Atana
Bunny
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Posts: 74
Ship happens!
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« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2009, 05:51:17 PM » |
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Ennixx jumped. She never would understand how the old woman could move so silently. It was almost unnatural the way she could meld in and out of shadows and suddenly just appear behind you with no warning at all.
"Hi Nan," she said a bit sheepishly.
"Hi nothing," Aeryn replied rather crossly. "I was expecting you over an arn ago. I didn't know what happened to you. You could have fallen in the sound, gotten attacked by a Goyinth, robbed, raped, anything." She turned and began to make her way back into the forest using her cane to bat at any low hanging branches in her way.
Ennixx rolled her eyes and began to follow. Nan knew full well that the way to her house was nowhere near the sound, Goyinth's hadn't been at the cattle for over a cycle and the only crime in their little hamlet in recent memory was when Tymur Ebrim stole some Kabirth eggs from the Widow Tilson because his had stopped laying. Robbing and raping indeed.
" Sorry Nan," She said hurrying to catch up with the old woman and link her free arm with hers. "I got caught up a bit."
Aeryn stopped and regarded her granddaughter with something akin to amusement in her eyes. "Caught up my broad backside," she said with a smirk. " I saw full well what you were doing Ennixx, mooning over that Kyfen boy. Don't lie to me girl."
Ennixx colored, mortified at having been found out. " I was NOT mooning," she retorted coldly.
Aeryn stopped and leaned against a tree to catch her breath. "You were too." She panted as she fanned herself with one hand. "I know mooning when I see it."
Ennixx went contrite immediately. Here she was starting an argument when her Nan was having a spell, one that was no doubt brought on by her selfish actions. The breathless sessions were a new development for Aeryn and they never lasted very long but they worried Ennixx nonetheless and she reached for her water carrier to offer her a drink.
Aeryn batted it away with one hand. "No, No, dear I'm alright. Same old pain, just give me a microt." She took a deep breath and then stood up straight and motioned for them to continue on their way. "Besides, I'd be worried about you if you WEREN'T mooning over Rhonin Kyfen. That boy looks good enough to eat."
"NAN!" Ennixx was a bit shocked.
"What? I can't say he's handsome? I'm just an old woman who's supposed to knit and garden and I can't notice that a male is good looking? Well excuse me dear, I knew I was ancient, I just wasn't aware I was supposed to be dead."
"But you didn't say he was handsome Nan," Ennixx said, "You said he looked good enough to eat."
Aeryn stopped and looked at her granddaughter as though she were missing a few brain cells.
"Well doesn't he?"
Ennixx stared at her open mouthed for a few microts and then gave up and laughed.
"Yes he does Nan, he does at that."
"There," Aeryn started back up again with a satisfied look on her face. "Now that the issue of his looks are settled, I want to know why you let him walk away from you."
"Sorry?" Said Ennixx a bit confused.
"WHY DID YOU LET HIM WALK AWAY FROM YOU?" Aeryn shouted in a voice that indicated that her thought her granddaughter might be deaf as well as stupid.
"Shhh Nan, don't shout. I let him go because he had some place else to be".
"And someone else to be there with," she thought sourly.
"Bullfrell," Said Aeryn.
"I BEG your PARDON?"
"I didn't stutter child you heard me."
"OH I HEARD you Nan," said Ennixx as she opened the garden gate to Aeryn's house. "I just can't believe I heard what I heard."
Aeryn shrugged, "I'm an old woman Ennixx. I don't have to watch what I say anymore--. Not that I ever did anyway---and you're missing the point. You never should have let him walk away."
"Rhonin Kyfen isn't looking at the likes of me." Ennixx said stiffly as she followed Aeryn in the font door and into the kitchen. "And even if he were it wouldn't matter. Da's been talking to Kohlen Mahren's father. Seem's he's got a bit of an interest in me."
"KOHLEN MAHREN?" Aeryn looked completely mortified. "You can't be interested in KOHLEN MAHREN."
Ennixx was a bit taken aback by the forcefulness of her Nan's reaction.
"Er--- no I'm not---actually. I just said he was interested."
"Oh thank Goodness. I thought I was going to have to beat Callum," Aeryn placed a hand over her heart and slowly lowered herself into a chair next to the stove. "He is the least imaginative of my children anyway. No, No, the Mahren's may own the largest commerce store in three communities but that child of theirs is boring, ugly and doesn't look like he could bring a woman to orgasm if his life depended on it."
