Songs: Cheikh Lo - Sante Yalla

I had been sitting in the local library in Lubny, trying to find more information since we had arrived. It was a pain trying to get through all the information that was buried in here. Right now it was 3 in the morning and I had only found one or two conclusive things. And those were saying that the Vault Key piece wasn't here.

It was really frustrating, because we had all hoped that we could get the last piece here and be done with it. But apparently that wasn't the case. There seemed to be much more travelling involved. All signs at the moment pointed to some place called Arkalyk that was some big port city.

It probably just held more information, since it was a) pretty much run by the loyalists and b) a much bigger city with a bigger library. At this point of the night it seemed pretty unlikely that I'd still find anything useful, but I just kept looking because I definitely wasn't ready to give up just yet.

I was incredibly tired as well, though. Everyone else had long disappeared to wherever we were staying at the moment and I was honestly surprised that I was allowed to continue roaming around the library at night on my own. I wondered whether the librarian lady was even still around.

I had seen her when I came in - she seemed middle-aged, wearing a scarf on her head with a long blonde ponytail hiding below it. She had deep blue eyes and spoke with an accent so heavy I had some trouble understanding her. During the evening there were a few younger people in the library - they looked like students working on some project. But now I was the only one.

I kind of wished I had been able to see more of the surrounding area. All I remembered was that there were a bunch of fields that were golden with wheat, but I was sure there was more out there. So far Aeres always had some sort of surprise for me up its sleeve and I was not disappointed.

Moze kept insisting that there really wasn't anything but fields around here, but somehow I didn't believe her. She said she had grown up in the area and if there was something I realized since I had left Aquator then it was that people rarely ever seemed to appreciate the place they came from.

"Chica, are you still awake?" I suddenly heard a voice from the rows of shelves in front of me. I hadn't realized how dark it was around me. The table I was sitting at was only illuminated by a small lamp.

"Yeah, I'm not really done yet..." I mumbled sleepily, as I saw Mordecai emerging from the darkness.

"Did you have a look at the time? Aren't you tired or something?" he wanted to know. I shrugged.

"I can sleep when I'm dead." I answered and yawned. How fitting. Maybe he was right and I should stop. I was really tired after all.

"You know you can die from lack of sleep, right?" he asked. I shrugged again. It wasn't like that was the most likely way for me to die.

"Mordy, we get shot at literally all the time. I don't think I need to worry about sleeping enough."

"Did you find anything useful yet?"

"I'm not entirely sure. The one thing I have found is that the Vault Key piece isn't here. But I found a few hints as to where it could be..." I explained and grabbed a few of the books that were lying openly in front of me.

"This one here, and this one, and this one - they all point to some place called Arkalyk, somewhere in the west. It's some port town and has a massive library. A big part of the population seems to be loyalist as well, so it seems like we'd be better off looking there." I explained.

Mordecai looked at me with a raised eyebrow. To be honest, for the amount of time I had spent here and the amount of books in front of me, this wasn't really much to go by. But it was the best I had at the moment. And honestly, I doubted that I could do any better any time soon.

"You got a lot more books to go on?" he wanted to know. I looked over the table that was completely covered in opened and bookmarked books and in data pads. I had pretty much gotten most of the useful information on my datapad already, but I still felt like I'd be missing out if I didn't use every single bit of information I could possibly get my hands on. Maybe it was a bit much.

"I don't really think so." I answered with a sigh. Mordecai pulled up a chair and sat down beside me.

"Chica, come on. Don't waste your time here, if you can't find much useful information. Let's go. Time to go to bed." he said, looking into my tired eyes. I sighed again and nodded. He was right.

"Do we have anything to do in the morning?" I asked him. He gave me a smug grin and nodded.

"Yeah, we have to get up early in the morning to go and help Moze put up some sort of distribution center for goods - groceries and such. She's planning to get a head start around seven in the morning." he replied. My eyes widened when he said that. At seven in the morning?

"But... that's in four hours! Why did no one tell me about this?"

"Because you disappeared right after we arrived. Now come on, four hours of sleep is better than nothing. Let's go." he said and got up, pulling me up by my arm. I gestured at all the books on the table.

"What about... all this? I gotta tidy it up." I replied. Mordecai shrugged and shook his head quickly.

"Moze said it's alright. She said you can always come back tomorrow and tidy it up or continue looking for any hints, if you need to. So just leave it there for now." he said. I wanted to protest, but I was genuinely too tired for it. Maybe some sleep would really help me.

It was a pretty warm summery night outside. And since Lubny was such a small town the stars above us were shining as brightly as I had only seen them on Pandora. It was amazing how much of a difference it made when you were in complete darkness, looking up at the night sky.

"Did you guys see much of the town?" I asked Mordecai as we made our way through the streets.

"There really isn't much to see. I think the library is one of the main attractions. And the town hall. Apart from that it's fields, farm houses and some small town houses. There's a school, too, apparently." he replied.

"It seems like a peaceful place." I mused.

"The whole planet is peaceful, if you ask me. There was really only that one time we ran into some sort of conflict. Apart from that life seems really sheltered around here. It's making me nervous." Mordecai replied.

"Pandora's really good for screwing people up, huh?" I asked and laughed. Mordecai nodded with a grin on his face.

"Yeah, I guess so. Would be surprised if it didn't." he said.

"I'm really glad that Anouk got to grow up on a planet like this. Sure, things aren't perfect, but they are much better than on other planets. Pandora is no place to bring up a child. And even Aquator has a ton of problems unless you're extremely rich. Aeres was probably one of the better things that could happen to her. It did make her somewhat reckless, though." I said. This whole thing had been on my mind for ages, but now seemed like the right time to say it.

"Yeah, I suppose. She has no concept of a dangerous situation. It's like you ask her to think about what could go wrong and she genuinely wouldn't know." he agreed. I nodded and took his hand as we silently walked next to each other.

"How far is it? Where are we even staying?" I wanted to know. I realized that I had literally no idea what had been going on outside the library.

"You're impossible, chica." Mordecai answered with a laugh.

"I'm not that bad! Come on, if I hadn't gone right away, we probably would have forgotten about it. And we only need one more Vault Key piece." I replied, as I let my eyes wander over the constellations in the sky. I used to be able to name a lot of them on Aquator. Of course they were completely different here.

"We probably would have forgotten. We're staying in the town hall and it's just down the road. See the big building there? That's it. There are some rooms in the attic that they made into rooms to rent out for visitors." Mordecai explained.

"You know, that actually sounds like a pretty nice place to stay. Can't wait for my four hours of sleep I'll get there."