December's here, just like the holidays! Hopefully I'll get to include at least one Christmas reference for it.

We're halfway through the fic already, and things will get even better. This week we'll learn why the Sobrekt held the Moondrop Flower in such high regard.

Enjoy the chapter!

Lost

Chapter 11- The Reasons Why

She might only be six, but Ilk was no fool. She could tell something had happened.

She heard noises from the corridor outside her door. Footsteps retreating, yells being cut off, something spilling, a creak, and then she saw a pair of golden eyes with slit pupils staring directly at her. Ilk bundled herself in her blankets and pillows. No fighting came. She waited, but the monster never came to eat her. Why?

The next thing she knew dad was next to her, shushing and telling her it was going to be okay. When she caught a glimpse of various Elites swarmed at her door on top of someone, dad placed a cloth over her mouth, instructing her to take a breath. When she obeyed, she felt sleepy and closed her eyes.

She woke up sometime later to find herself alone. Ilk was afraid. Where was daddy? She slowly climbed out of bed, holding her plush irkorse(an Irken mount from the olden days) and made her way to the door, out into the corridor and towards the Massive's bridge. He was there most of the time, and there were occasions he'd stay there up late with Uncle Pur.

However, she heard him inside the medical ward as she passed through there. She could also hear Uncle Pur alongside others.

"You should have let me finish interrogating him."

"Red, you nearly killed him, for Irk's sake!"

"In case you didn't notice, his accomplice did the same to me while he tried to take Ilk! If Larb and Tenn hadn't been around her room- OUCH! Be careful!"

"Try not to move much, My Tallest."

Was daddy hurt? Ilk wanted to step in, but she was curious. What were they talking about? Who had daddy interrogated? Who had tried to take her? So she stayed just outside the door, clutching her doll close and twitching her antenna.

"Weren't you satisfied enough with having rubbed it in his face that his accomplice couldn't touch us?"

"Of course not! I need to know what they want with Ilk! This is not the first time! They almost got her in Foodcourtia…!" Foodcourtia? Was dad talking about the time they had to leave in a rush for a reason he wouldn't explain?

"Look, I get that, but don't you realize it?! We have a Sobrekt prisoner! A bloody sobrekt! Imagine all the information we can get from him!"

Dad scoffed. "You said it yourself, Pur, it's a Sobrekt. Those lizards never talk. They will die before revealing anything."

"We don't have to ask him, we could just put a cable in his brain and suck the info out of him." Ilk imagined Uncle Pur glancing at a random scientist. "We can do that, right?"

"C-Certainly, My Tallest!"

"There, see? You, go prepare the cable-brain thing. You, go sedate the prisoner. You, bring me donuts, all this assassination attempts opened my appetite."

Ilk didn't notice she had moved too close to the door, causing it to open automatically, calling the attention of all within the room. She froze.

"Ilk? What are you doing here, sweetie?" Dad asked, coming closer to her. She noticed some small droplets of dark green on his robe.

"There was a monster in my room, daddy…" she said with a small whimper.

She thought she saw a flash of panic in dad's eyes, but he quickly regained his composure. "There, there, it's okay, sweetie, it was just a nightmare," He picked her up and held her close, stroking the back of her head. "Let's go back to your room, okay? I'll stay with you."

Ilk nodded, holding her plush even closer.

As she lay her head against dad's chest, she heard him whisper back to uncle Pur. "You go deal with… the problem."

Next Morning...

Ilk tried to sleep. She really did. But there were too many things going on inside her head. Between worrying for dad's health, dealing with a Sobrekt 'courtship' and wondering if the others were okay. No matter how much she tried to find a comfortable position to sleep in and let her exhaustion do the rest, the blessed sleep wouldn't come.

Or maybe it had to do with the fact Blue had chosen to sleep a few steps away from her. She creaked one eye open to see if he was still there. He was. She found his manner of sleeping a bit amusing; he was curled up on top of a furry hide almost like an Earth-canid, twitching the tip of his ail every now and then.

Ilk took a look around. It must have been at least an hour or two, judging by the ashy remains of the bonfire. This explained why the air had gotten cooler a while ago.

