Like Earth, Elohim, the Seosten homeworld, was almost entirely covered by oceans and lakes. Seventy-five percent of its surface was water. Yet unlike that far-away world, Elohim had little in the way of full sized continents. Most of its land surface consisted of thousands of islands of varying sizes. Some were as large as Earth’s Texas or even slightly bigger. But the majority were considerably smaller bodies of land. Some were tiny enough to jump from one side to the other, barely more than large rocks there in the vast, unending ocean.


    One island in particular was roughly three-quarters of a mile wide and a mile long, shaped somewhat like a teardrop. Near the center of that island was a single, very large house. A mansion, really, with a dense yet fairly small forest behind it (on the fat end of the teardrop) and a sandy beach in front (on the pointed end of the teardrop).


    A metal landing pad rose up from part of that beach to settle into place moments before a raindrop-shaped ship came in for a gentle, if somewhat slow, landing. The pilot of the ship seemed overly cautious and vaguely unsure of themselves, yet sufficiently skilled to land safely on the barely-large enough platform with only the slightest bump.


    Once it was down, the ship went still, mostly powering off. The engines were so quiet in that idling state that the only audible sound, even for one standing directly next to it, would be the lapping of the nearby waves against the shore, and the chirping of a few birds or other animals in the slightly more distant forest. With the successful landing of the ship, all was peaceful.


    Inside the main cockpit of the ship, the elderly-looking man at the pilot’s seat remained motionless. He stared at nothing, gazing off into the distance. He appeared to be daydreaming, his mind drifting and lost for a moment, his hands unnaturally tight against the control yoke.


    Finally, after several long seconds of that, Puriel jerked a bit. His nostrils flared as his eyes widened briefly, looking around the cockpit with a gasp before coming back to himself.


    It happened again, he directed inwardly, a pained wince crossing his face to match the regret in his thought-voice as he began to unstrap himself from the seat. How long was I out this time? Ever since the incident with the banishment orb back at… at Sariel and Haiden Moon’s home, Puriel had had issues with his own mind and memory. At random times, he would simply zone out, lost in the past. Things had gotten somewhat better over the years, but it still happened. Yet now he had help, help that could take over in those times and either pull him back to himself, or pose as him long enough to make others believe there was nothing wrong.


    The answer came promptly from his passenger. Or, more accurately (especially right now), his co-pilot. Only a few minutes, Spark assured him. I landed the ship. There was clear pride in her voice, despite the young (she was only eleven years old) girl’s attempt to sound nonchalant.


    Excellent work, we’re not dead, was his response. That was a joke between them. A joke… and yet more than that. ‘Excellent work, we’re not dead’ was what he said to the girl whenever she took control in any situation, no matter how inconsequential or truly important. The true meaning and intent behind the words, for the two of them, went far deeper than simple surface level.


    After saying those very important words, Puriel continued. Soon I won’t have to fly at all. You’ll be able to do all of it yourself. Perhaps I should take up a hobby to keep myself busy. Even as he gently teased the girl that way, the man who had once been known as Zeus rose from his seat and turned to face a nearby door. He stood there, watching the door in silence briefly. This time, however, it wasn’t because he had zoned out. He was entirely aware of his surroundings and situation. And certainly aware of what waited beyond that door. It is a frightening thing.


    Spark promptly corrected him with, There’s more than one. And I don’t think you’re supposed to refer to children as things. Belatedly, she added in a thoughtful voice, Or as frightening.


    Children are terrifying, Puriel insisted. But that is not quite what I meant. The responsibility, that is the frightening thing. They are here. What happens to them next is my… our responsibility. Whether they live or die, succeed or fail, rise or fall, that can all be influenced by what I do now.


    Spark’s reply was curious. You’ve had a child before. And a crew.


