Not quite what I had in mind

I am home.

AuroraBlue is not.

I can't say this all went according to plan, or the outcome was what I desired. But it is what it is and, ultimately, I determined the one thing I needed to determine: my little girl is safe. At least where "safe" is defined as not in imminent danger of being attacked my Reavers, captured by an Alliance biomedical research team, or dieing from exposure to hard vacuum.

I'd managed to track her to one of those fortress-like households the locals liked to build out in the desert, where Cody was already discussing something with the locals. It sort of figures that he'd have found her himself then not bothered to send me a wave to say she was all right. Though after his absconding with a sleeping Lily, I'm not surprised. Just another broken link in the chain of trust at this point. I've kind of gotten used to it. The number of people I trusted was dwindling back towards the point it was at when I first left active duty.

Lovely.

The locals were. . . a product of their culture. I'd read a bit of the colonial culture on Al Raquis, but dealing with it face to face was a different matter. It was plain that somehow Tiny Dragon fit into their local mysticism. It was also plain that they really had no idea what was living in their midst. While, under other circumstances, it would have been interesting to explore the depths of their local mysticism, at the time I was in no mood to have someone try and out-Zen me.

I was probably a bad person for them to be talking about "personhood" to. They had no idea that AuroraBlue and Lily had legal status as people because of the work I'd done. They didn't realize it was an insult, which was why I didn't take it as one. Though, ultimately, they were right about one thing. I wasn't going to force AuroraBlue to do anything.

I'd come to bring her home, but only if she was willing. Finding out that she was OK was more important to me. If she chose to stay, for her own reasons, I would accept that. Dragons do as they do. It is our way. Or something like that. Something had drawn her here after leaving the destroyed mother bot in the wreckage of Hale's Moon. Something about singing sand and the Ardra AI that Lily had been obsessed with. It was all tied together somehow, but I didn't have enough of the pieces to wrap my brain completely around it.

The trip wasn't a total disappointment though, for when I left the keep to call Wave Equation down to take me back off-world, AuroraBlue came down off the roof and bade me follow her into the desert. Eventually, leading the way to a small encampment sheltered against a ridge not unreasonably far from the manor house itself.

What she told me, relayed, really, since she still wasn't really talking, was something else I'd have to wrap my head around. A piece of a bigger puzzle. A piece of a puzzle I'd been putting together since I first met Lily and came to accept artificial life as every bit as "real" as the naturally organic variety. But it wasn't something I would dwell on until later. Until after I returned to Dragon's Egg.

After spending one night watching over my sleeping little girl.

Tiny dragon mine

The keys to great mystery

Held in your small hand

Understanding waits

For now I must let you sleep

Time remains to dream