"HUNGRY FOR YOUNGLINGS, THE MOTHER GODDESS TRAVELED FROM AFAR TO FIND A SAFE PLACE FOR THEM. SHE FOUND THE GREATER LIGHT ALL ALONE, WATCHING OVER THE SILENT REACHES OF HIS DOMAIN. THEY COURTED EACH OTHER, AND SOON SHE WAS GRAVID. NESTING IN THE RICHEST OF HIS TERRITORIES, SHE GAVE BIRTH AND RAISED THEM TO BE STRONG AND WISE WITH THE AID OF HER HELPERS. WHEN THE CHILDREN WERE GROWN, SHE TOOK WATCH OVER THEM FROM THE LESSER LIGHT AND REMAINS THERE TO THIS DAY."

--FABLE: MOTHER'S NEST.

----------------------------------------

In the Peregrine Dawnstar, Jeol Starr blocked a body blow from the hovering sparring drone in his quarters. The size of a soccer ball, it projected a vaguely humanoid form of forcefields. Ducking a kick, he stepped up with a combination of heavy punches, then dodged an attempted headbutt. Before he could back out of range, the drone projection landed a knee to his gut. The lighting was dim, except for the overhead spot that followed them around the empty room. He wiped the sweat from his gray brow with a muscular forearm as he planned a new attack.

His exertions matted down and darkened his bronzey-chestnut hair, and his narrowed eyes glinted a light yellow color. Leaping forward, he got a round kick on his opponent and pushed it down to the ground with a flurry of blows. He clenched his teeth as the drone countered with a punch that glanced off his coppery beard at an angle and squirmed out from under him. Stepping back to guard himself, he channeled the hurt and frustration he felt. Surging forward, he pressed his attack until the drone dinged as it registered a knockout. He grabbed the hover drone and tossed it to an upper corner to get it out of the way.

Walking to the center of the room, Jeol stepped on a switch turning off the forcefield over the viewport. "Heavy rain shower and supplies," he requested, taking off his protective shorts and stepping into the shallow bowl of the viewport. Warm droplets cascaded down on him, and he enjoyed the sensation as it rinsed off the sweat before he pulled out his wash cloth and body wash. Working his cloth across his hairy chest, he thought about how the survivors of Qardos had little in the way of body hair, but that was changing as more mortals transitioned into the Family.

Once he was human, and he had the same build now as then when in his male phase. Not quite two meters tall, he was a tad short compared to the original bloodline. His well-defined, muscular build contrasted with their lithe and slender bodies. When he was male, Jeol was by far broader of shoulder and limbs than Rae. But as he presented as more masculine in his preferred phase, he was also more feminine when he Changed. His spouse only inclined a little towards the gender of her current phase, but he went all in no matter which. Rinsing off, he checked the estimated time of arrival displayed on his wall. They were nearly there.

Drying off and dressing, he strode onto the bridge. Sitting in the port command chair, Jeol nodded a greeting to his pilot Tomas. "Captain," Tomas said, and faced the main screen that displayed their progress to a fertile green planet orbiting around a yellow star. They headed for the planet's sizable moon and soon approached a shadowed crater.

He saw not the one Peregrine he expected, but two. He pinged the ships as he landed near them. The Question's response was, "Why do we never get an answer when we're knocking at the door?" The other ship broadcast, "I think. I think I am..." then returned his ping. The Dawnstar sent out, "Rise, let us see you, Dawning is the Day..."

"In the Beginning," Jeol muttered. "Wonder why she's here when Chayse said she left the Question with him?" Nodding to his pilot again, he teleported to the Beginning and made his way to the bridge. Chayse was sitting at the navigator’s station in front of the main screen which was divided into a myriad of different feeds. Like most Kindred ships, there was no autonomous pilot in the center of the room. The Kin could multitask the work that other Peregrines relied on their ship's intelligence to handle, only breaking them out in emergencies.

Jeol clasped his friend's forearm, following it up with a brief hug before he sat at helm beside him. "So," he said, "you needed more than one Peregrine?

Chayse chuckled, "Not really, but… well, Lisen and I don't have kids at home right now. She understands I want to watch over mom, but she doesn't want to be alone while I do it. So she came to join me."

