Northern Star

Hopefully all (most) things will become clear in this chapter. Sorry for the slow start - I've thoughtfully provided character development, plot advancement, sex, and violence. This chapter was a tough one, but it should better show you what to expect from Northern Star in the future. Thanks for the reviews, as always!

Psyence - This chapter will hopefully set things straight. I should have released 1, 2, and 3 as one chapter.
Skyler - Almost. The question that the answer to that question raises will give rise to the second-to-last story arc.
Ennead - :>

This chapter largely explains what's going on - the chapter after this completes the picture of what's happening on Ranek's end.

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"How many planets are there in the solar system, Ranek?" Praetor Culexus said.

"Whuh?" Marcus had been staring at the Emperor, lost in thought. When you got over the shock of seeing the Emperor Himself, it turned out he was a very average-looking man, if significantly on the tall side. Bald, dark eyed, square jawed... you could almost say that the same features on anyone else would make them look nondescript.

"Ranek!" Culexus snapped, clicking his gloved fingers. "How many planets?"

"Oh, er, fourteen," he replied.

The Emperor smiled benignly. "Asenath, do you agree?"

"Yes, lord," Asenath said meekly. She had been blushing heavily ever since the two rulers had confronted them.

"Time to let you in on the secret," the Emperor said in his calm, deep, airline-pilot voice. "There are over twenty planets in our solar system."

Marcus stared. The Emperor of Man had personally confronted him to spin bullshit? Was he dreaming?

"Even if my word were not absolute truth and law," the Emperor said, a little sternly, "I would not tell you things that were not true. Perhaps I will withold things; if I do, it is for your welfare."

"Do you doubt the word of your Emperor, Ranek?" Culexus said, his gaze boring into Marcus.

"Uh, no, I mean, I do, but..." Ranek sputtered.

"How many planets are in the solar system, Ranek!?"

"Over twenty, my lord!"

The Emperor raised a hand, and Marcus and Culexus fell silent. "You will not need proof, Marcus. I am going to send you and Asenath to one of them. You see, the Imperium's capacity for space flight goes far beyond the mining colony on our planet's moon. We have been traveling to distant planets for over three hundred years.

"Long ago, when I discovered that I could see the future, I dedicated myself to using my power to prevent catastrophe, and to guide my people in peace and prosperity. When I discovered that my power was not unique, I set about training others to carry on, in the event I was killed. As the net of psychic power grew larger and clearer, some psychics began to have visions of things that weren't happening here on Gaia. I wondered if perhaps their visions were of the past, or of the incomprehensibly distant future, but I was at a loss.

"At about the same time, I ordered the construction and launch of several probes to investigate our local space area. At that point, we knew that the psychic activity here on Gaia was inhibiting our ability to stargaze. To view things as near as our own solar system, we had to use deep-space telescopes, free from the psychic interference of our planet. When the probes began to report back, we realized that there were localized areas of blankness in orbit around our sun. The probes would pass near a zone that no energy could be detected through, like a black hole. They were like huge shadows, drifting in orbit around the sun. The astrophysicists determined that the areas were not black holes by studying the gravitation of the solar system as a whole. I decided to send a group of probes directly at the zones, to find out what happened."

"What happened?"

"Before they burned up, we received sporadic images of liquid water oceans, white clouds, and green landmasses."

"What does it all mean?"

"Well, the astrophysicists had an idea when the data was received. It was a good, logical one. But I had an idea of my own, and I was right. You see, psychic activity does not just block the view out. It blocks the view in, as well." The Emperor produced a remote control from his robes, and used it to activate the courtroom's viewscreen.

On the viewscreen there appeared a video feed from a slowly rotating camera. The camera had been mounted at a strange angle in some sort of dense, brightly colored jungle brush. There was no sound.

As the camera panned, it slowly turned on one of the strangest things Marcus had ever seen. It was like some kind of ambulatory plant, like a huge, yellow eggplant with eyes that watched the camera warily and a visible toothed mouth at the top of its body. The large, broad leaves growing from its trunk swayed slowly in tune with the leaves from normal plants around it. As Marcus watched, the plant-thing slowly crept towards the camera. Just as the camera was about to pan away, the creature struck with alarming speed. It produced vine-like appendages from nowhere and grabbed the camera, pulling it into its mouth. There was some static, and then blackness.

Marcus gaped. "What in the name of the Emperor's left nut... sorry lord," he said hastily. Beside him, Asenath seemed deeply and profoundly unnerved.

