Family from Beyond the Stars, Ch. 8 (Patreon)

CH. 8Three Heirs

Neither Nova nor Kenny spoke about the events of the night previous when they woke up the cubs.  Once again, they had dropped out of slipspace on the edge of yet another solar system.  The blade-wings of their ship glowed as they absorbed the radiation of the star that served as the sun for the bare handful of tiny planetoids around them.

Kenny couldn't even look the Alien mother in the eye, which she did not make easy.  The games had started as soon as the cubs' paws touched the floor of the hanger, and Nova was in full swing.  She pounced and pranced, she batted and growled.  The cubs were delighted to have her be so energetically involved, and as a result, their playing got much more loving and vigorous.  Kenny sat on the sidelines, for the most part, watching happily as Nova let them clamber all over her, pretending to be injured by their play bites.  He vaguely remembered something about lions in the wild doing something similar.

Every so often, one of the kids could bound over to him and nudge, paw, or nuzzle at him affectionately.  He would scratch behind their ears or under their cheeks until they were satisfied and then return to the game.  It was almost like he was winding up a spring toy for how excitedly they always sprang back to the others to resume their playing.

Each cub even had a preferred manner to be pet in, and he always veered towards them.  Phoebe liked snuggles and special attention paid to her jaws.  Joey liked belly rubs and chin scritches.  Chandler's favorite was when Kenny ran his hand down his tufted spine and rubbed right at the base of his ears.  His fingers had almost begun to feel a bit raw but he didn't mind.

As the hours wore on and the games kept changing, he thought he saw the cubs and Nova glancing at him more than usual.  They would always look away right before their eyes met with his, returning to their game, but it was becoming more and more common and thus more suspicious.  If he didn't know them better, he would have started to assume they were planning something.  He knew that all of them were in some ways a bit devious, Chandler more so than the rest, but the secretive growls and nudges he saw going around between them all was starting to become more prominent.  Maybe they were just sharing a joke?  They returned to their playing in full spirit even as he thought that, so he just settled back to enjoy the show.

That was when he noticed that Nova had broken away from the swirling mass of six-limbed, frenzied but happily-yowling whirl that was the kids.  He glanced slowly to the side and flinched.  Nova was staring right at him from barely a few feet away, huddling her huge body down low to the ground.  She hadn't even made a sound.

The Alien mother chuffed at him, hot breath gusting past his face.  Her eyes fastened onto his, drawing his gaze deeper into her own.  Her pupils expanded back into those huge orbs of swirling darkness underneath the glowing blue, then they shrank back to vertical slits.  Her ears twitched, her paws kneaded the ground beneath her, and a slow smile spread across her jowls.

Kenny shifted uncomfortably underneath that stare.  He tried a nervous smile back at her.  "H-hey," he managed.  "Were you...wanting me to pet you too?" he asked, feeling lame and awkward doing so.

'No', came her mental voice, ringing in his head.  Even though her voice never carried an inflection or tone, he had the feeling that it was spoken teasingly this time, maybe even a hint playful.  There were so many emotions behind her, and yet so little when she spoke.  It made trying to figure out what she intended all the more frustrating, and endearing.

She shifted her weight, hindquarters adjusting themselves.  Their body anatomy always fascinated him.  They were easily able to shift between bipedal to full hexapod without the motions seeming unnatural or off-balance.  Their forms just stretched to accommodate whatever pose or walking method they preferred, almost as if the abdomen could lengthen somehow.  She still had yet to blink.

He swallowed, abruptly beginning to feel rather nervous as she kept shifting in front of him.  The corner of one side of her mouth lifted slowly, baring more of her teeth.  It was not a comforting smile.  "C-can I help you then?" he asked.

She let out a soft growl, which still set the floor underneath him to vibrating.  'Kenny does not play today.'  She arched an eyebrow at him teasingly.  'The Cubs say that Kenny is why they play with Nova.  Nova is grateful to Kenny for this.’'

He smiled a bit more, relaxing a bit, even if he still had no idea what she was thinking.  He almost had begun to feel jealous that she could so easily read his thoughts and emotions.  Meanwhile, to him, she was as ever a complete mystery.  But...didn't that make her antics, her actions, and her hidden qualities all the more fascinating?  "Well, yeah!  Playing with parents is super important.  And I wanted you guys to get closer.  Seeing you with them makes my whole heart lighter."

