Before we get started, I wanted to apologize to my readers for this taking so long. I have no excuses, but there are two reasons why this happened. First, I got writers block near the end of the chapter, and just couldn't make any progress. Ultimately, I had to completely remove a large section of text and rewrite it. Second, I'm ashamed to say that I started playing a game in order to distract myself from the frustration, and . . . got hooked, so that slowed down my progress as well. I apologize for this, and hope to begin to deliver chapters once a week after this, or possibly more often if I can. I hope you enjoy the new chapter, sorry about the guy hanging off the cliff over there.

Andaros awoke in his tent to the sounds of hammering. He gave himself some time to fully awaken from his groggy state, then got up to dress, and get himself something to eat. As he was eating a meal of tyrano jerky and some kind of vegetable matter the site's "quartermaster" gave him, they really had too much of that jerky left, he surveyed the progress on the reconstruction of the manor.

It had been eleven days since they had come out of the deeper parts of the orchard with the robot, and the tyranosaur meat. During that time, the house had been deconstructed and the foundation removed, then the new foundation was laid out and poured. Since then, only the outside walls of the new first floor had been arranged. The walls were being built with salvaged wiring from the original house and the robot in mind.

This wiring was currently being remade by one of the men who originally was sent to work with him on the manor's wiring. The two had decided to remake and insulate the wiring so that there would be no danger of burning down the new building. Thankfully, the man was originally a metal worker. He had fallen on hard times, and turned to petty theft to make it through. Unfortunately for the man, he had been found during one such theft, and somehow killed the man who found him. Andaros didn't know more than that, as he hadn't wanted to share any more details than that, but suffice it to say his crimes were deemed worthy of sending him to a planet like this.

The guards had one of their own, who knew a bit about metalworking and extruding, monitoring the process as a precaution. The main reason being that the alloy used in even ancient terraforming robots and house wiring was a lot more complex than the copper wiring of old Earth. There was also the possibility of the man doing something to cause problems, though this was much less of a reason in this environment. Good behavior could get the man a better position, while bad behavior on this dangerous planet would only get him killed by being placed on guard duty on the front line against the beasts, and in a hut outside the inner walls of the prison complex. The only place safer than there was the orchard, and Andaros was the first prisoner to be placed there since the prison complex was established surrounding the old space port.

Despite the prison complex's position as a city surrounding the space port, not one escape attempt had ever succeeded. In fact, not one attempt had been attempted, so obviously none had ever succeeded. There were four beings within the inner ring outside the spaceport that no prisoner would dare to cross. Three of the four were Qora, her mother, and her father, but the one they absolutely wouldn't cross was the Director. After all, who would want to cross such a dangerous existence.

During the week since they began working on the new manor, Andaros was constantly hounded by Qora asking things like, "Hey lover, do you want to go out for a nice romp in the orchard?" Her comments only got more suggestive or vulgar from there, and he was constantly reminded of his indiscretion. The only time he got any peace and quiet was when he was working on salvaging the parts of the robot, or taking his lessons in sign language from Reiya.

Andaros had trouble learning galactic sign language, but was managing to slowly learn the different signs. He wasn't anywhere near being able to carry a conversation, but had slowly memorized the movements for ten signs so far. This wasn't incredibly slow, but couldn't be called fast either.

Galactic Sign Language was a derivative of old Earth's sign language that had been slowly adapted to serve for the galactic community. When it was first introduced, it made huge waves among the galactic community. Never before had such a comprehensive set of signs been used to form a language. In fact, there had never been a sign language before. The best there was were simple signs among a few scattered races, not a comprehensive language with only signs. No one knows why it was that way back then, but since then the language had become a great diplomatic tool for races who had no vocal chords to speak of, or who's vocal range was outside the norm.

As for the robot, Andaros found that it had originally included photon-based weaponry. He could easily tell that the nanites which had been responsible for the upkeep of said weapons had died out long ago. His best guess was that they had been inoperable for at least ten thousand years based on the amount of build-up present on the lenses and other important parts. These were sensitive weapons, and without the little guys maintaining them, they could not be kept in a usable condition.

So far, Andaros had only found a few weapons he thought might be salvagable and thus usable in the new manor they were building. He had requested certain features to be included in the construction, such as hidden tunnels and rooms, and certain areas that were open for such things as a computer core hidden in the walls. The end result depended on him, but these hidden rooms and alcoves were being actively prepared for whatever he could manage to cobble together in the end.