"What do you think of it?" the Emperor asked, as though he had shown them a pet fish. "That video feed was from a probe that actually touched down on one of the planets. It was able to get out those few seconds of footage before its signal booster ran out of power."

"I hope you liked it," Culexus cut in, "because you get to meet it. The locals call it Victreebel."

"Are you telling me that thing lives in our solar system? That's a fucking alien! I don't want to go anywhere near it! Wait, the locals? What do you mean by locals?"

"Actually, it's not an alien," said the Emperor. "It was on that planet before humanity was."

"Humanity?" Marcus almost shouted.

"Yes, children," the Emperor said, "humanity inhabits that planet, and several others. And they need your help, though they don't know it."

Asenath looked sick. "Daddy, you're going to make me go there?"

"You will not set foot there," said Culexus. "However, you will be accompanying Ranek in the ship, and you will be needed to monitor him from above."

"The ship?"

"The Northern Star," the Emperor said contentedly.


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Professor Cypress looked through the mirrored glass into the interview room. Inside, his good friend Dana Redwood was talking to Celia.

Celia was many things. When Cypress looked at her, he saw a well developed female Kirlia, demonstrating high responsiveness, full formation of the "skirt" structure, and healthy formation of the parietal fins that adorned her head - markers a Breeder would find highly pleasing. However, her behavior belied problems. Every minute or so, Dana would ask her a question that would cause her to bristle - her claws would extend and the fins on her head would darken. When she was not agitated, she would assume an unusually demure stance, staring at the floor and trembling slightly. The Ralts family was normally a touchy, skittish one, but this one was too much so. This one had been hurt.

Cypress had read enough of Dana's previous publications to know how.

Dana Redwood's field of study was one that was, like a train wreck, darkly fascinating. She performed psychological studies on Pokemon that had been victims of physical or sexual abuse by their Trainers. Her shocking study on physical abuse in stage-one Fighting-types had revealed a troubling truth - Pokemon abuse was vastly more common than had been thought. Her studies of Fighting-types suggested that as many as seventy percent of all Human-trained Pokemon had suffered maltreatment in various forms. The most common kinds of maltreatment involved ignorance. Many Trainers failed to realize that owning a Pokemon meant making it part of your family. They felt the need for love and attention as acutely as any human - in the case of some species, more so - and many Pokemon simply didn't receive it. The so-called "Pokemon masters," people who attempted to catch one of every species, were the worst offenders. This was far from the worst kind of maltreatment, though. Normal and Electric-types were at increased risk for physical violence. Some Normal-types like Meowth usually abandoned their Trainers after being beaten, but they were one of the few species that could. Most instinctively saw their Trainers as family members, and refused to leave, even if it resulted in death...or worse. It had been known for thousands of years that Dark and Psychic-types were unusually vulnerable to Trainer sexual abuse. It had been thought for centuries that Psychic-types, along with Dark-types, were capable of bewitching their owners into mating. Only a hundred years ago was it recognized that the increased frequency of sexual abuse in these types was mainly because the superstition allowed rapists to get away with their crimes by claiming witchery. Unfortunately, the superstition had held fast into the Age of Reason, and there were still Pokemon rape cases that went unreported because the local clergy took the law into their own hands. In turn, Dana studied these happenings, because understanding them was the only way to prevent them.

"Weird, huh?" Dana's voice shook him from his thoughts. He turned to see that she had appeared next to him.

"How'd it go?"

"Not much progress. Minerva's taking her back to her quarters, I've told her to spend some time with her." Minerva was another abuse victim, a Gardevoir that was confiscated by the police and scheduled to be put to death under Hoenn's draconian stray urban Pokemon laws before Dana had adopted her and brought her back to Kanto two years previously. Minerva worked as Dana's lab assistant, reading minds and translating Pokemon speech. She had been taught how to speak telepathically before Dana adopted her; Dana had told Cypress that she wished she knew how it was done. Minerva, unfortunately, refused to give details of her earlier life.

'You'd never think Ralts is so rare, the way everyone seems to have one,' thought Cypress. 'Maybe it's because I see them all here. Maybe this kind of thing crosses the mind of every male Trainer who has one. They're certainly pretty creatures.'

"How long have you had her?" Cypress asked casually as the two headed back to the laboratory's break room. Dana had worked late again, and the building was empty save for the security guards on the first floor. The sleep observation crew wouldn't be arriving for a couple hours. His heart began beating a little faster.

