A/N: I actually have nothing to put in this, except that I had just watched 'The Mummy Returns', and that's when I got the inspiration for this chapter.

Iara: I'll e-mail you back as soon as I upload this chapter, so happy you love Veghn!

Vee017: You're welcome, so now I just did it again! oh, poor Telemachus WANTS to father children w/ Beka, but Beka don't want no kid! :( After writing that chapter, my friend erin calls me and said there was an episode of the X-Files where all these babies were being born with tails, and I'm like 'Omg, it's Veghn!'

vampiregirl081: congratulations, you are now the inspiration for Chapter 20, which I wrote last night that is all Beka/Rhade! I'd upload it sooner, but I already had chapters 18 and 19 written in my notebook. As soon as I read your review I finished Chap19 sooner than I was planning on and wrote Chap20 for you. I'll try to upload it today because we don't have school because it's hunting day. hooray! (:rolls eyes: hear the sarcasm, people) :P I just had to have Veghn hitting someone w/ his tail. :D

prin69: where are you?????

Oenone: where are you?????

Chapter 18

"Are we there yet?" Trance, Gaheris, Veghn, and Nara were in one of the many large, empty rooms on board their ship. Trance was teaching Veghn Common, and Gaheris was doing his best to piss off his hosts. He was banking on the fact that Nara obviously considered him inferior to her.

"Are we there yet?"

"No," Nara replied sharply.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?" Gaheris realized he was sounding like Harper, but hell, it was fun. Veghn was learning Common at a surprising rate. His first word was 'tail', followed soon after by 'daddy, 'Veghn', and 'mommy'.

"No!" Nara was getting annoyed. "Shut up!"

"Don't I have freedom of speech?"

"What do you think this is, a democracy?" Nara waved her tail in his face. "You're in enough trouble as it is, so please, keep running your fool mouth!"

"If you insist," Gaheris replied, and started whistling.

"Why don't you go bother Apollo?" Nara demanded.

"He's piloting," Gaheris responded.

Veghn looked at Nara and laughed at the sight of the frustrated blue woman who was so much shorter than his father. Gaheris looked over and was abruptly struck by how big Veghn was. He looked like a two-year-old, and his bone blades had already begun to erupt on his forearms.

"How fast is he going to grow?" Gaheris asked, walking over to Trance.

""In about a month he'll be at the growth stage and intelligence level of a five-year-old human," Trance told him, and Gaheris's eyebrows rose. "After that, in another year he'll be at the growth stage and intelligence level of a thirteen-year-old human. After that he will begin to grow at the same rate as a normal Nietzschean child."

Nara said something to Trance in what Gaheris assumed was their native language.

"Speak Common," Trance told her.

"Why are you not teaching the child our language?" Nara demanded.

"I would have thought the answer would have been obvious," Trance countered calmly. "You would not want Gaheris to learn our tongue."

"Right, well, I know when I'm not wanted," Gaheris told the two women, who were glaring daggers at each other. Neither noticed when he left the room, and as soon as he did he heard what sounded like Nara exclaiming angry gibberish at Trance. Veghn got up off his mother's lap and started crawling after his father.

Gaheris was halfway to the cockpit when he heard a voice remarkably similar to his own. "Daddy, stop." He turned around to see Veghn crawling toward him. He picked him up.

"What're you doin' out here, buddy?"

"Mommy an-an-and Blue Lady were ago- argoo- fighting," Veghn said, his brown eyes wide and earnest. "I wanted to be with you, Daddy."

Gaheris sat down on the floor and put the silver child in his lap. "So, what do you want to do?" He knew from previous experience that children didn't like being talked down to, a fact he had tried to convince his wives of repeatedly.

"Daddy, can you tell me a story?" Veghn looked up at his father.

Gaheris laughed. "A story? I dunno-"

"Pleeeease?"

"All right." Gaheris thought for a little bit, and while he was thinking the ship jumped out of Slipstream. "There was once a Nietzschean-"

"What's a Knee-zee-en?" Veghn asked.

"A Nietzschean. Like me." Gaheris showed Veghn his sharp bone blades, and then taking the child's hand ran it along the tiny nubs on his arm that would someday become wicked bone blades like his father's. "See?"

"Nietzschean," Veghn repeated. "I'm a Nietzschean?"

"Yup."

"Is Mommy a Nietzschean?"

"No, Mommy isn't a Nietzschean," Gaheris told Veghn.

"Then what is she?" Veghn asked innocently.

Gaheris opened his mouth and hesitated.

"Your mother is a very special woman," came a male voice from down the hall. Gaheris turned to see Apollo walking toward them from the cockpit. "Why don't you go ask her?"

"O-kay," Veghn said. "But how come everybody is a different ca-wer?"

"Huh?" Apollo asked, leaning against the wall.

"Ya know, it's like a crayon box," Veghn said, to which Gaheris immediately wondered 'How does he know about crayons?' "Your gween, I'm sil-ver, Daddy is white, Mommy is gold, and then there's the blue lady."

"Uhhhh..." Gaheris didn't know what to say. "Go ask your mother," he told the child, picking him up off his lap and setting him on the floor. Gaheris stood up as Veghn stumbled his way back to Trance.

"He's a cute kid," Apollo said. "I've never been compared to a crayon before."

Gaheris laughed. "Me either."

Silence. "How long until we get to wherever we're going?" Gaheris asked.

"Few more days in the 'Stream," Apollo replied casually. "It's been a while since I've been to the Home."

"What is this 'Home' I keep hearing so much about?" Gaheris asked.

"The most beautiful place in all the universes," Apollo said with a dreamy look on his face. "It's where the first sun created an avatar, and-"

"Apollo!" a sharp voice barked from the doorway. "Keep your mouth shut unless you want to appear before the Meeting like Trance will!"

Apollo bowed deeply as Nara brushed past him to enter the cockpit. When he rose from his bow he looked at Gaheris and rolled his eyes. As the ship jumped back into Slipstream under Nara's piloting, Apollo motioned for Gaheris to follow him into the room Trance and Veghn were in. "You would have liked Nara in her younger days," Apollo said in a low tone, sitting on the floor in a spot where he could see the door.

"Storytime!" Veghn said happily and he came over to sit in Gaheris's lap as Trance walked over and sat next to Gaheris and Apollo.

Apollo tousled the young boy's dark hair. 'Was it that thick before?' Gaheris asked himself.

"Nara Taurus witnessed her sister go through Trial," Apollo said solemnly.

Suddenly it clicked. "Taurus," Gaheris repeated. "Her sister was Celestial Taurus."

"I see Trance has told you the story," Apollo said. "Nara was never the same after that."

"What happens in a Trial?" Gaheris asked.

Apollo and Trance exchanged glances. "Let's hope you never have to witness one," the green male said, and he left it at that.