#stinw

They were still living in the shadow of the raiders, but between Keith's modifications with the radiation baffling and the position of the station, they had so far managed to pass undetected. They were keeping most of the station shut down both to conserve power and to reduce the amount of light and other signals they were releasing into space, which meant living in a kind of permanent twilight most of the time. The result was that waking up in the 'mornings' was that much harder, particularly for the night owls like Mags and Keri. Mags must have been up for a while to have time to get the coffee fully brewed, and Lily was an early riser. "What happened with the crown alerts?" Telvar asked, yawning as he exited his room in just his sleep pants. "Morning, honey. Morning, sunshine." "Morning, Telvar," Lily said while Mags grunted and waved vaguely in Telvar's direction. "Keith updated them yesterday, and this morning the auto lights in Mags's room came on way too early. I'm thinking those two things might be related." "Yeah, that seems likely," Telvar said, coming over to investigate the coffee. "Far as I know, that's the only program change that happened yesterday. My lights didn't come on, though. How about yours, hon?" "Nah, mine stayed off until I turned 'em on like usual," Lily said, holding out the coffee pot to pour Telvar a cup all the way to the brim, since he preferred his first cup black, though his second he usually dosed with a staggering amount of milk and sugar. "We'll have to see if any of the others on that side had problems." As the others trickled in to the common area by ones and twos, they were able to put together that the rooms in one quadrant of the pod had all had their auto lights come on far too early. Luckily, one of the rooms was the one they had converted into a medical center, and the only other one in that section besides Mags's that they were using was Cammy's. "I wondered why the lights were on when I woke up," Cammy said, sitting on the counter with a bowl while she waited for water to boil for some hot cereal. "I thought maybe I was just so tired last night I forgot to turn them off." "They didn't wake you up when they came on?" Keri asked. "Cammy's a really deep sleeper," Mags explained, much more alert now that she'd finished her first cup of coffee and was working on a second. "Probably like you when the evac alarm sounded."

"I'm pretty sure everyone being 'really, really stressed out' for this long is not healthy," Keri said. "If you were a vnokargl, I would definitely be prescribing calming drugs." "Do I wanna know what a vnokargl is?"

"Ms. Bowen, wait up!" Mags turned at the voice behind her, stopping and waiting as Cammy jogged down the hallway towards her, arms practically overflowing with a large, lumpy bundle. "Just call me Mags," Mags said as Cammy fell into step beside her.

Ivo let the words wash over him, their content less important that the fact that they were simply … there. Stone's lips brushed against the ends of Ivo's fingers with each word he spoke, like many tiny kisses left just for Ivo, while Stone gazed at him with the same, familiar adoration that Ivo had always mistaken for, what?

Looking around, he could see David and Lily already stirring, and possibly Cammy as well, while Keri and Mags were still soundly asleep and Keith wasn't even visible beneath the blanket he'd wrapped himself in. Extracting himself from his own nest of bedding, Telvar tiptoed over to the kitchen and let himself inside. As Keith had said, they had the fixings for coffee, so Telvar started laying everything out. While the water heated, he searched the cupboards for something that would make a passable breakfast, but it really was mostly beans. Apparently nobody in Russell's pod had been very fond of cooking. His hand brushed a familiar looking travel mug tucked on one of the shelves and Telvar froze, fighting back a sudden rush of grief.

"You causing problems over there, Telvar?" Lily asked, looking up from where she was finishing with the breakfast dishes. "Lily, honey, when have I ever caused problems?" Telvar asked with a smile like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "When have you not?" she shot back, grinning.

"In that case, try turning the generator back on," Russell said. "Is that safe?" Keith asked, nervously eyeing the fried terminal. "If it isn't, let me know when the secondary control terminal melts and I'll make a note of it for next time," Russell said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"What, like you can do it quickly or take a lot of forms or something?" Lord Elkor asked. Ven looked away, though he tried to watch both the kysellians out of the corner of his eye. "I don't think I should tell you that," he said. This was all getting too personal. There were so many things, too many things, about Ven's life, about Rosolli, that were just not safe to talk about with off-worlders. "I think maybe it's time we took a break," Lord Lestien said, and without looking at them directly, Ven was just able to see Lord Lestien putting a restraining hand to Lord Elkor's chest as he said it. "Thank you for telling us about the yllnal, Kimble. You are dismissed." Ven unfolded himself from the chair and scurried from the room, wishing he knew what either of the kysellians were thinking.