"Two weeks," Dana said as they arrived inside the break room under the pretense of retrieving Dana's things from her locker. Perhaps it wasn't exactly pretense - she would take things from her locker - but that wasn't all she would do. "Trainer's out on bail, and she knows it, so we can't get her to go outside. She's been having trouble with paranoia, seems to think the Trainer will be around to grab her. She insists that he's close, but that's a pretty normal delusion following trauma." Suddenly, with breathtaking ferocity, she turned to him and shoved him forcibly onto a low, torn couch. "But I don't want to talk shop right now," she said in a husky whisper, and began unbuttoning his pants.

This was almost routine, but never boring. Dying evening light shone through the window, lighting up her shoulder-length red hair as she undid his belt. The extreme frequency of their sexual encounters belied a deep emotional connection and a very complicated relationship. They were, as it was said, on and off. They would try dating for a while, then give up after a month when things got weird. They had met at age thirteen, and the thirteen years since then had seen them in this position - and many others - countless times. They had both tried being together, they had both tried being apart. Twice, they had even talked about marriage. Cypress loved her deeply, possibly more than anyone in the world, but something just didn't fit when they were dating - each other, or other people. Every effort to break the status quo, it seemed, was futile.

'Perhaps,' Cypress thought as Dana's head descended on his crotch, 'I don't want it to change.'

Things were simple this way. Be friends with benefits. Whatever. But in his heart, Cypress sometimes wished it would change. Sometimes he wished it would finally just swing one way or the other. He was afraid, though, that if things did change, it might mean Dana had found someone who could take her mind off him.

And as Dana hitched her skirt and mounted him, he mused that this had never felt as natural with anyone else. Perhaps it was just the closeness of their relationship, but Cypress felt as though he would never find anyone quite like her. Their encounters were natural and intimate. Cypress felt that though he had had sex with other women, he had only ever made love to one.

He grabbed her waist and held tightly, encouraging her thrusts. She let go of him and began squeezing her own ample breasts, tossing her head back and moaning softly. After ten or so minutes of this, she undid her blouse and unclasped her bra, returning her hands to his shoulders.

"Unh...Dominic...please..." At her behest, he took her nipple in his mouth and began a pattern of bites and licks that he knew would set off her final countdown. She responded by leaning forward to bite his shoulder and neck in a way that would finish him. He surfaced momentarily for air and almost shouted with surprise - his eyes had locked with Minerva's large red ones, peeking at him from the slightly open door.

'How the hell long has she been there?' Cypress thought in shock. He received another shock when he noticed that Minerva's right hand was hidden under the front of her dress, while her left was clutching the door frame. 'Is this...voyeurism?' Cypress thought in wonder. 'Is she doing what I think she's doing?' He wanted to admonish her, to stop her, but his intellectual core would not let him. The part of his heart that demanded answers to everything, the part that made him a true scientist, demanded that he use the opportunity to investigate her behavior. He felt his face heat up. There was another part of him, one he did not discuss, that wanted her to watch. That part of him wanted to taunt her, to make her want it too... Between the scientist and the savage within him making demands, his ability to consider consequences was thoroughly muffled.

'See anything you like?' Cypress thought as loudly and clearly as he could. There was no response - apparently mental communication didn't work that way.

He changed his method. With his eyes still locked with Minerva's, he lifted Dana's skirt and slapped her ass, creating a resounding crack. Dana gave a high gasp of pleasure; Minerva's breath hitched. Dana heard the noise and began to turn around, but Cypress stopped her just in time with a deep kiss. 'You love this, don't you, you pervert?' he thought, a crazed grin breaking across his face.

He was about to blow. He had to try one more thing, quickly. Still maintaining his stare, he leaned forward and sharply bit Dana's neck. This time Dana made enough noise to muffle Minerva's sharp gasp. Minerva's face was now quite red, and the twitching of her right wrist was increasing in speed. Time for the big finish. He grabbed her hips and began greatly increasing the already violent pace, shaking Dana to the point where she grabbed him tightly just to hold on. 'Come on,' he thought, staring at Minerva and grinning, 'come for me. You know you want to! I'll get you both off!'

Cypress felt the warning signs of an imminent orgasm, had to stifle a scream of his own when the moment came. He always tried to get Dana off at the same time he came, and tonight he did well - Dana's walls convulsed around him and her back violently arched as she shivered and gasped under the force of her orgasm. Through the haze of satisfaction, Cypress noticed that Minerva had bit her own lip to muffle a cry, and the bit of thigh he could see through the opening in her dress was glistening with fluid.

