Defining quiet.

Quiet is a relative thing with a definition that depends on circumstance. As the town's Mayor and, effectively, Colonial Governor, for whatever that's worth on a world with about six hundred people at any given time, "Quiet" translates to "No one is shooting at us." There's other connotations, like "no one is in my office screaming at me," or "we're not trying to negotiate with the Alliance," or "no one's set anything useful on fire - again."

As an individual, quiet is just that. The absence of sound. I can achieve that relatively easily. Seal Wave Equation's main hatch and turn everything to 'silent' mode, and my own heartbeat sounds quite loud. While such silence can be conducive to meditation, it's not really my preference. I actually miss some sound in an otherwise quiet setting. The sounds of a forest, or beach. Birds. Insects. Wind through the trees. Waves against a beach. I can simulate any of them, of course. But it's just a simulation. An illusion. They are not the sounds of Hale's Moon.

From the perspective of a parent, the definition changes once again. In this case, quiet means your younguns aren't getting into trouble. For me, that's been a special challenge. Lily and AuroraBlue aren't exactly your run of the mill younguns. If they were normal younguns, Lily'd still be a toddler and AuroraBlue'd still be working on rolling over under her own power. But they weren't. Artificial life didn't play by the same development rules the rest of us did.

Lily was still Lily. Mostly. There were some subtle changes in her behavior since she reintegrated with AuroraBlue, but they were hard to define. More at a gut level than something I could describe specifically. Her relationship with Cody was evolving, though I still had a deep seated feeling that those two would never have a normal life together. How could they? I wanted what was best for Lily. If that coincided with what was best for Cody, so much the better.

Defining the changes in AuroraBlue was far harder. My relationship with my magomusume had never been, well, normal. There was a phase, while she was "broken," where it seemed the only person she was actively avoiding crossing was me. Respect? Fear? Saving the best for last? I'd never know. I don't think I really wanted to know. But things were different now. Kind of.

She was developing rapidly, but was still a toddler. Unfortunately, she was a highly mobile toddler and had already regained much of her intellect. Even with eyes on her, it was impossible to keep her safe and treat her like a normal child. In fact, I'd go so far as to postulate that her cooperation with us as 'parents' in the days leading up to her reintegrating with Lily was conscious and intentional.

Which implied that her returning to the idle sections of the mines to 'play' was also entirely conscious and intentional. Only a handful of people remembered what had buried itself beneath the surface of Hale's Moon, and it appeared our Tiny Dragon was one of them.

She was, legally at least, Lily's daughter. Her cub. It wasn't my place to force Lily to treat her like a normal child and keep her at the surface. Younguns here played in the mines all the time. Got hurt doing it from time to time, to be sure, but it was a fact of life. Parents got used to it. Gave them a whupping when they needed it, let them be children the rest of the time. But none of that made it any easier to step back and let AuroraBlue have her rein.

It made things a little less quiet.

It had me listening for sounds I didn't want to hear.