"Hello, who is it?" Ava called as the three men filed out a narrow palace door and into the moonlit Proper Gardens. Max rather thought that the Antarian girl could have identified them easily if she'd only turned around, but instead she remained facing away from them, as if she were staring fixedly at a couple of fruit trees in bloom - which were impressively colored tonight, he had to admit.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Michael, Max, and the Doctor," he called out softly, leading the way towards Ava at a measured pace.

Now Ava turned halfway around, reacted with a small smile when she saw them, and waved them along. "Sorry, but I always wanted to play out that little scene, I'm not really sure why, except that I've seen it on so many of the holo shows. I'd have continued it for longer, except I couldn't think of any variations that had the heroine being confronted by three such handsome men at once."

"You'll have to write one," Michael suggested jokingly.

"Perhaps. That's not really one of my talents," Ava decided. "Thank you for coming to pay me a visit, though. The garden is beautiful, but such beauty is never best when it's contemplated all alone - and none of you exactly detract from the scenery." She laughed playfully.

"You're in a flirty mood tonight," Max told her as they got close, hoping that was all that it was. "I hope that His Highness isn't the jealous type."

That made Ava laugh. "Not about joking around like this."

"I'm glad to hear that," Michael agreed. "So - is your big surprise for Zan tomorrow all ready?"

"Yes, I think so, and thank you," she said. "For all of your help with this. Did you come and search me out just to ask that?"

"Not really," the Doctor told her. "One first thing - we're going to have to be leaving tomorrow, soon after the naming day party is done. I wanted to make sure that you knew that."

"Yes, I'd already heard that, my Lord," Ava answered, looking up and up to him, moonlight shining prettily off her eye. (Ava was definitely petite, Max realized, probably even shorter than Tess was, and the Doctor was taller than he was.) "Is there some emergency back home that you have to deal with in time?"

Michael snickered. "By the way, Isabel just told us about how much you really know. Where we came from, that sort of thing."

"Ahh - where you come from, everybody in the Royal Court knows by now," Ava corrected. "When you come from, not so much. Thanks for letting me know that you know that I know. I didn't want to be the first one to give away my own secrets vouchsafed from the Lady Isabel. She seemed to be worried that you would be upset when you found out, Max."

"I wasn't wild about hearing it," Max admitted with a little smile. "But maybe things are better this way. So, no, there's no pressing emergency back home - and even if there were, the chances that we would arrive 'in time' to deal with it have nothing to do with how long we spend here at Brok Bay - and depend much more on the Doctor's skill in piloting the TARDIS." He shot the Doctor a look, and the Doctor rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Now that the cause of the psychic events has been stopped, though, it seems better for us to be leaving soon. We definitely don't want to change our own pasts."

"Right," Ava said. "Of course, there are a few loose ends to the case of the psychic events that His Majesty will be sorry to not have your assistance in tying up - like who planted the trap resonance in Rath's car key-stick in the first place, and why Isabel just happened to be close enough to the Princess Vilandra's psychic signature to trigger the trap one time."

"I'm sure that he would," the Doctor said as neutrally as he could. "And I wish that I could stay longer, but it is not to be."

"And where are you headed next?" Ava asked wonderingly. "Into Antar's future, or its present from your perspective, two hundred years from now?" Nobody answered, and she sighed. "I wish that I could come with you, and see what you're going to see."

"I can imagine, but that won't be possible," Max told her softly. "That may seem unfair to you, since we get to travel with the Doctor, but..."

"But I'm destined to be too important a person, for my planet," Ava said. "I never really realized that before, but somehow, the way you look at me and talk to me, I can guess. Queen Ava, that's what the history books will call me, isn't it? And I'll have children with Zan, and one of them will be a King in his turn, and the others princes and princesses." She sighed contentedly. "It actually sounds like that might be fun. But that's why you can't show me the future of the planet, isn't it? Because if I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, I could change that future, and change your past."

Max and Michael stared at each other, not sure what to say. "That's more or less it," the Doctor agreed. "I'm sure that you can understand if I don't want to confirm specific details."