'I'll be damned,' thought Cypress. 'They're...they're not so different.' As Dana leaned forward to rest for a moment, Cypress realized what had just happened. Minerva had watched them together - and gotten off on it! The implications were enormous. Scientifically, it meant that humans were not unique in certain activities revolving around pleasure. The concept of fetish behavior was not uniquely human! He had to tell a behaviorist!

A behaviorist like Dana.

He was filled with a sinking feeling. If things had been weird before, they were going to be insane now. Dana kept Minerva outside her Pokeball at almost all times. Cypress and Minerva definitely saw a lot of each other. What if she found out? Of course she would have to find out, it could lead to a breakthrough in her studies! But...how was he supposed to tell her?

'Hey, Dana, Minerva was watching us fuck. In fact, she got off to it. And I goaded her on.'

He had watched her do it. He had allowed her...encouraged her...teased her... By Arceus! He had played a game with her just then. He tried to stop his own mind from connecting the dots, but couldn't. He could not honestly tell himself that little game was purely scientific. He had wanted to tease her. At its core, three-player teasing was a game of jealousy. He had wanted Minerva to be jealous. He had wanted Minerva to want him.

He didn't know what was more troubling - the fact that he had wanted Minerva to want him, or the possibility that Minerva might harbor feelings for one or both of them. He wondered how many of their previous encounters she had seen.

"Hey, Dom," Dana muttered contentedly. "I'm starvin'."

"Yeah," he said quietly, "me too."

"Wanna go get some Sinnohan pasta?"

"Pretty specific there."

"Yeah, well, it's what I want."

"No complaints here."

"Alright." Dana extricated herself from Cypress and adjusted her clothes. After a moment of an activity that he did not watch, Dana threw him a box of tissues. He set about cleaning up.

"Yeah... Sinnohan pasta with Oran sauce and Magikarp fillet. That'll hit the spot. And the pasta that looks like little bow ties for Minerva, she loves those!"

As Cypress glanced at the empty door frame, he let himself drift in thought. 'Is there a way for this not to freak anybody out or hurt anyone's feelings? Really,' he mused, 'by "anyone" I mean Dana.'

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"You two are kind of freaking me out."

Cypress looked up from his stuffed pasta. Dana was smiling quizzically; Minerva was staring at her food, her green hair obscuring her face. "Say somethin', already!" Dana kicked him lightly under the booth's table.

"Sorry," he said, "just watching the sun go down." Though the large restaurant-front windows, he had a wide-angle view of the road, and the buildings behind it.

"So you've got x-ray vision now, huh?"

"Been using it on you for years."

Dana blushed slightly, and nudged Minerva. "Can you think of a way to get Dom to say something less stupid?"

"No," was Minerva's terse reply.

"Lighten UP, babe!" Dana began to massage Minerva's shoulders, and Minerva shot upright, blushing heavily. "I know work's tough, but...let's try not to take it home with us."

"Anymore," Cypress said, trying to relax the mood, "home's as rough as work."

"Like hell." Dana leaned across the table, keeping one arm around Minerva. "You just show up every day because you like to use your x-ray vision on us. Right?"

Cypress smiled. "I spend my entire lunch hour peeking in on you two."

"Filthy immigrant," Dana said, smiling widely. Even Minerva smiled a bit, which relaxed him greatly.

Dana Redwood was the only human being to ever call him "filthy immigrant" and still find herself able to walk afterwards. Unfortunately, she was far from the first to try. Cypress came from a family of immigrants from the Sevii Islands, known in Kanto as the Orange Islands. His dark skin, lightly colored hair, protruding, hooked nose, and turquoise eyes set him apart. The government's term for his race was "ethnically Arcean" - the local term for it was "cookie."

Arceanism was the oldest religion in the world, but was followed by fewer than thirty percent of the world's population. The "ethnically Arcean" were the people of the equator, Arceanism's primary constituency. The people of the inhabited northern hemishpere - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and a few smallish landmasses - were the "ethnically Jirachian," and the majority of humanity.

It had always escaped Cypress how the two faiths found themselves unable to get along. They both worshiped Arceus as the Lord of Creation, following the tenets of the Old Codices, a collection of ancient texts that were said to be the living word of Arceus. The Jirachians simply thought that Jirachi was the prophet of Arceus, and had a collection of books that they attached to the Old Codices, unimaginatively named the New Codices, supposedly written by Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie, about the life and works of Jirachi. They practiced what was in effect the same religion. The best guess Cypress had was that the violence was a result of ethnicity rather than religion.