There were already plans to lay out separate wiring for the security improvements he had in mind. The core had turned out to be in fairly good condition, but there was a lot of damage to the surrounding area. Andaros was used to salvaging and rebuilding such equipment, so it wouldn't be a large problem to rebuild the salvagable parts and chips into something usable. Rebuilding boards was not a short process, but was doable using some of the equipment within the central prison. So, he had requested a number of board configurations using salvaged chips that were in good condition.

These old boards were made using a special material that had properties similar to a combination of silicon, ceramics, and steel. It was a then new element found on the first planet humanity colonized outside of Earth, and had become a very necessary part of the colonies the earthlings had formed. A great deal of the original terraforming equipment used it in their boards and chips. It was extremely tough yet flexible, but did not conduct electricity, and was insanely heat resistant.

The material wasn't hard to reuse, but the process was lengthy. Thus, it could take months to prepare the new boards once the metals that were used to conduct power through all the boards were recovered. Andaros would be busy for a long time anyway, so he didn't sweat the small stuff, and kept working on his salvage work. He was nearly done salvaging all the usable chips while removing the obstructions surrounding the core.

The core itself was in good condition, though it did require some minor repairs. Andaros would consider upgrading the core and any chips he was going to use if he had the right materials, but without those materials he would be entirely unable to do so.

There were a number of techniques to upgrade the chips without taking them apart. These techniques had been developed around certain chemicals, minerals, and molecular nano-bots in order to upgrade old technology without having to replace it. Their development had been in response to a lack of materials on Earth following the initial colonization efforts. They allowed the restructuring of the "sands" of Mars into usable metals, and also allowed the remaining humans on Earth to reuse old technologies, upgrading them into something useful without replacing them.

Since he didn't have access to these things on this prison planet, regular repairs, without upgrades, would have to suffice. Given the choice, he would still upgrade the core, and the salvagable parts, but he couldn't do that, so careful cleaning and patching would have to suffice.

-----

It took Andaros almost six weeks in total for him to salvage all the repairable chips and boards from the robot. During this time, the house had been completely rebuilt, and the power core parts were taken into the basement, that had been part of the reason it took so long to start on the manor walls. The intended power generation room was crowded with parts to be assembled into a working power core once Andaros had the time to replace a few minorly damaged chips and boards.

He stood at the entrance to the generator room considering whether he should rebuild the power core first, or the computer core. The damage to the power core was also minor, but was greater than that done to the computer core. Still, the computer core damage was easier to fix than the power core, so Andaros was inclined to fix it first, but without the power core being fixed he would not be able to test it properly. After a bit of debate with himself, he took the parts that needed to be repaired or replaced, and left for the workshop that had been made for him. He decided to repair everything before rebuilding and installing the power and computer cores.

Andaros's workshop was one of the few places he could get some peace and quiet from Qora's constant teasing. There wasn't any comfortable furniture or anything that interested the giantess in there, unlike her tannery. He refused to have comfortable furniture in there because he worried he would not get anything done if he did have anything too comfortable in there. Since he had a great deal of stuff to do, he didn't wish to waste any time, and thus made the area as practical and straight-forward as possible.

Thanks to the help of the building crew, he had been able to arrange many dividers, shelves, and drawers to hold the various boards, chips, and parts that he would be using in the manor's security measures, as well as the basic needs of those living there. The girls had informed him that Reiya's twin, Meiya, would be joining them in the manor, so he had decided to create a security system to protect them. His workshop was created for the purpose of creating, repairing, and maintaining the various devices, and inventions needed to maintain the manor, and the orchard.

Andaros was quite certain that the robot that had saved them was reponsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the orchard they now resided in, otherwise it wouldn't be so well kept. He was also fairly certain it had driven away the various creatures and kept them out of the orchard as well or they would have run across some other creatures' trails during their escape, or their return trip from that clearing. Therefore, he determined that it would be best to build some devices capable of maintaining the orchard, and possibly driving off any creatures that might cause damage to the trees and manor.

His idea was to possibly create some drones with old school air lifting technology, and mini cold-fusion reactors or some kind of battery power to maintain the trees, and possibly make some form of security robot to drive off any creatures that entered the orchard besides Ceara. Failing the creation of the security robots, he could try relying on Ceara to help him tame some creatures native to the planet in order to keep the dangerous creatures away. As for the drones, he intended to have the Robot's personality control them, and possibly any security bots, to keep things in working order. Thanks to a generous offer from the prison director he had access to planetary level communication technology that would allow for this.