Max immediately made an attempt to change the subject completely, before Ava could get them back into dangerous territory. "The trees are beautiful, especially in the moonlight," he said. "Do you know what species or variety they are?"

Before answering about the trees, Ava paused to look over her shoulder at the moon, which wasn't far above the horizon, but beautifully full, despite the fact that it looked noticeably smaller than the Earth's moon. "Umm, the trees? I think that they're called coughwood, actually, which never struck me as a very pretty name for such a pretty plant. What do you think?" She stepped closer to one of the trees, reaching out for the green-yellow petals of one flower but not actually touching them. "The flowers only open up at night."

"Very pretty flowers, very silly name," Michael agreed. "By the way, I was meaning to ask about the moon - or moons, I suppose. I know that I've seen more than one at night, though there only seems to be the - relatively big one out."

"Oh, you don't even know about the moons of the Antarian sky?" Ava told him, smiling. "There are four, and I think that two are in the sky at the moment, though the other one is really small and far away, so it's hard to spot. Hmm..." She looked around above her for a long time, and pointed to a constellation nearly overhead, more or less to the right of the moon that they'd already spotted. "Do you see the six stars, nearly evenly spaced?"

"Yes, definitely," Max said. The stars making up that grouping weren't all equally bright, but they did seem to mark out the corners of a regular hexagon quite well.

"And there's another 'star' that's inside the formation, but off-center?"

Max nodded, then realized that Ava wasn't looking at him and couldn't see the gesture. "I do," the Doctor replied, also gazing up into the sky intently.

"That's our furthest proper moon, not the smallest but it looks too small to really make out as more than a point, on account of the distance," Ava told them. "Evabes. And of course, we can all see constant Nunyes, keeping her course in the slow journey around our sky."

"That's Nunyes?" Max exclaimed, caught by surprise. Of course, he knew that the place that Tess had taken over in the future was one of the moons of Antar, but somehow he hadn't ever expected to actually see it in Antar's sky.

"Yes," Ava agreed. "I'm not surprised if you've heard something about it, even if you couldn't recognize it. Easily the most beautiful of all our moons, and as it happens it's just far enough away, and circling around our planet, that it nearly keeps pace with a particular spot on the surface as Antar spins around. Which means that Nunyes only rises and sets once every eighteen and a half days." She considered it. "It must have risen about two days ago, around the time that you arrived here more or less. I almost wish that it were higher in the sky for tomorrow - when I have my big moment with Zan. "'The moon's noon' is supposedly a very romantic time for our people. Perhaps when Zan and I wed, it'll be a night-time ceremony at the moon's noon."

"I'm sure it will be, and I hope that it's worth it," Max told her, and Ava giggled in reply to the way he phrased it. "So, if Nunyes takes days and days to rise and set, does that mean that it goes through phases over the course of a single night? If we stayed up until nearly sunrise and looked at Nunyes again, it would be close to the same spot in the sky, but because Antar had turned so much, it would be a crescent?"

"Yes, that sounds right," Ava agreed. "Do you want to hear about the other moons, even if we can't see them at the moment?"

"Sure," Max agreed, though deep down he was thinking about Tess taking over 'the romantic moon,' the loveliest one. What did that tell him about her hangups and what she would be like to deal with when he got there?

"Well, if we wait long enough, we'll probably see Carves going by." Like all the other moon names, Ava pronounced it with a hissing 'ess' syllable at the end. "That's the lowest one, and the smallest, it looks about half the size of Nunyes, or maybe a little - slightly reddish all the time because of the metallic rock it's made out of, and lumpy. It zips around Antar at least four times a day, so you'll see it nearly every night, if the weather isn't too cloudy, and it doesn't go too far north or south to be made out from wherever you are. And Dimaras is much further out, like Evabes, but big enough that you can just make it out as a tiny but perfect circle in the sky. I don't think it'll rise into our sky until nearly morning, though."

"So, four moons?" Michael clarified.

"Traditionally, yes," Ava said. "Those are the ones that Antarians spotted before they had made spaceships, or even discovered the optical principles to invent viewing instruments and magnify the sky. Since then, we've discovered a number of other natural satellites orbiting us, including a few that are just slightly bigger than little Carves, but those are so far out that you can't spot them without binoculars or something like that."