Ennixx just stared. She was to scandalized to speak. She often wondered where her Nan came up with such things. SHE didn't even think about the thing that Nan just mentioned. Well—not to often anyway.
Aeryn ignored Ennixx shock and reached over for the teapot a rather serious look on her face. "Ennixx neither your father nor your uncles were flown in by Vilcha birds. And you're getting up there in age now, what are you 19 cycles? You'll be wanting a husband and a family of your own soon. And let me tell you, if you are going to cook for a man and clean up after him, and bear his children, over the next 100 or more cycles, one of the MANY things you should give serious consideration to is his ability to perform in the joy department."
"NAN PLEASE!!!!" Ennixx said with no small amount of desperation.
The look faded away and Aeryn reached over and patted Ennixx hand.
"Sorry dear, I got carried away there for a microt. But the sentiment still holds true."
"I---should--- marry a man who's--- good in the joy department?"
"No child. That you should always take the risk. Never settle just because you're afraid."
Ennixx got up and poured herself a cup of tea. "I'm sorry Nan you've lost me."
Aeryn sighed. "Look. Go look in the big bedroom closet, behind those old work clothes of Cerric's and bring me that trunk that's up there. There's something I want to show you."
Ennixx reached up on tiptoe and tried without much success to shove aside the old work boots and coverall's that hid the box her Nan was after. After several attempts she got frustrated and dragged over a small stool to aid in her attempt. Unfortunately the stool was rickety and soon tumbled her over bringing the trunk and its contents down on her head.
"Ouch"
"Are you all right in there Ennixx?" Aeryn's concerned voice wafted in from the kitchen.
"I'm O.K. Nan, just a microt." Ennixx scrambled to gather jumble of objects that now lined the floor. She started separating the papers from the clothing and other objects when a small blue ball rolled out from under some old curtains. She caught it and held it up to the light. It was a couple denches in diameter covered in silver filigreed wire and strung on a silver chain. She picked at it and it opened. A locket.
"Um Nan?" Ennixx called swirling a finger around in the empty interior. "Could you come in here for a microt?"
"Of course dear, just let me bring lunch." Aeryn shuffled around the kitchen for a bit and then joined her granddaughter in the bedroom with a fully laden tray.
"What's this?" Ennix held the locket up by its chain and then had to lunge to save her lunch when Aeryn almost dropped the tray.
"Nan you all right?" she set the tray on the bed and then helped Aeryn to a chair.
"Oh stop fussing. Of course I'm alright. You just gave me a bit of a turn. Wherever did you find that? I haven't seen it in over 50 cycles" Aeryn took the locket from Ennixx with something approaching reverence.
"What is it?"
"Memoirs of a dead woman." Aeryn murmured.
"Oh was it Laran's then?"
"Pardon?" Aeryn blinked.
"Mum told me that Grandpa Cerric was married once before you, some woman named Laran?"
"Oh yes her." Aeryn shook her head, "No love, it wasn't hers."
"Well is it what you wanted to show me?"
"No," Aeryn never took her eyes off the slowly rotating piece of jewelry. "It wasn't."
Ennixx felt herself start to get a bit frustrated. She loved her Nan to distraction but her rather singular way of communicating often got in the way of productive conversation.
"Well what is it then?"
"Oh I'm sorry dear." Ennixx watched Aeryn pull herself back from wherever the locket had taken her. She stared at Ennixx for a long moment and then motioned for her to come and sit on the floor at her side.
"Ennixx love, I'm going to tell you about this piece of jewelry, and a lot of other things that I wasn't sure I was ever going to tell you about. But first I need to know what your parents have told you about me, who I am, where I'm from and how I ended up here on this planet."
Ennixx shrugged, not sure exactly where Aeryn was going with this line of questioning. "Oh I don't know. They said that a long time ago there was some kind of transport shipping accident, and everybody on board died but you, and you got out in an escape pod. That old one you use to go back and forth to the barren planet to do that thing you do every year. And they said that you had amnesia and the amnesia makes you say bonky things from time to time and that I shouldn't pay attention to you if you do. And they said that you were here a long time before you married Grandpa Cerric, and that nobody ever thought you would marry him when he asked you, and were completely surprised that you did, and they wondered what he ever saw in you anyway."