Andaros walked to his workbench and set the parts of the reactor which he needed to fix down on the bench in an organized manner. He began to disassemble one of the cowlings for one of the electronic control modules, carefully removing bolts and screws while making note of where each came from, and the order of disassembly. This was his way of assuring that every single piece was returned to it's proper place once he was finished. Reactors were never something you wanted to improperly handle, and every single part needed to be accounted for, or he wouldn't ever try to start it back up, so he was extremely careful in handling every single part in a way that he could ensure that all were in their proper place once he finished repairs and rebuilt it.

The majority of this section was undamaged, but a short had occurred during the last moments of the fight with the tyranosaur. This had caused various failsafes to activate and shut down the reaction, otherwise Andaros and the girls, along with the orchard and every living thing in it, would have gone up in an explosion that may have even destroyed the prison itself. In fact, a total of three chips had shorted, throwing three important failsafes. If even one failsafe had failed to trigger, they would not be alive to rebuild the manor at all, and the tree unique to this orchard would likely disappear from the galaxy, or at least, that's the way it was explained to him by one of the prison's few technicians after they learned of what had happened with the robot and tyranosaur. They knew reactors far better than Andaros, so he accepted their word on the matter.

As for the new chips he was going to install, they were third generation versions of the chips that were originally installed in the reactor. These chips had further upgraded stability, and the materials used were more durable than the original chips. Reactors were not something the people of the galaxy wanted exploding, especially ones that had a small artificial white hole and black hole maintained in a delicate balance held within, so their parts were designed to last far beyond the expected usage time of the cores. The reactor in the robot was rated at a million years, and the parts were extremely durable, though there were problems if not assembled properly.

In the case of the cowling he was taking apart, Andaros had to be extremely careful to examine the parts and uninstall them properly so that he did not do any damage to them. While the parts were extremely durable when assembled properly, if Andaros were to damage the individual parts during disassembly or assembly it could be catastrophic, so he very carefully examined every part before cautiously taking the assembly apart. The process took hours to unassemble the first control device, and install the new chip, carefully fusing the contacts together with an advanced tool that fused matter together. The tool was something similar to a more advanced form of a blow torch, but without the heat or sparks, and with a lot more precision than even the best of those old devices.

It took Andaros several days to unassemble the control modules and reassemble them, mainly because he had so many other things to do. Not only did he have to repair the reactor, he had to repair and install the solar panels and their new batteries as a secondary source of power, work with the crew to repair the old well and it's associated equipment, and clean, repair and upgrade the old beam weapons. In addition to that, repairing the computer and reactor cores, and upgrading any components he could on either one, took precedent. Over a period of three months in total he was working on the repairs and refits to the various needed electronic components.

Now it may seem like Andaros wasn't actually that busy from the previous explanation, but you try disassembling and reassembling an unfamiliar reactor that involves a powder keg such as a black hole and a white hole being kept in perfect alignment by advanced spacial fields, and see if it doesn't take you a great deal more than three months to make repairs to such a device. The technology was fairly steady thanks to the failsafe devices that choked the two spacial anomalies if things got out of line, but those failsafes didn't do much for a reaction that got out of control before a certain amount of energy built up in order to activate them.

These devices were initiallly powered by the very reactions they were meant to keep in check, so it was common sense in modern times to never power up such a reactor unless you could guarantee the failsafes were in working order, and that the reactor wouldn't malfunction, or lose containment, before such devices could build up enough of a charge to do their jobs once things went wrong. Once enough of a charge built up, they'd maintain the charge by use of the reaction until such a time as they were needed, whether in the case of an emergency, or simply being decommissioned. Thus, it was imperative that he make certain the reactor would at least make it to that point, and the failsafes would work, a tall order considering everything else he had to do.

Thankfully, Andaros had plenty of experience working with and repairing old, or outdated tech. If he had no such experience, Andaros would certainly have required a much greater amount of time to make the repairs and upgrades. Indeed, it was also a fairly small-scale reactor as well, otherwise it would have taken a lot more people than himself to repair.

