A few days later, Myra was leading Nacia upstairs. The Shee had been carrying a surprisingly light bag, which she had said was full of bits of machinery and experiments.

"It will take a long while though before the damage to them is repaired," she had worried.

They stopped in front of the door to Myra's room. Pulling open the door, Myra gestured for the Shee to walk in.

Seating herself down on the bed, she looked around. So this was what a human's bedroom looked like.

"Hey, Nacia? Is there something wrong with your eyes? They had white in them before, but now they're completely black…"

"No, that is healthy. We were not in the best of health on the ship, even those of us who were that way to start with."

"Huh?"

"You saw the others with the brown hair? An experiment went wrong. Besides changing their hair color, it made them much weaker."

"Ah."

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Slowly, Myra sat down beside the Shee.

"Do you miss Albia?"

Black eyes whipped around to stare at her in a mix of confusion and shock. "What do you mean?'

"Do you ever wish that you were back there, living like you used to?" Myra said carefully. "Are you ever homesick?"

"I do not know what 'homesickness' is," Nacia said disdainfully. "However, I have, on occasion, desired to be back on Albia."

"…and you couldn't have just said 'yes'?"

"Hm?"

"Nevermind. Hey, why don't we go for a walk? I'd like to show you around the area, if you're going to stay, for a while at least."


First, they went around the neighborhood, with Nacia asking many questions ("Why are those humans riding grounded hoverboards in the middle of a vehicle transport lane?") and Myra answering them ("Those are called skateboards. And they're riding them in the middle of a road – which is really stupid, by the way.") and pointing out various landmarks.

Next, they went to the park, one of Myra's favorite places. There was a decent-sized field, a nice playground with interesting equipment, and, at the far end, a plot of forest. Through the whole place wound an asphalt path.

Nacia found all of this fascinating. While she went off to investigate the play equipment, Myra sat down on a swing. It was so relaxing to feel the breeze and let her thoughts wander.

Hearing voices from the direction that Nacia had gone, she dragged her feet on the ground to slow to a stop. Walking over, she noticed that Nacia was surrounded by some of the boys from school. The Shee did not seem to like them, but was unable to break away.

"Hello," she said casually. "Any particular reason why you're bothering Nacia?"

Several of the boys spun around. "Hello, Myra. Why do you care?" the leader sneered.

"She's my friend, idiot. Don't you ever read the newspaper?"

The boy glared. "Reading is for – hey!"

Nacia had tried to take advantage of their distraction by running off in the opposite direction. As the humans around her stared, stunned for a moment, Myra ran after her.

Somehow, the two managed to lost their pursuers. Myra quickly led her friend back home.


"Who were those boys?" the Shee asked as soon as they were safely inside the house again.

"Oh, just some group of immature brats who take fun from teasing girls."

Nacia considered this for a moment. "What is a 'brat'?"

"Something you don't want to be. Um, let me show you what we know about Albia!"

She tapped the table impatiently as she waited for the computer to come out of hibernation. As soon as it was up, she clicked the icon for 'Creatures 2' and hit the enter key. Nacia stared as the program started up and a world was selected.

"Here's the statue." She moved the screen until the statue was visible. "What is it of?"

"It is made of a combination of-"

"Not what it's made of! What does it depict, I mean."

"Ah. It is an old statue, of one of our gods."

"Oh. That's why it only looks sorta like you. And let me show you the C2 norns…"

For the next hour, she showed Nacia around the C1 and C2 Albias, and the C3 and DS spaceship. The Shee explained some of the things she saw (not always successfully) and made comments about how things could have been done much more efficiently. After that, she showed off another game that she had found that also had to do with genetics, except with flowers.

Myra's mother called them downstairs for dinner. While Myra thought it was delicious, she noticed that Nacia was poking at it very hesitantly. "Try it!" she urged. "You'll have to learn to eat Earth food anyway." When the Shee still seemed to be unconvinced, she got a piece of cheese and a couple of carrots from the refrigerator and gave them to her. They were received better than the other food.

"Albia had cheese and carrots," she explained for her parents.

Her mother frowned slightly, but said nothing. Her father, however did, though not on the subject of food. "We both work," he explained for Nacia's sake, "I at someplace else and my wife here at home, at the computer. My daughter is gone for school. We don't want to leave you at home all day. Would you mind going to the human school? You'd be in the same class as Myra."

"Human school? That sounds very interesting. I would not mind going," Nacia answered.

"All right. We'll get you enrolled tomorrow."


A/N: Please tell me I didn't scare you away ;-; And I'm sorry for taking sooooooooo long to update. I have a little bit of excuse, though: NaNoWriMo and then finishing the novel. Again, I'm very sorry for taking five months to update.