"I can't believe it...we're here," Lisa exclaimed, fogging up the ship's glass display with her breath.

Zhou Wang lay in his hammock, swinging idly. "Equinox. Land ho."

In Lisa's opinion, the person who seemed most moved by the current spectacle was, unexpectedly, Ida. She was currently sitting on a small block of dragonleaf covered by a red cushion.

She'd been sitting there motionless for the past half hour.

She's over a hundred years old, Lisa recalled, looking at the woman thoughtfully. She's lived through the 19th century, the space age, all that jazz.

Lisa turned and looked back at Khalid, the next oldest after Ida at just under one-hundred years of age. He's reacted in the opposite way by squirreling himself away in one of the ship's bathrooms for most of the trip. He was currently sitting within a dragonleaf shelter that looked just like a child's playhouse.

Priscilla didn't seem too fazed by the experience of flying through space. However, considering the rapid emergence of COTD and Priscilla's ability to rise within its kursi ranks despite her young age (under fifty), Lisa figured that there was a lot more to the woman than met the eye.

"Eyrin," Lisa called out. "How does this compare to your father's voyager?" Unlike the rest of the kursi, Eyrin had received access to the voyager on Vast Desert to assist the engineers in understanding verdora controls. While Lisa had also had access to the voyager in the past, she was curious to see what Eyrin thought about the vessel.

The verdora prince turned around from the controls console, swiveling in his chair. "This ship is much more spacious than the voyager," he said. "However, it's slow: much slower than is practical."

Lisa nodded. Juserin's voyager crossed the distance we've been traveling for over half an hour in a few minutes. Moreover, you'd think that a craft of this size would be able to carry more fuel and generate more thrust in a zero-G environment than the small voyager.

In truth, the person on the ship that Lisa was most intrigued by was Zhou Wang. For a guy who is exactly two-hundred and ninety-nine years old, you'd expect him to be more...moved by entering space. Three-hundred years ago, going into space would've been seen as folly. Of course, three-hundred years was nothing compared to the age of other kursi: in the seventeen- and eighteen-hundreds, people in China knew--and had known--about stellar bodies. Two-thousand years ago, on the other hand...

Lisa's mind suddenly drifted to her "aunt" and "uncle," Lauretta and Bern. I never realized just how special they were to be over a thousand years old and lucid, she thought. Well, at least mostly lucid. Lisa wondered if their misguided efforts to force their way into her family was due to their age--and consequently warped judgment. Lisa was still unclear how Bern was able to manipulate her family's memories with his "primary ability," Nihilum.

What even are primary abilities, anyway? Lisa thought back to the scene in the Spire when her family officially learned about her identity as Church of COTD. After attacking and being subdued, Lauretta and Bern had talked about Earth kursi having "primary abilities." However, since then, Lisa had never heard anyone else speak of such a thing.

"Hey Zhou," Lisa began, "do you know anything about kursi 'primary abilities'?"

"Hmm? Primary abilities?"

Lisa looked around the room, trying to see if anyone looked like they knew what she was talking about. "Like, for instance, an additional kursi ability aside from normal mind-manipulation."

Zhou's rocking paused, his legs hanging precipitously off the side of the dragonleaf hammock. "Can you give an example?"

Lisa nodded. I wonder what Zhou has to say about this. "Remember how I told you about a pair of old kursi that I knew?"

Zhou sighed. "The couple who kept their sanity through the power of love?"

"Uh...yeah," Lisa replied. Not the way I would've phrased it.

"How sweet," Priscilla said, whistling. "I'd give anything for a reliable guy to pass the time with."

"Well, anyways," Lisa interrupted, "one of those kursi possesses the power to plant false memories in people's minds."

Zhou's eyes looked upwards, then to the side. "You sure that's what the kursi claimed?" He resumed his rocking. "I've never met anyone who has an ability like that."

Lisa narrowed her eyes. How else do you explain what happened with my family? "It's definitely real."

"How old are these kursi?" Eyrin asked.

"At least a thousand," she answered. "They didn't give me a straight answer."

"And you," Eyrin looked at Zhou, "said that the oldest functional humans are usually only a few hundred years old, correct?"

"That's right."

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"I know what you're talking about," Eyrin said, turning back to look at Lisa. "As kursi age, their power increases. In many kursi, the power increase registers itself as increased range and increased domination abilities."

"Right," Priscilla said, crossing her arms as she leaned against the ship's starboard bulkhead. "That's how it is. But you just said many kursi. I get the feeling there's a catch."

"Some kursi wholly lack domination abilities," Eyrin noted, folding his arms into the creases of his robe. "Usually, these kursi are just talentless; however, some have alternative abilities. Unfortunately, most of these only show with age."

Zhou's expression seemed relatively unchanged. Lisa would think him bored if she didn't see the curious fire in his eyes. "So these kursi with alternative abilities appear to be talentless for countless years," Zhou stated.

"Yes."

"And lack domination abilities?"

Eyrin nodded.

"So they can't create mind slaves?"

"He's made himself pretty clear," Priscilla said, tapping her foot against the bulkhead. "Though I find it a bit unbelievable...I haven't met anyone lacking domination abilities who's made it past two-hundred years."

Eyrin stared at her and blinked once, his skin darkening slightly in color. "And that is why you don't know what I'm talking about."