The solar panels were comparatively easy, but it took some time to repair them as well. They had a large number of fried or damaged solar cells. These were much easier to repair, as the prison technicians had a large number of such devices, but it was still a time consuming process. Andaros actually replaced every single solar cell and the associated power gathering systems with much newer technologies that produced a great deal more power for the same sized panel.

Things went on like this until the three months had passed. By this time, the house was completed by the workers, and the "electronics" within the house were prepared, all that remained was starting up the reactor and Andaros could ensure the computer and reactor cores were working properly before doing trap and weapons testing. Assuming everything worked properly, everything would be fully active within the week and things would then settle down for him.

-----

Of course, things settling down had some dangerous possibilities for Andaros. A certain amorous giant for instance. Various things were already a bit complicated for him. Qora had insisted on Andaros sharing a room with her, albeit in the form of a two bed room with Andaros's bed being on the upper floor while Qora's larger bed was on the lower floor. This arrangement was due to the fact that the females of her race only ever took one mate, and by their standards the two were already married. Compared to the average female human, or any other race in the galaxy for that matter, Qora had gigantic breasts that threatened to suffocate Andaros every time his amorous mate forced herself upon him.

Andaros was helpless to change the situation due to Qora's father learning what had happened that night. The male giant had just shown up one day halfway through the building on the new manor's frame.

"Got a moment boy," her father had asked him as soon as he arrived.

Andaros had stuttered out that he could set his current work aside if he absolutely had to.

Qora's father's response was an echoing and extremely deep, "Good, let's take a walk."

It's not like Andaros dared to ignore the 20 foot high male, and he was too stunned by the difference in height between the two so his response had been half in shock, but he soon put things down. The two set off for a walk into the orchard surrounding the place, and ended up at the place the battle had occured.

"My name is Drolvrelfen," the giant told him, "but my daughter has told me about your difficulties with speaking, so you can just call me Drol."

"A-A-A-Andaros," he replied in a polite tone.

"So I've heard," Drolvrelfen responded kindly. "You know, if she hadn't told me that you always have an angry looking face, but you're actually not a hooligan, and very kind, I'd probably be acting like any other foolish father out there and treating you rather rudely," he added, laughing jovially. "Do you know anything about my race Andaros?"

"N-N-N-No S-S-S-Sir."

"Not many do, despite our presence throughout the galaxy," he responded with a sigh. "Why don't we sit down on the hillside and I will tell you a bit about us." After the two were seated, he continued, saying, "My people, the Drelvniir, are a bit secretive about a number of things pertaining to ourselves. Thus, there are a great number of rumours and misconceptions about ourselves. Most Drelvniir are actually rather enigmatic to the other races of the galaxy simply because we keep to ourselves most of the time. This is actually a result of a rather mild form of xenophobia our people have from our interactions with the other sentient species of the galaxy."

"Now, don't get me wrong. We don't so much fear the other races," Drol continued. "No, this form of xenophobia has to do with the way other races have treated the females of our species who decide to interact with them."

"You see, the females of our species are the only ones sometimes small enough to try to mate with the opposite sex of the other species of the galaxy. Female Drelvniir only ever mate with one male for the entirety of their lives, males, on the other hand, will often take multiple wives. You see, our people do not have any racial taboos against having multiple wives, but a problem arose when dealing with the other races. While our males will often take multiple wives, we will never abandon a female once we have mated. To us, mating is a sacred vow, binding ourselves to the other, and these bonds are honored by all of our kind."

"At the same time, our word is also held sacred in this regard, and we will never speak falsely when it comes to who we are bonded to. Thus, when a female says she is bonded to a male she will never speak falsely, and no male would dare to profane that bond and mate with a bonded female. Bonding for us is the equivalent of the marriages of the other races, only without the marriage rites, and the divorces your races seem to use so often."

"Truthfully, bonding for the females of our race is not a matter of choice. Once a female of our race mates, a special hormone is produced which causes her to be unable to mate with any other male for the rest of her life or she will become violently sick. If she continues to mate with males other than her original mate, she can even die from the side effects. This is not something our males have to face, and historically there have always been more females than males, so it works out."

"If it were not for the habits of the other races, there would likely be no xenophobia at all. After all, what do we have to fear from your races. The problem that arose when dealing with your races, was that our females would often be either raped, or married by the other races, the rapes could even end in death. As for the marriages, we have no problems with males taking other wives. No, the problem we have is with these males taking our females as wives, and then abandoning our females. That lack of solidarity is disgusting to our people."

