Her entire time sitting in disc form in the empere’s lodgings O’tmyil had found herself bombarded with basic inquiry programs. It wasn’t enough to count as malicious or an attack. Only enough to be annoying. Like being swarmed by young children that had been provided with caffeine and told to ask her all of life’s questions. After several hours of it she felt beyond exhausted, but she’d refused to enter sleep mode in case something more aggressive had been waiting for her to drop her guard.

As such she’d been barely functional when Svetlana had picked her up while getting dressed. Whatever emotions Svetlana was feeling when she left, pausing to receive a goodbye kiss from Ouzzhen on the front step before heading off, were little more than a soft whisper to O’tmyil in that state. 

As they were leaving she wished she could drop to sleep mode, but still didn’t trust the Zuumult empere until they were safely on a different planet.

She remembered what the First Dynasty had been like. Zuumult royalty was not to be trusted blindly, even if she wanted to hope Svetlana’s charms were working. 

---

“Why does seeing Ouzzhen-empere kissing Svetlana-wife make me so... angry?” Plynx muttered as she watched Svetlana leave through binoculars. “Seeing her-Svetlana kiss other loves makes me feel joy.”

“You don’t want to see her get hurt,” Bokarza said, sitting beside her with her own pair of binoculars. “You know we won’t hurt her, but you can’t trust Ouzzhen.”

“It makes sense,” Auguste added, his own binoculars still watching Ouzzhen’s beachfront accommodations. 

“So... are we going to go down there and meet her, or just stay up on this hill watching her with binoculars?” Vivian asked, her own pair dangling by their strap around her neck as she leaned back on the bench, most of her attention on O’rygnoh and the other holographics currently focused on changing Houyu’s diaper out of her angle of sight.

It was hard not to feel a little guilty with just how much work they put in, even when they insisted they’d helped raise dozens of children during the centuries the Second Dynasty had existed. There were a half dozen of them, though. Letting them handle one baby probably wasn’t too much of a demand.

Once the two Svetlana was carrying joined the count it might be a bit different, though. Maybe they should hold off on more until those two were getting ready to move on to potty training... that just seemed polite.

“We should probably go back to the house to meet up with her,” Thisbe said, watching the soft glow of the sun on the horizon. 

It felt a little cruel to drag Thisbe away from this place she was clearly so comfortable and back onto the galactic tour. Even if they were on the last leg and would be going back to the very vampire friendly planet that was Throne World in a couple of weeks. Taihorca IV’s maritime culture was clearly an extra draw for her.

For her part, Vivian was pretty sure she’d go squirrely if she were stuck there more than a week. She liked the hustle and bustle of the city. Especially a properly chaotic sort of place like Hammer City. 

“Very well,” Plynx said, lowering her binoculars. “We-all can easily get home first if we leave now.”

“Sure, there’s nothing to see right now,” Auguste added.

Bokarza followed along quietly, seeming ready to just move with the herd. Which made sense, considering her species originally lived in herds. It was a little funny whenever Vivian found herself remembering that. The aliens she knew weren’t just humans that looked interesting, they actually had alien psychologies. It was just that the basic drivers of evolution (find food, find mates, stay alive) kept personalities fairly similar. At least for the day to day.

Art showed some dramatic differences. 

That was probably what drove a lot of the fear about Supernaturals, though. Not actually being driven by biological needs they could have very different ideas about how to live. Just how different were the minds of Zuumults?

She didn’t know.

She also suspected it would be hard to find anyone to trust with an accurate assessment. 

---

About as soon as they arrived back at the house (having only had time to exchange a brief ‘how did it go?’ ‘good, I think’ with Svetlana) the various minders and advisers appeared, insisting it was time to pack. The imperial family had a schedule to try to get vaguely back to. At long last they were going to swing by the Kobaroic homeworld, then make some jumps towards the Issiod’rian capital world.

Then they’d go back to Throne World.

It was annoying, but Vivian had accepted it by now. She’d had too many months travelling about. It was just life now. So she packed whatever she’d unpacked. As did the others. It was still slightly depressing just how used to living in a suitcase she’d gotten.