"Interesting," Max said. "And how many of them have been settled, now that you have space flight?"

"All of them, I think," Ava said. "Mostly Nunyes and Dimaras, each of them has underground or domed cities with, umm, I don't know, millions of settlers, I guess. Carves has a permanently manned observation platform, but that's probably only twenty or so staff on board at any one time, and Evabes - I'm not sure, I think that there's a space telescope built there, and a mine, but I really can't remember how many people work there."

"That's alright, I won't tell anybody that you forgot one lesson," Michael teased her. "That does give us an idea." He took a deep breath. "Do you mind if I ask you a bit more about your life, from before you and Zan met?"

"Sure, I guess," Ava said. "Any particular questions, or would you just like me to ramble about my background as best I can? I'm getting pretty good at telling people the story of my life at Royal parties."

"Maybe we'll start with a few questions," Max said. "Any brothers or sisters?"

"Two sisters," she replied. "One older half-brother."

"Oh," Michael faked disappointment for an instant and then seized on that line of questioning. "So, did your half-brother's other parent - I mean, did one of his parents die, or did they split up, or..."

Ava laughed and shook her head. "They were - they were very young when they had Froush, and hadn't contracted a permanent bond or anything. It was an ugly Zhorva situation, actually."

"An ugly what kind of situation?" Max asked, looking around in something that might have been alarm but didn't really get that far. "I'm sorry, the TARDIS didn't translate the word."

"Something that doesn't pertain in English," the Doctor said, "and that you don't have enough experience to relate to."

"Did you get it, Doctor?" Michael asked.

"Partly - the Gallifreyan word was an awkward contraction, but I got some of the sense of it - all about young love gone wrong, and difficult partings, and psychic abilities in a situation that doesn't make them gifts, but rather the reverse." He looked over at Ava. "Is that on the right track?"

"Yes, rather," Ava said, nodding. "I suppose, come to think of it, that you're lucky that you didn't get Zhorva by accident, growing up on a place like Earth without anybody to teach you that much about the more trying aspects of your powers. It could have ruined your lives, actually, getting stuck in it without knowing how to break free. But both of you seem very happy with your lady friends, and so do Isabel and Alex. Maybe that was good luck, or maybe growing up in Earth society helped you to avoid it, I don't know." She took a deep breath. "But - well, have either of you experienced the sort of intense emotional bond that your powers can create when you're very deeply in love and close to your partner? It's partly a question of self-reinforcing empathic feedback, they say - if you each feel how much the other person cares for you, that tends to increase and deepen your own feelings, assuming that no ugly little subconscious secrets come out to break the cycle."

"Max and Liz have," Michael put in, chuckling. "Maria and I have only felt a little bit of that, I think, and Isabel and Alex have reached a bit more. But the first time it happened to our dream couple - watch out!"

"Yes, I can imagine," Ava said, smiling. "But - well, Zhorva is something that happens when a couple has a certain amount of time when things are good, to reinforce the closeness of their connection, and then less positive emotions start to cycle through the feedback link - resentment, bitter jealousy, or dysfunctional relationship habits, say." Now the smile was gone, as she shook her head somberly. "In a true Zhorva situation, the connection itself becomes dysfunctional, actually - the lovers cannot be happy together, and cannot break free of each other's lives. The connection helds them tight, trapping them in the nightmare of a perfect love gone wrong."

"Oooh," Max went as Ava finished, as if he had been kicked in the gut. "I - I think that might have happened to Liz and I. We went through some bad times, after-"

"After Tess got pregnant?" Ava filled in.

"Yes, and after she left Earth," Max agreed. "We'd been through a lot, and weren't quite sure how to get back to just being in love together without all of the melodrama, and I was a little obsessed with finding out what Tess had done with my daughter, and when Liz went through the hard parts of adapting to her own Antarian powers, being close to me was hard on her." He sighed. "I'm glad that we were able to work through all of that without getting into this Zhorva stuff."

"You could have had it with Tess too, maybe," Michael guessed. "If you really opened yourself up to her, and we didn't figure out what a sneaky and manipulative bitch she truly was."

