Motherhood

I never really expected to be a mom. Not really. While there was the finite possibility I'd settle down with some decent man and raise a family, the reality is I've settled down with an exceptional women and neither of us had ever considered, let alone discussed, the possibility of having children. Technically, of course, it was possible. The technology to mix the genomes had been around for generations but was rarely used. Living on the Rim? Not really something to consider.

We'd adopted Lily for myriad reasons. Not the least of which was to protect one of our citizens and give her proper legal standing. It was a practical solution. Of course, the fact that we loved our not-cat construct made it much more a matter of family than convenience. Legally? Who knew. It had never been challenged and, truth be told, chances were she would fall more closely under the laws that governed Krenshar than the rare genetic constructs. Lily was fully synthetic. At least physically. And, like Krenshar, she would probably be considered under the same statutes that let us give Kren the same Citizen's standing the rest of us had.

We'd been a family. Albeit an odd one. But Td had taken off for parts unknown, and Imrhien had followed her own path away from Hale's Moon, leaving me and Sabrina to be Lily's parents. Never mind Lily had a maturity level, at the time, somewhere between a pre-schooler and a surely teen, and was beyond any sort of conventional parental control. We'd treated her as our own.

Aurora changed that. When we'd adopted Lily, we hadn't expected to be Sofubo so soon. In fact, I don't think we expected to be grandparents ever. I think Aurora may have been more than Sabrina was ready for. I know she was more than I was ready for. But we'd accepted her, at least I had, as Lily's daughter. Legally, Lily being considered a minor, not to be confused with the other miners, meant that as her parents we were legally responsible for Aurora too.

Now that Aurora was fully organic, things had changed again. At least on some level. Now she really was the little girl she appeared to be. Where we'd had an elemental force of nature, a child carrying her own personality and that of the Blue Man AI, we now had just the child. At least it seemed so.

No wonder Sabrina was taken aback by it all. Lily, now fully synthetic, probably needed us less as a parent, where Aurora, now fully organic, needed us far more. It was just too much. I don't think either of us were ready for this. Perhaps more confusing to me, personally, was the change I'd seen in myself. When I'd first come to Hale's Moon I'd never have considered taking on these responsibilities. I'd had no duty to protect an orphan. I was not honor bound to take on this responsibility. But I had. Willingly.

Now, though, it was complicated. Sabrina and I weren't really in a position to be full time parents. Hale's had its creche that took care of the handful of orphans we had living here, like Jin. But Aurora needed something more. She'd be too vulnerable here. She was an anomaly on multiple levels, and raising her here would be difficult at best, fatal at worst.

So many questions. So few answers. Our little girls in the balance.

We'd find the solution. We always had. We always will.

It's what we do.