Grey watched as Jupiter Jones read.
Her face, young, had been set in fierce determination as she had changed Grey's life forever. I will live, and I do not have to be complacent in what my Brood had died to change anymore. I am free. But the more Jupiter read, the stiller her face became. It went from expressive and alive, to a dead mask. A mask, that Grey, saw, with a faint relocation, made the youngling look so much more like the grown woman they remembered from their only experience with Seraphi Abrasax. Despite the identical DNA, Jupiter had managed to look distinct from Seraphi because of her reluctance to temper her emotions so thoroughly. She was collected and calm, for the most part, but she was still a youngling. She was still more alive in her face.
She was not Entitled.
But at the moment, Grey could almost believe that Seraphi Abrasax was not dead after all. The stillness in her face was almost frightening, in one so young.
"I do not like to hate," said Jupiter, her voice was measuredly even in tempo, and it felt odd since most youngling humans had high voices that squeaked and fluctuated almost chaotically. Even Jupiter's. She slowly, efficiently, exited out of the records for the Broods of the Keepers of the Earth once she had reached the end, "It is an ugly emotion. And it leads to so much death and destruction. It is not healthy to hold. But I think I will make an exception for Balem Abrasax."
Even her language had changed, more former, stiffer. Grey did not even thing that Jupiter had noticed she had slipped into speaking in the language of the Entitled.
Since Seraphi's purchase of the Earth, there had been three generations, only one had been alive in Seraphi's time. The majority of Brood 01 had been killed in the aftermath of the Great Experiment. Grey saw that many of their Brood had been scattered across the Earth. Perhaps a handful, including themselves, had survived the Cleansing. More then they had expected, and it made them glad, but it distressed them to know that Brood 02 and 03 had been just as badly affected. All those younglings. From the information they could read, Balem was not as careful as his Elder in their labor assets. Keepers died more on the Planet than necessary, and Grey saw it was due to negligence and lack of equipment. Balem made a point, according to the records, to keep the Earth as disadvantaged as possible. Even at a detriment to him. For the potential of the Earth, even as a Harvesting Planet, Balem barely kept it functioning as such.
Grey watched Jupiter, her still face, and waited with bated breath as her fists clenched in her lap.
"Grey. I know it won't mean much… But I am so sorry," her voice was once again in English, and her voice broke.
Grey looked at Jupiter Jones, and saw her cool mask shatter before their eyes. Again, she began to cry, for them, for Grey's people. Because to her, they were indeed more people that had been murdered. They knew she would take the guilt of the actions of Lord Balem. Even if she had no reason too.
"You cannot change the past," Grey knew that better than anyone. In their life, they had taken the revision of the Earth's history as a way to keep living. Tried to convince themselves that what Lord Balem had said was true, if only to make it easier to hear it said by the next generation of Keepers that came to fill the spaces of their Brood. But even in their fear, they could not erase what they had witnessed, "But you can change the future, Jupiter Jones. You will set the Verse free."
Despite their intention to simply ease Jupiter's guilt over the events that had happened long before her birth, the words rang with so much truth.