How come the others didn't notice? Ilk glanced around to see how they were doing. Fury had curled up around Blue protectively. Zim and GIR were still in the same spot he had collapsed and fallen asleep on. Captain didn't curl up like Blue, he merely lay belly-down and remained still, like Earthen-crocodiles. Lena had fallen asleep next to dad, who had most of the blanket on top of him, probably to keep the snowflakes from gathering on top of the wound.

Silently, Ilk got unto her feet and silently walked off the camp towards the nearest river. She got another coughing fit on the way there. She wasn't sure if she was getting ill due to the cold temperature or if it was something else entirely. She wasn't the only one, she noticed Captain, Blue and even Fury having the same problem.

Maybe she'd ask Lena about it.

Once she got to the river she took a few handfuls of water. Was it her imagination or did water in all planets taste the same? Earth was the exception, it was all contaminated and undrinkable to species who don't hail from there.

A snort from behind startled Ilk into tripping on a slippery rock and into the stream's half-frozen waters. Brrrr! Sweet Irk, it was freezing! Ilk quickly turned around to glare at the perpetrator: Fury.

"You idiot!" She snapped at him; she was so angry she didn't care to call him with insulting words. He just tilted his head, purring lightly and leaning in a bit. It almost felt like he was apologizing.

Once the initial anger vanished, Ilk walked out of the river, but Fury didn't go away. "What?" she asked him, unintentionally sounding a bit rougher than intended; on her defense, she was soaking wet and freezing to the bone! He tilted his head again, this time looking confused. "Do you want something?" she felt silly talking to him. It wasn't like he could reply, right? He did seem to understand what she was saying, however.

Ilk walked away, and he followed. No matter where she headed to he quietly went after her. She considered running. Why was he so interested in her, by the way? Ilk turned around to take a better look at the indokuro. He was very big, at least from her perspective he was. The tip of her antenna barely reached his chest, while the tip of Blue's head reached his lower jaw.

She wondered why he was being so docile. From what she had heard in hushed whispers back on the Massive, hybrekts(term uncle Purple came up with to refer to the Sobrekt's genetically-engineered hybrids)were supposed to be savage and aggressive to anyone but the Sobrekt themselves, yet this one hadn't even growled once at her. Did it have to do with the moondrop flower running through her veins? Only one way to find out.

"Hey, Fury…" Ilk slowly reached out her arm up to his head. "I think we started with the left foot… Or talon…" Her arm didn't even reach half of his chest. Fury seemed to notice. He lowered his head to touch the palm of her hand. Ilk felt a shiver run down her spine when the she felt the tip of his snout pressing against her glove. She tentatively stroked his nose, earning a content purr in return.

Was it her imagination or did the corners of Fury's lips just curve upwards ever so slightly?

The tension vanished and Ilk found herself scratching Fury's neck. To her surprise he reacted by wagging his tail and lifting one of his back talons. Were this quirks unique to him or was it an all-species trait? When she scratched a particular spot under Fury's throat, he gave a loud growl-like purr and fell forward, his eyes closed in contentment and his body completely relaxed*.

Sweet Irk, what had she just done?

"Fury?" She poked at his side, but got no reaction.

She jumped when she heard Blue's voice. "I see you found Fury's weak spot."

"Oh, Blue!" her cheeks turned red and her antenna went flat against her head. "I'm sorry, I was just…!"

"It's alright. He seems to like you very much, anyway…" Blue said simply. He rubbed Fury's head in a particular spot, which caused the indokuro to wag his tail almost like a dog.

"Just how many 'weak spots' does he have?"

"I'm afraid I cannot disclose that information. Besides, even if I told you all indokuros are different."

Up to now he hadn't brought up the topic of courtship or anything related to it, so she guessed it was okay if they chatted, right?

"You couldn't sleep either?" he asked, bringing Ilk out of her thoughts.

"No." She shook her head.

"Don't worry, your dad will be okay. From what I've seen, he is a tough irken." Blue said assuringly. His right hand twitched, alongside his talon claw; he had wanted to place a hand on Ilk's shoulder, but he wasn't certain if it would be well-received.

"I know, but still… I've never seen him hurt like this before. I mean, I'm so used to seeing him just snack around back on the Massive that I never imagined he'd be in a situation such as this."