Jeol tilted his head, listening. "I don't sense her around...?" He was friends with Chayse's spouse. Lisen, once named Lizabeth, was the second to transition to a Qard, only a few decades after he did. He'd been able to help her adjust to her new state because he'd went through it himself. Neither Rae nor Chayse could understand how difficult it was to go from human mortal to alien demigod.

"She decided to do some surveying of the system," Chayse brought up a diagram of the stellar system as the main display. "We have a hot rock spinning on its axis in the first orbital slot. The second is a marginally habitable Arid planet that Lisen is currently checking over. The third is the Terrestrial planet Rae is on, followed by a pair of Asteroid belts. Next are two Gas Giants, the nearer of which has a ring. The outer two are a cold, rocky planet and then an iceball."

"Don't you have duties back on Deltia?" Jeol said.

Chayse laughed, "Part of being First Kin is I have lots of able lieutenants. Besides, if I need to be there in person, I can telepresence into my synthezoid body there."

Jeol nodded and asked, "What's all this?" as Chayse brought up the multiple feeds again.

"I'm monitoring the various drones and satellites on the planet. The ones with a white border are hers, sending archives to the Question and powering the survey algorithms Rae uses." The windows bordered by white flashed briefly. A larger set with yellow borders flashed, "These are mine, watching her. The blue-bordered feeds are the satellite net."

Sucking in a slow breath, Jeol controlled his voice carefully, "How is she?"

Chayse turned his chair to face him squarely. "Not well, honestly. Overall, it's evident she's in a fugue state, with lapses into deeper dissociative episodes. She'll become hyper-focused and lose track of time, working until she's exhausted."

Jeol covered his eyes with a hand and sighed. "What is she working on?"

"Tapping into her design data tells me she's carving a plateau-sized gryphon," Chayse said. "It's solid black granite, and she's mostly been carving out the ground floor. This morning she's working on the ears by cutting away everything else."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Jeol felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. He uncovered his eyes and saw his friend giving him a concerned look. "And how are you doing, Jeol?"

"Flamin' awful, why do you ask?" Jeol said.

"Well, you've looked better," Chayse said. "You're pale, and your features seem drawn. Compared to your usual cheerful self, your affect is down, and your body language is tense." Jeol rubbed over the oathband covering his right wrist. "I also see you've noticed what else she did. I was honestly surprised."

"She took off her band!" Jeol snapped. "She's never done that without giving me notice first. You know we can feel each other with them? First, she slammed shut our mental link, then this! I hate this." His rubbing grew harsher until the bracer began chafing his wrist. Suddenly aware of Chayse's frown, he forced himself to stop and looked away.

"She is struggling," Chayse said. "Sometimes she seems normal, and at other times completely confused. I've never seen her like this, just carving away at the stone with a vacant stare."

Jeol shook his head, "I haven't either. The closest I can think of when she told me the story of her first lover. Her eyes were dull, and her voice was flatly monotone. Whenever we merged minds in Unity, those memories remained locked away from me."

"The one who killed himself after…?"

"After they were intimate, yeah," Jeol said. "Even the memories following the incident show signs of trauma. She just withdrew from everybody and everything until she scraped herself back together again. I don't think anyone else really knows how much that damaged her. She's pretty good at concealing it."

"That sounds a lot like what she's doing now," Chayse said. "Any idea what triggered it this time?"

"No, she caught me off guard. We had an open conversational link I wasn't actively monitoring. I barely got a flash of upset and alarm before she slammed her mind shut to me. We're now down to the bare minimum of awareness of each other. The next thing I know, Danel asks me why the Chief’s Gem appeared in front of him, covered with her blood. After that, I have to find out from Tomas that you're helping her find an expedition world."

"Wait, she sent it to her dad, not you?" Chayse said. "As for the blood, it looked like she clawed it off her face." He threw up an image on the screen of how she'd been when he found her. Jeol winced and looked away. He breathed until he thought he could speak with a semblance of calm.

"Danel doesn't know what he's supposed to do with it. He was glad to give it to Rae and certainly doesn't want it back." Jeol sighed. "I don't get it. Usually, when she needs a break, she sends it to me for safekeeping. The Family is worried about her, too. Even when she isn't directing things, she's kinda the glue that keeps us together. Her brother Jon's been grumbling for another reason. He's having to help finish the more critical projects she dropped when he'd rather be back doing his own research."