Aeryn stared at her in complete silence for a microt and then started swearing. She swore loud, long and used such creative combinations that Ennixx found herself wishing she had a writing utensil and tablet so she could mark some of the better ones down for future reference.
"Um, Nan?" she asked, when Aeryn's tirade seemed to show some signs of slowing down. "Did I get something wrong?"
Aeryn sighed and rubbed at her head. "No child, you didn't get anything wrong. They did, and they have for cycles and I let them because I figured they were stupid and it was futile and what did it matter anyway." She took a deep breath. "But no more. No more. A person needs to know where they come from. They need the feeling of self worth."
"Nan?" Ennixx felt a bit frightened. "What are you on about?"
Aeryn smiled at her. "Oh Ennixx. I grew up so differently from you. No blue sky, no wide open fields, no sound to fish in on sunny days. I called long cold rooms home with metal beds and the sound of engines and stamping boots in my ears all the time. It was structured and ordered and full of rules. And I loved it. Or at least I thought I did."
"What were you Nan, some sort of blacksmith?"
"No child I was a soldier."
"A soldier?" Ennixx looked at her Nan as though she'd grown another head. "Nan, are you feeling alright?"
"Hand me that box over there will you?" asked Aeryn pointing to a rather large silver colored one on the floor of the open closet.
Ennixx crawled over and got it and Aeryn put the contents out for her to see.
A black leather vest. Some leather pants. A utility belt and a highly polished, meticulously kept pulse pistol.
Ennixx stared. She recognized the pulse pistol. She'd seen pictures of them in books at school as examples of the necessary evils that existed on planets other than theirs. She touched it lightly, her fingers brushing the cold metal with something akin to fear.
"Nan."
Aeryn rummaged around in the papers on the floor and then held one out to Ennixx with a flourish.
"And this was your Nan before your uncles and your father ruined her figure."
Ennixx looked down at the paper. It was a drawing of a woman done in colored chalk. A tall slender woman with alabaster skin wearing the black leathers and the gun that now lay on the floor in front of her. She was standing on the cliffs above Tillith Sound the wind whipping the ebony cloud of her hair back like a mane. One hand rested on an upraised knee and the other on the holster of the pulse pistol strapped to her opposite thigh.
She had her face half turned to the artist drawing the picture, as though she had just become aware of his presence behind her and wasn't sure if it pleased her or not. Her expression was cold and detached and her gray eyes were sad.
A soldier indeed.
Ennixx looked from the eyes of the woman in the picture to the ones that were regarding her closely now. Eyes that had looked at her for cycles with love, devotion and a little something extra she'd never been able to name.
They were the same.
Ennixx didn't know what to say. She'd seen pictographs of her Nan before of course but none when she was as young as she was in the drawing. All the ones she knew of showed her with her father or her uncles or her Grand Cerric who had died some 11 years before she was born. They all showed a plump slightly bad tempered middle- aged farm wife who didn't smile a lot. There had to be some mistake. Her Nan didn't handle weapons. Her Nan had gray hair and knew the name of every root in Falstaf woods and always baked her Cherrut cookies on her birth anniversary and could talk to Da any way she liked. Her Nan wasn't coldly beautiful like the woman in the picture, wasn't--. dangerous like her. No, Ennixx thought. It COULDN'T be her.
But it was.
"Nan," She asked looking at Aeryn with awe and a little bit of fear on her face. "Who drew the picture?"
Aeryn smiled. "Your Grandfather Cerric."
Ennixx frowned, "Grandfather could draw? Da never told me that and I've never seen any pictures like this before."
Aeryn sighed. "I'm not surprised. He really was very secretive about it, embarrassed even. His parents frowned on it, said it was a waste of time and he agreed with them."
"Crops won't wait for my fancies," he used to say when I tried to encourage him to indulge himself a bit as the cycles went on. But he never did. I'm lucky to have saved the few I did." She handed Ennixx a few more sheets of paper.
Ennixx looked at them. There were a few of her Da and Uncle Rhys as children, and one of her Uncle John who had died in an accident when he was a child. One of Great Grand and Great Nan, Grandfather Cerric's parents, and three of the village and the sound. They were beautiful and done with love and she was glad Aeryn had saved them.