But if age is the number one factor in developing an ability....why did Uncle Bern say that he already knew what mine was? He called my ability Regis. And if Lisa remembered correctly, Uncle Bern had told her, "we call it Regis." Which implied that some group or organization existed (really, how many kursi organizations were there!?) that possessed knowledge about special kursi abilities.

Lisa shook her head. I'll just ask Lauretta and Bern when I return to Earth.

---

"This is the life," Virigard sighed, kicking her feet up into the air. Dean glanced her way, a smile working its way onto his face. "This voyager is so nice. The couch, the TV, the sound system..."

"Mhm." Dean passed his fingers over the verdora controls, finding the big buttons and explicitly-worded user interface quite easy to use. He was somewhat surprised that the voyager's cabin had an entertainment area.

I can't believe that the only two on this craft are Viri and I, Dean thought. He supposed that, given the choice between flying to Equinox on one of the first-ever man-made gate-traveling space ships or the voyager, most would choose the former. But that was the key word: most. Why hadn't a single person, save Virigard, chosen the voyager?

Not even Aberash or Fartuun had elected to take the voyager to Equinox. Dean would've asked Lisa to join him, except for the fact that she was "going undercover" as a normal kursi. I don't even know why she bothers, Dean thought, sighing internally.

"Virigard," Dean started, "do you think Aberash hates me?"

"Of course not," Virigard chirped, her tail beating lightly on the couch's cushion. "You're her friend!"

"But she didn't want to ride in the voyager," he grumbled. "I was going to ride alone if I didn't specifically exempt you from traveling on the quasi-sapient holding ship."

"Well..." Virigard trailed off. "You kind of led her on, didn't you?"

Dean felt his cheeks turn slightly red. "Not on purpose," he muttered. "I was just...uh, erm...she made really beautiful music."

"You snuck out into the desert every night just to hear her sing and experiment with different instruments."

"I didn't sneak out," Dean cried. "It's my city; I can come and go as I please." Technically, anyone could come or go as they pleased: Dean didn't run the city like a prison.

"You told her that she and her music were both beautiful..."

"Because they were!"

"You visited her in the dressing room before her performance..."

"Because I was excited for her! I wanted to show my support!"

Virigard sighed, her eyelids closing over her large eyes. "Dean. You invited her over to the Spire from evening until dawn, just to hang out."

Okay, Virigard is making a good point...Dean thought. But I'd do the same thing with any friend! If Aberash was a guy, this wouldn't be a problem.

"How do I make things better?" Dean sighed.

"Are you sure you just wanna just be friends?" Virigard asked, her expression unusually serious.

Dean swiveled around, giving her a look. "Do I have time for anything else?"

Virigard shrugged her tiny, almost non-existent shoulders. "You need to make time for relationships."

Dean tsked. "Viri, do you have any first-hand experience or is this all just from watching Friends?"

"Does it matter?"

Dean chuckled. Somehow, talking to Virigard always puts me in a better mood. "I guess not. Y'know what, I'll try talking to her and ironing out whatever...misunderstanding there is."

Virigard nodded sagely.

"But what about Fartuun?" he asked. "I have no idea what's wrong. All of a sudden, she stopped talking to me the day before heading off to Equinox."

Virigard yawned. "I don't think it's your fault."

"Why?"

"Don't blame yourself for everything," Virigard scolded, her voice elevated. "A few squirrels told me that Fartuun was sent to the healing pools."

"What!?"

"Mhm," Virigard said, nodding. "The healing pools. Something about getting a V-Tap."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "She what?" I thought the android failed at giving us the V-Tap? Why did it try to give it to Fartuun again? "Do you know how she got to the healing pool?"

"The squirrels I talked to said that she just...appeared, like magic."

Dean gritted his teeth. Bath...He didn't have any proof, but who else could be behind this? He took his fingers off the controls so that he wouldn't accidentally break anything.

"What else did the squirrels say?"

Virigard's eyes snapped open. "Uh..."

"Viri?"

She coughed lightly. "They talked about you a lot!"

Dean scowled. Ugh. "Of course they did..." he muttered.

"Dean, can I have a few signed pictures of you with your shirt off?"

Dean sighed dejectedly. "Why?"

"The squirrels have a contest to collect signed pictures of you," she said. "They accumulate a lot of gossip, you know."

Dean's head rolled back against the back of his pilot's chair. "I know."

"I gave them three signatures of yours I found lying around in exchange for the information on Fartuun."

Dean's expression perked up. "You actually bargained for that information?" He assumed that she'd just heard it in passing with her preternaturally good hearing.

Virigard nodded, her expression deathly serious. "Of course! You were so upset that she was ignoring your messages!"

Dean turned away, smiling. "Thank, Viri."

"See? This is why you need to buy more coke: I used your signed receipts as bargaining chips!"

Dean snorted. "I thought you wanted signed pictures of me with my shirt off?"

Viri shot him a knowing smile. "Those are worth way more gossip," she clarified. "The receipts are still worth something, though. That's why I saved them from when we were on Earth."

"Wait, hold on," Dean said, directing the pilot's screen on the last ship to exit the Vast Desert gate and enter space around Equinox. "This is the last ship. Ready for the final escort?"

"Yup!" she cheered, focusing intently on the screen in front of the couch. "I see the last ship! Lead the way!"

Dean laughed. "Alright."