It was the deepest night in the Lightyear household. Owls hooted eerily outside, cicadas kept a buzzing chirr here and there... The two moons orbiting Morph huddled in the sky like two soulless eyes amidst a rim of pale stars. In the third floor, in a whitely decorated bedroom, the dwellers snoozed in their own empyreans. But if someone had initially tiptoed down the stairs and peeked in the living-room, his hackles would have evidently risen in the air for fright. In the quasi-shaded cabin, a black form stood in the middle floor, staring at something. Or... actually it was not quite standing, but hovering. There was a gap of a few inches between the carpet and those black robes that seemed to float in the air nearly by themselves. The shadow seemed to be extremely interested in the oil painting on the wall, because of a reason or another.

"Zoxedaszeĉ Zora Lightyear..." its low voice muttered in the dark. "Wonder who you are because of getting such a place on his wall..." That face was familiar-looking for the figure. It was the old parchment book in the stone chamber... there, there similar sharp brown eyes had goggled back from a picture of several hundred years old...

"Too bad it's only the looks... and the heck, I don't know even who you are. You are unimportant for me..." it scowled at the immovable portrait. "But if he would have born to be like Jardaz, I might've allied with him instead... but now, it's the other way."

It left the living-room with a hushed swish coming from its jet-black robes.

"Now... I'll settle down and watch, for a while... I have time. Nothing but time. And the more I can torment you, my unbearable foe, the more I'll enjoy. To see you slowly falling down and lastly creeping in front of me...yes..."

The shadow glided towards the hall, leaving the main room's furniture to bathe in the moonlight.

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In the morning, Buzz woke up to the irritating discord of the alarm clock. He was to drown it in the water glass beside it, but abruptly remembered that there was something planned to do for this free day. Shaking Yoka awake, he smirking told her to get prepared for the town tourney. She plainly shrieked with enthusiasm, bouncing with a hip-swing-up from the bed and almost ripping him up too. Oh, that childish craze...

Buzz went downstairs to make some breakfast, while the woman clattered in the bathroom. She had whisked a note in the air that she would get ready for this extraordinary happening. Chuckling the man creaked open the fridge's door, blinking then in a small surprise. Was there food missing from there or did he see just mirages? He clearly recalled the fridge had been fuller during yesterday's suppertime.

"Hmh. Odd. Either I'm remembering false things or then one of us is a sleepwalker and a night eater." He snorted and arranged a pile of eatables on the kitchen table.

The digital timer ticked and tacked, and Lightyear was still alone in the galley. Women... once they got in a bathroom they just started lodging there, was it not so? The porridge he had made would start gathering fungus soon if no one was going to eat it. Shrugging he left the table, clambered up the stairs, and knocked the door of the notorious room.

"Yoka... still there? Your... breakfast's ready", he raised his tone. "Or actually was already an hour ago..." he added with a whisper.

"Me am comee-eng!" a yelp responded with the familiar snap of a wrist communicator getting locked around an arm.

Buzz was to drop his eyes as his wife ambivalently swayed out of the bathroom.

"Do you think I am now well enough dressed to walk honorably beside my owner?" she unsurely let her regard wander along the floor. Oh those Kalevan traditions and laws... over there, visiting another village or larger colony was a remarkable issue, and then men and women got dressed in their very best garments. Yoka of course followed what she had been taught over the decades. She had the heavily embroidered linen dress on, which Buzz had had made for her instead of the one he had torn to shreds. Possibly every single jewel, necklace, and armband the woman had ever possessed, were glimmering in big heaps around her neck, arms, and even ankles. A long patterned kerchief hid her hair under it, a wide corset-like belt was tied tightly around her waist. She resembled the same unsure maiden that had been standing beside her father's throne the day Buzz was brought in to Vainamoinen's tent by the angry warriors.

"Oh boy..." Lightyear tried gathering up his jaw from the floor. She looked very attractive in his eyes with that attire, but it was anything but an ideal leisure cloth for a little town-sightseeing. She definitely needed a new wardrobe. He went on removing a few details away from that jubilee costume. The headscarf could be left home, as well as the big knife that was hanging from the belt. The biggest and most rattling pendants could go too. A few fixes, and he cast a content grin at her from toes to head. Well... Yoka still looked quite eccentric, especially the wrist communicator disharmonized with the hand-made tinsel. Whereas Buzz had only simple jeans and a T-shirt on, she managed to look like a walking fancy goods shop beside him. But... love makes blind, so goes the old proverb.

