Aurora's Story

Tiresia was a beautiful city, and its gleaming contours were making something loosen inside her, even if she was here on business. Her relaxation was furthered by the fact that this city was also far away from the prying eyes of the Humans she had to live with. Aurora Sterling was half-Human, of course, and she had used to be content with their scrutiny, but now it was beginning to bite at her.

Aurora wore what used to be called a "power suit", cut to fit her long, tall frame. She had set her dark hair in a long sweep over her right shoulder, the way her mother had used to, before she had permanently settled on a short and ragged cut for reasons which outweighed the lost beauty.

Many who saw Aurora had remarked, that she was taking after her mother's features, including her own father. It made Aurora smile to hear it, though her parents wanted no one to follow in their footsteps.

Aurora's own footsteps were light, with a hint of a hop to her walk. Today they took her back to the hotel where the delegates were staying. She arrived there ahead of her parents, and entered the suite that she had to herself.

The room was done up in dark ceramics and plush carpeting, with a curving domed roof. Inside it, Aurora changed into a dark red tunic and leggings, with calf-wrapping, faux-Roman shoes, small baubles at the shoulders, and a short cape.

She exited the room, and found the door where she could hear her parents talking after their recent arrival. The meetings were over for the day, and now it was time to see old friends.

Max and Miriya Sterling emerged together. Her parents were still tall and beautiful even into their middle age, their hair cut into identical short styles. They had also taken on Tirolian dress, jumpsuits with overgarments suggesting vests and skirts.

"So; ready to go?"

Aurora nodded at her father.

----

Of course the story of the SDF-3 had been disseminated among the Tirolians, but nobody had seemed to have much to say about it. It was something that had happened to another group of people; the Muses and the lost Rem (Aurora had once had a dream that Minmei and Rem had become the Eve and Adam of a new universe) were the only Tirolians who had experienced it directly, and in this new society, the two women were not the revered figures they had once been, and had even chosen to live on Earth instead of Tirol.

The Sterlings met their two friends by the fountain, standing in a small group.

"Hello Lantas. Hello Exedore." Aurora inclined her head to each of them in turn.

"Yes, hello, Aurora," Exedore said first.

Her odd Zentraedi "uncle" obviously still found her a little unnerving, sometimes twitching slightly around her. But Exedore wasn't ever hostile, smiled genuinely when the situation called for it, and Aurora believed that the signs of his apprehension had smoothed out over time.

That was all also true for Lantas, a former servant of the Masters, pale and with a pink mane of Louis XIV curls. Aurora liked them both. They were fairly interesting people, strange and so different from her parents. Sometimes Aurora had felt that they might have understood her better than Max and Miriya did, but this was a thought she would never articulate. She knew where she belonged.

As the five of them all fell into step, Aurora wished again that Dana could have been there. But the last time Aurora had seen her, her older sister had made it clear that she didn't want to go to political events on other planets, when there was plenty of adventure to be found on the Earth.

Once again, Aurora opened her weak empathic channels and let herself bask in the love of various kinds that she felt radiating from all those present. She wasn't stealing, she wasn't leaching: such things could not be measured and were in infinite supply.

Nor could she have dug deeper even if she wanted to, and Aurora was grateful for that. Minds were private things. The small pieces of memory that she sometimes caught around others were involuntary reflexes.

She was different.

Different, but that was no reason to feel squeamish. It didn't really need to matter.

Did it?

"And how are matters on Earth?" Exedore was asking.

Her father ran his fingers through his hair, which had once been bright turquoise but was now a greying dark blue. "Things are going good. You know, there's always things happening, but mostly, things are good. It's nice to rest for a while."

"Father, it's all right if you tell them. You should tell them, when you think of them as family."

Miriya said, "Aurora...," but her tone wasn't admonishing.

"What is it?" That was Lantas.

Miriya swallowed. "We get letters, sometimes. Actually fairly often. They're from people asking for things from Aurora. Benedictions, blessings, insights. They've started calling her 'the Star-Child'. Lisa tells me that their house gets letters like that, too, but not as many. And it seems like the amount has been going up. If things start getting out of hand, we're thinking about moving."

What her mother said was completely true. Aurora wasn't afraid, but disliked that her mother and father wanted to keep things private from the two clones. Even if her parents were only driven to conceal out of fear, and not by wanting to exclude their friends.