"I do think that as fascinating as all this is, we're getting somewhat wide of the point," the Doctor suggested. "So - Ava, was it your father and his old girlfriend, or your mother and a beau from long ago?"

"My mother," Ava filled in. "Yeah - I think that they'd realized that it was Zhorva and that they were no good for each other by the time Mom realized that she was pregnant, but she still wanted to keep the baby, and raised him with her family's help for a few years until she met Dad. There - there are special procedures that specialists can use to seperate Zhorva couples, to safely break the links of their mental and emotional connections, and having a baby together actually complicates them. They had to rush ahead with the procedure, and I think that part of it - well, Froush never really seemed to care at all about his natural father, Carrin. I think that was because when they were cutting the bonds linking Mom and Carrin, there was some kind of link connecting Froush and Carrin that had to get seperated as well, but I'm not sure if that's real or I just made it up." She took a deep breath. "Next question?"

"Are your family political at all?" Max blurted out. He hadn't meant to put it this way, but it was one of the things he really did want to know about, and maybe after such an awkward conversational turn, Ava would appreciate the direct segue.

"Well, they never seemed to be, until I met Zan," Ava put in and giggled. "Now they act like the biggest patriots around for the Liaret royal family, but I do have my own doubts about how sincere that is."

"But you don't think that they'd ever work with someone one else against Zan and his family?" Michael put in. "Sorry, I shouldn't even have said that, it was a stupid thing to bring up, try to ignore..."

"I'm not sure if I can entirely erase it," Ava said. "But no, I don't think so - Dad may skim from his taxes every year, but there's a long way between that and revolutionism."

"Indeed there is," Max agreed. "Okay, umm, what else? Maybe you should start with some of your usual canned spiel."

"Actually, I think we've heard most of that, right?" Michael put in, turning to the Doctor. "Our little dinner party, the first night, right? You were downstairs, Max."

"Okay, okay, then you ask a question about something that she didn't cover," Max suggested.

"Hmm." Michael took a long time thinking about that. "How did you first meet Zan? I don't think that that came up."

Max shot Michael a dirty look, but he just shrugged that off, and Ava didn't seem to notice. "Oh - that story. Yeah, Zan gets a bit embarassed when I tell that story around him, so I guess we just skipped over it - or maybe neither of us realized that you hadn't heard. Let's see, my side of it, well, it was a weekend back a year ago or so, and a few casual friends from school invited me to come along with them for a trip to the seaside, a few hundred kilometers away from Capital city. It was kind of fun, we went on a hoverboat tour of the glades, had lunch at a grill stand on the beach. After lunch, I had to 'wash my face' at the Personal, and after I came out and was looking for the school friends, I bumped into a handsome young man who was on his way toward's the males door."

"Ahh," the Doctor said, smiling slightly. "And that young man was Prince Zan?"

"No," Ava told him. "It was Larek, actually. I excused myself for not watching where I was going, and he was very charming, and we introduced ourselves - and he continued along to take care of his own business."

"Right," Max said. "So where did Zan figure into it? I guess that the two of them were down at the seashore together."

"Oh, I remember, Zan did mention something about Larek introducing the two of you," Michael put in. "And you kept talking about refugees."

"Yes," Ava agreed. "But I didn't even know that the two of them had come together, when I met Larek, and he didn't say anything to me about anybody else. I just went and found my friends, and we ended up sunbathing together on Dimaras rock for most of the afternoon."

"Dimaras rock, as in, like the moon Dimaras?" the Doctor inquired, sharply interested.

"Yes," Ava confirmed. "The rock on the seashore originally fell from space, we know that for certain now. Local legend has it that it was a part of Dimaras that was knocked away by an asteroid impact or something else of the sort, but nobody's ever confirmed that particular idea. Still, everybody calls it that."

"Wouldn't a chunk of meteorite that was big enough to, you know, have a bunch of friends lie down on it at least, also have blown out a pretty big crater?" Max asked.

"I think that originally it did, but the weather reshaped the land in that area," Ava said. "Anyway, can I get on with the story?"