"Ilk, this might sound a bit too personal but…"

Ilk noticed he was looking at her empty back. She guessed what the question was. "I don't have a PAK."

"I thought you Irkens needed those things to survive."

"Most do, but I'm… different. I was conceived and birthed naturally by a female. She died when I was born, so the Control Brains sent me to dad because I had to be looked after by somebody."

Blue was silent for a few seconds. "Sorry about your mother..."

To his surprise, Ilk only shrugged. "It's alright. I never knew her and neither did dad , so it's not such a big deal," Her crimson eyes did show a hint of sadness, however. "Sometimes I do wonder how it would feel like to have a mom."

Blue looked away with a sigh. His gaze was intently fixed on the dark sky. "If it makes you feel better, I kinda know how you feel."

"Do you?" Ilk raised an inexistent eyebrow and perked up an antenna. There was a distant, maybe even vacant look to Blue as he stared into the distance.

"I didn't get to know my father very much. He and my grandfather were sent on a special mission by the Shuryo when I was a hatchling. They never returned."

"What kind of mission?"

Blue shifted uncomfortably. "The kind where you know you're probably not going back home." Thankfully she didn't press the issue any further. His crest bristled-the equivalent of blushing in kryvtors- when he felt some gentle taps on his leg.

"I'm sorry…" Ilk whispered. She would have patted his shoulder, but he was way taller than her. "And since we're on it, thank you for trying to save dad yesterday."

"It was the least I could do for you after… Well, we kidnapped you. He was right in that sense; we wouldn't be in this mess if we had found another way."

Ilk sighed. "What dad and uncle Pur did wasn't right either."

"But what they did saved your life. It wasn't the right way either, but if they hadn't done so perhaps none of us would be here to begin with..." Blue smiled a bit. "Hey, since we're on the open field, we never quite finished the lesson from before, did we?"

Ilk couldn't help but smirk. "You mean after I kicked your scaly ass?"

Blue chuckled. "Exactly. Want to continue it?"

Ilk nodded eagerly. It's not everyday one got a combat lesson from a Sobrekt.

Meanwhile, on the camp...

The first thing Red felt when he woke up was a terrible soreness on his side. With a grunt of pain he lifted part of the covers to take a look at the cause; his waist was wrapped in a sort of black bandage.

Red took a look around the camp. It was still nighttime, but he could see the outline of pale gray crimson from behind the trees. Maybe the sun would come up soon? He hoped so, the blackness was pretty intimidating even for him. Captain had already woken up and was currently working on starting the fire again. Zim and his robot were still asleep. Ilk, Blue and the Indokuro were nowhere to be seen; were they taking a walk? He better go make sure Ilk was okay-

Red grit his teeth when his bandaged waist stung again. What happened to him? He recalled being almost torn open by a mendigo's claws, but everything after that was a blur... Guess he'd ask Lena.

Speaking of Lena, he found her sleeping right next to him. There was a bucket of dirty bloodied water nearby along with some torn pieces of black fabric nearby. Had she stayed up all night looking after him? He noticed her skirt, once reaching down to the floor, now reached only to her knees, exposing her delicately thin legs. Blinking, Red stared at the piece of clothing and then at his 'bandages'.

She had used her own skirt to cover his injuries.

Red couldn't help but feel moved by this. She truly was a remarkable Irken. Lena trembled and unconsciously wrapped her arms around her frame; he noticed she wasn't covered. He had to shift a bit, but he managed to release enough of the blanket without exposing himself to the cold. Guess fighting with that mendigo over it was worth it after all.

His hand accidentally brushed against Lena's shoulder as he put the other half of the covering on top of her; she was freezing cold.

Red swallowed hard. Would she mind if…?

Red pulled the Irkenette closer and started rubbing some warmth unto her. Lena shifted in place, but didn't show any signs of waking up. Her skin was so soft… One of his fingers ended up stroking her cheek, which in turn caused her to snuggle deeper into the warm embrace. Red felt blood rushing to his cheeks just as his squeedly-spooch squirmed.

"By the ancestor's sake, can't you wait to go to a hotel or something?"