"So you worry that something will happen." Lantas' voice was low.

Aurora decided to let her parents answer for themselves.

"We're not going to do anything just yet," Max said. "We're just keeping a closer eye on things. You two weren't around for it, but I remember the Church of Recurrent Tragedies when I was growing up. Nothing like that's going to happen to us."

The clone asked, "And if something does happen? Do you have any plans in place for it?"

"Yeah, we...." Max sighed. "We're going to move again. But if it gets very bad, we might consider sending Aurora to live on Tirol."

There was a cold silence, unsuited to the warm brightness of restored Tiresia.

Aurora knew why her parents were like this, and it hadn't taken any of empathic abilities to understand it.

And Tirol was beautiful. If she were alone, Aurora might have considered living there. But she had made a commitment to the Interworld council, and there were other reasons, as well.

"I am certain you shall meet that with aplomb, should the occasion arise," Exedore said.

Her mother answered her old friend with a slight tightness in her tone. "Don't worry; we will. But we also want to try to stay on. Earth is my home."

Exedore smiled, an expression of relief from him, though of course he always kept a pessimistic, alert core.

Aurora recalled that she was approaching adulthood, and didn't have to be "sent" anywhere. But there were those slips of the tongue that she had to forgive her parents for.

They continued through Tiresia. Later they would meet with Cabell, and catch up on more old things.

----

But soon they were standing at the edge of a gigantic chainlink fence. Aurora walked up to it and gently gripped the nearest links.

A doorframe was set into it, which someone could enter into, as long as they activated the alarm which warned those on the other side of the fence that others were coming in.

Aurora heard that sound now, but instead of going to the door, she put her feet into the links and began to climb. As she ascended, she was smiling slightly.

Her father must have seen what she was doing, because she heard him make a noise, but her mother said, quietly, "Let her do it on her own."

The fence shook faintly, but it wasn't an earthquake. Through the links, Aurora watched Drannin run. The younger children, boys and girls alike, were chasing after him. Everyone was laughing, but Drannin stopped, skidded, when he saw her, or perhaps sensed her, for he was a good distance away.

Then the younger children were tackling him, and Drannin let himself get pushed down, was back to laughing and mockingly trying to fight them off.

"Okay, okay. Kids!" This time he did get up, the large and powerful son of large and powerful parents, even where the Zentraedi were concerned. The rest of the children weren't any match as he plucked them off and gently deposited them on the bare ground. "Go on and play over there. Stay where I can see you!"

Several of them groaned and protested, but Drannin soon got them to heave off. Aurora saw it as she still climbed, moving her long legs in easy strokes. She felt no fear of the height, nor of falling.

But at the top of the fence, Drannin's hairy hand was there for her to hop onto. Far below, she could hear the sound of Exedore, Lantas, Max, and Miriya opening the door and entering the zone.

Aurora stood up in Drannin's palm and smoothed the skirt of her tunic, before the two of them exchanged smiles.

"Hi. Thought you weren't going to come."

"I made time." She spoke it without irritation.

The four adults hung back, maybe wanting to give Aurora and Drannin their moment of communion, even if Shaped Children could only talk with words, despite the rumours.

Drannin's knee joints popped as he crouched down to the ground before settling himself cross-legged on the grass.

He wore a white shirt with short sleeves and a Zentraedi symbol at the breast, and dark green pants and heavy black boots. He was swarthy-skinned, unlike his parents' grey or aquamarine colouring, with dark purple hair and brown eyes like his mother, though, like most people, Aurora thought Drannin resembled his father a great deal.

"So how are things?"

"Things are fine." Aurora sat down and dangled her legs over the edge of his hand. "There's always trouble for us. Roy and I, I mean. Because of what we are."

Drannin's fingers, towers to her, clenched slightly. She saw his bushy brows knit. "Are they trying to hurt you? Persecute you?"

"The opposite. It's more true that they revere us. But that can be a curse as well, because then they keep bothering you."

Drannin knew little about this. From what Aurora had heard, the Zentraedi had been disinclined to make any fuss about their gifted youngsters, wanting above all else to raise their new children in peace. And of course, there was never a large enough group of Tirolians who could work up the courage to tell giant parents that they wanted to examine their slightly preternatural offspring.

