Chapter 2
KAELION
I enjoy being the first person in my lab each morning.
I use the time to collect my thoughts and prepare for the day; to check my students’ projects, ensure the lab is neat and tidy, that nothing exploded overnight—which has, unfortunately, happened before.
Yes. I enjoy my time alone.
And this morning, I'm far from it.
I scan my comm at the door and it clicks open so I can let myself in. I move to my office in a very specific ritual—put down my satchel, take off my coat and hang it on the hook by my office door. I take a deep breath and quiet my mind, my tendrils relaxing as my shoulders drop.
I go out to the lab next, and it's there that I find an unwelcome surprise.
Lyn Walker.
Asleep at her work station…again.
I’m well aware the human female is a genius— I read her research on re-mapping neural pathways before she even arrived on M'mir. She earned her place in this lab; she will likely help a lot of people one day.
But right now she’s my most problematic student: the one who cuts corners, argues with my every instruction, and has herself convinced that nothing bad can ever happen.
And she is asleep in my lab, which poses major concerns—given that, the last time this happened, she dozed off in the middle of an experiment that involved an open flame.
“Walker,” I say.
Nothing.
I tap a finger against the table. “Walker.”
She stirs, eyes opening a fraction. “Dr. Rhyss?” Her voice is rough, sleep-worn. “You’re here early.”
“It’s eight,” I reply. “You’re here late.”
She blinks, pushes upright, rubs her face. “I just wanted to fix the headset calibration before the trial clearance review. Didn’t mean to—” She waves at the half-eaten ration bar beside her. “—crash.”
“Sleep is not optional,” I tell her. “In my lab, we stay vigilant. Otherwise—”
“I know I almost burned down a work station last time,” she growls. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”
Gods, she’s irritating.
“No,” I say simply. “I’m not.”
She exhales hard, a breath halfway to a laugh. “Didn’t think so.”
Her hair’s a mess—wild curls framing her face, streaked with gold from the lab lights. She pushes them back with pencil-stained fingers, leaving a faint smear of graphite along her temple.
“Your dedication is commendable,” I say. “Your judgment less so.”
She looks up, surprised. “Was that…a compliment?”
“It was an observation.”
She grins. “Close enough.”
I turn away, reaching for her datapad. The file is still open, the simulation halfway through an error loop. I scroll through it, noting that she’s corrected most of her earlier miscalculations. It’s good work—raw, ambitious, inelegant, but good.
“These translation tables,” I murmur. “Where did you get them?”
“I asked for help,” she replies. “Between me and my friends at the university, we speak about…
I don't know, ten different languages? I'm trying to get a sense for the subtleties of emotional delivery so I can actually parse the differences between words in context.
There's an art to it; it's not just engineering.”
“Art is simply pattern we haven’t formalized yet.” I set the datapad down between us, then I wrinkle my nose. “You reek of alcohol.”
The light in her eyes flickers. I…dislike that. “It helps me think.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“It helps me not lose my mind…?”
I let a smirk slip. “Now that, I believe.” Then the smile drops. “But if I catch you hungover in my lab again, I'm revoking your access card for a week.”
Her jaw drops open, then shuts again. “I'm…but—”
I don't catch the end of her sentence; I turn and walk back to my office, shutting the door behind me.
I watch through the glass as Lyn takes a couple steps like she'll try to catch me, then I see her think better of it and go back to her work instead.
She has a scant few hours before the committee arrives for her evaluation; she needs to make it count.
And I have something I must do.
I sit down at my terminal and open a comm channel, already dreading the conversation I'm about to have.
Negotiations over parenting duties have never been easy with Shahar—not when she's found her mate in the years since we bred—but they're especially difficult now with her upcoming Elixir bonding.
Her mate, Wulfric, is Skoll…and the Skoll are, despite their many good qualities, exceptionally territorial.
Even when it comes to my daughter, who Wulfric is intent on treating as his own.
I route the call through the university relay. Shahar answers on the second pulse, the green light of her lab in the Arborium lighting her soft turquoise complexion. She is beautiful, objectively speaking—but not for me. Our coupling was purely for the benefit of our species.
“Kaelion,” she says with a polite smile. “You’re early.”
“I have an evaluation this morning,” I say. “I need to confirm Solvi’s schedule. You and Wulfric will arrive by train tomorrow morning, correct?”
Shahar’s eyes soften. “She’s already packed and ready to go. She wants you to take her back to the wing with the human picture books.”
A smile curves my lips. Comics…Solvi loves them. We spent many long hours in that wing of the Grand Library last summer, and Solvi left Mythara with a sketchbook full of her own panels. “Make sure she packs her sketchbook,” I murmur. “I would like to see what she's been working on.”
Shahar smiles. “She hasn’t stopped drawing since you left. You’ve created a monster, Kaelion.”
“I prefer to think of her as an artist,” I say.
Her smile doesn't last long, even as we bond over our child's budding talents. No…the subject must, of course, change. “Wulfric’s still nervous about the trip. He worries about her being unattended in Mythara or at the library—”
“Wulfric worries about breathing too hard,” I reply.
