#heath laughing: yeah. don't worry about it. he's developing just fine.

[discordiansamba]

Krolia wakes to a child staring at her.

They are very small, with pale peachy skin and big, gray eyes. Their nails are round and blunt, and his teeth are the same. The only hair they seem to have on their body is what's on their head, a mess of black hair. She's quite certain that if he let go of the bed, he would fall on the floor.

In fact, that is exactly what he does.

Krolia instinctively reaches out to catch them before they can. The alien child stares at her for a long moment, before he makes an excited vocalization, clapping his hands. Moments later, a man enters who must be his father, who looks equally relieved to have found his son who most definitely wandered off, and surprised to see her awake.

They manage to communicate a little- the man's name is Heath Kogane, and the child is his son, Keith. He is a human. They are on a planet called Earth. He communicates with gestures that he pulled her from her ship, and points to the bandages wrapped around her chest. He must have given her first aid as well.

She stays with them as she recovers. She learns that it is just the two of them living here- Heath's wife and Keith's mother died in an accident shortly after he was born. He works as a firefighter. Keith recently had his first birthday. He is still learning how to walk. He is noisy and rambunctious.

Krolia grows attached to them both. Her ship is destroyed. She cannot return to the Blade, even though she succeeds in her mission to find a lion. She and Heath fall in love, and before she knows it, Keith has started to call her his mom. They celebrate his second and third birthdays together as a family.

Then the Empire sends another scouting mission, and Heath is shot. He holds her hand as he dies, as she uselessly tries to stem the flow of blood. He makes her promise to look after Keith, but even if he didn't, she'd do it anyways. But at the same time, she knows she can no longer stay on Earth- not if she wants to keep this place safe.

She takes Keith with her when she returns to the Blade of Marmora. She will hear no argument from Kolivan. He is staying.