"Drannin, suppose you had begun worrying that people like that might do more than bother you? What would you do?"

"Aurora, why can't you just say that you're worried?"

"I just did."

He turned his head away to sigh, so that he didn't breathe on her, but quickly looked back. "All right, you know what? You stand your ground. Don't let them push you off your territory. That is your world, where you want to be. Make sure they know that."

It was so nice that Drannin didn't look at her the way her parents sometimes did, as though they felt that she could snap in two with a strong wind.

Drannin gently put Aurora down on the ground and stood, but only to walk backwards and lie on his stomach, chin on his overlapped hands as he looked at them.

The four older ones took that as their signal to approach.

"The others are on Fantoma," Drannin said to them, meaning the other Zentraedi children born during that time on Tirol, before the SDF-3 had become trapped in newspace. "I'm off-shift, so it was my turn to go down with the kids."

"I'm sorry we couldn't have been here sooner," Miriya remarked.

"It's fine."

He let them talk to him, tell them what each were doing, and Drannin returned the favour, updating her mother on the Zentraedi activities. Exedore had already told Aurora's family, of course, but he didn't live on Fantoma. He was too small for it to be comfortable, and liked Tirol better anyway.

----

The spaceport was like the airport where friends greeted each other after long journeys. Aurora watched her mother hug Lisa Hunter, watched Rick Hunter pat her father on the back.

Roy the Second (which he hated being called) was there, too, with a book under his arm. He just lifted his hand and let out a terse greeting.

There was talk again about how things were going on Tirol, reran for the Hunters' benefit. Another planet wasn't where you vacationed, so Roy's family rarely went there. They were on good terms with Exedore, Lantas, and Cabell, but their friendship with them wasn't as strong as Aurora's family's was, though no one was that blunt about it.

Still the Hunters had wanted to know, and Max filled them in. But it was all short, and they eventually parted ways.

Aurora's family lived on a fairly remote but well-kept residence. It was large by current standards, and Max had only forgone a smaller, more humble house because of the insistence that it wouldn't do for a family of government officials to live in a suburban development.

Standing on the carpet in the hallway, Aurora put down her bags and stretched, before picking them up again and finishing the walk to her room. Once inside, she turned slowly, and flopped down onto her bed, before putting up one arm over her eyes. She had carried the bags by hand, as she did most things, being slightly afraid of withering away.

But as far as it avoided calling attention to herself, Aurora was far past the point of being able to claim doing that.

"You're gonna dig yourself your own grave," Dana had once told her. "Look, why didn't you just pretend you don't have those kinds of powers? Geez, Aurora. You don't know...you don't know what kinds of people are out there."

"I do know." Aurora had touched Dana's arm, and Dana had flinched, before looking like she regretted it.

It was after the final fold of the SDF-3, after being re-established on Earth; the Sterlings had just moved into their new house after staying at Exedore's for a while, this being the time when he was still divided between Earth and Tirol.

Dana had then begun to pace, ending up facing the window that looked out on their backyard.

"I know it was hard for you," Aurora added. "But no one will do anything to me that I don't want them to."

"Or you'll go all Carrie on them, right?" Dana offered a lopsided grin, though Aurora didn't know who "Carrie" was.

But then her sister's teeth had clenched, and Dana had turned away again. "It's not easy for me, you know. I don't see Mom and Dad for years, and then find out that they've made some kind of...of...superkid."

"And that they don't want to fight anymore."

Dana looked back at her, and offered a tired smirk. "Yeah, that too."

"As for studying me, they might discover something good in me. Something beneficial."

"Yeah, but if they know about you, it's never gonna be over, you understand that? I mean, you'll always be Aurora the Wonder Baby to them, to everybody. What are you going to do when you grow up and want to live on your own, huh? You'll have no place to go. Mom and Dad should never have spilled the beans like that. I mean, what the heck were they thinking?"

"They just wanted to tell the truth."

"Come on; the government would have believed anything they'd told them about the Sentinels campaign; how could they prove they were lying? What kind of a parent does that?"

Dana had meant not keeping the secrets, of course. And Aurora could see her sister's point of view. But it had been her own choice in the end.

----

"How many letters were in the slot this time?"