Nova's eyes sparkled a bit more.  'Play is good.  Makes for strong bonds.'  She looked slightly off to the side, as did he.  Chandler and Joey were grappling with Phoebe, using their numbers to their advantage against their larger and stronger sister.  Their yowls were happy and playfully aggressive.  He felt her eyes swivel back onto him.  'Let Nova show Kenny.'

He glanced back at her.  That face didn't look especially grateful.  It looked feral and hungry.  Like last night, when he had been worried she was about to eat him.  He was starting to get a very bad feeling.  "Umm...n-no thanks.  I'm good.  I'm uhh...kinda tired."  He smiled, hoping she would buy the bluff.

Her pupils narrowed even more into razor-thin lines, then they expanded to pure black globes once again.  Her haunches lifted suddenly into the air and the front of her body dropped as flat as it could.  Her four front limbs splayed out alongside her, ears swiveling fully forward.  Her tentacles retracted fully into her shoulders and her claws slowly extended from her paws, kneading the metal with soft grinding scrapes.  That feral smile widened as the lip rose a hair higher, exposing more of her teeth.

Abruptly, Kenny realized where he knew that position from.  It was the way the kids prepared themselves when they were about to pounce on something.  The same way that a cat stalked its prey before finally going in for the kill.  His blood went cold and he scrambled up onto his feet, backing away slowly.  "H-hold on Nova!" he said frantically.  "I thought we were friends!"

Her smile widened.  'Kenny should be running.'  Her muscles twitched, stripes blazing fully to life before his eyes.  Then, to his complete and utter fascination, her head began to bob slowly side to side, as if to music.  Her body followed suit, hindquarters swaying and her muscles flexing to the hidden beat.  A second later, he heard it too.  Music began to play from somewhere.  It was a song he had shown her, one of the high-pitched Japanese animesque numbers they had danced to.

He started to slowly back away as the beat built more and more, the vocals building up to the official start.  He glanced to the side, as if hoping the cubs would come to his aid, but they were instead just sitting there, watching in excitement, even having paused completely in their own game to see the strangeness of their parents.  He mouthed 'Help!' at them, and their smiles turned abruptly mischievous.

The voices and beat fell off a second later and he looked back fully to Nova.  Those eyes had never looked so big, so predatory, and so hypnotic.  The centers had even begun to flash in patterns of white and black, nearly fixing him in place.  Only pure instinct had him starting to back up, which she matched with slow, purposeful, and on beat steps with her paws.  Her eyebrows wiggled and she actually mouthed 'Oh yeah!'.  She lunged!

Kenny took off at a full sprint, stumbling halfway through the first step as he turned on his heel and booked it as fast as he possibly could.  He was faster than he had once been, more durable and tougher too.  He had outrun her before when she had been trying to catch and space him.  Somehow he was even more terrified now than he had been then.  The stomps of her paws, the panting of her breath was constantly just right behind him, seemingly perfectly on beat with the song.  He bobbed and weaved, zigging and zagging, feeling like he was always just a hair away from being caught.

He raced around the entire length of the hangar bay, fists pumping at his sides and legs thudding against the steel floor, sending reverberations up through his whole body.  He attempted a sharp turn and booked it off right past Nova, believing that because of her much more immense size that she would have more difficulty cornering.  He glanced back hopefully.

Nope.  She had spun on a dime using the pad of a single paw, her entire huntress form swinging back around, and then she resumed the chase, never missing a beat.  Just how flexible were their joints?!  The music blared through the bay, coming both from Nova herself and somehow reverberating through the hull as if from speakers built into the walls.

Kenny saw that the cubs were all dancing in their own little way to the music too, jumping and bobbing in place.  He scowled at how much they seemed to be enjoying his terror and he altered direction again, right as he felt Nova's paw reaching out to try and snag him.  He now was booking it straight towards the cubs.  Maybe that would throw Nova off!  Again, his hopes were dashed.  They just leaped agilely out of his way and yowled in joy.  He was running out of ideas.

