Elly shrugged, sighing heavily as she reached into the mesh vegetable basket and grabbed another carrot. The rest she pushed aside with her knife, toward her mother's end of the counter. "I didn't know he would get so mad about it. He knows I won't spread the information around...... At least, I hope he knows......"

"He takes security very seriously dear; you know that." Medena scooped the carrots into the stew pot, avoiding her daughter's gaze. " I must admit I'm surprised he took it so hard......." But she emulated Elly's sigh a moment later, shaking her head. "I hope you won't do this again."

Of course I won't. She chopped the carrot slowly, not really paying much attention to the task. There has to be some other reason. He must be hiding something in there...... something he doesn't want me to see. There was no way he could have known what she was looking for; she had not mentioned it to anyone, hadn't even written it in the journal she had taken to keeping since entering Jugend.There must have been something else.

But what? Something about Anaya? Or maybe about......

Elly pushed the memories away. It had been weeks; couldn't she go one day without wallowing in self-pity over the incident with Drive? There was a simple solution -- she just wouldn't take it....... ever again. They couldn't force her to anymore.

At least...... she didn't think they could. Only standard Gebler units were given the stuff as a routine assignment; she was set for a much higher echelon in the ranks of the military. She knew it was her Solarian blood -- if she had been a Lamb, even a second class citizen, she would be doomed to that existence. Although it felt snobbish to think it, she was glad, right now, that she had been Gazel born and bred.

I won't be forced to submit. Not ever again! Never!

It felt good to make such a resolution...... but it still didn't lift her spirits. The Ministry, the man who had helped her....... her father......

"What were you looking for, Elly? I can't understand why he would get mad over a simple perusal of files, unless you were somewhere holding classified documents......" Her mother gathered what she had cut and threw it into the soup pot, pouring another cup of water in after it. "You must have been in a sensitive area. What was it?"

Elly shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. The kitchen, although as familiar to her as her own face, seemed to become a different place, as if she were no longer home but in someone else's house, talking to someone else's mother. It was a strange feeling; she didn't know how to interpret it, except as homesickness...... yet she was home. And this was her mother -- the only mother she could remember.

She opened her mouth, letting the words fall out like puzzle pieces. "I was researching Krelian."

The name came out with a strange, thinly lilted accent, hanging in the air like the frozen bell-tones of the First Level church. It sounded at once foreign, but also very, very familiar, in a distant sort of way. Like she had heard it spoken that way a thousand times.

The feeling of homesickness increased; Elly bit her lip and leaned against the counter, lowering her head so her hair would hide her face from her mother's inquiring blue gaze.

Hopefully it would be taken as embarassment, or shame over her actions. She had no idea where the name had come from...... not that way. It brought to mind, vaguely, the picture her mother had shown her from the archives of Nisan and the war, but she didn't see how they could possibly be connected. Even if Krelian had been alive at that time, she didn't know anything about his origins, or the language the Lambs had spoken back then.......

"Where on earth did you......" Medena paused. "And on a first name basis, are we?" She let the spoon clatter to the counter. "Why him? You've never been interested in any governmental figures before. In any case, they do include history lessons in Jugend; what is there to question?"

What is there that is safe to question? Why risk it? Yes, she knew her mother's paranoia; she understood it. But it didn't seem, this time, to be as great a risk as her parents saw it.

"It seems a little unbelievable......" she said after a moment, focusing on the vegetables she was chopping and avoiding her mother's gaze. "He's the only 'Lord' in our history...... but how can that be so? Solaris was raised after the Nisan Suppression...... and before that only Cain and his Board of Gazel ruled.

"How old does that make him? Over five hundred years...... I just......" Elly sighed, still refusing to look at her mother. "I was just....... I wanted to know the truth. Because he...... spoke to me. And I wanted to know."

It was a nice story; a bad lie. She had the feeling, though she wasn't looking, that her mother only believed half of it.

"Nanotechnology has achieved wonderful things for us......" Medena spoke slowly, as if thinking out her answer as she went. "It has been made somewhat public knowledge that he has augmented his own survival with it. If it can cure so many ailments with one treatment, I don't see why it would not extend one's lifespan."

"I know......"

"These books are amazing. I've learned more in the last few days than I ever did back home! I never imagined......" Krelian tucked the cracked, leather-bound volume beneath his arm, smiling one of his rare, thoughtful smiles. " I owe it to you. I don't know how to thank you for this."

"Then don't." She returned his smile, reaching out to brush his arm with her fingertips. "Just learn. You seem so happy, to hold that knowledge in your hands. Learn it, use it, pour your heart into it...... whatever makes you happy."

He looked calm, handsome under the fall of dark hair the circlet held back. His eyes were, for once, almost at peace. A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders.

"Melchoir has agreed to take me on as his student. It'll be hard, with my military commitments, but if we can bring nanotechnology back into the world, I don't think anything will stop us......"

"Ouch!"

Elly dropped her knife, clutching her index finger and the slash marring the delicate skin. Blood oozed, dripping from her hands to the countertop in a thick, fast forming little puddle.

Her mother's hands appeared out of nowhere, cool fingers expertly closing around her finger and squeezing the cut; in a few seconds, the blood flow had stopped completely, leaving only a throbbing pain behind. Elly blinked dizzily and looked away from the cut.

She hated the sight of blood. Hated it with a passion...... No...... It didn't make her sick to the stomach, though...... And yet she was nearly fainting over a minor wound, when she had taken worse in training exercises. The Drive incident -- No...... no, don't think about that...... don't think about that...... The dream......

Dream?

Krelian...... not Lord Krelian. Just..... Krelian. Talking? To..... her? Why......?

It slipped out of her grasp, fading like smoke before she could think, remember it...... Krelian, talking. What about, she had no idea...... only that it left a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. It felt like a revelation of some sort, but she couldn't for the life of her remember....... What was wrong with her? Had it all been some sort of fantasy, some kind of waking dream she had concocted......?

Or perhaps she was listening to the psychologists too much. They were, in her opinion, full of Hob droppings.

"Be more careful, Elly......"

She looked down, surprised to see her finger already wrapped in a little white bandage, the pain subsiding, though not gone. I need to pay more attention...... "I'm sorry...... I didn't mean to --"

"No no, it's okay. We're about finished in here anyway." Medena gathered up the vegetables and set them aside, near the simmering pot. "Why don't you get into your uniform, dear? It's almost time for the call to Jugend, and you don't want to be late for your test grades do you?"

Elly nodded, hugging her mother after a moment of hesitation and walking out of the kitchen. Her finger throbbed the moment she left -- stupid, to try to move it so soon! -- but she went anyway, entering her room and closing the door behind her, should anyone try to call her out before she was ready.

Her uniform lay neatly pressed at the foot of her bed, waiting for her. Snow white and black, with startling red constrasts, it sat on her bed innocently, belying its very nature by the act of being in her room. She hated blood....... she wouldn't wear something that had been immersed in it, now would she? Yet it was there, waiting for her.

Waiting......

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