Roy was anchored by his legs to the tree branch, hanging upside down and looking like a much younger boy, even as he flexed on it.

"A pile," Aurora said, with acknowledged rare inflection. "But you know they say the same things."

She sat with her back against the tree, long arms wrapped loosely around her knees. She wore a t-shirt that read REJECT ALL ARCHETYPES, and jeans with a short skirt sewn to their waist and thighs.

"So much for utopia," Roy muttered. "What are you going to do?"

"Mother and Father talk about sending me to live on Tirol. But things aren't nearly bad enough for that. I don't want to give up my job, and I should decide where I can go."

"But there's more to it than that, right?"

Aurora nodded without looking at Roy. "My parents feel terrible that they missed raising one child, and they don't want to be parted from another."

"Even if that child's no longer a child, and might never have been, right?"

At this thought, which had often occurred to her before, Aurora's brow crinkled slightly, the only clue to what was happening inside her.

It wasn't fair to Max and Miriya, who had survived impossible odds time and time again and contributed so much to the cause of peace, to be deprived of that simple gift of being able to see their children reach maturity. They could have adopted another child, but they were getting on in years, and did not want to consider either her or Dana lost causes.

So that was another reason, besides protectiveness, that they did not want to leave Aurora alone, even if she could easily fend for herself and had her own methods of defence.

But when did her obligation to them end? Wasn't part of the responsibility of parents to create an individual that could function for itself?

It was easier for Roy. Like Drannin, he didn't fit anyone's image of a psychic child. And the Hunters lived in relative obscurity, not supplementing their old fame with any new political or military action.

Roy unlocked himself from the branch and tumbled into an intentional heap, rolling over to sit on his knees. His long brown-black hair was looking even more mussed than usual, with grass and leaves now stuck in it.

"Hey, don't be so down." He dared to reach into the space between them and chuck her chin. "I know you're going to find something in this world worth livin' for. Come on, I'll take you flying. No hands." He grinned and showed her his palms, fingers spread.

They couldn't make themselves fly like superheroes, but Roy enjoyed mechanical flight, though not to his father's extent, and also with a tendency to not use his hands to work the controls.

Aurora had felt no reaction to Roy's touch. They were at that age, but Aurora thought it would be too cliché to fall in love with Roy, an assertion that had made Dana explode in laughter when she'd expressed it, Aurora not understanding why.

----

When in bed, Aurora liked to curl up and wrap her covers around herself. Getting to sleep was difficult for her, and not because of worry. Her mind seemed to be always working, and memories sometimes replayed themselves with astonishing clarity.

A sound opened her eyes. A soft sound, but something was looming. No, someone. She sensed a foreign heart through her outside window, one that was coming closer.

Aurora's mind filled with light. Somehow she knew what she looked like; her pupils, irises, and sclera disappeared, replaced with a green glow like the eyes of a cat.

She felt like a burst of hot air had hit her, like opening the front door for the first time on a humid summer day.

Aurora sat up in time to see the chiffonier at the foot of her bed shake as the intruder was slammed into the wall outside, pushed by her power.

A male voice murmured pleas, but he did not crawl into the window, though Aurora could not have held him there with her mind a second time.

Running feet were thumping in the hall outside. Aurora heard the back door on the lower level bang open, and the sound of someone else running on the grass.

She poked her head out the window.

Miriya's cry was like the attack-scream of an animal, and she lunged like one once she was close enough to the intruder. Her mother struck the fallen man in the face, before grabbing his collar and hauling him up, only to bang his head into the wall beside the window, making the chiffonier shake a second time.

The lights in the hall flared on, and Aurora turned as the door to her room opened. It was her father, without his glasses, though he moved unerringly across the threshold, just stopping short of her bed.

"Aurora...."

"I'm fine, Father. But I want to hear what he's saying. That is, if Mother doesn't kill him first."

Max moved past her and put his head out the window. "Miriya!"

Her mother looked at them both. She still had the man by the collar.

He drew a gloved hand up inside his black sweater, taking out a pendant that resembled a stylized star. "The Star-Child. I only wanted to see the Star-Child."

Miriya gave him a vicious shake, making him drop the necklace. "Max, call the authorities. I'm not letting him out of my grip."

The intruder didn't even try to pry her mother's hands away. Blood was running from his nose and mouth.