"Certainly," Michael said. "You were sunbathing with your friends all afternoon - and as a guy I do have to ask, were they all as cute as you are?"

Ava shook her head and didn't even take the bait that time. "A few suitable came by as the afternoon was getting late; Kraulissa and Babnee ended up accepting an invitation to go to dinner with them, the rest of us went to a different eatery, across the lane, and when we met up afterward Babnee said that we were all invited to this party at the vaction house of the Breoll ambassador. I didn't really want to go, because from what I've heard about Breollyn, they didn't really seem like fun people to me, but the girls talked me into going - and then somehow, five minutes after we got there, they'd contrived to leave me behind and I couldn't track any of them down."

She sighed, her eyes almost closed. "Then I heard somebody calling my name, and turned around, and it was Larek, and he was standing next to an even cuter guy my age - that would be Zan. Larek waved me over and said how glad he was that I'd come to the party, he'd been looking for me to extend an invitation, but hadn't been able to find me. And then he just said that he thought I'd like to meet his friend, that we might hit it off."

"Just like that?" Max said. "Larek's got some nerve, if he 'introduced' you to the Crown Prince without actually mentioning his name."

"Yeah, but - well, it was probably the best way to handle it," Ava admitted. "So soon, the two of us are sitting together on a small couch in a quiet corner. He had a glass of Rynec and I asked for Geelee milk. And Zan was really very shy and even stammered a little, but he told me how he and Larek had been in the water that afternoon, and he saw me up on the rock, and mentioned to Larek that he thought I was lovely. And Larek had told him that he recognized me, and that he could go back up and talk to me, but Zan had told him not to because he'd feel silly and not know what to say."

"I do know how he feels," Max agreed. "And then?"

"Well, and then I started to ramble on about the refugees," Ava replied.

#

"So, well, umm..." Rose said, as she stepped across the bedroom door and considered the sleeping chamber that up until this evening she had been sharing with the Doctor - and Kyle, who was standing up against the hallway door in his sleeping underthings. "I guess there's some questions that we'll have to settle about the sleeping arrangements."

"Yeah, I guess so," Kyle agreed. At the Doctor and Rose's request, they'd been settled into a room that had the equivalent of twin beds, each one placed against a different wall. "Okay, I'm going to put this out there. I'm in favor of pushing the beds together. I'm not going to push you about - about making love or anything, as much as I'd like to do that with you, it still is a bit early. But - but we slept in each other's arms last night, for a few hours at least, and yes, I liked it. Even if that's all we do, I'd still love to go to bed next to you, and sleep all night."

"Oh, sure," Rose giggled. "Isn't that the oldest trick in the book? 'Yeah, of course darling, I won't try any funny stuff, just let me get into bed.'"

Kyle shot her an amazed look. "Are English guys actually such huge creeps? I thought American football players were bad, but I can't think of many who'd slide over the line into date-rape quite that casually."

"Umm - no, not really," Rose said. "Sorry, I was trying to make a joke. Guess it got lost in translation." She sighed. "Next objection, somewhat more serious - isn't that sort of thing... more bother than it's worth, for guys?" She shifted restlessly. "I know it sometimes can be for me."

Kyle chuckled at the line that he couldn't resist delivering. "Depends on just how much the girl is worth," he whispered to Rose, stepping close to her and indulging in a sweet kiss. "But seriously, up to you, whatever."

Rose giggled. "Push away, young Mister Valenti. I guess we'll take things as they come when we're under the covers together."

He had to think about that for a moment, and then decided that he liked it. "Okay, just a moment." The Antarian beds weren't solidly fastened to the floor or the walls, (or for that matter, the ceiling,) but they were solidly constructed, with heavy metal legs, and Kyle was panting and somewhat sweaty when he had finally gotten one pushed over next to the other. "Just a moment, umm." He considered going back into the bathroom for a towel, then remembered that they didn't have any, and Antarian sponges didn't seem to be good for this kind of thing. So he poked into his small suitcase and came up with an already-used t-shirt that wouldn't be too badly affected by a little further soiling.