"I have friends among your race, and understand that not all humans are this way, but I wanted to let you know about the situation," he concluded.

Andaros was silent for a bit, considering what he had been told. "Then I have even more to apologize to her for," he said with a sigh, "but I can promise I will not abandon her. Not now, and not ever." Of course, getting this sentence out with his usual stuttering was not nearly so easy, or coherent, but Drolvrelfen listened patiently to him, and allowed him to finish uninterrupted.

After hearing him out, the giant sat silently for a moment while he decyphered Andaros's response, before finally answering, "That's all I could hope for. I myself have only ever taken one wife, but as long as you'll stay with her I can accept you taking other wives. After all, it's common among our people. . . . . So, are you satisfied, Dear?"

"Well enough."

Andaros turned to see what he would consider a mousy looking female Drelvniir step out of an alcove in the roots surrounding the clearing. She was actually a foot shorter than Qora, who was apparently her daughter, and stood at 11 foot tall by his estimate.

"I do have some concerns however," she added. "I've looked at the plans for the manor, and have some requirements I have okayed with the construction manager. I also have some additional requirements for you, young man."

"First, the manor will have some adjustments made to it's layout such that the two of you will share the same room. There will be two levels, one where you can sleep in your own bed, and a second where Qora will sleep. There will be a separate staircase connecting the two so that you can go between these levels without having to leave the room."

"Second, you cannot ignore Qora's needs while within the bedroom, unless she is overdoing things, this is for both of your sakes. You see, females of our race need steady attention from their mates once they have been bonded. This doesn't mean we always need sex, but some kind of interaction and acceptance is needed. It also couldn't hurt you to have some regular interactions."

"Third, you cannot take other wives besides Reiya and her sister without my express permission, this is for two reasons. The reason I am willing to accept those two is because I already understand their character, and they are friends with my daughter. The other reason is that you do not want undo strife between your wives. Our people are a lot more accepting of polygamy than most of the races of the galaxy, but there can still be problems due to these relations, such as intense strife, so it's best to be cautious on this point."

"Fourth, if you are a criminal like all the press are saying, you must never harm my daughter, and must turn away from a life of crime. I absolutely won't allow my daughter's husband to be a criminal, and if you're going to harm her I'd rather just kill you now. Luckily, the boss believes you to be innocent of the crime you have been accused of, or you'd already be dead by my husband's hands."

"My final requirement is that you must have an official wedding ceremony once the manor is completed," she concluded her requirements, then proceeded to explain, "My main reason for this requirement is simply that I want to see a traditional human wedding ceremony, and Qora has often told me that she would love to have such a ceremony with the man she chooses as her husband. Since you're her mate, I want you to make her dream come true. Will you agree to these terms?"

At the time, Andaros neither had a reason to disagree, nor any inclination to do so. He didn't protest that he was innocent, and they probably wouldn't have believed him if he had said he was, so he didn't say anything in that regard. Andaros simply nodded his head, his face full of determination. Of course, his angry face ruined the expression, and the two giants couldn't resist laughing as his expression was quite comical when combined with his angry eyes.

"Hehe, I can see why Qora said it's fun to tease you," her mother said. "By the by, my name if Frona. Pleased to meet you, Andaros Terasien."

"We knew about the situation before we came,," Drolvrelfen explained when Andaros showed what could be said to be his questioning look. Frona just giggled at his facial expression, apparently she found it funny, "but we had to check. You know, to make sure you wouldn't harm her. . ."

"Frona was suspicious at first, but she also held me back and checked with the boss, and the Doc, before I confronted you. The Doc is an extremely good judge of character, and the truth, so we're able to accept your word, otherwise you'd be dead. I won't take chances with my daughter's future."

"He said you were an extremely honest sort, despite your thuggish looks. Still, if you harm my daughter, you will pay dearly, understood?" After Andaros had nodded his head firmly, she finished by saying, "We should be heading back, Qora is likely worrying for your safety," Frona told him. "Make sure you honor your agreement from this day forward. . . please."

The three headed back after that, and thus some adjustments were quickly made to the manor. Adjustments which Andaros found difficult, but felt he really didn't have the right to complain about considering what he had done. That meeting had been just over two months ago.