Something about the faiths just failed to sync. The news called feelings between the two faiths, and by extension the two races, "tension." "Burning, vitriolic loathing" would be a bit less of an understatement. Fifty years ago, a spate of terrorist attacks originating from Arcean Islander fundamentalists against the Devon Corporation's offices had resulted in Hoenn's placing of severe economic sanctions against the islands as a whole. Over time, the restrictions were relaxed, but the island economy never truly recovered. The truth was that tourism was popular simply because Seviian currency was so weak that people could vacation there for less than half the cost of vacationing elsewhere.

As it was, after a fifteen-year tourism boom, the Islands were running out of money again. Some gang from Hoenn had disturbed Kyogre three years earlier during the summer, and his activity had caused typhoons that devasted large areas of Sevii. Millions of dollars were lost to the repair of the resorts and casinos that funded Sevii, and the flimsy government could not sustain itself. In addition, Southern Kanto's heavy use of artificial fertilizers had created an area in the Island's sea territory completely devoid of oxygen, and many fish Pokemon had died, critically damaging food production. Seviians were destitute, starving, and furious, and it was in these conditions fundamentalist demagogues thrived. Other Arcean countries looked on in terror - if it happened to Sevii, there was no reason it couldn't happen to them - and talk of preemptive action arose.

On the other side, the Jirachian nations looked on fearfully at the disaster that seemed imminent. They attempted not only to make immigration more difficult, but to also make life for immigrants so hard that they would just go back home. Violence along ethnic lines was becoming troublingly common in urban areas. Some shops would not allow Cypress to enter; others would not allow Dana in, and the owners of these places would always admonish one for consorting with the other.

The truth of the matter was that Cypress did not show up at Dana's office for a booty call. He was there because Grog, his Sableye, was much more powerful than Minerva, and he had been walking the two home for some time. He would have just sent Grog, but Grog frightened Minerva, so Cypress kept him in his ball as much as possible. He hoped he would never have to summon Grog to protect them.

'Nice car,' Cypress thought, looking out the windows at a large purple lowrider passing slowly.

"How's dinner, Nerv?"

"It's...wonderful. I love it when we go here," came Minerva's psychic voice.

"It was so nice of Dom to pay our way, wasn't it?"

"Woah, woman, hold on." Cypress was jerked from his reverie to see Dana grinning wolfishly. Arceus, but he loved that woman.

Minerva laughed. It was always strange to hear her laugh, since her laughter came from her vocal chords, unlike her speaking voice, and the two were slightly different in pitch. It was endearing to hear her laugh, though; she was so damn quiet all the time, it was nice to get a reaction out of her.

Get a reaction out of her.

Cypress twitched, remembering the events of earlier, and took his mind off of it by admiring the rims of a large purple lowrider driving slowly past the restaurant.

'Isn't that the same one from before?' Cypress thought.

The car came to a dead stop.

He barely noticed Minerva had stopped laughing. "Something's wrong," she said abruptly.

Time slowed down for Cypress as the side windows of the car rolled down, and a pair of brown fists clutching machine pistols reached out.

"EVERYONE DOWN, RIGHT NOW!" Cypress shrieked wildly as he dove under the table. He reached up and grabbed Dana and Minerva by their upper garments. He dragged them under the table a split second before it happened.

It might have gone on for a second, or it might have lasted an hour, Cypress wasn't sure. The onslaught was loud and shocking and utterly terrifying. Glass, wood, metal, and people were splintered to pieces, ripped apart by the hail of hateful bullets. Dana was clutching his shirt, Minerva was screaming in her real voice, and Cypress himself wished above all else it would just stop.

As suddenly as it started, it was over. He thought he heard the screech of tires, but it might have been the ringing in his ears. He realized he had somehow leapt on top of the women. He peeked out from behind the booth, and crawled, low and slow, out from cover. After a moment, he stood up, and pulled Dana and Minerva out from their hiding place.

"Are either of you hurt?" Cypress asked, looking them both over. Dana had a frozen look of surprise on her face and Minerva was crying hysterically, but neither had been hit.

"Dana. Dana." He shook her slightly, and she came around. "Call the cops. Tell them to send ambulances. I'm gonna try to stabilize the wounded." She nodded, and Cypress started toward the back of the shop.