"So if you were a soldier Nan," she asked after she put down the pictures. "What planet did you grow up on? Did you choose to be one or did your parents make you? Were you ever in a war?"
"Hold on there--" Aeryn laughed and set a finger across Ennixx lips to quiet her. "One question at a time. I didn't grow up on a planet. I grew up on a very large spaceship called a Command Carrier. It was so big that it could hold all the people in all the villages on this planet on a few floors. I never knew my mother and father and as for whether or not I had a choice of being a soldier, no I did not. I was born to it. It's what I was bred to be."
"And as for the wars Nan, were you ever in a war? Did you--kill people?"
Aeryn looked down and grabbed ahold of the locket around her neck and began rolling it between thumb and forefinger. When she looked back up again there was sadness in her eyes.
"Yes Ennixx, I was in several military campaigns. Both on the ground and as a pilot, which was my primary commission. And yes I killed people. A lot of people."
Ennixx eyes widened. "But they were all—bad-- right?"
Aeryn contemplated that for a few microts and then shook her head. "No, I'm sure they weren't all bad. But I was a Peacekeeper, I did as I was ordered. It wasn't my place at the time to worry about such things, and it won't do me any good to worry about them now. What's done is done."
"But you stopped, didn't you? I mean you weren't a soldier any more by the time you came here to our planet were you?"
Aeryn snorted. "Once a soldier always a soldier Ennixx. But no, I was no longer on active duty by the time I got here. One day I got sucked into the Starburst charge of a Leviathan ship that was trying to escape our control. The prisoners it was carrying had managed to get loose and for reasons I still don't understand they took mercy on me and pulled me aboard instead of leaving me fueless and space bound to die. They were a strange lot. A blue Delvian priestess named Zahn, A young Luxan warrior named D'Argo, a disposed Hynerian Dominar named Rygel who's greed would have rivaled the Mahren's any day. And---" She trailed off.
Ennixx, who had gathered up enough courage to actually pick the pulse pistol up and sight along the barrel, looked up at Aeryn and prompted.
"And?"
There was silence for a few microts and then Aeryn continued. "And a-- human, from a planet called Earth, named John Crichton."
Something in Aeryn's voice made Ennixx stop her examination of the pulse pistol. "A human?" She said. "What sort of creature is that?" Truth be told Ennixx had no idea what the other creatures her Nan had named were but since this particular one was named after her dead uncle and seemed to evoke such a response she figured she's start with it.
"Sorry to disappoint you," replied Aeryn catching her granddaughter's thoughts. "But humans don't have three heads or green arms or anything like that. At least-- Crichton never said they did. They look remarkably like you and me. In fact, you can't really tell the difference at all except they aren't susceptible to heat delirium, they have a higher body temperature and no peraphoral nerve, but that's about it as far physical differences go."
"And where's Earth?"
Aeryn shrugged. "I have no idea. But it must be very far away. Crichton spent more than two cycles looking for it and he never once came close to finding it again that I know of."
"So you don't know what sort of planet it was? You never saw it?"
Aeryn's face took on a slightly uncomfortable look and she hesitated a few microts before continuing.
"Well I did--sort of see it once. It wasn't REALLY Earth though. Just a holo suite projection of some aliens we encountered that were conducting an experiment. But John said later it was accurate enough."
"What was it like?"
"Primitive, beautiful and--cruel."
"You didn't like it then?"
Aeryn shook her head. "Not really, no."
Ennixx frowned, something wasn't adding up. If the human creature had searched for his home world for two cycles and couldn't find it how had he ended up with Nan in the first place? She decided to back track a bit.
"How did you meet him Nan, if he came from so far away?"
Aeryn laughed. I'm not really sure. After the Leviathan ship, whose name was Moya by the way, pulled me on board when she flew into Starburst, they threw me unconscious in a cell. I woke up and-- there he was. But he told me later that he was a pilot like me and had been flying some sort of experimental space- craft for his planetary government when some space anomaly called a 'wormhole' sucked him up and dropped him where we were. He couldn't explain them, he didn't understand them, but he swore that 'wormholes' were what got him here and 'wormholes' were what would get him back. Personally I think he was fahrbot for thinking he could ever figure them out, but you couldn't tell him so. He searched for the things obsessively. He never thought of anything else." Aeryn paused for a microt and then a small smile lit her face, "Well there was ONE other thing he thought of I think--" She trailed off again, lost somewhere in the past.