-----

It had been three months since Andaros arrived on the planet and he was finally done with the repairs and rebuilds, the only thing left to do was a full system test tommorrow. The reactor had no problems so far, but he had yet to test everything under a full load. The testing would last for around four hours at full load, both to test the reactor and the wiring, and to test the security systems for any errors. It was boring work, but Andaros was confident he could handle it, and he wanted to be certain no errors would appear in the near future. During the testing, he had arranged for everyone else to leave the orchard and wait inside the prison boundaries in case an explosion should occur.

There was only one problem for the plan. Well, there were actually two problems. Both Qora, and Reiya refused to leave the orchard when everyone else did. The two had different reasons, but both thought he'd need help if a problem should arise, but their other reasons were different from each other.

"I won't leave my husband. Life is too horrible for a drelvniir female who has lost her mate, so I won't leave," Qora said.

"Qora is my best friend," Reiya told him while looking away. "I won't just leave her in a lurch."

He wasn't sure what to think of their reasons, but he certainly wished they would both leave the site during testing. Unfortunately, for Andaros, neither young woman was willing to leave, so he was stuck with them there. Caera also refused to leave, a fact he couldn't help wondering at. The three completely ignored any of his requests to leave, so he was forced to give up on their leaving.

"Is it time Master?"

"Not yet, we'll begin in an hour."

A slightly metallic, yet somehow pleasant female voice range out through the manor. This was the computer core's consciousness addressing him. It had requested a female voice when he had offered to give it a voice. The reason it stated in it's familiar morse code was that a female voice was typically more soothing than a male's voice.

Siri, as he had now named the core, after an old Earth search engine, had been quite surprised to come online once again last week.it had found that it's situation was different, and it's configuration, but had found it's "voice box" was still present, as well as the reactor and various devices that were not parts of it's core. It also found it's eyes to no longer be in the same configuration, or indeed the same types as before, so it asked what was going on. Andaros quickly explained the situation, and the computer thanked him for giving it a new reason to continue existing.

After that they had a long talk, and Siri requested a human voice so that conversations would be easier. Once they had discussed the voice, Siri had chosen a female type, and things had proceeded from there. Andaros had a lot of experience with designing such coding due to an interest in Atificial Intelligence. In fact, his computer back on Meracene had an A.I. dwelling within, he hoped nothing bad had happened to it once he had been taken away from the planet. He even requested that it be checked on through Reiya and Qora, but was unaware of any response currently.

Not feeling very relaxed, he decided to take a walk to clear his head. Testing the reactor could be dangerous if he were not attentive enough. He left without telling anyone, or bringing Caera, not knowing the consequences that would arise from his actions.

-----

GrRrowRr watched the two-legs leave the cave they had created in the middle of the pink enrobed forest. He had been watching the two-legs since shortly after that frightening roar months ago. GrRrowRr was not a coward, unlike he thought the remaining members of his pride were, this young cat was intrigued by the activity he saw involving the two-legs going into and out of the deaded forest. The young Mroa was barely a week old, and highly curious, when he first started observing the two-legs who were entering the forest. He and his litter mates had just survived the attack of a vicious Grrrv which decimated what was left of their pride. The only reason the litter survived that attack is that the adults had hidden them within the roots of a small copse of trees while they tried to somehow wrestle some food from the two-legs who had left the safety of their numbers.

That first month after the adults were killed by that monstrosity was very hellish, and they feebly struggled to survive. They lost three of their eleven members during that first month due to failed attempts to hunt for food. The fact that they didn't lose more could be considered a miracle, but GrRrowRr didn't believe in those. Usually their parents, and the other adults of the pride, would protect and provide for the young Mroa during this vulnerable period of their lives, but there were no longer any adults around to do so. The struggles were intense, and had left the others traumatized, afraid to leave the relative safety of that small copse of trees.

GrRrowRr couldn't stand it, he hated that environment, and disliked his family members as a result. He went against their pride's customs and chose a name for himself, not only as a way to get back at the adults who had abandoned them, but to set himself apart from those scaredy cats. Now he was once again watching the two-legs that had somehow forced one of his kind into a blood debt. He couldn't allow this two-legs to live it was demeaning to his kind, it was demeaning to him! So he watched and waited for the perfect timing to deal with him. If only he would step away from the protection of the other two-legs, and that giant female two-legs. Then, he would deal with him as he saw fit!

