There we were again. Comprehension was a struggle. It took me seconds to realize what must have happened. I looked out there into the void that lay beyond Moros. The very edge of known sirian space. For all we knew, there were only a few more stars in the direction the ship pointed. And then there was a big void. I often wondered whether it was the void we once jumped into, half a year ago. I never was good at astronomy. For that I had a ship with an intuitive database and a limited AI as well as a few bright heads within my crew.
Slowly turning around, I took a look at Maren, moving over to her to check how she was. The poor girl didn't look fit at all right in that moment. "I'll bring us home, don't worry," I sounded and pecked her cold cheek. A bit of console input later, the Hoffnungsschimmer cruised to the jump hole to Delta, cloaking right before entering it. I guessed the Apahanta would follow us, given I hinted we would take the jump hole. And like that, the two cloaked ships left Omicron Lost.
Maren needed a break, and I was willing to give her some rest. Picking her up, I carried her over to our room. My giant bed was still there, along with dozens of pillows and blankets. Bloody moonface ate chocolate in bed. Carefully dropping her in the blankets, I lay down next to her. "I'll take care of Dinah for a day."
And that turned out to be a weird thing to do. Once the Hoffnungsschimmer and the Apahanta were in safety, I brough Maren over to my ship, and from there we took my brave little Hussar, the Attractive Rover, to head for Baden Baden once the Apahanta brought us there. They were waiting far away from the planet to not get detected by Rheinland, probably cloaking again once we launched.
It was night on Baden Baden. At least there were Maren and Dinah rented a room in a hotel. Carrying the weak Marmar from the landing pad over to the shuttle to reach the hotel, I caught a few looks like that. I had to smirk about it, though. Half an hour later we finally reached the hotel and the room they had rented. It was big enough to be comfortable for the two chaotic people. Scouting for the first best place, I eventually dropped Maren on a couch. Since, well, after carrying her body for that long, even my arms got a bit weak. I sat down there as well and placed Maren's head on my lap. "We're not dead. Pretty cool," I sounded quietly, looking down at the face of the woman I was in love with for some reason. And she snored back at me.
From what I would have imagined would happen, waking up in my bed on Baden-Baden wasn't very high on the list. Well, it wasn't technically my bed. It was the bed in the hotel room I and Dinah currently were inhabiting. My entire body felt sort of sore, as though I'd actually done sports (yikes!). The ceiling was nice, at least. It wasn't flat, but had these sort of spots in them that made the surface more rough. I didn't know the English word for it right away, which irked me. Raufasertapete. Oh well. I tried counting the ingrained chips, but sorta failed as staring at them for a prolonged period of time made them blur together into one giant mess.
I turned my head to the side to see what time it was. 9:52. Crap, I forgot to make Dinah food for school. I didn't really feel like getting up, however. Seeing as there was no Dinah around, I figured she was in school, and I saw the culprit responsible for making sure she was. Dinah did tend towards being the more unwilling type, but she did seem to do it at least when I asked her to nicely. "Hey," I croaked towards Ezrael, who was sitting on the chair in front of the desk of the room, which was littered with Dinah's homework material. Mittens was sitting on the desk, apparently having a staring contest with Ezrael. "Got a headache pill or somethin'?" I asked, figuring that would be enough to allow me to sit up without the room spinning. "Did I pass out on the way back? That's really embarrassing."
Mittens was such a lovely cat. I still remember how we found him on Gran Canaria as he watched me pee in the woods. Curious little devil. Cats are good people. He sat there, infront of me, staring at me, blinking a few times and was just about to come closer to probably sit on my lap as Maren quote-unquote yelled over to me, asking me for an aspirine. It would have helped her to actually look at the nightstand and simply take what was there, as I had already prepared everything, knowing she had an headache. "It's right next to you, love," I told her, and saw Mittens getting careful as Woofers toddled over to Maren's bed, in a glorious attempt jumped against it as he was tiny and didn't master that height yet, then gave it another try, failed another time and eventually, the poor little puppy sat down on the floor, looking up at the beauty and the beast that was both personified by Maren. There were probably plenty of people on Baden Baden who looked as demolished as Maren just did when they wook up at the same time.
Mittens remained where he was, but I decided to stand up and move over to Maren. "How are we feeling today, Lady Maren?" I asked her and sat down next to her, placing my hand on her hip.
Turning to the side, sure enough, there was a glass of some opaque liquid that would probably taste really acidic. Reaching over, I took the glass and gulped down the contents while trying to think of something that would taste nice. And failing. "I'll feel better now," I replied to him while placing the glass back down on the night stand. He told me that Dinah was at school and that he'd seen to it that she got there. "You know, you don't need to walk her. She probably doesn't like that," I meant, figuring that it was probably embarrassing for her to be seen like that. Slowly but surely, the aspinin worked on dispersing the clouds in my head, clearing up my thoughts and allowing me to sit up in the bed. I was wearing a change of clothes that felt like he'd changed me. I was about to protest, figuring that would have been an inappropriate sight for Dinah, but then I remembered that he'd probably done it on the Hoffnungsschimmer.