Red frowned and looked back at Captain, who had lit up the fire and was warming himself up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, I get if you and your mate haven't been… intimate for a while, but-"

"Wait, what?!" Red's cheeks became even redder. "She's not my mate, you scaly-brain! She's just one of the doctors working in the Massive!" he hissed in a low voice to avoid waking Lena up.

Captain merely blinked and put on a quizzical expression. "She's not the mother of…?"

"No! What on irk made you think that?!"

"You're embracing her and yesterday you had quite the… position."

"I'm just keeping her warm so she won't get the frostbite, and what happened yesterday was an accident!" Red snarled in embarrassment. "Just what gave you the impression Lena and I were mates?!"

This time it took a few seconds for the Sobrekt to respond. And when he finally did Red noted his spines had bristled considerably. "My apologies. It's just that my people see physical touch, especially close contact, as something... intimate."

"Physical touch? Intimate? That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard, and I hear absurdities almost every day!" Red glanced at Zim with contempt.

"Have you noticed I've never come into contact with any member of my squadron?" Red nodded. Captain continued, though he sounded rather uncomfortable. "We reserve touching only for close people. A mild contact, such as grabbing a shoulder, is more or less acceptable, but other things such as… well, hugs…"

"Okay, I got it, you don't need to go into details." Red interrupted. The last thing he needed right now was to imagine two Sobrekt making eggs. "Hey, where are Ilk and the blue-guy?"

"Guess she's taking a walk," Captain noticed the look on Red's face. "And before you think of freaking out, Blue is most likely with her. He won't let anything happen to her, she's very important to him."

Red narrowed his eyes. "What is that supposed to mean, 'very important to him'?"

Captain froze. Damn it, he had said too much. Thankfully, however, Blue and Ilk returned at that very moment before Red could interrogate him any further. Both Ilk and Blue were laughing and talking amiably, followed by Fury short after.

"Mmmmrr…." Red panicked when he felt Lena stirring in his arms and quickly let go of her just as she rubbed one of her eyes open. "What…?"

"Ah, good morning, doc!" Captain greeted her. "About time you joined in."

Shortly after Zim and GIR joined the rest in the land of the waking people. There was still plenty of meat from yesterday's game, so there was no need to go hunting that early; it was far too dark to find any animals, anyway. As always, the Sobrekt ate their meal raw, the Irkens cooked theirs before consumption and ZIM screamed and went to hide under the blanket. GIR tried eating raw meat, only to throw up on top of Captain's tail, much to Red's amusement.

Red bitterly noted his armor had been pierced in the area matching his own wounds with large gaping holes. Lena helped him get on his feet, but he had difficulty walking without his ribs hurting. She suggested taking a break for at least half of the day to see if it passed. Captain, of course, didn't like the idea, but Blue unsurprisingly sided with Ilk, who in turn had sided with Lena. Captain decided to back down for the time being.

"Hey, Captain, mind if I ask you something?"

"What is ir, Irken?"

Red grunted. "Would it kill you not to call me 'Irken'? I have a name, and since you can't use it at the very least you could address me properly."

Captain rolled his eyes. Irkens and their arrogance. "Was that your question?"

Great, he had annoyed him. Red almost changed his mind, but the issue had been bugging him ever since… four years ago. "Why was that flower that important to your people?" He felt a shiver down his spine when Captain and Blue stopped whatever they were doing and stared intently at him. "I mean, if you gave us all this trouble for it you must have a very good reason, right?"

Blue and Captain exchanged a brief, grim glance. "I was wondering how longer it would take you to actually ask that, you know." The latter pointed out.

"Don't take me wrong, but frankly I still think you're overracting over a plant."

Ilk and Lena frowned at him disapprovingly, shouting in unison. "Dad/Red!"

"My Tallest does have a point, Sobrekt-beasts," Zim dipped his spoon in, both figuratively and literally as he ate one of the 'chocolate puddings' GIR had casually stored in his head compartment. "Why go all this trouble over Ilk-smeet having the flower? Couldn't you have simply asked her to give it back?" Red snorted. Zim had misunderstood the whole story and merely thought the Moondrop Flower was in a pot somewhere in the Massive.

The next question spoke for itself, however. "Why don't just get another one?"

Red almost prayed to the Control Brains that Captain show at least a tiny bit of any negative emotion towards Zim. Sadly it didn't happen; the croc simply sighed. "If we could, we would have, hitorken Zim."