Ennixx narrowed her eyes. Nan was keeping something back, she was sure of it. She tried another track.
"So what was he like this John Crichton? You say he looked like us. Was he anything like Grand? Or Da?"
Aeryn sighed, "Um, well-- He was tall like your Grand, and strong like him too, though I have to admit I often forgot that."
"Was he handsome?"
Aeryn smiled again and stretched in her chair the memory obviously pleasing her. " Oh yes, he was that. Light brown hair that he liked to keep short, eyes as blue as the sky above Tillith Sound on a cloudless day. And hands, Oh my, he had such hands. Strong, steady, and skilled once he began to understand our technology. He could fix a conduit in under 30 microts with never a burned connection; He could fight too, when he had to. He didn't like to fight much but he wouldn't back down when pressed."
Aeryn voice dropped a few notches and her eyes went unfocused again. "And they were callused." She paused for a microt and then her face took on a nostalgic look. "Funny thing to remember I know. But his fingers had calluses on them from all his hard work. I can still remember how the roughness tickled a bit when he ran his hands over my body. Rough hands but a gentle touch. That was John Crichton."
Ennixx mouth dropped open. "You were lovers Nan?" She asked incredulously.
Aeryn snapped back to the present and looked Ennixx straight in the eyes for a microt and then flung her head back against the back of the chair and sighed. "We made love only once" she said, her voice grating with repressed frustration, "But I think we would have been if I hadn't gotten lost here Ennixx. Yes, given time I think we would have been that and more."
Ennixx stared in complete confusion at the tortured look on Aeryn face. "Why do you say it like that Nan? I've never heard you talk like this. I mean, you did love him didn't you?"
An arm joined Aeryn's flung back head on the back of the chair. She rubbed it across her eyes and then nodded.
"With everything I was."
"Then why do you say it like that?"
Aeryn groaned and raised her head up again. "Oh Ennixx. I was so different back then. My people were a bit--strict when it came to mating habits. They liked to keep the bloodlines pure and they took it very seriously. Crichton was an unclassified alien from an uncharted area of the galaxy. Giving myself to him was the worst breach of regulations imaginable. In fact when my superiors found out I'd merely been in the same room with him for some time they had me declared irreversibly contaminated."
"Irreversibly contaminated?"
"They ordered me killed."
"Oh Nan you can't be serious, they ordered you killed just for being in the same room with him?"
Aeryn leaned over and captured Ennixx chin in one hand. "Girl, I am going to say a lot of things today that you will find hard to believe. Some you may even find funny. But know this. I will Never. Ever. Joke about the Peacekeepers. Do you understand?"
Ennixx began to get frightened again. "Yes Nan."
Aeryn patted her on the head. "Good."
"But Nan?"
"Yes"
"How could you love someone who was responsible for---"
"Having me deemed irreversibly contaminated?" Aeryn interrupted with a laugh. "Believe me I denied it for cycles. And not just because of the kill order. Peacekeepers frowned on lasting interpersonal relationships of any strength. In fact there were punishments for having them. There was no such thing as marriage or long- term partnerships and I understand why. We were a military society and as such you never knew if you were going to live through the next day. You never knew when your assignment would change or where you would be sent next. You took your pleasure when you could, with whom you could and that was that. The idea of spending your life with just one person, having them know everything about you---" Aeryn shook her head. "It was terrifying."
"And Crichton's world was different. More like ours?"
"Yes. And he---tried to get me to see the good in that he really did. He drove me crazy with his trying." Aeryn shook her head again, " Now your Grandfather Cerric, he was a man of few words and even fewer original ideas. I think that's what I loved about him the most. The steady regularity of him. No surprises, no demands, no striving for complex things. He had his loves, farming, drawing, the children-- me. And he had his dislikes, too much rain, a bad Jahi-Nek game, Parminten stew. But that was it. He was simple-- WE were simple. And I liked that; it made giving up my old life--easier somehow."
"And this-- John. He wasn't simple?"
