Page 28 of Accounting for Drakes

“Certainly. He’s right here with his mate.”

The group murmured, and Nanny smiled brightly at Abil as she came and sat next to her. “So, are you having fun?”

“This is much nicer than being alone in space.”

Nanny sighed. “That is true. I loved my time alone, but knowing you are safe is so much better now, rather than hacking into Mbrak’s systems.”

Abil blinked. “That was you? It was driving him nuts.”

“He is as much my grandfather as yours, little Abil. It was fun to taunt him.”

“But... you weren’t raised on the station.”

“I was not. My parents lived on a world with two drakes, and that is where they found me. We travelled to see Mbrak when I was small, and I remembered him. I asked him about you when you were taken into his care, and he told me that I was one of his line as well.”

Abil hugged her. “I always felt a connection to you.”

“Me, too, little bug.”

Abil laughed and didn’t let go.

Yorath came back after giving his testimony and said, “The brothers are being dealt with. They will not walk their world again.”

Nanny exhaled with a shudder. “Who is getting their territory?”

“It is being assigned. Their people will not suffer.”

She nodded. “Good. It was a good society, good people. My parents are still there, I think. Oh, maybe not.”

Abil asked, “Why not?”

“They weren’t active drakes, and I have been gone three hundred years. It is likely that they have passed.” She looked resigned.

“I think we can check. Can’t we?”

Yorath looked at them and nodded. “What are their names?”

Nanny provided the names, and he went to the terminal and went to work. Abil hugged her friend and cousin. She felt closer to Nanny than any of the ladies on Blue Station had ever been with her, and being raised by her was just part of it.

Nanny turned to her. “I felt it, too. That’s how I found your shuttle and then found you.”

“It was easier mind to mind.”

“It was, but I had to be so careful so you wouldn’t learn too many curse words. You learned them anyway.” She grinned.

Abil smiled. “I remember memorizing all the configurations of excrement to understand what you meant. It wasn’t until the station that I understood it wasn’t about tracking.”

“The tracking was fun. You were good at finding, if not catching, until you were eight.”

Abil laughed, and they chatted about her early hunting and the songs that Nanny crooned to her.

Yorath called out, “They are still alive. They are tending to a small outpost in the mountains, but your parents are alive.”

Nanny slumped. “That is good. I had forgotten about them when I was shifted. It was only when I was back on two feet that I remembered them.”

Abil paused. “That was the same with me and my journey here, but my beast knew where she was going. She let me see the stars.”

“That was important. Mine let me eat them.”

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