Max nodded and rushed to the kitchen area, Aurora following, walking instead of running.

After the call was made, Aurora savoured for herself the moment of quiet equilibrium before all media hell would break loose.

"I can sleep on a cot in your room, if you like."

"Aurora, I don't think anybody's going to be getting any sleep tonight." Max ran his hands through his hair.

When the authorities arrived, the foyer of the house indeed became a blur of chaos and questions. Miriya held up through it all, but when they were gone, she suddenly swayed, and collapsed onto the nearest couch.

Max and Aurora rushed over to her, one on either side. Aurora leaned in, wishing again that she had a magic healing touch in her repertoire.

Her father leaned in, while Miriya reached up and touched his hand, reassuring.

Miriya suddenly folded herself, groaning and clutching at her body, before springing back out into a normal position. "It's not bad this time."

"What would you say if you parents asked to move you to place where you would be safe?"

"I don't think it will come to that yet. And I know that Mother and Father want to remain close to me."

"Yes. But wouldn't it be a better thing if you all found a place where you would be together and safe?"

"It would be. But I know that Mother and Father love the Earth, and want to stay on it as long as possible. They only became ambassadors because Mother wanted to keep in contact with her people."

"Aurora, are you aware of the notion that sometimes sacrifices must be made? Now, if these people are coming after you and your parents, sometimes you might have to be aware that--"

"Don't condescend to me." Her interruption was not forceful, but Aurora guessed the young man and the audience had both felt that it was. "I know all of this. But I don't want to give up, and take away from my parents what they've fought for."

After the attempted break-in, there had been extensive interviews with her and her family. Dana apparently could not be reached for comment, still off with the Crazy Eights.

"But what if people began to die for you?"

"It's only inside their heads that I am a goddess. I have no control over what they do."

"So you would feel no grief if something was done in your name?"

"I didn't say that. I want it all to stop. I don't want anyone to be hurt. But I have no idea how to end it. I'm not going to run away. Break up my family. And I'm not going to kill people."

She thought of her mother again. Miriya had recovered well from her latest episode, but it always hurt to watch her mother's collapses following strenuous physical activity.

She remembered Dana again, talking to their parents after being settled in following the arrival on Tirol.

"So, when are you two going to get back in the game, back behind the throttle?"

"We aren't going to."

Aurora, in her place on her parents' mutual lap, had seen Dana's mouth fall open.

"What...what the heck are you guys talking about?"

It had often been "you two" or "You guys" with Dana in those days, or her parents' first names. "Mom and Dad" had seemed too privileged.

"We're talking about retirement, I guess," Max said, sounding like he was grinning, though Aurora didn't look up to check.

They were in the apartment on Tirol, shortly after the 15th and their clone passengers had arrived. The reunions were over, and now it had been time to get back to the business of day-to-day living.

"Not actual retirement," Miriya had amended. "I'm too young to be idle. But whatever we do, it's not going to be piloting. Or anything to do with war."

Dana still looked flummoxed, but then recovered herself, becoming bright-eyed and smiling again. "So what's the deal?"

"Think about it, Dana," Max had said. "What are we going to do after the war? We all have to face up to it someday."

"Are you kidding me? The Invid are going to show up, and you're talking about ditching the forces! We'll need guys like you."

"We know, Dana," Miriya reminded her.

Aurora had suddenly felt accused. "I didn't do anything to them." She felt pain radiate from her mother. "This is their own choice."

Dana's eyes widened and Aurora blanched for a moment at the thought of her older sister being afraid of her. But Dana would also have to learn to deal with her presence, she told herself.

Aurora felt Miriya's fingers draw through her hair for a brief second, before "Dana...."

Oh. So that was it; her mother was debating telling Dana about that.

"The accelerated pregnancy and Aurora's birth has damaged my internals. The Haydonites did a good job of fixing me, but I wouldn't make much of a pilot anymore, anyway."

"So that's why you stopped?"

"No, Max is right. This doesn't come easy to me, but it's not just because I have no choice. I want to find a new way to be."

"I just don't get it."

Aurora felt her father shift position. "Dana, we can't tell you how sorry we are that things turned out the way they have."

"Huh? Oh, that. That's no biggie. You did what you had to do. And now, it's your choice; I shouldn't be blowing up at you like this."

