He takes her hand and helps her out of the craft, his eyes lowered respectfully. Lilandra holds his hand and looks around the hangar, hardly believing that she is at last home. She studies the young man assisting her, and recognizes Alex Summers, but there are changes to him here that disturb her beyond vocalization. The tattoos that curl gracefully up and down from his brown eyes, the feathered wig, the ceremonial clothes, the submissive yet forceful way he moves like a soldier awaiting an order.

But is the golden chain around his throat that draws her attention, more symbolic than binding it nevertheless tells her the most important thing about the man Alex Summers is here.

"My god, you are a slave." She whispers.

The young man drops her hand and looks up into her eyes, "I am the Chosen of the Majestor." He says, managing to put every possible ounce of dignity into the statement, pronouncing the bird-song language of the Shi'ar as if he had been born to it.

Lilandra feels a great pain in her chest, looking sadly at the young man, "What do they call you?"

"I am D'Alken of House Neramani." He answers, proud of the name.

She wants to say something but in the end she merely offers her arm, "Take me to my brother,"

D'Alken takes her arm, relieved that he doesn't have to talk about himself anymore, "My Lord apologizes for not receiving you himself."

"Well, a Majestor's time is never his own." Lilandra smiles, understandingly.

"No, my Lady, it is not." D'Alken agrees and he escorts her to his skimmer, emblazoned with the royal crest.

She is surprised to see that it is a ground model. "You don't fly, D'Alken?"

"No." he admits, "It is my shame but I am uncomfortable with upper sky journeys."

"Afraid of flying?" she asks.

He looks her in the eye and says, "Afraid of falling, my Lady."

Lilandra nods wisely as if she knows a secret that D'Alken has forgotten, which possibly she does. She changes the subject, "What did D'Ken tell you of me?"

"I know you are his oldest sister." He answers, "And that you were presumed to be lost in battle. Your arrival has set the palace in an uproar." The slave says, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

Lilandra smirks, "I imagine Deathbird is none to pleased. I know she was the last one to mourn my death."

He shrugs, and slides behind the controls of the skimmer, "I am not privy to my mastress's thoughts, Lady Lilandra."

She smiles, "You have been trained very well, D'Alken. No questions as to where I have been?"

The young man looks fixedly at the road ahead of him, the skimmer passing barely a foot above the hardpack, "If your Ladyship wishes to tell me. It is not in my upbringing to question my betters." The life fades from his face and he says, bluntly, "As you said, I have been trained very well."

Lilandra looks at this tall and handsome man, trying to see the real him beneath the wing and ink and 'uniform.' He is not what she would term a lesser being on any world, in any reality, but she suddenly understands that more than his body had been tamed by her brother. Freeing him and sending him home to where he belonged, was going to be harder than she expected when she first set her faux-human eyes on him in another dimension. This needed to be done delicately or she was going to damage him.

"I have been trapped in another dimension for the past fifteen years, Only now have I managed to escape." She says, carefully, "I was abandoned on a planet named Earth."

D'Alken looks at her, sharply, and says, "Earth?"

She hopes for just a moment that his reaction is one of recognition but instead his eyes grow cold and greedy, a look she has seen before on her brother's face, the look of battle lust that had left her stranded for so very long.

"My Master will want to know everything that you learned, how you escaped, what their secret is." He says, eagerly, "You will be able to give him the means to at last conquer that planet. It is his dearest desire, his greatest obsession."

"And you share in his mania, young D'Alken?" Lilandra asks.

The slave, body and mind and soul the property of the ruthless Majestor, smiles a hard and frightening smile. "It is what I have trained for since I was a child, My Lady."

Lilandra looks ahead at the palace rising before them and suppresses a shudder.

D'Ken and Lady Deathbird await in their throne room, for their long last sibling. She smirks at the sight of them as D'Alken leads her into the grand chamber. The Majestor is puffed up with pomp and importance, his sister/consort is miserable, her feathers ruffled anxiously. Lilandra stands a moment at the door and takes in the sight, wondering how things had changed since her shipwreck.

She brushes at her silver banded armor and removes her helmet before going to greet them. D'Alken immediately holds his hands out to take it. She smiles, gently at him.

"Little Human, you are not my slave. It will not harm me to hold my own helmet."

D'Alken smiles, too, and this is not a smile of lust for mayhem. He looks for just a moment like a child who has suddenly found a friend. "It would be my honor, my Lady, to carry it for you."

Lilandra pauses a moment, and then hands it to him, His hands accidentally touch hers and his face reddens.

"My boy, don't just stand there moon-eyed!" D'Ken calls, 'Bring our lady sister to greet us."

The young man, embarrassed by his attentions, flushes an even deep red, which Lilandra finds charming, "Please, this way, My lady." He manages.

Lilandra is halfway down the long processional before she breaks into an undignified run. D'Ken has her in his arms before she can say another word, "Lil, you have returned to me, you have returned to us."

"D'Ken, my dearest brother, my love, how I have missed you." She says, ruffling his head plume with her warm breath on his neck. "I have missed so much. Your ascension to the throne. Your marriage."

They part and Lady Deathbird slowly descends from the dais. "My sister." She greets, in a voice of ice, "Welcome home."

"My Lady Liege." Lilandra makes a respectful bob of her head that belies the equally frosty tone of her own words, "You look well."

"As do you." Deathbird says, the feathers on her unseemly wings bristling, "Especially considering the reports of your death."

Lilandra smirks, "Perhaps that report was filed too hastily. What was it that happened, D'Ken? Why was I left behind in that dimension?"

"The portal failed." D'Ken says, "The Earthers defended themselves somehow against our attack. The sample was damaged beyond repair and we have been unable to retrieve any useful information from what we did manage to take."

Lilandra looks over at D'Alken, who does not react to this strange and cryptic report in the slightest. He stands unobtrusively beside his master's throne, looking for all intents and purposes like a well-heeled pet, obviously what D'Ken has made him into. "What you have done to this one is remarkable. He is so young. You must have acquired him as a mere child."

D'Ken reaches over and runs a hand down the tattooed cheek of his toy and smiles, "D'Alken has been my greatest joy since he came to me. He will be the one to lead my armies when Earth is at last at my mercies. Is that not right, my hatchling?"

"It is my greatest honor to serve as your sword, Master." D'Alken says, earnestly.

"I have no doubt that it is, D'Alken." D'Ken says, "Now, Lilandra, walk with me and tell me all that you have seen, all that you have done on that infernal planet. I wish to know it like I know my own. That dimension tests me, and you know how I hate to be tested."

Lilandra takes his arm, "How well I know."

D'Ken looks at his servant as he leaves, "D'Alken, have the chambermaids reopen Lady Lilandra's rooms and tell the cooks to prepare a feast. Tonight we celebrate our sister's homecoming."

The human bows his head, "I am already gone." He says.

Then, Deathbird is alone, forgotten in the empty room. "The Precious One has returned. This does not bode well for my chances at survival." She mutters beneath her breath, "Our Lady Lilandra must not be allowed to reclaim her place in D'Ken's heart. With the human there already, there will be no more room for me."

An evil smile suddenly crosses her face.

"Unless his heart is emptied, entirely." She muses.