    Yes, Puriel confirmed. And I have failed each. My crew was sundered, split into two sides of a war. They loathe one another. My own actions against your mother led to… He paused, shaking his head. Because it was complicated. Spark, his… his Spark only existed because of those actions. Yet they had also been terrible, loathsome actions leading to a reprehensible situation. How did one come to terms with that? He cared for Spark as much as he had ever cared for any living being, yet he felt deep shame for the very same situation that had caused her birth.


    It was a level of complication that he couldn’t even begin to pick his way through. For the moment, he simply continued with, And my daughter… I have thoroughly failed her as well. I was not there when she needed me. I was not the person she needed me to be, to protect her from… From her own mother. He had failed to protect his unnamed daughter, who had ended up being tortured by his wife, by her mother, for years in a failed attempt to ‘fix’ her condition.


    Now his wife was dead. After all the harm she had caused, she was gone forever. And his daughter was… who even knew? He’d gotten very conflicting reports on that front.


    You are not alone, Spark reminded him. As always, there was deeper meaning behind her simple words. He was not alone as in she was there for him, and as in he had help within the house itself. He would not be solely responsible for the care of the group they had rescued.


    Still, he had reservations. But Puriel set those aside and moved to the door. A hand against the control panel made it slide open, revealing an assortment of cots, toys, books, and games that littered the floor on the other side. All eight of the Seosten children the two of them had liberated from the secret medical facility were also there. They stood together, on the far side of the room, facing the now-open door with expressions of uncertainty. None truly understood exactly what was going on, or that they had been freed from their previous lives.


    They did, at least, now have clothing. Puriel had made certain of that. Each of the eight children were clad in yellow versions of the normal Seosten bodysuits. They seemed generally uncertain as to why they were given clothing, but wore it without complaint. They complained about nothing, actually. As far as Puriel had been able to put together, the children didn’t understand the basic concept of complaining. It hadn’t so much been beaten out of them as it had never been allowed to exist in the first place. Freedom, choices, those things were foreign concepts. The children had had games and books in their cell back in the station, yet they played and read when and what they were told to. They ate what and when the scientists ordered them to, and slept when the lights were turned out. Every moment of their lives was rigidly structured.


    There was a lot of damage that needed to be fixed. Unfortunately, Puriel was far from any sort of what the humans would call a therapist. He had no idea what to do for these children. But he did have an idea of who would know what to do. For the moment, he simply announced, “We’re home. Come–” Belatedly, the man stopped himself. He’d been trying to make a point throughout this trip to not give orders. He was trying to teach the children that they did have choices. And while it was true that staying here on the ship or going out to see the house wasn’t that much of an actual choice, he still wanted them to make it for themselves. That simply felt… important, somehow.


    So, he amended his aborted words into, “Would you like to come and see the house?”


    His words were met with silent stares from all eight children. They ranged in age from a couple who were barely three or four, up to one who seemed to be as old as Spark. Each of the eight remained silent, looked to one another, then began to file toward the door and out of the room as Puriel stepped aside.


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


    This is going to take time, he silently informed Spark.


    Yes, she agreed with her usual economic use of words. That single syllable packed more thought and meaning than it should have been able to.


    Following the group of children out of the ship and down the ramp to the waiting beach, Puriel found a single figure waiting for them. She was an older woman, with skin that was green and lined with age. She had long black hair streaked through with dark red, a sign of the elderly in her people.


    Her name was Olan, and she was one of very few whom Puriel trusted with this. She and her husband were the only living members of his household staff whom he had not dismissed.


    “Take the children for food, please,” he requested with a look to Olan. She was already well aware of the situation thanks to multiple messages that had been sent ahead. “And has she sent any word?” He added the latter while giving a look toward the children. They were showing the first real signs of curiosity now, slowly turning in circles to take in the sky, the sand, the water. The two youngest had dropped to their hands and knees and were digging in the sand with their fingers. The eldest was staring at the nearby ocean, his hands clenching and unclenching.


