Lillene

Enjoy!

The birthday party lasted well into the night. It was surprisingly fun, too; he hadn’t seen some of the people for years, while he’d seen others far more recently, but they were all friends of his. Like everything else, though, it eventually came to an end and Serenity fell asleep with Rissa snuggled up against him in their bedroom on the Death’s Wings.

Jenna was long asleep by then; she’d been allowed to stay up a little later than normal, but half an hour was still enough to have her yawning before Diana put her to bed.

Morning came all too early, with Aide waking Serenity at the usual time. Serenity debated rolling over and going back to sleep, but he had too much to do to let himself be that lazy. He could cuddle with Rissa that evening; for now, he needed to get some things done. He hadn’t completed his diagnosis of the issues with the runic receiver the previous evening and there was still work that needed to be done at the new dome site. 

He also needed to talk to Senkovar about their travel plans. His new ship might well be a far better option than the normal route through the portals; it all depended on exactly where they were going. Serenity wouldn’t be surprised if Senkovar had planned a few more stops that weren’t officially on the plan as anything other than waypoints. 

Senkovar clearly liked to teach by having Serenity practice, and more planets would let him practice more. He’d learned a lot from the project on Berinath, after all, even beyond the realization that he’d clearly been manipulated while he was at Blackthorn into believing he was incapable of crafting. He hadn’t mentioned that realization to Senkovar and he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about it. He wasn’t going to immediately set out to learn how to make things, but perhaps he could be less hostile to the notion?

Serenity was fairly confident that Senkovar had more than one goal in his training. The first was fairly obvious from the Clan Quest: Senkovar wanted to show Serenity how valuable the training he offered was and convince him to join the Clan or at least visit Suratiz.

The second goal was a little less obvious, but Serenity was still fairly confident it was a goal from the way Senkovar sometimes talked about it. Senkovar was fascinated by Serenity’s ease at talking to Worlds despite his lack of an obviously appropriate Path. More than that, he seemed to think that it was likely to be helpful in figuring out the World Eaters.

That was Serenity’s goal, too. Specifically, he was concerned that World Eaters might be the cause for Earth’s destruction in Vengeance’s life. The Voice either didn’t know or couldn’t say, so he was only guessing, but it sounded all too plausible. He needed to learn what he could about the threat.

If Senkovar was willing to teach him things that might help him either find the World Eaters or combat them, he was certainly in favor of it. He was far less interested in learning about the Et’Tart Clan, though he knew his father would be interested. He probably ought to mention it, now that he thought about it; his father was just down the hall and ought to be up by now.

Serenity chuckled at himself. He’d just spent ten minutes telling himself he ought to get up without moving. The bed was comfortable and it was nice being with Rissa. It was a good thing he wasn’t on a hard schedule. 

He slipped out of bed, careful to avoid waking Rissa, then quietly got ready for the day and headed down the hall to his parents’ room. Unsurprisingly, they were both already up and the room was empty. His next stop was the dining hall - or maybe he should call it a galley? This was a ship, after all. Or was that the kitchen, not the dining hall? He wasn’t sure.

Whatever it was called, it was the right place to go. Lex and Bethany were at one of the tables having breakfast. Lex seemed to have already finished and was enjoying his coffee while Bethany was finishing off what looked like a stack of pancakes with strawberries on the side.

Other than his parents and a waitress, the eating area was empty. Serenity wasn’t certain what the waitress was doing; if she’d been human, he would have said she was playing with her phone. 

She was emphatically not human, however, with a pair of long, skinny legs that looked like they shouldn’t support her weight, arms that held feathers that Serenity had no idea how she achieved, and both a long feathered tail and a poofy crest of head-feathers. All of her feathers were black, but the tracing on them where she’d hardened her body to act like the shaft of a feather was a bright, almost shining, purple. 

She was definitely from Aru’tsa’lkeet. Serenity made a mental note to find out what their species name was; he couldn’t remember.

Rissa had to have worked on this present for a very long time. You didn’t get the staff for something as large as this without a lot of effort. Sure, some of them like the waitress were probably hired with the ship, but the party the night before had made it clear many of the staff were from Earth. Just how long had she worked on this? Had she ordered it new from the manufacturer on Aru’tsa’lkeet? If she had, how had she found them?

Serenity had no intention of asking. The mystery was at least half the fun here. It was probably simpler than he was imagining, but even thinking about all the effort she’d put in made the scale of the gift even more impressive.

“Come on over and have a seat, son.” There was a smile in Lex’s voice. “There are some things we didn’t talk about last night that you should know.”

Sometimes Serenity wished his father would phrase things slightly less ominously. 

Lex’s shout seemed to have also gotten the waitress’s attention. She hurried to the table and handed him a menu. “When you know what you want, call for me.”