Perhaps twenty minutes later they were headed towards the small landing bay. There was a shuttle waiting for them that flew them up to their star runner. Svetlana mostly napped, and Vivian decided she had the right idea. The eternal soft light of Taihorca IV hadn’t been great for getting proper deep sleep.

A short while later they docked, Vivian blinking back awake and carrying Houyu back onto the sleek spaceship that had come to more or less be home the last few months. It didn’t take long to find her small cabin and tuck Houyu into their crib so she could flake herself. It was going to be five days of jump space to get to the Kobaroic homeworld, which also wasn’t great for sleep.

She needed to try to get what rest she could while she was still in the normal universe. Even if there was a bit of a hum to the ship. All ships had a hum, with two main options: either setting the pitch to something passengers could not hear or spreading it to a quiet noise across a wide range of pitches. With such a multi-species travelling party the latter was the only option.

---

Sitting on their star runner back to Zuumult space Empere Ouzzhen had no reason to hold back their smile. Everything was going remarkably well.

“Do you think this will really work?” one of their Grey advisors asked as the ship slipped towards deep space where it could make a jump.

“Oh, definitely,” Ouzzhen replied. “They’ll never even stop to realise it was a possibility...”

Displaying confidence was essential as empere. In truth they knew it was a gamble, but the fate of their dynasty depended upon it. After so many millennia on the edge of the galaxy, and now with the Galactic Commonwealth reunited... it was all or nothing now. To show any doubt would be to invite unrest and usurpation, however.

---

Plynx had decided to laze about in the cafe section of the star runner, picking out pastries to nibble on whenever she needed a break from the book she was reading. She’d learned to maintain her sanity on star runners at a young age; the secret was to find something to occupy your mind and then, when boredom truly hit, run up and down the halls as quickly as possible. If one was fast enough the adrenaline would overpower any boredom.

Luckily Bokarza used a different strategy. Kobaroic patience was impressive... and Kobaroians running around at full speed in a small space was a safety hazard. Even a spaceship bulkhead meant dent if they ran into one at full speed.

Despite the book she was reading being rather good (and the fact that she was older than she’d been on her last family tour of the galaxy) Plynx was getting very close to going for another run when Thisbe sat down on a nearby chair. With a gentle nudge of vampiric empathy projection she let Plynx know she wanted to talk.

Closing the text document on her reader Plynx sat up and turned to the other woman with a soft smile. “What is it, Thisbe-love?”

“I am worried about Svetlana,” Thisbe said.

“You are? Why?” Plynx asked, tilting her head.

Thisbe was generally nervous, but she was not the type to come forward with worries unless there was good reason.

“Her emotions feel slightly... clouded? I am worried that she is trying to cover up something that happened with Ouzzhen,” Thisbe said.

“You think that Svetlana-love is attempting to put her own feelings second to the pressures of diplomacy?” Plynx asked.

“I suppose. Perhaps it’s a silly worry. All jobs come with having to do things you don’t want to do... but Svetlana’s efforts with Ouzzhen are so... personal,” Thisbe said.

“I will see if I can talk to her-Svetlana. Perhaps with help from Bokarza-Queen. We-two were raised in this line of work... in a more healthy way than Auguste-friend,” Plynx said.

“That sounds like it’s for the best. I just wish I could work out what it was that Svetlana was really feeling. Normally she’s so open with emotions, it’s easy,” Thisbe mumbled. “Well, at least since she became herself.”

“Maybe it is simply a calming of the gender euphoria?” Plynx said. “Or to do with hormonal changes from the pregnancy.”

“That does seem plausible,” Thisbe said with a small nod. 

They fell into an amicable and comfortable quiet with that. It was not an emergency; there was still days until they would disembark and so there was no need to rush off to find Bokarza immediately. Plynx would finish a bit more reading and then head off.

As she got back to it she vaguely noticed Thisbe heading over to ask the cafe attendant for a pastry of her own. The AI worker had probably listened to their conversation, but there was nothing overly private about it. All that had been learned was that Svetlana may have been under stress.

A spy wouldn’t need to listen in to be aware of that.