She heard Max make a negative sound. "We should have stayed on Earth, like we had decided at the beginning. We should've realized that nothing's more important than family."

Dana smirked. "Come on, Max, don't you want to be a career man?"

"I do," Miriya answered for him. "But we want something that keeps us grounded." She breezed over the potential joke. "We want something that keeps us closer together."

"Aurora?" asked the interviewer. She blinked her way back to the present.

"This interview is over. Just know that I am going to stand my ground." Spoken like a true Zentraedi, she thought.

The crew looked at each other, then got up to leave. Miriya's eyes followed them as they left the house, and Max closed the front doors behind them.

Aurora sighed, deflating her demure, hunched-up pose into a slouch. This was the only way her parents agreed to have her interviewed: it was too much to have to hustle her off to a public place, where anyone could be waiting to....

"Aurora...we've been talking about moving."

From the way her father looked at her, Aurora guessed he knew that she knew it. But it was only an educated guess of his; she truly had had no idea.

"Where?"

"We don't know yet. But we're going to stay on Earth. Though if it gets worse, you have to know that not one planet is important enough to risk losing you over. If we need to protect you, we'll go wherever we need to."

"But I want to know when it stops. Why do we have to be the ones who run, when it is their fault for interpreting me this way?"

"You're right," Miriya replied. "But sometimes life isn't that simple. Sometimes you have to make choices you'd rather not have."

Aurora felt her eyes sting. She was going to cry here? Now? No, she couldn't. Her mother was right. But there had to be another way.

----

"Are you CRAZY?! Do you have any idea what they're going to do to you?"

"No." Aurora replied, facetiously. "What?"

Roy scowled. He gripped the railing of the Hunters' back deck and pushed his rear onto it. "People don't like their idols stepping down from their pedestals. They turn on them."

"That's right. It's all about what they think, what they want, and not about the person they've turned their affections on at all."

"Which is why...." He made a cycling gesture with one hand, trying to get Aurora to agree with him.

"Which is why I need you to help me. They'll be coming after you eventually, too. You already get letters."

Roy rubbed his nose. "We aren't gonna be able to hide this for long."

"But they shouldn't be able to stop us."

"Why don't you just tell them before you start?"

"Because I need to show them that I can act on my own."

Roy was quiet for a moment longer. "All right, let's get started."

***

She resisted again the urge to peek through the curtain. Aurora already knew what was out there. They had come, not in droves, but in a size that had still astonished her, and had made the others around her bristle almost imperceptibly.

After getting this started, Aurora had caught herself wondering if, having been born with her powers, she really had no real idea of how she appeared to "normal" others, or what it was like to live like them. Did she truly understand the worship that others were feeling? Or how her parents and sister really thought of her?

"Look, if you're having second thoughts, go out there anyway. You said you'd do this, and I know you can. So do what you came here to do."

"Thank you, Roy."

Aurora pulled back the threadbare curtain and strode onto the stage. Instead of her usual clothes, she wore a white gown, with fake flowers in her hair and about her wrists, an outfit that looked like all it was missing was the angel wings. Around her neck was her mother's aluminium pendant in the shape of the inner part of a Zentraedi symbol; she wore it for luck.

Roy, Lisa, Rick, Dana, and her parents were all behind the curtain, ready to intervene if someone overstepped their boundaries.

Her mother and Rick had been the most encouraging, while her father and Lisa had been more reluctant, and had seemed almost hurt when catching Roy and Aurora in making their advertising to entice people to this event.

Aurora had known they would get caught eventually, and that was the idea. That they had already started might provide some justification for her parents letting them go ahead.

This recollection passed through her mind as Aurora was scanning the crowd. Some held up signs, others were chanting her name and trying to get more to join in. Many had clasped hands and wet eyes. They were from all walks of life, all types of Human.

She gently gripped the microphone, and silence washed over the crowd like a tide, as they all waited to listen to their fairy princess.

"You're pathetic," Aurora said into the microphone. The words came out clearly, with no feedback.

"Look at you. You journeyed here, taking days out of your lives, and for what? For me, a person you've never met? Whom you only know from television?

"If I could really work miracles, I would first magic myself a world where I didn't have to worry about idiots panting after my every move, expecting me to solve their problems even as they went on creating more and more of the same."