Her brow furrows. “He’s just protective. She’s his only child—”
“She’s my daughter,” I remind her, an edge creeping into my voice. “And I will continue to see her during my allotted time.”
“Of course.” Her tone is level, but short—if you know what to look for. “No one’s questioning that.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Shahar—”
“Kaelion.” She exhales, her voice softening. “I’m not trying to fight with you. Wulfric means well. He’s just…learning what it means to be part of a family that already existed before him.”
I force my shoulders to relax. “And I’m still learning how to share a family I didn’t expect to have.”
Her eyes lift toward me again, and for a second, the cool distance between us thins. We were never lovers, not in any meaningful way, but there was once mutual respect. A shared sense of duty.
That feels like a very long time ago now.
“Then we’ll both try to be gracious,” she says. “You’ll have Solvi for the summer, as planned. I’ll remind Wulfric that worrying doesn’t change the universe.”
“Good,” I say quietly.
She smiles again—real this time, none of the polite nonsense from earlier. “You sound like your daughter when she wins an argument.”
“I wonder where she gets it.”
She cocks her head at me, brow furrowed. “Kaelion,” she says gently. “Do you think you'll ever find your own destined mate—”
Her question is interrupted by a loud voice from outside the office. “Mata! Is that Baba?!”
“Solvi,” Shahar says, smiling as she glances over her shoulder. “Yes, come say hello.”
The screen jolts as a small figure climbs into view—electric yellow tendrils whipping around excitably, her lavender cheeks flushed pink.
Solvi is that strange age now where she’s not quite a child, but not quite grown: too tall to need protection, too small to be set loose on the world.
She’s approaching her twelfth journey around M’mir’s sun, her own person in ways that surprise and delight me every day.
“Solvi,” I say. “Mata tells me you’ve been drawing.”
“Every day,” she says. “Have you arranged for time to take me to art stacks at the Grand Library? I’ve been doing some extraweb searches and discovered another place to visit where the humans have animated movies from before the Convergence—”
“Your Baba has to work,” Shahar says—but she’s smiling, nudging Solvi gently. “Remember not to distract him too much.”
“She’s right, though,” I say. I let my eyes wander up toward the door, where I can see Lyn still crouched over her work station. “My supervisees can survive without me for a few days.”
I hope.
“The art stacks first,” Solvi says. “Then movies, then…then I want to go to the noodle restaurant in Mythara Village.”
“You remember the noodle place?”
Solvi rolls her eyes with a level of drama that feels downright offensive. This, too, delights me. “Baba, I’m not a baby anymore—and I was just there at Luminara—”
“Enough of your attitude,” Shahar chides, laughing. “Let me finish talking to Baba so we can finish packing your things, alright?”
Solvi beams. “You always say that, Mata, but you love my attitude.”
“True,” Shahar admits under her breath. “But your Baba’s patience is thinner than mine.”
“That’s not true,” I protest. “I have infinite patience for my favorite daughter.”
“I’m your only daughter,” Solvi frowns.
“That’s right,” I tell her.
She stares at the camera for a moment, likely wondering if I’m making fun of her.
Then she flicks her tendrils and tosses her head.
“I’m going to pack more sketch books,” she says. “See you soon, Baba. Love you.”
“Love you too,” I murmur.
I watch as she walks offscreen, then as Shahar gets up to close the door behind her. My former mate sighs as she sits back down, her own tendrils drifting calmly. Shahar has always been more level-headed than I am; unfortunately, Solvi takes after me in that regard.
“So,” she says. “You have some kind of assessment today…?”
I hum. “The advisory board is coming to examine one of my students’ projects. It should go over easily.”
I would never tell Lyn that, of course, but I do in fact trust her. Shahar seems to be able to read what I’m thinking, because she raises her brows at me.
“You look like you might be pleased if this student does fail.”
I frown. “Never.”
“Don’t be cruel, Kaelion.”
“I’m not,” I say defensively. “I merely expect clean work. You know better than most how important lab safety is.”
Shahar grumbles. “Of course I do,” she says—because yes, of course. On the flotilla, lab safety was of the utmost importance; one mistake could result in the death of a considerable portion of our species’ population.
When my students aren’t safe…it irks me.
My eyes find Lyn again, shrugging on a labcoat then scrubbing at her dark curls. She’s pulling a laser drill from another student’s station—something she has been expressly told not to do.
“I have to go before this student injures herself,” I mutter. “Safe travels tomorrow; tell Solvi I love her.”
“I will,” Shahar says. I go to terminate the connection, but Shahar clears her throat. “And Kaelion?”
I eye her, already getting up to stop Lyn. “Yes?”
“Try to take time for yourself too,” Shahar says. “Not just for work and for Solvi. I worry about you.”
The words barely register; through the glass, Walker is currently trying to dissect a translator using the laser drill.
“Uh…good,” I mutter. “Goodbye, Shahar.”
I terminate the connection.
Then I stand, smooth my lab coat, and step out—before my student can get herself killed on university property.