Aeryn smiled and began to fondle the locket again. "No, he was not. He thought all the time, constantly changing ideas and plans whenever we did something. And he talked all the time. About everything. His life, his world, our world, the weather, wormholes, my feelings, Zahn's Goddess, D'Argo's son. It didn't matter what time of day or night it was, he was ALWAYS talking. Or wanting to talk. I remember Chiana once said when I complained about it, that if it bothered me that much I should simply give him something else to do with his mouth and then gave me several very lewd suggestions as to exactly what. I dumped her in Moya's amnexus fluid for her insolence, but now, I wish I'd asked him to try a few. I'm sure the experience would have been--educational."
Ennixx frowned. "Sielya said you said I had the timing of a Chiana. What's that?"
"Who's that actually. Chiana was a Nabari we picked up. She was a prisoner too who escaped from her captors and she kept promising she'd leave but she never did. It was she who gave me this locket. A peace offering for damaging my Prowler ship. She was a devious little trelk who had too much of an interest in Crichton for my liking. But she was useful in her way." Aeryn's expression turned wistful. "I miss her."
Ennixx found herself beginning to dislike this Crichten a bit. She'd never heard her Nan talk about Grandfather Cerric with such passion and longing. Not even remotely. And it seemed she had cared enough about him to name one of her children, "John", after him. Neither her uncles nor her Da had been named Cerric after Grand. It was downright unsettling. She decided to change the subject.
"How did you get here Nan, was it a crash like Da said?"
Aeryn shook her head. "No nothing like that. We were being chased by a being called Scorpius who was attached to the Peacekeepers. They were after John mostly. They thought he had some technology they wanted. We flew into what I know now was an orbit around the Barren planet. I told the others I'd go out and take a look around. The mist that surrounded that planet was ideal for us to hide in but I wanted to make sure everything was safe. It was my job you see. I had the most tactical experience. I had to be the one to go."
Aeryn stopped for a microt and looked down gripping the locket tightly. When she resumed speaking her voice was barely above a whisper.
"John said I shouldn't go out alone, that alone wasn't safe, and I should stop being stubborn. Chiana told me she had a bad feeling about the mist and we should just abandon the area and go somewhere else. John said he wanted to come with me. He grabbed my arm and said, 'Aeryn I'm coming with you' ", she stopped abruptly.
Ennixx waited and when Aeryn didn't continue she climbed to her knees and cupped her cheek.
"Nan, are you alright?" She asked.
Aeryn's face when she lifted it was wet with tears. "He said, Aeryn I'm coming with you and I snatched my arm back and told him no. I said I was going to have enough trouble navigating a mist field without having to worry about him mucking up my recon mission with some stupid test or another I was sure he'd want to run. I thought he was silly to worry. After all I'd be back in less than an arn. I told him no, and then I left.
And as I was flying around the mist parted and I could see the Barren Planet, so I landed and I looked around for a bit and then I tried to fly back. But I couldn't find Moya in the mist. No matter where I went I couldn't find Moya and I couldn't com them and I couldn't get back. And I searched and I searched and they were nowhere to be found and when my supplies got low and I saw the Favored Planet I gave up and came here.
And I tried to get back time and again, every day for awhile, then every weaken, then every moen then every cycle. And I kept trying until I finally figured it out. There were archives, people talked. It was the mist you see. Somehow it kept me from getting back and every once in awhile it would part and you could get through but you had to time it just right and it was cycles, long, long cycles between the partings. And after a long while I realized I might never get back, and if I did it would be too late. I'd be too old. And so I gave up. Gave up trying to get back to my life on Moya and the people there. Gave up trying to get back to Crichton. And it broke my heart, and I didn't think I could take it, but there was nothing I could do.
Aeryn paused and took a deep breath. "But thankfully there was your Grandfather. He changed everything."
"How did Grand change things?" asked Ennixx gently as she wiped the tears from Aeryns face.
"He made things---better. He was one of the first people I met when I got here over 150 cycles ago and he was always kind to me. He was tolerant of my ignorance of this planet and its ways. He-- made me laugh and shared his drawings with me. And he never called me crazy or questioned why I went to the barren planet every cycle. He became my friend. And after Laran died, long after, he asked if he could be more than that and I said yes."
"So you did love him then Nan" Ennixx said starting to feel a bit better about the whole odd story.
Aeryn pulled Ennixx head down to her lap and began drawing her fingers through her hair. "I came to love him yes. And how could I not? You couldn't ask for a kinder, gentler man than Cerric. He was devoted to me, to our children, to our life together. I would have been miserable here if it weren't for him."