Chayse frowned, "I'll send some Kin to assist him." Jeol remembered his friend derived his core consciousness on a blend of Rae's and Jon's youthful mental patterns. Chayse said, "My observations haven't seen any more self-destructive behavior, and she's been taking basic care of herself."

"Maybe we can stage an intervention?" Jeol said.

Chayes shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. Before she left, she could barely tolerate my presence and flinched away when I went to hug her. The therapists in the Family think if we try to force her to accept help, it will break her further. As long as she's not self-destructive, they said we should wait until she asks for help."

"And how long will that take?" Jeol said.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Chayse said with a shrug. "I can let you know when something changes… what's this?"

The border of one of the satellite feeds was flashing red. "Taylor's flagged something for us." Chayse switched off all the videos on the main screen except the flashing window which expanded to fill the space.

On the world below, a volcano erupted violently. The screen split into two, as another shot showed Rae high above the eruption, in the center of a nexus of lightning strikes as clouds and winds gathered in fast-forward above her. She just hovered at first, then attacked the seaward rim of the crater until it breached. Then she hung there limply as the eruption vigorously gouted lava into the waves in the eye of the forming hurricane. The storm stretched out enormously, slowly rotating over land and sea, powered by ash, clouds, and the silver mist of her aura.

"Why… why is she just hanging there like that?" Jeol said.

A couple of side windows popped up. "Sensors show… there’s a lot of pent-up energies that she's venting into the storm," Chayse said. "Along with that, she's constantly changing her electrical charge to attract and repel the lighting. The fact this activated the volcano seemed to be a happy side benefit." More side windows appeared, "I am concerned at how fast her mass reserves are dropping."

"C'mon, Rae," Jeol muttered. Abruptly, she fell like a stone, sinking under the surface of the burbling lava with scarcely a ripple. He shot to his feet, his nails digging hard into his palm. As the seconds ticked by, his green aura flickered over him. If she didn't come up soon, he'd damned well 'port down there and pull her out.

"Wait!" Chayse said. "There!" He pointed, and her head came up into the air as they both sighed with relief.

Jeol's aura dropped away as he watched her tired strokes to the lava's shore. Pulling herself out of the caldera, she crawled up on the rocks before falling still. He sat back down and looked at Chayse.

"She's going to be exhausted after this, and she doesn't have her skyboard," Chayse said. He brought up a window of the board's code and hacked in commands to home in on Rae once a certain amount of distance separated them, and sent it on its way to the volcano. Then he spoofed the logs to make it look like the command came from her. He winked at Jeol, "Hopefully, she won't remember she didn't do this."

Jeol watched the hurricane rage on, unchecked. His heart ached to see her like that. He couldn't walk away, knowing what she was going through; he felt he needed to bear witness. His regular job of designing starships was something he could do remotely, although he usually didn't. "That's it. This moon is getting three Peregrines."

----------------------------------------

The night passed without further incident, and Taylor spent the time adjusting the satellite net over the planet. When It was morning over the volcano, he slotted a new surveillance satellite into a synchronous orbit above the Daring's crash site far to the northwest. It quickly yielded clues to how the survivors lived. A small village of stonework buildings and pathways surrounded the hill that was the freighter's tomb. Paths also lined the long, low ridge where the scans detected the ship's dead. It was nearly a century since the last of them died, and Taylor expected the place to be overgrown and crumbling apart. Instead, the plant encroachment seemed under control, and the masonry was still solid.

The population of animals Chayse detected turned out to be groups of the felids his Captain wanted to investigate. Traveling along the pathways and flowing in and out of the buildings, they looked almost purposeful. After watching a cat move a fallen tree limb without using its mouth or paws, Taylor zoomed in for a closer look. A cluster of long, rope-like tendrils extended from leathery patches behind both its shoulder blades. Fully prehensile, the tendrils coiled around the branch to grip it securely and were jointly strong enough to lift it as the cat moved it off of a path. Not every felid nearby had visible tendrils, but all had the shoulder patches. As he watched, the tendrils of the one that moved the branch slid back within its shoulders, out of sight.

"Interesting," Taylor said to himself.