"We probably scared Sherry a lot, eh?" I asked, wondering just how the Apahanta must have reacted on seeing us just appear in the distance. Come to think of it, they likely hadn't been able to pinpoint where we had gone anyway because we had been cloaked when it happened.
Matter of factly, escorting Dinah to school was fun, to me at least. I let her show me the way, while I walked Woofers so he didn't poop all over the hotel room. Of course there was still the weirdness of her being a very recent addition to the family, and me having told her that I wouldn't be her father. And that basically a stranger was escorting her. And that that stranger didn't look like the casual dad but more like a retired rock star, because he going walkies with a tiny dog puppy. Apart from that, it was fun. I didn't walk with her to the very schoolyard, because I didn't want to make her feel embarrassed.
"Sherry didn't know what was happening. She was ready in case something would attack us, but apart from that, she was just- wait a second, how do you know?" I asked her. I never told her the Apahanta was following us. She couldn't have known. Except if Valery has a higher range than she said to have, or the Vagrants told her. I thought the latter was the most likely.
"And what did the Vagrants say? You did talk with them, right? Are we good?" I asked her, thinking we were good. Simply because we were still alive. Nobody died so far. That was good, right? Woofers sneezed, which caused Mittens to sharpen his ears and look over to the little pupper.
Sometimes, it was better to not answer him. The first question at least. If he knew, the magic might be gone. I watched the two animals interact in their usual ways. "They never had a problem with you specifically," I said, pulling back the blankets slightly so I'd get a little more air. He always turned up the heater so much. "Everything that happened to you was completely coincidental. It could've been anyone who picked up Aphrodite. You just happened to be there."
Mittens jumped off the table and walked over to the other side of the room, sitting underneath the coffee table, where nobody could really reach him. "They don't care for you. They cared for the captured Vagrant."
To be fair, that much I was able to guess, simply because Aphrodite hinted it at some point. I was more concerned about the way she improvised afterwards, which included the attempt of taking over the Apahanta and by extension, me. I gave Maren a flat look, hoping there was more than just that. "Will they leave us alone?" I asked her. It was summing up all I wanted to find out about.
Looking at her, I wondered whether she was still freezing. Maybe I should have turned on the heater a bit further, or I should have just joined her in bed to rub my adonic body against her cold body. But then again, I didn't want to cause a mess in the room Dinah was also living, and I had no idea when she would be back again. Dinah was thirteen, so she was probably in the sixth or seventh grade. Probably sixth grade.
The last thing she really needed was yet more heat. Luckily, he didn't turn it up even more. "As I said, it was incidental. You were a means to an end. They don't care about you. Will they attack you? Maybe, so keep your distance." It wasn't like I'd be willing or able to play meatshield all the time. From where I sat, I watched him stand up and walk over to the thermostat and turn the heater even higher. "No! I'm already melting! How can you live in this constant heat?" I groused, giving him an accusing look.
Sinking down, I kicked the blanket away while lying spread-eagle on the bed. Even though I'd known that nothing would really happen to me, I was still peeved that I was now lying in bed from getting flooded by information by the big creature we had encountered. "Sorry that I can't really give you anything more encouraging, love."
"It is all I wanted to know, really," I told her, followed by a sigh as I turned down the heater again. How was she able to sweat while being cold? I never got that. Such a female thing. "The idea was to find out whether they would try to take the Apahanta away again, or me."
I moved over to her and sat down again. And I picked up Woofers, who whipped his tiny tail when I held him. I hated dogs, but they were cute as long as they were small. I liked pugs, though. Why didn't Maren get a pug instead? One with the nose wide open, of course. Wait, why a dog in first place, we already had a cat. "I don't mind keeping my distance from them. It's been a while since I was in contact with a Nomad last time, and to be fair, it's not really something I look forward to do again. I'll never get used to the telepathic stuff. Like, you know they know what you think the moment you think it, and I'm always like Don't think about sex GOSH DARN IT and suddenly the thoughts get more awkward, images like me boning the Bretonian Queen pop up and, well, you know where all that leads."
I smirked at her. "You know, now that we're here, we could spend a nice day here on the planet. They have those purple mud springs here. People come from all over Sirius to take a bath in the mud. We should do that. Very expensive but we should definitely do that."
While it was a great offer under normal circumstances, I really only wanted to curl up in bed right about now. "I guess we can do that," I replied anyway, figuring that it had been so long that it would be a good idea to do something together again. It'd be good for bonding. "Dunno about Dinah, though. Do we take her with us?" It might be boring to her, but asking didn't hurt. Was this a nude kind of deal? If so, we probably shouldn't ask. Uuuugh, thinking was currently bad.
"There's a thing we forgot during all this, though." I held up a finger as though I had made a very important discovery that would change the way we would look at the universe. "Didn't Adrianna want to look at my hands and see if she can fix them?" Even though I had been apprehensive at first about the prospect about potentially curing the damaged nerves in my hands that were a remnant of an accident I had had as a teenager, I had to admit that the prospect of maybe less occasional pain was enticing, although I didn't know how effective the treatment would prove to be. "In any case, just gimme an hour here, okay?" Those mud baths could wait. I think I deserved lying around a while longer.
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