It was a sunny, mildly warm morning. A refreshening waft of wind blew from the lakeside, fanning the air's dankness away. The couple emerged from their garden, aiming their toes towards the city itself. It was an ideal weather for promenading, so the flashy speeder was left in the garage. Yoka's bare feet followed somewhat stirring Buzz' sneakers. How on Jupiter she could walk on the sharp macadam with her sheer soles, he could not realize it. She actually happened to use shoes only while hunting, or during the soil frost time.

Curious glances were shot at the couple when they reached the paved streets of the city. Yoka gaped at nearly every rock and roof, Buzz stomping proudly beside her and squeezing her hand. No wonder some locals stopped their ongoing and were left to stare after the mates. They looked rather ludicrous together, indeed. Not only was their striking skin color difference there, but then the height and width. Regarding tallness, Buzz was like some sort of dwarf beside her, but then again about two and half times wider than she with his massive chest and athletic shoulders. If the Captain had considered his friend Warp looking ridiculous with his very short wife, now it was his turn to receive amused leers. The city was silent, though. Perhaps it was due to the facts that most of the citizens were at work, the children at school and so on. Nevertheless, the more peace, the more comfortable it would be to lumber around.

For the Kalevan woman, this day was another adventure. She had never seen anything alike. These high stone wigwams that almost scratched the sky's belly... flying wagons whizzing occasionally along the streets... oddly colored creatures turning their heads to look at her. Happy, excited were her emotions, but also so insecure. Every time something odd passed by her view, her hand's grasp tightened up in his one, looking for assurance. But his serene blue eyes told there was nothing to be afraid of.

They spent a good amount of time by just trotting along the avenues. Buzz could play a know-it-all tour guide. He blabbered on about every lane and building that was bypassed, about what he had done here and there tens of years ago... how he had during one rainy day found a huge swarm of big slugs on that one particular backstreet and brought them home to swim in his father's bathtub... Her ears literally devoured his every sentence. It was so exhilarating to see all these finely-decorated big teepees, climb up to a hill and watch the morning-misty town spread below the vast blue sky...

Soon it became also clear for Yoka-hanen what 'shopping' meant. Buzz was not pushing her into some shabby supermarkets, but led her inside elegant boutiques. There was a vast assortment of those both around the marketplace and the main street. Those along the major road had small display windows that peeked a bit shyly out from the round holes of an ancient fortification. Centuries ago it inconclusively had tried surrounding the castle from the mainland's direction, but in a way had failed and just stood there rather pathetically with no real use. So it had been turned to a spacey market hall, and a promenade built inside the dry moat.

Lightyear experienced soon that his wife was not keen on every single garment, but was quite a nitpicker what it came to colors and materials. But he had used to this kind of cranky opinions, while shopping with his farcical father. Yoka however discontent kept tossing heaps of clothes aside, telling that they were either too boring or that she detested the color. At least one shopkeeper almost threw them out because of her surly plucking of things. Well... this particular store sold approximately only pink frilly dresses and some blinky magenta ruffles, so it had been a mistake to enter that in the first place.

But when the couple slinked inside a petty cellar boutique selling Oriental trappings and other exotic knickknacks, Yoka squealed with delight and bounced in to ransack every shelf and stand. She put up a small mannequin show, asking her mate what would pass and what she could take. Buzz became... rather gagged. He just ogled at her his oculars wide with a bit baffled mien on his face, succeeding to look at first like a dizzy eagle owl that had zoomed against a wall. He could have watched her waltzing there for hours. His Yoka... in his heart, the Captain felt some kind of triumphant sense of possessing. Weird, odd it was... never had such a sensation crept along his spine before because of anyone else. He descended inside his illusions, pondering again how his life had changed. And then, snap, the bitter memories from Kaleva slithered to haunt him. Why had he let himself fall back in the dark side? What if... he had never been able to return? What would he be now? A horrible idea. From those notions he winced back to reality. She... her merit... and he owned her... He could sense her startling lightly at least once as the man so intensively inspected her every single even agile gesture. If Buzz had now taken a mirror and seen his own burning gaze, he would have recoiled too.

Finally, the shop's salesgirl slammed a parsec-long bill in his hand and lent him a small hover-case where the boxes and parcels could be piled. The store had been a bonanza for the Kalevan, what came to attires and bric-a-brac. If the male had tried adventuring with carrying all those things alone, he would have fallen to the first open manhole because of not seeing forwards behind the mountain of purchases. But Buzz was also happy that his girl had found what she wanted. The next speculation: shoes.

