The Parts We Play

Down That Path Into Darkness

Krel blinked and frowned. "Wait a sekton. How did you get 'the talk' if there were no other Akiridions around?"

Cara made a deeply disturbed face. "Uh. Well, it was both funny and horrifying, really- I uh... Stuart."

Krel stared, and then burst out laughing. "Stuart??? Stuart of Durio? You got the talk from-"

Cara groaned. "Yes. Yes I did. And it was every bit as nightmarish as you'd imagine."

Krel doubled over, howling. "Wh- how did you- how did he-"

"With an intergalactic encyclopedia of anatomy," Cara rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying not to laugh, which made Krel grab her arm and lean on her a bit to keep from collapsing to his knees right there on the spot. He was laughing so hard he'd gone near silent, save for intermittent weak squeaks.

"I'm glad one of us is enjoying the recollection of this experience," Cara noted sarcastically as Krel began to recover, immediately making him wheeze again, which drew a reluctant smile from her. Despite how awful the memory sounded (and was), the fact it was bringing him this much delight made it strangely better.

Cara smiled and hooked her arm around Krel's, helping steady him. "Kaius and Denar tried to tell me what had been happening on Akiridion since I left," she said. "What about you? What were you doing? I want to hear everything I missed."

Krel caught his breath and began to tell her- first bits and pieces, and then stories began to flow, almost beyond his control- she was just so easy to tell them to. He told her about all his proudest creations- he told her how he'd often clashed with his father's ideals over suitable focuses for royalty.

At this, Cara got a sympathetic look. "Oh honey," she said quietly, gently rubbing his arm. "You're brilliant. He should've taken an interest in who you are and what matters to you. I wish I could have been there- I'd've yelled at him."

"Would you?" Krel pressed, skeptical.

"Okay, no, he was intimidating, but I'd have yelled about him with you after," Cara corrected, and Krel chuckled, squeezing her hand which was resting on his arm.

"It's nice to know someone will always appreciate who I am," Krel admitted, smiling at her. "I remember working with you as a child, you watching me building some silly thing or another with this look of incredible wonder. I missed having someone who cherished that as much as I did."

"It was like magic to me," Cara said. "With your mind and your hands you crafted things I could only dream of. You made it look so easy. It relaxed me, you know? Just being with you and watching you build?"

Krel hummed a fond laugh. "It was calming to have the company. You were like- an anchor to reality, in a prevent-me-from-working-until-it-got-bad-for-me way. You were the only thing that seemed real, sometimes, when I was in that headspace."

Cara smiled a little. "That's funny. Those moments always came with so much freedom from reality, for me. I should have always been worried about something or other, being an Okhrana, but you took that all away for a while."

Krel frowned a little. "What do you mean?"

Cara stiffened slightly, something shifting behind her eyes. "Just- we had to always be alert and on watch. But we were good at it, so it wasn't really a problem. Don't worry about it."

Krel's frown deepened, but they had arrived at rehearsal, and so he didn't pry further.

***

With Krel busy so often, Denar thought it might be wise to check in on Aja and perhaps try to take her mind off her recent breakup for a while. So, he formulated a transduction using Krel's design for a serrator upgrade, and, safely hidden behind brunet hair and brown eyes, Denar knocked on the Mothership's door.