"This is a terrible idea." Said Zeke stormily. "Like, I know those are kind of your wheelhouse, but in a short lifetime of terrible ideas, this is easily the most terrible. I TOLD you we shouldn't mess with him. I told you we should avoid him, daughter or not, and now you're taking a fucking day trip onto his ship. The Vampire is the most dangerous S-ranker in the universe. If he decides to kill you, I have zero chance of helping. Your mother either."

I shrugged. "We need to talk to Bethy and Gabe. And realistically if he wanted to kill us, the ship and everyone on it wouldn't be an obstacle. Besides, mom says its fine."

He threw his hands in the air dramatically, whirling and stalking off, muttering in a perfectly audible voice about idiot nephews with death wishes. I took it from that exchange he wasn't coming with us. I turned to my mom, who was standing next to me. "He IS just being dramatic right? Because getting eaten is not high on my priority list. Like...at the bottom. If not lower."

"You'll be fine." She said with a laugh. "My father and Morgan are old rivals, though the power difference has become a bit exaggerated. The old Vampire doesn't eat baby cultivators. He's also not as prone to murder as he likes to let on. Besides, I doubt you'll see him. I'll be splitting off to meet with him about the conclave. Even if you did, he's not so bad. Making a point to kill annoyances just keeps other people from annoying him. "

That was the least reassuring reassurance I'd ever heard. But it would have to do. Since he wouldn't be around we could just focus on having fun with our friends. That did raise another question though."We have permission to board right?" I asked, looking at the absolutely massive coffin shaped ship floating in the void of space. We were currently in a small shuttle taking us between the ships, though small might have been a misleading statement since it was big enough for Zeke to go to another room to sulk. The rest of us were standing next to a transparent field looking out at the ship. My mom, sister, Callie, and I.

My mother nodded. "Of course. THAT might get you killed. One doesn't trespass on The Boneyard. Most S-rankers would be too scared to try to break into that place."

I sighed internally. The Boneyard. It reminded me of some of the stuff Bethy said about her dad and how he leaned into edgy stereotypes sometimes. A giant coffin shaped ship named The Boneyard certainly fit the bill there. From beside me Chelsea whistled as she looked the thing over. "That's...unique. You make it sound like it's old and well known. What is it made of exactly?"

"Stygian Tungsten." Said mom with a chuckle. "A-rank. Finding enough S-rank material to make a ship that size is problematic. I've only ever seen one or two S-rank ships. Still, that one is heavily enchanted, and the metal it's made of is one of the hardest A-rank materials in the universe. Of course, a lot of the Impact was shunted into the enchantments so people like you can actually walk around in there, so that makes it substantially more durable."

I knew that shunting Impact like that was possible since it was what they did with the Necromedes, but hearing that it made the thing more durable was interesting. I hadn't really connected the fact that Impact made you tougher to what it would do to the material the ship was made from, even independent of the enchantments.

It didn't take long for the shuttle to enter the docking bay of The Boneyard, the ship we were using was pretty fast and we weren't too far, at least relatively speaking. When we touched down, we were immediately inundated with a massive swarm of...flying kittens. I laughed, rolling my eyes as I let Bethy bat at me from a dozen angles before she reincorporated into her normal form.

"Ta-dah!" Said the tiny Vampire. She was wearing a purple velvet ballgown with black trim today, and a black headband with a purple flower on it. Tracey and Aida were standing off to either side, letting their mistress have her fun, and Gabe was leaning against the wall looking amused. When he saw my mom though, his eyes went wide and he stood up ramrod straight.

"Star Queen." He said formally, kneeling quickly and lowering his head. "This lowly crusader bids you greetings. Apologies for not receiving you in a more proper manner."

Bethy just rolled her eyes. "Don't be so stuffy, Gabe. I'm sure she doesn't want people fawning over her like that. It gets super old. You're Chelsea's mom huh? Nice to meet you. I'm Bethany, but everyone calls me Bethy! My daddy owns this ship!'

My mom laughed. "I'm well aware, young lady. Please, Crusader Brightlaw, rise. She's right. I feel no need to debase hard working members of the church with my very presence. And an Adamant too. What a rare path. I'm impressed with your resolve and courage. Not many are willing to take such a risk, and you've already come so far and been through so much. I wish you luck on your journey."

I was pretty sure Bethy knew Chelsea was my sister, but I suspected she ALSO knew she wasn't supposed to mention it. Despite her eccentricities Bethy was whip smart. She liked to be underestimated, so it was always hard to tell how much of her crazy was intentional to throw off her enemies.

Grabbing Callie and I, she started pulling us. "Oh, I'm so excited you're here! I can't wait to show you around. This place is so boring and stuffy usually, but there's so many neat things to see. Now that you're here I just know we're going to have lots of fun. Donuts and Poptarts will be so happy to see you too. They're out roaming the ship, I've got them tapped into the local shadow plane. Callie especially will be a treat for them. Poptarts absolutely adores you."