Kaon had only a few shoe stores, and the space ranger aimed his nose towards his haunt. Der knarrende Stiefel was the oldest still-working shop in the town, having cobbler services, and shelves filled with footwear continuing far, far inside the rocky basement. Buzz and Yoka descended the bended stone steps down, and creaked a round, battered door open. It was silent even here. Only some fat matron sat in a corner, trying to fit pumps -several sizes too small- in her enormous plump feet.

Lightyear sat down, and let his lady choose what she wanted. She was indeed again lost in this jungle of weird shapes, but loaded her arms full of various models and started trying them on.

"Meh can't believe meh eyes! It's the li'l Buzz Lightyear back in Kaon!" a hearty yelp came from behind the Captain. He turned surprised about, and was nose to nose with a tall, porky, mid-aged man who had a big, shaggy, grizzled beard and a bit unkempt hair. A wide smile drew also Buzz' mouth from ear to ear.

"Rhodium Jay Hadron! Sweet mother of Venus! Must've been at least fifteen years!"

The men shook their hands warmly, both asking perhaps a gazillion news at the same time. Rhodium was one of Buzz' family acquaintances from his childhood, and had already been long working in this same shoe store when the young cadet Lightyear had left to The Space Ranger Academy. His changed face was of course familiar for the shoe seller from the uncountable newspapers and praise articles beyond years. Yet...who had been able to expect that a boy from this little town would become the galaxy's most famous space ranger?

Rhodium had been the village's unofficial databank as long as anyone could remember. His brains were full of secondary, informal information almost about everything. It was said that he knew exactly everyone's shoe size in the town, and that none kind of rumor could be hidden from his over-alert ears. And during sixty-five years of existence all kinds of gossip-birds had had time to build their nests inside his scull. Of course he was aware too that Buzz had moved recently in town, but had just not succeeded to come across him yet.

"And this charmin'... ehh... tall lady is...?" Hadron pointed at Yoka, who sat on a chair beside her man, scrutinizing the range footwear models. Initially she held a high-heeled shoe in her hand, and seemingly could not determine for what purpose the item actually was made. If it was a shoe, how did anyone balance herself with a thing like this? Well, it was too peculiar to be a goblet either, so it had to be footwear.

Buzz flushed slightly. It always felt a bit odd for him to start telling about her. The words were tangling up on his tongue, but he succeeded to sing out some kind of story about his space odyssey two-thousand and one.

"Yeh lucky son... the heck I'd be the luckiest man on Morph if someone gave me a pretty madam just like that..." the salesman -who was an aged bachelor himself- sighed to Buzz, whose cheeks were initially deep crimson.

Next the things went on forwards with miscellaneous small talk, about how the lives here and there had turned out to be. The old longcase clock in the corner ticked on, minutes flying onwards.

"It's been quiet... rather peaceful... no real threats since Zurg died..." the shopkeeper's stare was distant. "Too bad 'ey took yer dad like that... still remember the news almos' thirty years ago, how he'd disappear and ev'rything... Dunno what's wrong with the Lightyears, they've gone so many missing during the centuries. Mebbe it's a curse or sumthin..."

Buzz had trouble to set his words right. "Umm... my dad's all right, actually. Helped me with the moving and all", he mumbled, hoping hard that the discussion would not get glued on Zora. The truth of his father being alive had to be told, though. The izzard-admirer might pop in to the city any time, and he would be instantly connected to Buzz because of his surprisingly similar looks. Nonetheless... how was the Captain going to chatter about the issue of Zurg? The passing seconds had turned very awkward.

Rhodium had a hard time to collect his jaw from his toeline. Even the local tittle-tattle specialist did not know this fact. "Wot...?" His eyes were just plain blank. "Yer... ye mean... Ambassador Lightyear is... w-wot happened? Did that terrible evil emperor keep 'im as a prisoner or sumthin' during all these years?"

The customer left a small sigh of relief. Now there was a loophole to escape this nasty topic.

"Craters well yeah... I'd say so. Um well he... doesn't like to talk about it much", he shuffled. It was not a lie; Zoxedaszeĉ had been a prisoner, the prisoner of the dark side. The seller was about to ask some more, but Buzz had caught interest in his last mutters. This man seemed to know a lot more about the Lightyear family than the scion himself. No one ever talked about the past things while he had been lodging around chez his variety of relatives as a child. The least of all the Urksleys. They had evidently hated everything that rolled around the ambassador family. And... actually, what came to Zurg, he was oddly silent too. As if he did not know or want to know the things either.

"Umm can I ask... what did you mean with people getting missing?" he scratched his hair. Hopingly Hadron would not start playing mute.