"Why can't you?" Ilk pressed on. "I hear the flower was… unique, but what's done is done. What were you planning to do? Bury me on the ground and hope I would turn into a flower myself?"

Blue almost chuckled, but the seriousness of the topic refrained him from doing so. "First I think we should explain why we hold the Moondrop Flower in such high regard."

"Yaaay, story time!" GIR took out yet another popcorn bag from his head compartment.

"Do you have any extra bags?" Red blurted out, putting his craving for any sort of snack over his common sense. When little robot handed him a second bag of popcorn he took a good fistful; ah, snacks!

"Are you done?" Captain asked impatiently. He continued when no one said a word. "To begin with, you all know about Drilo's disease by now, don't you?"

The Irkens nodded; Red had the feeling Zim didn't really know, he just played along to avoid looking like an ignorant in his eyes. How pitiful.

"Then you've probably heard it's such a rare disease that there are only outbreaks every thousand years in the Dylinae system, where Sobr is located. It is very deadly to most species, that's right, but it's nothing compared to what it does to those who hail from the planets in Dylinae," Captain glanced at Red. "What symptoms did your smeet have when she caught it?"

Red pulled Ilk closer as he recalled how he felt when he first saw her in that state. His tiny smeet in a medical capsule with lots of cables attached to her body, pale and sick. "She had a very high fever and wouldn't eat anything. The medical drones said she was in pain."

"Both of you were fortunate she was an Irken; had she been a Sobrekt or a Kryvtor it would have killed her in less than three moons, in the meantime she would have gone through nasty skin molts, vomiting and fits of hysterical and destructive madness. Victims have to be restrained down to keep them from hurting themselves and others."

Red's grip on Ilk's hand tightened when he felt her trembling.

"There was an outbreak like never before a thousand Sobrekt years ago. We lost three of Dylinae's planets to the disease, it would be a matter of time before it was transmitted to our homeworld. If that had happened, we might as well gone extinct. Try as they might, our medical units could not find a cure nor what caused the disease at the time…" Captain stared into the fire. "You could have seen the giant bonfires used to burn the bodies from the planets' surface."

Blue took it from there; the absent-minded look on Captain's eyes as he stared into the flames let him know he was… unwilling to go on. "It was then that we found them: An explorer came upon an uncharted part of Sobr at that time; a whole field with blooming white flowers, all born from a single teardrop that rained down from one of our moons. He took a sample back to the medical units to have it checked. They discovered the flower's healing properties, mixed with other medicinal herbs from the other planets, could not only cure Drilo's disease, but also grant whoever consumed self-regenerative abilities. Thanks to the Moondrop flowers the disease was eradicated.

"It was a bittersweet victory, however; the frenzy to produce as much of the cure as possible was so much that the flower was wiped out to near extinction; each specimen could only be used once before withering away. In the end there was only one left…" Blue gave Red a grim, narrow-eyed stare. "...The one you stole."

Red merely stared at the kryvtor with wide eyes. Blue continued before he could say anything. "Do you understand now why we 'make such a ruckus over a stupid plant'? That 'stupid plant' was a symbol of hope in the darkness to our people as well as the source of our limb-regeneration traits. At the time you and your fellow Tallest stole it there was a small outbreak of the disease in Sobr-"

"Enough."

Red felt a shiver run down his spine; there was an undercurrent of… something in Captain's voice. He was staring at the bonfire with a dark look to his eyes; there wasn't any anger there, only… sadness. Captain stood up and walked away from the camp without a uttering another word.

"What's up with him?" Zim inquired, oblivious to the corporal language.

Blue shook his head. "All I can tell you is that saving Ilk's life cost the lives of many others."

The Ibris, Hothian base, at the same time...

"Is the coast clear?"

"What coast? We're nowhere near a coastline."

"It's a way to ask if there's no one around to- Argh, just tell me if any guards come to check on us!"

Bob nodded and went back to the Ibris' stair-entrance.

The Hothians seemed pretty desperate for them to fix the ship for some reason if they woke them up this early to work on it. Well, at least Masouri and the others pretended they were doing so back in the engine room supervised by a guard or two.