So Plynx read and Thisbe nibbled, apparently enjoying the peace of it.

At least until Bokarza wandered into the cafe area, a tablet in her hands and a smile growing from ear to ear when she saw Thisbe present.

“Just the woman I was looking for!” she said, hurrying over and dropping into a chair heavily enough to cause it to creak slightly.

“How can I help you?” Thisbe asked, seeming a touch nervous about Bokarza’s enthusiasm.

“I was reading up on Earth animals, and I came upon creatures called ‘bats’,” Bokarza said.

“Ah... yes?” Thisbe replied, seeming to shrink into herself slightly upon hearing Bokarza’s interest.

“Then I saw there was something called a ‘vampire bat’,” Bokarza said. “Are they connected to actual vampires?”

“Um... well... yes,” Thisbe replied in a soft voice, eyes dropping down to study the remains of her pastry on the table.

It seemed she was not happy to have to reveal this connection.

“Are they as cute as they look in the pictures?” Bokarza then asked.

“P--pardon?” Thisbe replied.

“They look so cute. Such little fluff balls, with those big eyes,” Bokarza said.

Sitting up, Plynx had to admit she was interested. Thankfully her leaning in was all the cue Bokarza needed to turn her tablet to show the image there to Plynx. 

“Oh! Yes! They-bats are adorable!” Plynx said, looking at the long limbed fluffy creature in the picture. “They remind me a little of glimps. I had one as a pet when I was a child.”

“These are much smaller and can fly, though,” Bokarza informed her, switching to another image. 

“I know, yes” Plynx said, even if the short video of it flying about was setting her jaw a fluttering with the desire to chase it.

“You... you really think that bats are cute?” Thisbe asked.

“If they look like the pictures then definitely,” Bokarza said.

“So cute very cute,” Plynx added.

“Oh... that’s... that’s good to hear,” Thisbe said. “They... well, there is a strong tie to vampires. Most vampires can turn into at least one animal. Bats are a favourite, due to their nocturnal nature and the way some drink blood.”

“Can you shapeshift?” Bokarza asked.

With a small nod Thisbe then was lost in a poof of smoke, before returning to the adorably tiny form Plynx had only seen briefly before. Bokarza let out noises that were quite high pitched by her standards in the joy of seeing how adorable Thisbe’s bat from was. Thankfully the noises Plynx made were out of Bokarza’s range of hearing... but not Thisbe’s. Especially not in her adorable bat form. 

“We heard some very strange noises,” Vivian said as she, Auguste, and Svetlana rushed over.

“I just found out Thisbe can turn so cute and tiny!” Bokarza said, waving excitedly towards Thisbe’s bat form.

Thisbe, however, poofed back into human form, looking furiously embarrassed. “I--that... I wouldn’t want to make the rest of you uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Svetlana said.

“You... you know people aren’t really afraid of bats much these days, right?” Vivian said. “Well, at least ones guaranteed not to carry rabies or anything.”

“R-really?” Thisbe said.

“They are small fluffy mammals,” Auguste said with a shrug. “What’s not to like?”

That drew a smile from Thisbe... and Plynx, despite knowing she was only tangentially tied to the comparison.

---

Later that day Plynx found Bokarza again to discuss the options of how to help Svetlana with stress relief. Especially with the hormonal effects of pregnancy coming up. 

---

Svetlana was walking Houyu about while Vivian nursed a coffee instead. The baby had refused to eat a full meal and so kept waking up hungry for snacks the night before. Which had meant Vivian had had to be up to feed them. So she appreciated Svetlana handling walking Houyu and trying to get them back to sleep.

“The baby is growing very quickly,” Bokarza said, softly sitting beside her on the small public area couch. “How long until they are walking now?”

“I think that’s at least 8 or 9 months away? Crawling might start soon, though,” Vivian said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Crawling apparently varies a lot.”

Alien coffee was fascinating, because she knew they could get it perfect, but every food processing system apparently rejected the actual flavour of coffee. Instead they added a bit of caramel and vanilla to it that a proper coffee snob would probably hate, but... well, it had all the caffeine it needed, and that was Vivian’s concern.

