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Stones in the shape of a caern for a body that was never recovered and now never will be. It's down there on that forsaken planet, probably picked over by scavengers, both human and animal. Some criminal warlord is right now probably using his rank tiara to decorate his scarred forehead. Lafiel hopes it's not that bastard McAngus.

Late at night she's painstakingly brought her coffin of rock here. She carved his name on them in Baronh with her klanyu. If anyone wishes to activate their omnicomm's translation functions, they'll see it reads Lynn Su Rock Haidr Jinnto.

Lacking an airlock to eject the "coffin" out of, the alien stars rushing past are the only backdrop she can give for this makeshift funeral. She hopes his last view was of those stars. Maybe they gave him some comfort as starvation or wound stole the last little bit of energy from him and his chest stopped rising and falling in the oppresive, humid night.

She dares to hope he thought of her.

After a minute's rest (the stones were very heavy and awkward to carry from the city) she stands straight. She will have to be both speaker and audience for this wake.

First a crooning dirge, something that would be proud and magnificent if sung by all his friends. From her voice, it comes out too thin though, a small imitation of a grand gesture.

Next the Abh national anthem, not sung but recited in a monotone. This is their equivalent to Taps.

It ends like this:

Dear Stars,
Please listen to the wishes of your short-lived kin.
Our wishes,
It is to live until your are ancient.

Dear Empire, Dear Stars,
Let us pledge ourselves to eternity together.

At this point, the coffin would normally be shot off by an electromagnetic rail cannon, aimed towards the center of the galaxy, to travel eternally. She snaps the Abh salute, middle and index fingers to her forehead and the thing is over.

Abriels are royalty. To be fair rulers, they must not show too much concern for any one subject. Otherwise, they will have to show concern for all of them, and that is of course impossible. They are most definitely not allowed to cry.

So Lafiel stands stock straight but trembling and watches the stars...

Not crying.

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"Y'know, my mother kind of told me the same thing," Luly says, and she sinks slowly towards the floor, pulling Lafiel next to her - and still supporting her if she needs it.

The woman's voice lilts up, accent twisting a little in a half-conscious imitation. "Do you think the fallen would have wanted you to be sad when you think of them? No! You go cry for yourself, girl, but don't you dare think they'd want you crying for them."

Lafiel feels boneless, as if her limbs lack any supporting power. Ashamed of her weakness, she must lean against Meluly. "But I promised him...he said he felt like noone would be sad if he dies."

A mother...that sounds interesting. She and Captain Lexshue never had that kind of relationship. She immensely respected the woman, but never once tried to invoke their bond. "My mother...was my first CO. She was the one who sent me and Jinnto away towards Sufugnoff..."

"Well, I never said my mother was a fortuneteller," Luly says with a little smile. "But yours might have been, to put you together like that."

Luly shifts position some to make it easier for Lafiel to lean against her. "Thinking 'bout it, when I was... god, it must've been ten years ago now or something like that... there was this boy I loved very much. We were zheori, ummmn, promised to each other for the future. Ah, and he was human," she adds as an afterthought. "We did everything together... Hell, we wanted to be soldiers together." Her voice is soft, and wistful, and she's the closest she's been to losing her composure this whole time. "Levy, he had this beautiful blonde hair that he took such good care of..."

Lafiel, shorter by almost a head, looks up at Meluly, curiosity replacing at least part of the sadness on her features. "You loved a human too? They are...such trouble. But I agree about their hair. There's something exotic about it." Says the girl whose own is bright blue.

Luly nods slightly. "Mine's black... I have to bleach it half to death to do anything with it." She snuffles back a sniffle. "Levy, ah, he loved red... I only changed it to anything else a couple of years ago." She blinks a few times--her eyes are watering just a little.

"Really? I didn't know...I thought it was maybe your natural hair color. All Abh have some kind of blue hair." She says, also sniffling. They are a puddle composed of two emo messes on the observatory floor.

Luly shakes her head. "Nazzadi hair's always a dark color..." She straightens up a little bit, trying to pull Lafiel up towards her feet. "Hey, mmmn, I've got an idea," she says, and there's a little of that less-than-coherent look in her eyes again.

Lafiel gets to her feet with help on wobbly legs. She looks up at her...Uh oh, there's the Spectacular Insanity again...The Bebaus brothers would adopt her immediately. Still, she's willing to follow.

Luly pulls Lafiel towards one of the exits—if there's no intervening to do anything with the little caern, anyway. It takes her a little while to reorient herself, but soon they're heading towards the Sensoriums, and Luly checks down the rows of doors for the first empty one.

Lafiel is dragged away, wondering what she could possibly have in mind. For a moment visions of Luly trying to eat her or throwing her at the bulkhead resonate in her mind but...No. Even while crazy, she trusts her.

The dark-skinned woman pulls Lafiel into the empty Sensorium pod and pulls the door shut behind them, locking it.

Darkness.

Luly moves with total confidence in the darkness, guiding Lafiel over to... a seat? Yes, it's a little indistinct at first, but it seems to... firm up, into something almost like a barstool, complete with the slightly sticky vinyl seating...

"Wait right here," she says, and slips out into the dark. Without even dim lighting, her tattoos don't so much as glimmer a little.

Lucky for Lafiel's peace of mind, her froce gives her a vague picture of Luly's movements. She can't sense the seat though, as it doesn't move, so she awkwardly sits at it.

She's less terrified now, more curious. It at least distracts from the dull ache in her chest.

The piano starts in softly, a gentle and repeating rhythm as the lights come up.