Meanwhile, Dib, Purple and Foxtrot stayed behind at the lounge in the lower area under the excuse they didn't feel very well. Once the guards were gone they connected the stolen data pad from the Hothians to the Ibris's long-distance communication panel to see if they could somehow contact either of their respective flagships to secure their rescue. After half an hour it proved to be futile, however. This piece of technology might work, but communications did not.

"Stupid piece of junk!"

"Don't call the Ibris like that in front of Masouri or there will be trouble."

Purple glared at the tablet. "I'm talking about that thing! What's the point with it working if we still can't contact anybody!"

"Okay, so these guys somehow make technology work, but they still can't seem to communicate…" Dib rubbed his chin in thought. "...Or they can't communicate over very long distances."

"What do you mean?" Foxtrot inquired.

Dib guessed he wanted him to explain. "I mean, from what we've been able to decipher from the 'diary', as you call it, I don't think these guys even left their version of the Dark Ages before the apocalypse happened. What if the reason we can't use this tablet to communicate outside the planet, or this solar system even, it's because they didn't reach that level of technology."

"You mean like you hyoomans who have barely even reached their own moon?" Purple inquired rather disdainfully.

Ouch. "Yeah, pretty much like that."

"Now that you mention it… Those ships that brought us here had a Vortian air to them, don't you think? It had traces of other races too, it almost feels like the result splicing engineering pieces from various species," Purple snapped his fingers. "Ah, now that I recall a few years back some vortian ships and their cargo went missing when passing through uncharted space. These ships could be the same! But that still doesn't explain why the signal can't leave the atmosphere if they somehow crafted this pad from Vortian technology. Those goats might have rock heads, but they are quite the engineers."

"Well, they can't be completely uncommunicated. How would they talk with a team that is sent out into the wilderness…" Foxtrot snatched the pad from Purple and started pressing random buttons.

"What are you doing?" Dib asked, leaning in to take a better look at the screen.

"I'd work faster if you got your ridiculously-enormous head a little bit farther."

Dib only heard a small chirp-growl sound, and turned to Purple for a translation. The Irken rolled his eyes. "He asked you to move your giant head away."

"You-! My head is not big!"

"Just face it, kid, your head is enormous."

"It isn't!"

"It is."

"It's not!"

"Bingo!" Foxtrot made a sound Dib interpreted as a sort of laughter shout and showed them the pad, showing a map of the area around the Hothian base. There were various blue spots scattered kilometers around, most of them moving in a slow pace. "Just as I thought! The signal can't leave the planet, but these pads can be used to call the individual teams within forty miles!"

Purple scoffed sarcastically. "Oh, good! How does that help? We're going to call the bad guys so they realize we got one of their communication pads?"

"Of course not. Take a look at this," a few buttons and codes lates, the map changed into a sound-frequency screen. "I can hack into the communications system to…" Foxtrot frowned at the lens of Dib's camera. "Are you serious?"

"Go on, just pretend I'm not here!" Dib merely said without bothering to ask Purple for a translation this time. The kryvtor's face said it all.

Foxtrot sighed and continued. "Anyway, when I hack the communications we can listen to any conversation the Hothians are having from the other communication pads."

Purple raised his antenna. "Do it!" Foxtrot sent in an array of codes and picked up one of the transmissions.

'Fou- em- et?

'-Ive, sir.'

'-p loo-,eed th- ve!'

The transmission ended.

"Okay, perhaps it needs some more adjusments…" Foxtrot said sheepishly.

"Let me try it," Purple said. "I'm more familiarized with Vortian technology, and this thing is definitely 70% Vortian, 30% everything else." Thankfully the kryvtor didn't hesitate and handed him the tablet on command.

Just like Purple thought, this tablet was of the models he'd often work with back in his Elite days; it had some pieces of Meekrobian origin, but he was sure he could fix the static by the next day.

Thankfully they'd learn where the Hothians kept Red and the others.

*I inspired on Toothless from Httyd for this part. In the first film he'd 'faint' when scratched under the chin. I thought it would be a nice reference to have Fury do something similar. His relationship to Blue is somewhat similar to that of Hiccup and Toothless.

Next chapter: After being cut off from each other for days, both parties finally manage to communicate...

See you next time!