By all accounts, Roxanne was smart for a human child. If she hadn't been, she wouldn't have stood a chance. A normal one year old would not be able to feed herself, even if the containers of baby food had no lid. She was messy, yes, but she managed to get most of her mushy carrots in her mouth. She was almost done with potty training and her little seat in the pod was actually a tiny little toilet seat. There was a big red button next to her food labeled "flush" and Roxanne figured it out rather quickly. "Flush" was one of the first words she learned. She knew momma, dada, please (which sounded like "peas"), thank you, sorry, and a few other words including her name.

Her intergalactic flight took a total of nine days. It was a good thing that she had a few toys because she started to feel trapped in her little pod by day three. Her little muscles wanted to move and play and it wasn't fun for her to simply sit there. She'd cried about it for a little while but stopped when she realized that it wasn't going to change her situation.

Mommy and Daddy must not be able to hear her, she thought with a tiny frown on her rose coloured lips.

By the time she had gotten bored with her little toys, she was entering the atmosphere of her destination planet. That definitely gave her something to look at. She didn't press her hands against the glass though because it was hot. In the distance, past the fire surrounding her pod, was blue. So much blue. It wasn't until she was in a lower layer of the atmosphere that she could see land, which was a mixture of several brilliant colours instead of the green and brown of her home. Turquoise, purple, and a rich bright green made up most of what she saw.

Soon enough, her little pod had popped out its tiny landing gear and her seat belt tightened almost to the point of being uncomfortable. She was very close to the ground now, only twenty or thirty feet up, and she could see blue people stopping and staring at her with round eyes. She touched down in what appeared to be a field of purple grass and she was frustrated that she couldn't get out of her seat belt even though her window had popped open. The air that came inside her pod had a distinctly different smell to it, one that her little brain couldn't place.

Roxanne wanted her parents. She wanted to know where she was. She wanted out of this blasted contraption, and by god, she was going to cry until she got out. Her cries attracted the attention of a small boy who had been lying in the very same field, enjoying the silence. He hadn't seen her pod land and was startled to sitting when he heard a crying baby. The little blue four year old stood and slowly approached the odd looking pod and stared in shock when he found a little girl inside. She looked nothing like anything he'd ever seen before. She had blue eyes and brown hair (on her head? How strange!) and her normally peachy skin was rosy from crying.

"W-where did you come from?" He found himself asking her. He pressed the little button in the middle of her "x" shaped belt holding her in the machine and she immediately stopped crying. She didn't understand the strange words he was saying, but she didn't mind too much since he had let her out of the seat belt.

"Roxanne," she told him, looking up at the blue skinned boy in wonder. He had poison green eyes that looked as surprised as everyone else. She struggled to get herself out of the pod, but managed to crawl out after a few unsuccessful tries. "Where?" She asked the blue boy. She was grateful to him for letting her out of her tiny space. "Thank you."

The boy looked confused. He didn't understand what she was saying, but assumed that "Roxanne" was her name. What a strange sounding name, he thought. He reached out his hand toward her and she took it with a tiny smile. She liked this boy with the interesting eyes even she didn't understand why he didn't have hair or the words he spoke.

"Syx," he told her, pointing at himself. He pronounced it "sick-iss" but she understood mostly.

"Syx," she confirmed. "Roxanne," she said, pointing at herself. Syx smiled at her and started pulling the weird machine behind them with the hand that wasn't already occupied.

Syx led her past a silver fence and toward a big building that was white and silver. Roxanne followed him obediently and looked at as much as she could while they passed it.

Inside, several adults ran toward them. She didn't like how they looked at her so she hid behind Syx, still holding his hand tightly.

He spoke to the adults, who looked puzzled. He told them that she didn't speak their language and that her name was Roxanne. Also, he told them that he liked her pink skin and blue eyes- something that did not occur on their planet. The woman in the front knelt down in front of the kids and looked at Roxanne with a smile. She pointed to herself and said,

"Ninea," which she pronounced as "Neenea." Roxanne came out from behind her new friend a bit and replied,

"Roxanne." The woman looked back at the other adults with an incredulous smile. They talked amongst themselves about what to do with the little girl, and decided to take a good look at her pod before they made any decisions. Ninea asked her son to go play with the strange little girl until they figured out what to do, and Syx was all too happy to comply. He hadn't had a companion his age since his older brother died.

He brought Roxanne to a giant playroom which she looked around at in awe. Then she started playing with everything that she could get her peachy hands on. She loved the squeaky octopus and the big slide in one corner of the room. Syx got her to play with action figures with him and even though they couldn't communicate with words, they got along just fine with gestures.

Downstairs, his elders had found the notebooks, toys, and the CD player in her pod. One of them recognized the language the notebooks were written in but didn't know how to read it, so he called the nearest linguist who was all too excited to get to read something new in such a foreign language.

An hour later, the linguist had translated the letter inside the first notebook for them, and Syx's mother had to wipe a tear from her eye. A whole planet of such diverse people... Reduced to a single one year old girl. She could tell that her parents must've been desperate if they were willing to send their daughter to a planet they knew so little about. That was much more love and trust than she had ever known humans to have. The linguist took the notebooks home with him and promised to have them translated into new notebooks by tomorrow morning.

Ninea told the others that Roxanne was going to stay there, at least for a little while, and ignored the looks they have her.

"Humans are violent!" One of the men said. "What if she hurts Syx?" Ninea brushed him off.

"She's a little girl who has yet to be molded by her people. Given enough time, I'm sure she could be just as compassionate as any of us. I'm a mother. You wouldn't understand, Vinnus." She turned on her heel and hurried up the steps and to Syx's playroom to see how the two were getting along. To her surprise, the kids were getting along better than she dared even hope. Syx was touching Roxanne's hair in fascination. He'd never seen such long hair before and definitely not on someone's head. Roxanne didn't mind though, and was sitting there with a smile, squeezing Syx's favourite octopus repeatedly. The fact that he let her touch his octopus was a wonder in of itself. Syx looked up at his mother with a sheepish grin.

"I decided that Roxanne will be staying here, at least until we figure out what to do with her." Syx cheered and hugged the little girl who didn't understand a word Ninea said. She assumed it was okay though because Syx hugged her. She hugged the older boy back and shrieked in delight when he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder gently. He was stronger than he looked, Roxanne surmised, and happily dangled over the boy's shoulder as Ninea lead them to a different part of the castle.