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Callie blinked in surprise. "He...does?" She gave me a questioning look, and I just shrugged. I had no means of communicating with Bethy's cats. If she said one of them was a Callie fan, they must be.

"Of course!" The smaller girl said cheerfully as she dragged us out into a huge open chamber. "You're his favorite person. Donuts is more of a Benny fan." I blinked, unaware the cats even knew who Benny was. Huh. As she dragged us onto a dirt road, I got a better look around, and I revised my 'huge chamber' estimation to 'absolutely gargantuan'.

The whole place was probably about the size of Rajak, albeit mostly open air. It reminded me a lot of Bethy's domain actually. Bloody sky full of dark cloudy with a blood red moon. The light spilled down over black grass and I could see castles out in the distance surrounded by small towns. I was kind of gobsmacked, but eventually managed to get out a question. "What...IS this place? Like what are all the castles."

She just shrugged. "Oh this is where I grew up. At least most of the time. Technically daddy owns the Sanguinis system, the Queen gave it to him for services rendered or something, but he likes to stay mobile. Each of us kids have our own castle here, though most of us share with our mothers. Mommy still lives in mine now that I'm out and about, but I don't think she's here right now. It's a shame, because I'd love to introduce you guys!"

I wasn't sure what to expect of Bethy's mother, actually. She talked about her dad a lot, but I hadn't heard her mention her mom. "Is your mom a Vampire too?"

Giggling, she shook her head. "Silly, only Larks get to be Vampires. None of our mom's are. No, she's a fae. A Maenad specifically." I had no clue what that meant, but Chelsea, who wasn't trailing far behind us let out a squeak of fear. Bethy gave her a bright smile. "Oh, don't worry. She doesn't eat guests. Anymore. Mostly."

At my glance, my sister looked around worriedly, then lowered her voice, layering it with Stealth. "Maenads are wine nymphs. They're the original party animals, and are always looking to have a good time. Which in their case often means eating people who come to their parties. They're known to devolve into a frenzy of slaughter and bloodshed as they revel in debauchery."

I swallowed hard, but glancing at my mother, she didn't seem worried. If we were in danger she'd have mentioned it. Though I supposed that would be recursion, and anyone associated with a high powered Ascendant like Morgan Lark would be able to handle theirs.

It did explain a lot about Bethy though. I wasn't sure how racial traits mixed, but a lot of her personality made a lot more sense. No wonder she was so focused on avoiding her bloodlust, it must be even worse than a normal Vampire.

As we walked, I decided to start telling them about my plans. "So I came to see if you guys wanted to travel with us. We're heading for the Empire to join up with one of the noble armies. Get some training before the big war. I've never had much formal combat instruction, just lots of sparring with Abel and some others. They've taught me a lot about fighting, but that's not the same as war."

She brightened. "Oh, I bet they have super cute outfits! I can put my hair up in a ponytail and be like. 'Attention!' And everyone will be like 'Oh no it's Captain Bethy, she's so serious'." Callie and I both looked at her in disbelief. On the list of phrases I expected to hear in my life. That one didn't make the top million, especially not from hardened soldiers. But whatever her reasons were it sounded like she wanted to come. I glanced over at Gabe.

"How about you man? You in?" I wasn't sure how his whole Adamant deal would mix with training like that, but he was kind of made for breaking lines, so if nothing else I was sure he'd be damned useful. Plus it would be nice to have more friends around.

He shrugged. "I would normally be heading back to the Holy Dominion. I'm not exactly top of the food chain, and the Bishop I report to would be expecting me. But since we're standing in the presence of a Saintess and she seems fine with it there shouldn't be a problem. The only people likely able to countermand her permission would be the Popes, and none of them probably know I even exist."

My mother just chuckled. "I can take care of that much, I assure you. Consider yourself reassigned to my daughter's honor guard with Callen. In any case, I'll leave all of you to entertain yourselves. I have my meeting with Lark. I'll come collect you all when it's time to leave." She beamed at Bethy. "It was lovely meeting you, dear."

"Thanks, you too!" Said our friend exuberantly. Then she turned to the rest of us. "So, we have a while before we need to go? Because there's so many things I want to show you. Daddy has this hilarious room full of skeletons that play their own ribs like xylophones."

That did sound pretty fantastic. With my non Bethy captured arm, I reached back and dragged Chelsea up to walk with us and my sister smiled at me happily as she got sucked into the vortex of fun and crazy that was Bethany Lark. This was a rare opportunity, getting to see inside a ship that most people would never set foot on, and I wasn't going to waste it. This was going to be a good day.