    Giving a crisp nod, Olan replied, “Very good, sir. And your guest was held up. She will be here as soon as possible, but it may take some time.” She stepped over, stopping in front of the two youngest, who were still digging curiously at the sand. With a snap of her fingers, the woman summoned a pair of plastic buckets. Under the curious gaze of the two toddlers, she then scooped sand into each before straightening to hold the buckets out. Soon, they were taken by the smallest children, each of whom held a bucket of sand in one hand and dug curiously into it with the other.


    With that settled and the small ones content, Olan pivoted smartly before walking toward the nearby mansion. “Come, children. It’s lunchtime.”


    Even as the group began to obediently follow, however, Puriel spoke up. “Omni.” When the small brown-haired boy turned to face the man, he gestured. “Wait here, please. I promise you’ll eat soon too.”


    The boy did so, stepping away from the group while the other seven followed Olan inside, where they would all be well-cared for. Between Olan and Rufe, her husband, the children would be as fine as they could be, under their circumstances.


    Which left Puriel standing there on the beach with the boy who had been named Omniscereon. In the old language, the name essentially translated to ‘All Above Myself.’ Even the name that he had been given was meant to drive into the boy that he was supposed to be worthless and that every other Seosten was more important.


    Kushiel had been quite a piece of work by the end, that much was certain.


    But Puriel didn’t use that full name. Instead, he called the boy by his nickname. Omni, or ‘all.’


    “Omni,” the man carefully spoke while taking a knee in front of him. He met the eight-year-old’s curious gaze. “Do you remember my name?”


    After a brief pause, the boy quietly answered, “Trierarch Puriel.”


    “Just Puriel,” he corrected. “Tell me, what do you know of your mother?” The question came hesitantly. He had wanted to talk to the boy more over the trip, yet he didn’t want to separate him from the group until there was someone else who could help them. With Olan and Rufe to care for the other seven children, Puriel had a chance now to have this conversation.


    “My mother’s name is Sariel,” Omni recited dutifully. “She’s a traitor who deser–”


    “No,” Puriel interrupted. Of course. Of course Kushiel wouldn’t have been content to simply leave the boy with no knowledge of his mother. She would have to rub salt in the wound. Sighing, he looked to the boy, who had fallen silent and was now simply staring at him once more with his hands linked behind his back. Most of the experiment children who were old enough to understand stood like that, the man had noticed. They stood with their hands out of the way, as though making it clear that they would not try to touch anyone. An act that, he was sure, had been drilled into them.


    “Your mother is a lot of things,” he informed the boy quietly. “She is… she is a brilliant researcher, an incredible soldier, a fine…” His voice choked itself off, and Puriel looked away. Everything he was trying to say, everything he wanted to make the boy understand, was all jumbled. He didn’t know how to put it into words. Everything just sounded wrong, in a way that it hadn’t since he was a young officer reciting his first duty chart.


    Finally, he settled on looking back to the boy with a firm, “Your mother is one of the finest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She is a good person. A good soldier. A good mother. You deserve to have a chance to know her. And if it is the last thing I do, I will ensure that you both have that chance.”


    “Both?” The boy echoed his word, head tilting slightly. He turned, looking to his left, then to his right as though trying to find out who else Puriel was referring to.


    They had planned for this, had rehearsed it, in a way. But this was still quite new and tense. Puriel’s gaze looked to one side, as Spark borrowed his power and focused on pulling and shaping energy into light, which soon became a hologram of sorts. A hologram of Spark herself, or the way she chose to make herself look in any case. But this wasn’t just any old hologram. It also functioned as a forcefield, giving the projected body a physical presence.


    Soon, the hologram was complete, and the solid-light hologram Spark stood in front of Omni, the two facing one another. “Hello, brother,” she greeted him.


    “I’m very glad to meet you.”


    *******


    Two Months Later


    “Yelly?”


