Page 56 of Pirate By Parrot

“You don’t know what that means.” Minerva smiled.

“Nope. But I finally have time to start learning, and Whee is calming me enough that I can remember important stuff.” She smiled. “I can breathe. I am not in pain anymore. I know that I will make it through the night and Marko is safe. Anything else is just a bonus.”

“What about Occorin?”

“He’s nice. He’s thoughtful and careful, sometimes too careful. At this point, I just want to jump him and strip him just to find how everything works at this scale.”

Minerva coughed and flicked her fingers.

“How long have they been behind me?”

“Two minutes. Nothing more.”

She turned, and Occorin looked slightly embarrassed, but Imbolt was grinning wide.

She muttered, “Gotta go, bye.” She stopped the call and looked at the two avatars. “How much did you hear?”

Occorin smiled slightly. “There is a perfectly good bed in your room if you want to check the specs of a Vendaran.”

Imbolt chuckled. “On that note, I am content that things are progressing in a positive manner, and the residence cannot be faulted. I will see you in five months, Melora.”

“See you. Hug Alyla for me.”

“I will. Vendar, glad that you are back in the universe again.” Imbolt’s eyes glowed, and he simply hovered and then flew away from the surface.

“Oh, right. Avatar.” She watched him fly off and then looked at Occorin-Vendar. “Fine. Down to basics, what actually happened to your people?”

Vendar’s eyes widened, but he sighed. “I made them powerful and arrogant and irresistible. I occupied myself with minimizing natural disasters and pretended the people just loved them, not that they were hurting their populations. So, a council of avatars was convened, and I had to destroy my people. I didn’t kill them; I isolated them and sterilized them. They died out in less than a century, and my worlds went quiet. That was two thousand years ago, by your reckoning. I have been silent ever since, just maintaining my worlds. When Zanican mentioned the project, I put my genetic requirements out there. You appeared, and it was a scramble to get my one remaining body out of cold storage and functioning, so I used a cybernetic form to get the house ready and rejoined Occorin when we were ready for you.”

She blinked. “So, you had to destroy the people you had designed to live on your worlds because they were unstable and bratty, and yes, I have an idea of what they got up to because people fall all over themselves to do whatever I need, and some needs are louder than others.”

Occorin looked at her cautiously. “You are referring to sex?”

“I am not referring to board games. Why do you think I play so much basketball? I need to equalize the blood flow.” She looked at him. “How do we stop the next generations from becoming the same kind of self-entitled assholes?”

“The next generations will have something that my first gen didn’t have. A mother. I have no doubt that you will pull in any misbehaviour. We will also have high-grav Yaluthu for those who have emotional issues now. That is a lovely piece of chance, but I am holding onto anything that will offer a calm future.”

She smiled. “I like the uncertainty. I can live with that. You can adapt to uncertainty.”

Occorin smiled. “You are willing to try with me?”

“I am willing to adapt with you.”

He grinned and eased her toward him, making eye contact with the Yaluthu and Marko. He angled his head and kissed her.

Her body reacted like she thought it would. She had been remade for him and that was what she was feeling. She sighed as the kiss started and kept going.

She saw a flash of light in the sky, broke the kiss, and shouted, “Stop peeping, Imbolt!”

There was a thread of laughter in the air as they returned to their first kiss on their first world on their first day together.

* * * *

SIX MONTHS LATER.

Mel watched the shuttle slowly descend to the spaceport, which she just considered the back-backyard. Vendar spoke softly in her thoughts.Are you ready to greet the new arrivals, Melora?

“Yup. I am going.” She used a bit of the energy that he had provided her with and flew slowly to the shuttle area as it settled.

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