Serenity smiled and took the menu. It wasn’t very long, only a single page, but that was plenty. His mother’s pancakes looked good, and when he saw that they were made with wheat from a Tier Two dungeon and the sausage was actually from a Tier Three Armored Boar, he knew he had to try it. The strawberries were the only part of the meal that was “only” Tier One, but he was certain he’d enjoy it.

About half of the menu was similarly made of materials that weren’t Tier Zero.  Serenity wasn’t certain where it was sourced from, but it was yet another indication of the thought Rissa had put into it. Everyone liked higher-Tier food, but it was normally very expensive. 

It was already getting cheaper as Earth’s surface rose in Tier and the plants and animals slowly rose to match it, but large amounts of the plants and livestock were still Tier Zero. Serenity knew they worked differently from long-lived animals like humans, but he’d never worried about the details; they generally Tiered up without becoming hazardous, so it didn’t seem important. The fact that he wasn’t able to eat for a large portion of the time when he was able to investigate as Vengeance and not yet isolated from society as the Final Reaper might have influenced that decision, now that he thought about it.

The coffee was still Tier Zero, but Serenity got some anyway. He hadn’t had coffee since he left Earth; there were relatives offplanet but nothing quite the same.

The moment the waitress walked away, well before she was out of earshot, Lex leaned forward and set his coffee down. “I doubt Rissa had much of a chance to explain things.”

Serenity shook his head. “Only that the ship was a birthday present.”

Lex nodded, clearly unsurprised. “Well, then what she didn’t mention … one of the things … is that the ship is massively overmanned. There’s technically a full crew of tsarualk on board. The minimum, but a full crew. There’s also a full crew of humans, people she and your mother and I found. Baxter, for example; he was overjoyed at the offer, even if all he said was that he appreciated the opportunity.”

Tsarualk must be the species name for the people from Aru’tsa’lkeet. That was good to know.

Serenity’s grin was wider than the one his father showed. Serenity could only imagine the situation; Baxter was always formal and reserved, yet Serenity knew he loved to fly. Being able to fly a spaceship was probably a dream come true.

“The ship is far less over-crewed for the staff positions; even so, there are more than the minimum necessary. Some are human, some are tsarualk. That’s simply something to be aware of, not a problem. I’ve tried to keep people from being sent here, but I would be surprised if there weren’t spies in both groups. That’s one of the reasons I kept the full tsarualk crew; they will both train the humans and help keep an eye on things.

Serenity nodded. That made sense; expecting anyone to be able to properly operate and maintain an extremely complex machine like a spaceship without training, whether formal or on the job, was a fool’s delusion. 

“I don’t have the full details on what it will need. Captain Tsa’ikeet will be able to inform you about that. What else am I missing?” Lex trailed off, clearly thinking deeply.

“Well, you forgot to mention the translators,” Bethany jumped in, waving her fork over her newly empty plate. “They’re supposed to be nonmagical and work in realtime. We have a couple of them back on Earth now but no one’s been able to make much progress with them yet.”

Serenity had the sudden odd thought that Tek would probably really appreciate one of them as a present.

Actually, that might be a great idea, if he could get her to share the information she gained. Given what he knew about Tek, he didn’t think that would be hard; she was all about knowledge and spreading technology and far less about trade secrets and patents, even though that was a major part of how progress was funded. Tek didn’t need funding.

Serenity’s meal arrived while he was thinking. The first bite was excellent and the second, with a bit of strawberry, was even better. He didn’t know what the chef had done to the pancakes, but they were perfectly fluffy and tasted slightly buttery. It went wonderfully with the strawberries and real maple syrup (collected from Tier One trees).

The sausage was an excellent complement to the sweetness of the pancakes with just the right level of spice and a texture that was firm yet almost melted in the mouth.

It was delicious.

He was halfway through the meal before he remembered his coffee. It was unfortunately not quite as good as the rest of the meal, probably because the coffee beans were still Tier Zero and Serenity could taste the difference; it simply didn’t have the mana level of the rest of the meal. It was, however, high quality coffee and properly made, with no hint of the scorching that so many places tried to hide with cream and sugar. Serenity was pretty sure that it was even better coffee than he knew; he’d never been a coffee connoisseur, after all. He just knew it was a good cup of coffee.

The coffee cleared Serenity’s mind enough from the pleasure of the meal to remember why he’d gone hunting for his parents in the first place. “Dad? I mentioned Senkovar Et’Tart to you before we left Earth, didn’t I?”

Lex nodded. “You did.”

“Did I mention that he wants to take me to his homeworld and introduce me to the Et’Tart Clan?” Serenity was fairly confident he hadn’t mentioned that. He hadn’t wanted to worry his father.

Lillene