"But you never forgot Crichton."
Aeryn shook her head. No. He was the reason I could love your Grandfather. Crichton loved me and because he did he always believed I could be more than what I was if I only tried. And because he believed it, I came to believe it too. I owe him my life, I owe him my love and I only hope it's not to late for me to repay him those gifts."
Ennixx pulled back from Aeryn's lap abruptly. "Not to late? You talk as if you are going to see him again someday."
Aeryn opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Never mind dear. That's a story for another day. Do you think you could do me a favor now?"
Ennixx stared at Aeryn for a few microts and then nodded. She could see in the old woman's eyes that questioning that last statement would not net her any answers today. It probably meant nothing anyway, Nan was always waxing cryptic and it never meant anything. But there one thing she really needed to know before she let the matter drop completely.
"Sure. But can I ask a question first?"
"Of course."
"If you had to do it all over again. Would you?"
Aeryn stood up. "You mean if I had the choice to go back to that day and never leave Moya, would I make the same decision to come here having lived the life I have now?"
Ennixx nodded.
Aeryn stared at her granddaughter for a long microt and Ennixx could see she was torn inside.
"No." She said at last. " I wouldn't have. If I could do it all again I'd have stayed on Moya, or allowed John to come with me. It would have been his life I would have spent mine with and his children I would have borne."
Ennixx pulled back like she had been slapped but Aeryn caught her arm before she could turn and run away.
"What? Not the answer you wanted to hear?" She said sternly. "It may hurt child, but it's the truth nonetheless. The life I've led isn't one that I would have chosen for myself if I'd had the opportunity to chose otherwise."
Aeryn cupped Ennixx face in both her hands and forced the girl to look at her.
"But that being said," she continued softly. "The choices I have made since I have been here were made of my own free will and I don't regret a single one of them. I don't regret marrying your Grandfather, I don't regret having your father or your uncles and I don't regret knowing you Ennixx. You all have brought me more love; more joy than I deserve and I've been fulfilled and happy in my time here. And I love you, I love you all so much, you MUST know that."
Ennixx felt ashamed. How could she have doubted her Nan like that? It didn't matter what she had been or who she had loved in the past. She was here now, and she was theirs. That was all that counted. She flung her arms around Aeryn and hugged her hard.
"I love you too Nan."
Aeryn let her hang on for a microt and then gently pulled her away. "Now, there's enough of that mushy dren. You know how I am about that. Wipe your face like a good girl and go and fetch me that list from the counter in the kitchen. I need a few things in town I'd like you to pick up if you don't mind."
Ennixx went to the kitchen and had just picked up the list when Aeryns voice called her back.
"Ennixx?"
"Yes Nan?"
"I never got to tell Crichton how I felt about him. How much he meant to me. If I had, things might have been different. Sometimes life gives us what we want, and sometimes it gives us what we need. But we should always go for what we want first. If we don't then we're stuck with regrets and fate gives us more than our share of those without adding to them.
Ennixx shook her head. "I don't understand."
"Do you want Rhonin Kyfen?"
"Nan I don't know if I--."
"Yes you do know. Do you want Rhonin Kyfen yes or no?"
Ennixx hesitated a microt and then nodded. "Yes."
"Then go and tell him so. Or baring that, find out if he had something else he wanted to say to you before that Sielya trelk ran him off. Ask him if he had anything to ask you Ennixx. You ask him straight out and don't be afraid."
Ennixx dropped her head. "But Nan, what if he says no?"
Aeryn came and put her hands on Ennixx shoulders and shook her a bit.
"Then at least you'll know. And whatever man you choose after that you can give yourself to wholeheartedly and with the knowledge that he isn't second best. It's not winning or losing him that's important Ennixx. It's knowing that you went with your heart that is."
Ennixx raised her head. "O.K. Nan. I will, I'll try."
"Good" Aeryn deposited a kiss on Ennixx cheek and slapped her gently on the rear.
"Now go."
Ennixx left the house and headed up the road and Aeryn watched her until she faded out of sight. She then went back into the bedroom and picked up the locket and placed it around her neck.
"Five more cycles" she whispered. "Five more cycles and it should come again. You hang on Aeryn Sun. It's not to late to see them all one last time. It's not to late yet.
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