"Don't wipe yourself too dry," Rose told him, rolling over onto the far side of the newly arranged 'double bed.' "I do like my guys a little on the sweaty side."

"Alright," Kyle said, rolling his eyes as he crossed over to the bed and sat down. Rose just stared at him silently, so after a moment he brought up his legs and tucked the light blanket over most of his body.

"Good enough," Rose laughed, rolling back so that her lithe body was resting on top of him. "Now here it comes."

And she kissed him passionately like there was no tomorrow, her hands starting to wander over his skin.

#

Isabel woke up to the sound of spirited conversation outside on the balcony, and groaned. "What the hell time is it?" she muttered to herself.

"The local time is zero zero five eight," a synthesized, artifical voice said from somewhere in the bedroom.

Alex stirred immediately. "I didn't know that we had anything in here that would do that!"

"Neither did I," Isabel grumbled. "Maybe the request has to be phrased in a very particular way." Alex chuckled in reply. "More to the point, that's very early for people to be making so much noise, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Alex allowed. "But it's a big day - maybe somebody wanted to get an early start." She shot him a nasty look, but it didn't last long because her eyes hadn't really gotten used to being open yet. "Do you want me to help you out with that super-earplug routine you use sometimes?"

"Umm... no, whatever. Let's face this stupid day," she said, swinging her feet down from the bed. "That is, if you're up for it too."

"Sure, okay," Alex said, getting up from his own side of the bed. "Umm, honey, you might want to, well..."

She didn't realize what he was getting at until she'd already gotten to the balcony door - and then it occured to her just how brief the clothes that she'd been using to sleep in during the warm night were, and how she didn't really want to be seen by anybody else but Alex like that, really. Fortunately it was easy enough to step away from the door for a moment, and bring a dressing gown flying to her hand with a casual exercise of her powers. As an afterthought, she also provided a robe for Alex to use.

The crowd that had gathered outside on the balcony turned out to consist of Jim Valenti, Amy DeLuca, Lord Rath, Prince Zan, and Larek - so far. "Oh, good morning Isabel," Amy said with a wave. "How are you doing?"

"I... I'd have been doing better if somebody had given me peace and quiet to sleep later," she blurted out before really thinking about it.

"Oh - whoops," Jim muttered, as Amy blushed and looked around at the other doors, as if expecting a whole crowd of annoyed teenagers, (and one twenty-something English girl,) to come charging out complaining about their lost beauty sleep.

"I apologize," Zan said, nudging Rath with an elbow. "That was probably our fault, forgetting to restrain our high spirits out of consideration to you and such. Most walls in the palace are very good at insulating sound, but though these balcony doors have many things to recommend them, such insulation is not on their list of good qualities."

"Yeah, really sorry," Rath mumbled.

"It's alright," Alex said. "Looks like you guys have got quite a good spread going. Could you pass over some of those Hallaf cakes, and do you have plum syrup without the hot herbs in it?"

"What the heck?" Rath asked as he passed the flat cakes over. "How can you possibly have it without hot herbs?"

"Here, Alex," Jim said, passing over a small glass of syrup. "Lord Rath, I suppose you could say that's a quirk of the Earthling palate. Individual tolerances differe, but most of us don't particularly like the enormously spicy stuff like those of Antarian extraction."

"Hmm, interesting," Zan said, looking intently over at Isabel, who nearly dropped one of the cakes she was transferring over to a clean plate for herself.

"Can you, umm, can you let me use that syrup when you're done, sweetie?" she asked Alex.

"Well - are you sure?" Alex replied. "Come on, you don't need to be nervous about liking the hot stuff just because it's come up in conversation. We've all seen how much 'insanity casserole' you can put away."

"Yeah, I - umm, I guess that you're right," Isabel said, reaching out for the gravy boat-like dish of spiced syrup and pouring it over her cakes.

"So, what's the plan for the two of you?" Alex asked Zan and Rath, wondering if this would get the conversation back onto safer ground.

"Well, I've got a clear pass to stay entirely out of the way while the girls are setting up for the party," Zan said with a big smile. "And my parents, and the servants, and so on. Rath wants to stick close to me, but I think I may have to find a way to go get him to take his lumps and do his part."

