunteered.

“Okay, You, Ben, and Jareth go get them while I see if I can talk to the girl so she doesn’t get to hysterical.” Aleck ordered turning to the door.

Jareth, Ben, and Odette ran down the hallway to the Biology Lab. “Mr. Sato, Mr. Sato, somebody released a bunch of rare Erven grass snakes into the girls' bathroom.” The Biology teacher looked up from the projects he was grading in shock. “A girls stuck in there with them and we need a way to catch them and get them out.”

Mr. Sato quickly took charge. “Jareth grab the snake tongs, Ben grab the Buckets and Odette run and tell the principal what is going on and have her call animal control.”

The group moved quickly. Jareth did a quick mental check with Aleck. How is she?

“She’s calmed down. I’m having her tell me all about how the cheerleader made it to nationals this year?”

“Cheerleader?”

“It’s Sonya, you know the one who seems to have been crushing on my brothers. They must of set this up to drive her away.”

“Man I’d love to get their Runners neck between my hands,” Jareth growled in anger. “They have to do such extreme things just to keep from having to kill someone innocent.”

“Look, I know, Jareth” Jareth could feel the sadness in Aleck’s mind.

“Sorry, it doesn’t do us any good breaking our own hearts over things we can’t change does it,” Jareth said apologetically. “We’re almost there with the tools.”

Soon the Principal Boltan was there as well. “ Unfortunately it will be at least a couple of hours before animal control can get to our backwater town. So for now everyone grab a bucket and snake tongs.”

“We need to go in quickly and shut the door behind us quickly so none of them escape,” Jareth stated as he readied himself by the door. “Ready, go.”

They all scrambled into the bathroom quickly grabbing snakes as they got near the door. Jareth shuttered as several started to crawl up his pant leg, and growled in pain as one bit him. “We need to clear a way to the stall. Ben, you go at the head so you can grab her and carry her out.” Jareth commanded.

They all moved as quickly as they could, pulling snakes of themselves and putting them in buckets. At last, they came to the door. Ben moved in quickly and princess carried the girl who was still crying out of the bathroom.” At last, they managed to get every last slithering snack out while bleeding from multiple snake bites.

Jareth smiled at the memory. It was no fun at the time but now it was so pleasant to remember. Funny how such little memories bind people’s hearts.

__________________________________________________-

Colonel Mires walked up silently behind Aleck as she sat on a bench in the small flower-garden section of the main ship and watched the videos from home that Odette had made. Tears streamed down her eyes. “You seem to get on well with him there,” said the colonel. Aleck jumped in surprise. She had not noticed the colonel's entrance into the ship gardens. “Why do you fight him so here?” he continued.

Aleck shook her head in frustration and confusion at the jumble of emotions raging within her. “He doesn’t belong here. He belongs at home,” she said simply as she broke off a thorn from a nearby rosebush.

Colonel Mires looked at her, considering for a moment and pretending to misunderstand. “Why would the high prince of Rillia need to be sitting at the palace when there’s a war on? Or do you mean Vandar, where the rest of your loved ones are safe?” Aleck looked away in shame. The Colonel had hit dead on the mark. Colonel Mires sighed as he sat down on the bench next to Aleck. “He is who and what he is, Aleck. Fighting with him will not change that any. It is starting to affect the men’s respect for him as a leader.”

Aleck bit her lip and looked away. It never occurred to her the effect their fights would have on the men under their command. She learned of his first wife from the talks they had. And she knew from Emmon that she did stuff to undermine his authority with his men and how much it hurt him. He was still her best friend and she certainly didn’t mean to hurt or humiliate him. “I didn’t mean to…..”

The colonel put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I know you didn’t mean to but you need to keep your arguments more private and let me or Markus be there to help negotiate from now on OKAY.” The colonel looked up at the vast starscape above him with her. He seemed about to say something more then hesitated, and seemed to change his mind. “He cares for you more than he’s able to show..

“I know. Okay. I’ll be more careful. I guess I should apologize to him for that.” She dried her eyes and gathered herself together, then felt for him carefully with her mind. He was back in his room. The apology would have to wait for the morning.