Lafiel is in a bar: dim and labyrinthine, but equipped with a wide stage. Atop it, just forward enough out of the shadows to be visible—for if there are any stage lights, they aren't turned on—is an electric keyboard, with sets of speakers around the edge of the stage.

Sitting at it is Luly, though she's in a flowing black dress and wide-brimmed hat—and her hair, cut into a perfect bob instead of its usual mildly awkward scruffiness. The other patrons—for there are, suddenly, other patrons, filling the bar like a busy night, in a flickering change of dream-logic—watch, occasional quiet conversation here and there, all Human and Nazzadi from a broad range of ages and professions.

And Luly plays. The song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkReR89J-gk) is almost certainly an unfamiliar one for Lafiel, but Luly puts a certain panache into it, and though her voice into the little microphone clipped to the keyboard is a little whispery sometimes, whatever inner demons she's running through put an extra degree of emotion into it.

Lafiel's never been in an establishment like this. The sticky feel under her shoes, the smell of liquor and cigarettes, it's all part of a world she's glimpsed very little of. Samson and his engineering crew liked to go to places like this on their leave but her exposure to them had been glaring from the doorway as Samson pulled them two-by-two back onto the ships by the scruff of their collars like liquor-reeking kittens.

She's touched that Luly's trying to cheer her up. It doesn't remove the burn, but it salves it a little. She claps the longest when she finishes.

Luly grins out at the audience—and Lafiel. Her leaning forward into the light a little is enough to show that that overactive sweating has started and she's breathing a little more heavily than she should be, even after that singing...

"Thanks for coming out tonight, folks," she says breathily into the microphone, leaning to the side far enough to offer the crowd a wave. "We still got time for a couple more pieces, if you want us to stick around." The stage lights turn on, slowly un-dimming up to full light.

"There's Jack 'Bloody Murder' Taylor on the guitar," Luly says, gesturing to a slender, short human with black hair, dressed all in patchwork clothes in different shades of blue and a giant, long scarf, "and 'Sweet Love' Redraza on the drums," and her thumb hikes at a Nazzadi man who looks like he bench-presses cars in his spare time, squeezed into an eye-catching red suit. "And y'all know me already." That raises a derisive and appreciative hoot from most of the audience, as if there's some secret injoke involved.

And without further warning, they launch into another song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87cLyBR1JTo), with Luly on the piano and vocals.

A love song... She thinks, and is stabbed by regret that she was always too clumsy to sing these kinds of things for him. She never was musically talented, never joined the academy's music section (one of her old classmates, she understands, is now the hecto-commander in charge of all music for the star forces) but it plays pleasing over her sensitive ears.

And who were the simulated people Luly was introducing? Did she play in a band before joining the military?

She watches and listens, entranced and secretly jealous of her talent.

A new patron slips in on the stool next to Lafiel: he's short and slim, in a heavy, long coat and a hat pulled down over his brow. Still, this doesn't keep some of his lustrous, cornsilk-blonde hair from escaping.

"I haven't seen you around here before," he murmurs in Lafiel's direction. "You don't seem much like a local."

Lafiel turns her head to face the man, a lander from the looks of him. Blonde hair...Luly told me that. Is it a coincidence? Is he real or a projection? As she leans against the wooden bar, she notices a teel nom with lop, her favorite drink has been ninja'd down next to her elbow. She picks it up and drinks, savoring the sweet flavor. If it's Meluly's old lover, she'll be nice to him. If he's just someone intruding on them, she won't.

"I'm not. I've come from far away. And I presume you are?"

The man—no, it's more like 'boy', with the youth in his face and hands—smiles, shrugging. "I travel around a lot, but people here know me."

Up on the stage, Luly is lost in the song, what were previously her occasional glances in Lafiel's direction gone.

"You really think you know what you're getting into?" he asks gently.

Lafiel's eyes keep flicking back at Meluly. She doesn't want her madness to take over her right now. She won't be able to help her this time, isn't stable enough herself. Whoever came to get them would have two patients to deal with.

She shrugs at the boy, wondering just exactly who or what she's talking to. "No, actually, I have no idea. I just wanted to help her..."

That makes him smile a little. "She could really use somebody to lean on who's not fifty feet tall," he says with a little nod. "She's a good kid, mostly, when she's not..." He waggles his fingers in a loose 'nutso!' gesture.

She smirks a little. "I've noticed. While she plays, i'd like to ask you some questions..."

She waits for his assent. If it's given, she'll ask: "First, what exactly is a reiozy?"

His big eyebrows crowd together in something that's probably a 'yes' sort of expression.

"Somebody you trust to watch over you in sleep, when all the monsters of the morning or night crawl from their holes." He sips at his own drink, though he seems a hint young to be having anything alcoholic.

Up on stage, the little band is shifting from their current song, as it finishes, into a new one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNB1EUJg1-w).

"I see." That makes somewhat more sense. This is probably one of those terms that can't entirely be translated...But now I understand why she called me that. It's because I found her when she was vulnerable...Which makes her my reoizy too, then. Which is a thought that makes her a little fidgety. Searching for something to do, she sips her teel nom. There's a strange aftertaste to it, bitter and firey behind the sweetness...Oh, thies must be alcohol. Abh have a much higher resistance to it than humans, but they can get drunk if they pound enough down. Lafiel's never tried it before, wonders what all the fuss is about.

"How did you meet Meluly and how long did you know her?"

"Oh, I must have been... eleven, I guess. We went to the same school for a little while, hit it right off..." He gestures loosely. "Well, first thing was that we got into a fight and beat each other to pulps, but that's how love goes, I guess." The boy grins. "I bet that's one of the parts she didn't tell you."