"Yeah, good point, Your Highness," Jim put in. "Come on, Rath - we can all go together, and keep each other company telling dirty jokes or something as we carry around heavy furniture." Rath looked unimpressed by that possibility, but shrugged.

Breakfast continued on a fairly relaxed basis, and though Alex wondered several times if there was going to be a huge influx from the other bedrooms, only a very bedheaded Maria finally emerged as he pushed away his plate and sipped from a glass of delicately flavored water. "Michael's still out like a light," she complained. "Anybody know what he and Max were up to for all hours of the night?"

"Umm - they mentioned something about going to talk to - well, the good Lady Ava," Isabel said, with an apologetic shrug in Prince Zan's direction. "Along with the Doctor. Not entirely sure what they had to say to her." That last part wasn't really the entire truth, but it was certainly close enough that Isabel could say it without giving anything away. "Sit down, have just about anything you want, and don't worry about Michael for now. He'll have less breakfast to choose from, and it won't be hot, and that serves him right."

"No, he'll make it hotter than it needs to be just to spite us," Maria laughed, pouring a glass of something deliciously blue and sitting down with it. Before drinking, she let out an enormous yawn that seemed to just go on and on.

"Well," Amy said, looking around the table. "So, any idea what I can expect from the naming-day party of a Crown Prince of Antar?"

"Let's see," Rath said after a moment. "The celebration will last around four or five hours, I guess, and it's broken up into different sub-parties in sequence, each of which will take place in a different section of the palace. I'm not sure of the exact sequence, but there'll be an elaborate dinner of course, and a musical performance, some sort of games, and stories being told about when the Named Boy was much younger."

"Ooh, will we get to see baby pictures?" Isabel asked.

"Huh?" Zan asked, a distressed look coming over him as his face started to get very pale.

"Well, I don't know," Rath said, looking over at his friend. "Is that a tradition from Earth?"

"Sort of - not something that always happens at a birthday party, but often paired with stories from when someone was young," Amy put in.

"I'll have to ask Her Majesty if she has any hologram storage units around," Rath said with a smile. "Once I'm sent away to help with the party setup.

Zan groaned softly to himself.

#

Somehow when Kyle woke up next to Rose this time, he expected that they'd mysteriously have ended up in the banquet hall or somewhere else equally embarassing, but the two single beds were still next to each other in Rose's room, where he'd struggled and sweated to get them there. "Good morning, my darling dear," he whispered in the vicinity of the sweep of golden hair that covered the right side of Rose Tyler's head.

Rose turned towards him and something in her look was so bittersweet that somehow it staggered Kyle. "Hello and good morning, very precious Kyle," she breathed, and actually lifted a hand as if to brush a tear away from the corner of her eye, though Kyle couldn't see any moisture actually building up there.

"Hey, hey - is something wrong?" he asked her.

This time, there was no mistaking the sadness in her eyes. "Well, I suppose that you could say something isn't right." She took a deep breath that seemed to be full of false cheer. "But we needn't worry ourselves about that just now, do we? It seems to be a great day for a party - from what I can tell." Rose chuckled to herself very softly. "Do you want to go out onto the balcony and see what's available for breakfast?"

"Hmm." Kyle could hear somebody talking outside their sliding door, and he crept out of the bed and over to listen for voices. In a few moments he was by Rose's side, as she stirred from the bed and rummaged through her clothes. "Nah, let's go the other way - after washing up quickly and dressing."

"Well, alright I suppose," Rose said, a puzzled expression on her face that managed to knock out the melancholy at least. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Not sure if I'm up for keeping company with His Highness so early in the day. We'll have to face enough of him at the party."

Rose shrugged, then got up and headed for the bathroom. "You're not a big fan of Prince Zan?"

"No, I can't say that I am," Kyle admitted. "Which is kind of funny when you think about it for long enough. I didn't get along with Max either, for a long time, and I'm not sure that was all because of the Liz drama."

"Right," Rose said, and disappeared into the bathroom. Kyle thought for a moment about joining her in the fountain shower, but quite a few signals seemed to be indicating that he'd be pushing his luck there.