This one actually had some hazelnut to it.

“8 or 9 months... Earthling months, but... still,” Bokarza said, shaking her head. “I suppose that’s the disadvantage to getting to pop them out so quickly. Ours are born able to walk, but I think getting to hand the baby off to nannies or the other parent a year early more than makes up for all the carrying and burping and such.”

“Yeah,” Vivian said, shivering at the thought of going another year pregnant. Especially if it got worse than the ninth month had been. 

“Issiod’rians still rush them too quickly, I think,” Bokarza said. “Their newborns are concerningly tiny... they do not even open their eyes for months.”

“Mhm, it does seem a bit early,” Vivian replied. “Still... they look pretty adorable in the photos I saw when looking for baby clothes. Like kittens for Earth cats.”

Vivian took another sip of her coffee, finishing it off while Bokarza yawned. Then Svetlana hurried past them, a frantic look in her eyes as she scurried into the nearest washroom. Both Bokarza and Vivian were curious if she needed help, so got up and headed after her, only to discover that she was using the self cleaning towel to wipe up a little dribble from what had apparently proven to not just be a burp from Houyu.

“I’ll take them to free your hands,” Vivian said, scooping the baby.

“Thank you,” Svetlana said with a smile. “I should have been carrying wipes of some sort on me... also, I still find it weird the way these towels just absorb anything.”

“Nanotech,” Bokarza said with a shrug.

“Yeah... but... they don’t ever go grey-goo, do they? Being eaten by a towel seems like such an embarrassing way to go,” Svetlana mumbled, holding it gingerly while her shoulder and the towel were both now perfectly clean.

“Never heard of one eating anyone. If there were any to concern you, I’d worry about the nano-cleaners in the toilet seat myself,” Bokarza said. “Much more awkward to run away from.”

That caused fear to flash in Svetlana's eyes. “The toilet seat might eat me if it malfunctions? That is worse than the towel...”

“Again, it doesn’t actually happen. Not without a lot of other things going very wrong first,” Bokarza replied, before her tail began to happily wag (Vivian shuffled away for safety). “It’s cute how you worry about these things, though.”

“I just accept that it meets galactic safety standards,” Vivian said, rocking Houyu. “Those seem pretty stringent.”

“Mhm. Maybe be like Vivian. Thisbe does say you seem to be worrying too much lately,” Bokarza added.

“Oh... heh... I guess maybe I do,” Svetlana replied, eyes growing distant for a moment or two.

Then she flashed a smile and dragged them both off to find some breakfast.

---

At long last they dropped out of jump space. The Kobaroic home system was one of the busiest in the galaxy, so they had to drop out nearly as far out as when they’d first gone to Throne World for the coronation. 

Approaching through normal space they zipped past a number of dwarf planets in the outer cometary belt, then past a gas giant about an hour later. It was surprising to learn a planet that large could be sitting twice as far from its star as Neptune orbited Earth’s sun.

Clearly Auguste needed to learn a bit more about how different star systems could be. So far she’d been left surprised more than she’d liked, a few famous science fiction movies not enough to prepare her for reality.

Reaching within about twenty AU there started to actually be other traffic visible. Small distant blinking lights that could be mistaken for stars if not for the colours and pulses, but signs of civilization all the same. 

The star runner then made a slow flyby of a city world, like the one planet from Star Saga. Vaguely she remembered hearing Cartridge and another friend discussing how such a planet would overheat, but it seemed whoever talked about that expected it to be far closer to its star than this was. Also, likely larger, as the city world was merely a moon of a gas giant. 

“Gzarnk. The capital of the Kobaroic state,” Bokarza explained to them all. “But not our homeworld. We turned that mostly into a nature reserve, after having nearly destroyed it... Only members of the core government live there now.”

“I wonder if Humans will have to do the same,” Svetlana said as they moved past the city world.

Auguste wanted to hope against it, but it certainly seemed plausible.

A few minutes later, however, she found her pessimism replaced with a feeling of hope, for the once nearly dead world was a lush green below them. If the Kobaroic homeworld could recover from whatever they’d done to it then surely Earth could recover from its own current suffering.