    Hearing the soft, plaintive voice, Puriel’s eyes opened. He had been resting in a chair on the beach. Ahead of him, the eight rescued children were scattered around. Several were up near the waves, playing in the water. The two youngest were digging in the sand to create some kind of tunnel that only they knew the purpose of. A few more were throwing a ball back and forth.


    Spark was there too, in her holographic body. They were able to essentially cheat and allow the girl to act in the real world by enchanting a stone with a spell that allowed Puriel to see and hear through it as if the stone was a camera. The stone was then placed inside the head of Spark’s hologram and pointed in the same direction as her eyes. After that, Spark simply paid attention to the information coming back through the spell while Puriel ignored it, and the girl remote piloted the hologram accordingly. It was, he supposed, somewhat similar to creating a Theriangelos and having the possessor control it while the host tuned it out.


    Spark’s hologram was with Omni, standing out by the water. The two were almost always together, having become all-but inseparable over these past days. Omni had hundreds, if not thousands of questions. He asked them constantly, for everything from deep historical questions all the way down to what various bugs tasted like. No matter the question, Spark always answered, though she drew the line at requesting that Puriel taste the bugs himself so that she could give an appropriate answer. And strongly discouraged Omni from tasting such himself.


    The boy was curious about everything, even more so than the rest of the former prisoners/experiments. They were all curious, but Omni took it to another level. He questioned everything. But he wasn’t really the sort, at least so far, to look for the answer in a book. If the person he was talking to didn’t know, Omni seemed far more likely to go and find out himself. Often through personal experimentation. He wanted to know what something tasted like, so he tasted it. He wanted to know how an engine worked, so he took it apart. He wanted to know how to bake a cake, so he experimented in the kitchen (under Rufe’s supervision). The boy was curious about everything, and solved that curiosity by acting.


    Taking a brief look around the beach to ensure everything was in order and that no one was in danger, Puriel focused then on the figure right next to his chair. It was the six-year-old girl, a dark-skinned child with bright green eyes and short black hair. She’d been given no name in the facility aside from her number, but Olan had since dubbed the child Zahd, which was apparently the word for ‘laugh’ in the language of her and her husband’s people.


    When he looked to her, Zahd bounced up and down, hands clutching the chair. “More please. Too slow, too slow. More please.”


    Zahd was the one Niekal back at the lab had mentioned who had trouble coming out of her boost. For a long time, she had functioned almost entirely in that sped-up state where everything and everyone around her was far too slow. Puriel, however, had found that he could drain energy from the girl. This slowed her boost dramatically, allowing her to function normally as long as he did that a few times a day.


    He did so now, reaching out to drain the extra energy from the girl, as she let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Yelly.”


    Yelly. That was what the children called him. Somehow ‘Puriel’ had become Yel, and then ‘Yelly.’ There were members of his old crew who would have been amused by that, given his… reputation for anger back on Earth.


    Once it was done, the girl bit her lip, staring at him while hesitantly asking, “Touch please?”


    “Touch yes,” Puriel assured her. He opened his arms, and the girl stepped up to embrace him. They were trying to teach all of the children that it was okay to touch if they had permission and wanted to, if the other person was aware of their condition and accepted it. Some, like Zahd, took to it more readily than others.


    Through that short hug, Puriel heard the sound of an approaching shuttle. Which meant it was time. Releasing Zahd, he looked over to one side, finding Spark and Omni already approaching. The rest of the children gathered as well, standing in an assorted group around Puriel while they all watched the shuttle come in for a landing on a second pad that rose into place behind the ship they had come on.


    Eventually, the shuttle settled into place. A moment later, the ramp opened, and a figure appeared. She was fairly small, a dark-haired and dark-skinned Seosten woman wearing a dark red suit with black piping. For a few seconds, her gaze passed over the assembled group, before she descended the ramp. “You have been busy, Puriel.”


    “As have you, Aletheia,” Puriel replied. “But I’m glad you’re here now.”


    “We have a lot to talk about.”