Soon both of them were clean, and decently, if casually, dressed for the day. Kyle wondered as they proceeded into the Palace hallway if Zan or anybody else out on the balcony had heard the water running in their bathroom, and expected them to be coming outside. Well, Zan could have all the expectations he liked.

Down the nearest ramp and along another corridor, and for a little while they didn't see anybody else. And then, a party of three Antarians emerged out of a cross-passage - a tall male servant, the Princess Vilandra, and a girl in her younger teens who Kyle had seen around the palace a few times, and guessed to be another princess, one of Zan and Vilandra's sisters. "Good morning, both of you," Vilandra said brightly, her voice a little too loud for the distance between them. "You're drafted."

"Drafted?" Kyle repeated, a sinking feeling in his middle. "To help with the party setup, you mean?"

"We'll serve, won't we, Kyle?" Rose said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But you'll need to feed us first, that's only humane."

"Didn't you eat enough upstairs on your balcony?" the younger princess said. "I saw all the food that Rath was making sure the kitchen staff were delivering up there."

"That may be true, but we haven't even been out on the balcony this morning," Kyle told her. "Got up, washed and dressed, and came downstairs first thing."

"Alright, alright, come this way," Vilandra said, and then cocked her head. "No, on second thought, don't follow me, I was on my way to check on the outdoor construction crew, wasn't I?" The servant nodded gravely. "Well, Amerit, see our guests to the downstairs hall for their breakfast, and let Lady Ava know that she can put them to work once they've had something to eat." And with that, Princess Vilandra continued on in the direction that Kyle and Rose had come from.

"Quite a difference from the welcome we got from her our first day, isn't it?" Kyle whispered to Rose, who shrugged. The servant meanwhile, led the way, and Vilandra's little sister, after looking around for a moment, decided that she could please herself and fell in step next to the visitors.

"You're the ones who went all psycho because of the curse that was laid on my sister, aren't you?" she asked Kyle and Rose impertinently.

"I prefer to call it going 'psychic', Kyle told her with a laugh. "And I'm not sure it qualifies as a curse, but yes, that's us. Kyle Valenti, of Roswell, and this is Rose Tyler from London. And I know that you're one of the princesses of the Royal family of Liaret, but I'm sorry, I didn't remember your name."

The little princess raised one eyebrow. "That's new, I suppose. My name is Arynda Liaret."

"I notice a running theme in the names of the women of your family," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, that's Corvanni thing that Mom's keeping alive in her family," Arynda said glibly.

"Corvanni?" Kyle repeated. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's a large island in the Southern Opposite ocean," Arynda explained. "Where she was born, and lived all her life until she was older than Vilandra is. They're a bit old-fashioned and traditional over there, religious even. But she's proud of her Corvanni heritage, and Dad doesn't let anybody make fun of them, even if she's not around."

"Interesting," Rose said. "There's so much we still don't know about Antar, and it looks like we'll be leaving so soon. Have you been able to travel much, Arynda?"

"Not as much as I'd like," the girl said. "We spend most of our time in the Royal Castle just outside Capital City, or the secured apartments in the city center. But let's see - I've visited Brok Bay, and North Tilles, and I've been to Corvann for a short visit with Mom's family. And we've been to Jjefen, and visited Rahlicx, and Dimaras, and Taliernar, and Vrelayan."

"That doesn't sound like it's too bad," Kyle said, once the young princess had paused for long enough that it seemed like she had run out of alien place names.

"No, it isn't," Arynda admitted. "But there's so many other beautiful places to go, even just in the Antar sector - there's the Saphiran cluster, and the underground concourses of Kaalto, and even Breoll - I don't really like the Breollyn that I've met so far, but I'd like to see the planet that they came from."

"Everybody seems to pick on the Breollyn," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, well, they pick on everybody else even more," Arynda explained. "As long as they think they're in a position of strength." And with that, she led them around a corner into a familiar corridor, and then they were passing through into the large feast hall. "So, whatcha want for your breakfast? You'd better get something you can eat up quick, because there's lots to do."

Rose looked at Kyle, and then asked, "Can we at least see a menu or something?"