"I can't do anything for you. Nobody can. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can stop slobbering over me, get out of here, and on with your ridiculous lives."

It hurt to say these things, but it also felt good, somehow. She had studied the rougher manner of people on the television and in her life, and had worried about merely aping their motions, but now it all felt like a part of her.

Aurora almost felt like sneering, grinning in glee, but the urge passed quickly. She would have to keep herself still and proper, so they would believe it was her.

She tapped one foot against the stage's splintery boards, hoping that Roy could hear it from where he was standing, with his back just shy of pressing against the curtain.

Her eyes filled with the cat-glow. The boards around her feet warped and buckled; a few snapped. The crowd fell back, letting out a collective cry.

That rush of humid air came again, as Aurora sent the power outward. The ground they were standing on was grassy with bare patches that a recent rain had turned to mud, aided by Roy coming along and wetting them with a hose. The muddy areas splashed and lifted, like an invisible car was driving between the stage and the crowd.

Roy's abilities were churning up even more of the ground, sending out clots of sod as if they had been scooped out and flung by invisible hands.

Most garbage was recycled now, but there was always some detritus left over, and now it burst out of bags hidden under the stage and at the perimeter, directed by Roy and Aurora's mental conducting.

There was little to work with, and only those at the border of the crowd really got the worst of the rubbish and mud. But even the untouched were cursing and shouting. The dirty wiped at their faces and arms even as they fled back to their transports, dropping their signs and tokens.

Some wailed, but more than a few turned back to the stage and swore at Aurora, or let out indignant bellows and grunts. A scattered few even jabbed obscene gestures at her before twisting away. But none of them charged the stage. The camera crews were also finally going, taking their equipment. They had been spared.

Aurora's eyes returned to normal. She swayed, nearly fell, but pressed her feet firmly to the boards. Behind her, the curtains thumped back like wings, and her family and the Hunters were coming out. It was an effort, but Aurora turned back to greet them, smiling.

***

The hovercycle stopped so fast it looked like it was going to flip over. But Dana kept a tight grip on the handlebars, and all her saddlebags and duffels stayed on before the vehicle swung back to Earth.

Aurora stood still as Dana disembarked, her boots throwing up a cloud of dust.

"Whew! Ah. Hey, Kiddo."

Dana had some dirt in her hair. She wore a sleeveless vest and camo pants.

"So, how's every little thing?"

"The mail slot is bursting with hate mail," Aurora said. "But none are calling me a demon, just a brat."

Dana laughed, throwing her head back. "Got more than what they bargained for, huh?"

"But it's not over," Aurora said. "They still know what I am. There will always be those who believe in an image which reality can't take away."

"That's true." Her sister looked suddenly solemn.

"I think I am going to try to find my own house to live in, someday. A councilwoman should make enough money, don't you think?"

"Yeah...." Dana scratched her head. "But don't go too far, you hear?"

"I won't," Aurora said, not meaning it as a slight to Dana, who had left shortly after Aurora's stage show, and now was back without warning, as was her way.

"Look, Aurora, I'm thinking that maybe I've been too hard on you. I mean, you can't help this, and...well, let me just say I'm sorry in advance, for the next time I make an idiot out of myself. Any time I've been a suspicious little snot around you, I was just being a...I was being dumb."

"No, Dana, you were right."

"What?"

"I accept your apologies, but the truth is, I did bring some of this on myself. I acted the part of the superbeing in addition to being one. So naturally they flocked to me more. I've known this for a long time, and now it feels appropriate to say it."

"Uh...ah, it's just the way you are, and don't let 'em tell you different. What's done is done." Dana flapped her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Some of this stuff would have ended up happening anyway, we both know it."

Aurora only looked at her. "I will try to make my life. I want the things that have been denied me. Hopefully I have taken action that will help, but greater action must be done. I must act as if I have no obstacles to living fully."

"Yeah. Hopefully. But listen, I'm going to be home here for a few days, okay? So take out whatever you want on me."

Silence between them.

"Want a ride?" Dana asked, hopping back onto the cycle.

Instead of answering, Aurora swung onto the seat and stood behind Dana, her hands on her sister's shoulders.

"Hey--!"

"You asked about a ride. You didn't say how I would have it."

"All right, fair enough. Hang on tight!"

They could see their parents later.