They had a problem.
It wasn't a huge problem--yet--but the Duke's personality felt...unstable. And the axolotl tanks were definitely low--just trace organic matter in the processing tanks, and none at all in the living ones. She left the Duke sleeping in the garden, trusting Justine to take care of any problems that arose, and left to return to the fae.
They had another problem. Or she did. The problem, she thought, with exploring the fae lands was...there were few places that could be pointed to as solidly existing, in X place, in X time, forever. Everything was mutable. Everything shifted. Lands were hidden within lands hidden within other lands.
She'd been so long away, she was embarrassed when she got lost. She had to ask for directions from a faery dragon. After the requisite amount of sneering, he handed her a compass. Oh, gosh, thanks ever so.
Now, if that's north...basically...then the Fearī nebula would be....right. Okay. Reoriented. The next step was finding the village under the nebula.
Sit by the night-blooming orchid, the denizens told her. Wait until nightfall, they told her. Wait until the night turns green, they told her...
Two acquired. Off to the next points. And...wow. Those are...big.
But in the end, the jaunting served the purpose. She'd picked up at least one axolotl at every stop. Now, granted, while they were recognizeably axolotls, they also had finned tails, and...wings. Was that going to be a problem?
She honestly wasn't sure.
But what she was sure about was going to the panel next to the tank, and signifying readiness for clone use. She began preparing the repair tank so they could bring Hiro Secundus up to be...stabilized.
She really hoped this worked...
(Continued in part XIV.)
No comments:
Post a Comment