Cypress stepped through the door of the kitchen. He suddenly felt sick - the old lady who cooked all the pasta was lying on the floor with two in the gut. Her husband cradled her, stroking her hair. She was unconcious but breathing - he might be able to do something.

"Sir!" The old man looked up at him. "Sir, please step back. I'm a physician, I can help her."

"Get out."

Cypress stopped cold. He had heard the old man speak before, and he did not remember the man's voice being so rough or furious.

"Sir, I told you, I'm a doctor. I can..." Cypress was cut off as the man reached, one handed, under the counter to produce a shotgun. Still cradling his wife, he racked the gun. The room was suddenly silent except for the soft plinking of the ejected shell.

"Arcean scum. Filthy foreigner! Get OUT! GET OUT, YOU FUCKING COOKIE SCUM!" Spit flew from the man's lips, and his face went purple. Cypress slowly backed out of the kitchen door with his hands raised. As the spring-loaded door closed in front of him, he turned around to narrowly duck a wooden chair being wielded by a furious white man.

"Why can't you fucking beach boys just GO HOME!" the man shrieked. "Go home, and murder each other instead of innocent people! I hope you all fucking kill each other off!" The man swung again, but Cypress caught the chair and spun it out of the man's grip.

"There are wounded people here. They are too important for your bullshit. Get out of my way," he said, withdrawing a Pokeball from his pocket and summoning an unusually large Sableye, "or I will let Grog deal with you ."

The man took one look at Grog and stepped aside. Grog was a strange one, a Sableye almost four feet tall and studded with tiny, brightly colored gemstones across his back. The razor-sharp teeth, diamond-hard claws, and eerily lifeless eyes made Sableye an intimidating species. Grog's features were exaggerated as a result of the fastidious care Cypress provided for him, making him downright terrifying to anyone who had not met him.

Grog opened his mouth and issued a hair-raising screech that put all contest beyond question. Cypress was glad for the intimidation factor; Grog has never attacked a human, and Cypress wasn't sure he would be willing to. Without further interruption, he descended upon a little boy who had been crushed under a china cabinet shaken down by the gunfire. He began to sweat, finding no pulse, no respiration, and three broken ribs. Damn, but this would be tricky.

He carefully pressed his foreknuckles against the boy's sternum, compressing the heart without exacerbating the rib damage. After eight thrusts, he attempted to fill the boy's lungs with air.

Nothing.

Eight more thrusts and a breath. Eight and a breath. Eight and a breath. With applied effort, he got the kid's heart beating again, but with no respiration, it would be useless.

"Come on, kid... It's all you now," he muttered. He leaned back to lock eyes again with Minerva, who had drifted over at some point and was now kneeling across from him. Dana stood above her, clutching her face and staring at the child.

Minerva leaned forward and touched her forehead to the boy's, and an unsettling stillness filled the room. It was as though everything had simply stopped.

The boy coughed, and took a long, deep breath.

Cypress realized he hadn't been breathing, either. He exhaled slowly and looked at Minerva, who had sat up across from him. "How did you do that?"

"I just talked to him. I found him in there, and told him that for it to work, he had to really try to breathe. Of course, the damage wasn't that bad, but..." Cypress cut her off with a tight hug.

"Thank you," he muttered, trying to resist tears.

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After they had given their statements to the police, they had been allowed to leave. They walked in a close group, with Grog a few feet ahead, in a beeline for Dana's apartment. Upon arriving, Dana asked if Cypress and Grog would stay the night; they readily agreed. Grog spent the night crawling about in the ceiling, noiselessly keeping watch. Though Cypress did not condone it, Grog would use his ability to phase through walls to inspect other people's rooms for danger. As it was, the knowledge that they had a silent, phase-shifting, unsleeping sentry was still not enough to allow them to sleep. Some time after two, Dana crept into the living room where Cypress was camped on the couch.

"Dom?"

"Yeah."

"Uh..."

Words weren't necessary. Cypress got up and went back to Dana's bed, where she laid her head on his shoulder and curled up.

An hour later, the door of Dana's bedroom opened.

"Dana? Dominic?"

"Yeah," came their voices in unison.

"Er..."

Cypress patted the patch of unused bed on his other side, and Minerva crawled in. She laid her head on his shoulder and curled up.

An hour later, when Dana's obnoxious snores had almost lulled Cypress to sleep, he felt a soft, warm mouth plant a feathery kiss on his cheek.

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