Watching carefully, GrRrowRr noticed the two-legs leave the area of their cave, his time had come! He was elated, finally he would get rid of the hindrance, and get back at his elder for abandoning them! He would not let the fact that this two-legs looked terrifying hinder him! No, GrRrowRr was not afraid of anything! He would make this two-legs terrified, then kill him! He began to follow the two-legged male, already savoring his revenge for the scare he received two months ago.

-----

Andaros wandered through the woods trying to sort out everything that had happened in his mind, and come to terms with it. He couldn't quite understand why everyone here trusted him so much despite his looks, which had always gotten him treated like he would commit a crime the next moment. He was, of course, grateful to all of them, but it was still a very unusual situation for him to be in. Being the odd man out for so long was difficult, but now that he had a lot of attention, like he always wished, he had trouble getting used to it.

Despite his busy schedule, an hour a day was spent learning galactic sign language under Reiya, and at least one hour had to be spent with Qora as well. This did not include lunch or various other necessities, and Andaros just couldn't adjust to it. Everyone was very nice, and listened carefully in order to understand him, but getting adjusted to being around others after being alone for so long was tough. A part of the issue was that he half expected everyone to start treating him poorly the next moment, which complicated things.

Andaros wouldn't know it, but the others found Andaros quite insightful, and the prisoners he interacted with appreciated that he didn't bring up questions about their pasts himself, or judge them for what had happened in their pasts when they did happen to tell him. These were people who's circumstances had led to them being here in the prison, often against their own wishes.

One of the men was here because he had protected his family, and killed a very influencial politician in the process. The friends and family of the politician wanted to kill him, but didn't want it to be on their hands, since the death sentence had been outlawed on their planet. So, they sent him here instead, as killing another was also a life sentence without the possibility of parole. When the director learned of the situation, he actually smuggled the man's family to the prison, but kept them in the safety of the inner ring. They were allowed weekly visits, but only for a short while as anything more would be construed as favoritism.

Another was on the prison planet because she had been forced into prositution, and a wealthy, and very old, client had died while with her. The man's much younger wife was pissed to find that he had been sleeping around, and had a child with the young female, so she pressed charges as prostitution was entirely illegal on her world, and punishable by death. The prosecutor however, offered her a plea bargain in exchange for the names of any involved with the underground prostitution ring. In exchange, he sent her, and her infant daughter, to prison, but sent her here to appease the man's wife, the equivalent of another death sentence by his estimation.

The director, upon seeing a child arrive with the woman, was himself incensed, and had the woman, and prosecutor dealt with, permanently. Since galactic law prohibited those sent to the prison from leaving it's confines for at least 20 years, he had the woman and her child put in the inner ring until the daughter could be weened, at which point he had Reiya's sister, Meiya take care of the child. The same conditions were applied to her and her child as with the afore mentioned man, and the two were allowed a weekly visit. Meiya was known as Aunty Meiya to the girl, and Reiya was likewise Aunty Reiya, as a result of this arrangement.

The other two had similar circumstances, but with a lot more twists and turns. Both had killed, but the woman hadn't intended to, as for the man's story, it's more or less known what Andaros was told already.

Continuing his walk, he thought about Caera. He really didn't understand why she chose to stay around him. Perhaps it was the fact that she was young and had no others to rely on, but Andaros had a nagging suspicion that there was more to the situation than that. The saberlion female would often accompany him, and appeared to be watching everything around them cautiously. He didn't know the exact reason she did this, so he said nothing. Still, it was a very perplexing situation for the young man, and he continued to wonder about it.

There was also the situation with Qora's parents, he couldn't understand why the two would so readily entrust their daughter to him. He would have expected the two to at least keep her with them, and force him to have "dates" with her to satisfy the conditions for her to be safe. The current situation was quite taxxing on him, so he couldn't help thinking of these things. Being attached to someone you hardly knew was a bit difficult, but he certainly owed her due to his actions. He would not leave her in a lurch and go off to find another woman, but the reality was that what he had done made him somewhat uncomfortable with her.

Guilt is a powerful motivator, but it can also cause you to distance yourself from another without realizing it. Thankfully, Andaros noticed this, and he stopped himself from doing so, at least for now.

As he was thinking, he caught something approaching at high speed out of the corner of his eye. In the next moment, he felt something tear into the muscles of his right shoulder, and was then bowled over by whatever hit him.

"A-A-A-AAAAAAAHHHH!"