But for the Captain's relief, the male in front of him did not show evidence of becoming a waxwork. He just shrugged, admitting that he did not know much but only some crumbs. "Dunno... it's weird ye know. They jus' disappear more often than the others... who knows where. The last one wuz sum'one called... Mizar... think that wuz 'is forename. Was some of yer grandfather's distant relatives, Lightyear anyways. A fine young man, went to work to Trade World a bit before yer father got married..." a sad glint was in the shopkeeper's eyes. He recalled the tragedies like it had been yesterday. Buzz listened, his gawp fixed on him. Never even heard about such a person. Why was it that no one told him nothing? The space ranger barely knew his own mother. Zoxedaszeĉ might give a grunt or two about any other issue, but Adi-Gaia Ganymede was the line of silence. Perhaps the memories of her were so painful for the old emperor, that he concealed the misty mementos inside his chest for eternities now.

Whereas Rhodium would have wanted to snoop into the deepest waters concerning Zora, Buzz stiff-necked kept the road directed to the case of lost relatives. "But what happened then? What happened to Mizar?" he inquired.

Mr. Hadron curled a shaggy lock of beard around his index, looking at the ceiling. "He... jus' vanished. A year afta yer father went... well... wherever he went then. But like I said, there's been cases afta cases durin' the centuries." His glance was back at Buzz, full of elfishness. "I think the most curious thing wuz with two brothers 'bout two hundred an' fifty years ago..."

The Captain's pupils stagnated. More mysteries? What an interesting shoe-shopping tour this had appeared to be!

"I don't rememba the names any more... but they were rich, influential, the younger one owned half of Kaon's lands. Had a family too. An' just one night... the men didn't return, wherever they were then. Jus' got lost an' all. The younger one's missus raised 'er kids alone afta it. Though... it's told that that night they were lost, wuz the night of sorrow and terror in Kaon..." he hushed his voice very low so that no one else present would hear. "It's sort of unwritten history. Yeh know they don't put it all on paper... I dunno much 'bout it either but jus' heard. People just wanted to forget it and deny it never existed..."

Buzz' ear was almost an inch distance from Rhodium's mouth. The old man kept whispering so timidly that it was barely audible.

"Existed what?" Lightyear scowled.

"The cult of Nex Crucio..." the seller's voice evidently trembled. "They say it never wuz there, but it was... took hundreds of sacrificial deaths they say. It..." But the statement fell into nothingness. The both men winced, as a loud thud was heard beside them. Yoka had fallen on the floor and was cursing something in Sivakka, a high-heeled pump lounging in the floor next to her, her second foot still inside the other one. Her mate flew to help her up, asking bewildered what had happened. It was not a big enigma, though. Although being quite an acrobat, the woman had never ever walked with five-inch-high stiletto heels. As used to manly, long strides, a single one of those had caused her to break the shoe's delicate heel and made her trip over while trying to lump along with the tricky footwear. Perhaps those kinds of shoes were not quite ideal for Yoka-hanen.

"Ahh now let's get you up..." he with scarlet cheeks tried dragging the girl up, who could have succeeded to do that better alone. Another thing to teach to her. Pumps were not made for somersaults, or leaps, or meant for hunting boots.

"Uhh how much do I owe?" the man picked up the broken item and passed it to the salesman.

"Nah that's alright. Must've been a second-rate product 'nyways..." Hadron inspected it, tossing it then over his wide shoulder. "Lessee... must've got sumthin better in this store for yer lovely lady. Sneakers, or we got nice cowgirl boots 'ere too..." Rhodium mumbled on, and led the Lightyears towards the inner compartments of the shop.

A few hours later all the shoppings were done, and the couple could promenade back home. Yoka was like some sort of newborn rainbow with all her jubilant happiness. Today had been one of the most exciting diurnals of her narrow life. A lot more enthralling than visiting Suur-Kaleva, or riding for the first time with a Thunderbird speeder. The things the locals took granted were all amazement, dazzle, bewilderment for her. Merely the woman resembled a little girl who had spent a day in Disneyland, babbling about everything she had experienced, all and all over again. Lightyear's hearty smile followed her enthusiastic yelps, his heart filled with bliss. He had succeeded to make her happy with such small things... and soothe away the murky thoughts of failure from her sore emotions.

Though... somehow Buzz did not feel comfortable to arrive back home today. He felt as if someone was constantly watching at him... and it definitely had nothing to do with the irksome pigeons in the nearby tree. And what was it with the things he had heard from Rhodium...? During the evening tea they came all back in his mind in big dollops. There was something weird with his family, he understood it suddenly after tens of years of haze. Things no one talked about... missing people... what was the reason for all this mist? Buzz possibly could not comprehend.

...to be continued...