Was this a game?  Why did it feel so terrifying if it was?  Was she trying to catch and eat him?  Why weren't the cubs defending him if that was the case?  He had no idea and he had no time to relax or slow down.  It felt like life or death was possible at any split second, and he also realized, with a heavy sinking, that he was starting to slow down.  His legs and arms shuddered and his breath was finally beginning to come in more raggedly.

Suddenly, the world had turned sideways and all his weight seemed to vanish.  He wasn't sure if Nova's paw had shot out and knocked his leg out from underneath him, or if he had tripped while attempting another tight corner without realizing he had been trying to do so.  Either way, the world spun all around him before it came crashing back down as his back hit the hanger floor.  The breath exploded out of him and he stared up at the ceiling, panting.  The music had stopped.  He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, hear it in his ears so loudly that he was sure it was making the floor beneath him shudder.

Or maybe that was just the footfalls of Nova as she stalked over to him.  The lights up above were blotted out as her tigerine head appeared over him, upside down.  Her hair hung down around her face in the most beautiful of waves.  The stripes in it and all across her body continued to glow merrily.  Her eyes twinkled and her lips parted,  teeth flashing as her head started to lower.  He flinched, screwing his eyes shut.  His adrenaline was still pumping too strong and furiously to believe she wasn't about to finally stop playing around and eat him for real.  Her hot breath brushed across his face, gentle as a feather, warm as the summer breeze.  He tensed up.

Nova licked him.  That heavy, wet, rough towel dragged across his cheek and throat once, twice.  Her nose rubbed against his chest and up to his cheek, careful not to press down too hard.  That musky, warm scent filled his nostrils again.  His eyes slid open again in surprise as the pressure lifted.  Nova moved slowly around in front of him, her paws thudding as soft and gentle as featherdown upon the floor.

It seemed impossible that something so big and heavy could be so delicate and gentle.  The huge tigress curled her body slowly down and around him on the floor, leaning her head against his by the barest of brushes and holding it there.  Their eyes met and then hers slid closed.  A tentacle reached out from behind her and slid along his chest to his throat, pressing against the collar of his livesuit as her implant flared to iridescent light.

Kenny's vision abruptly flashed.  Away went the ceiling of the hangar bay, the cubs nearby purring and eyes glowing brightly before they too faded.  Everything in the room seemed to flicker out of sight as if all the world was falling away and beneath him.  His eyes widened as light rushed again into his field of vision.  He saw.  He felt.

He was no longer on the ship.  He seemed to float, weightless in a great void that was neither brightly lit nor dark.  Color simply was.  Cascades of chromatic hues flowed around him, filling a landscape without end, stretching out as far as he could see, lacking a horizon or any other features.  Piercing through it all were bright pinpricks, similar to starlight, but glittering like diamonds on that backdrop of indigo, crimson, phthalo green, maroon, and navy blue.

He tried to focus on something, anything in that void of color, to perceive anything close to recognizable.  All at once, shapes blurred out of nowhere, leaping into his vision, causing him to flinch.  Planets that pulsed with an internal radiance, asteroids whose individual particles he could tell apart as if viewing under a microscopic lense, swirling galaxies that flowed like living things or currents in a river.  It was all…beautiful.

A sound, formless, came from behind him, if there truly was direction to this place.  He turned, motions too fast and too slow, as if his perception of space had no meaning any longer.  Nova floated there before him, beaming down at him with amusement.  Her colors had somehow inverted, her dark pelt blazing brightly while her stripes produced strobe-like effects.  She blazed from within, a bonfire of life that leaked out of every strand of her fur, the tip of every claw, every star in her eyes reflected a thousand-fold down at him.

She flowed forward, moving without motion, to hover directly before him.  Her paws and tentacles lifted, brushing his ethereal face.  He felt it and did not feel it all at once.  He reached up, touching one of her paws, feeling the strength but also the surprising delicateness of her presence there, almost as if trying to grasp hold of a waking dream.

Where are we? He tried to speak aloud but found his voice could not be heard.  He thought it instead, and suddenly it echoed all around them as if inside a vast cavern underground.

We are infinite, Nova replied, her voice clearer now than it had been in the living world.  Everywhere.  Nowhere.  All the places in between.

How do we go back? He asked.  It was not that he feared this place, but he didn’t understand it.  The size, the scope, the magnitude of every sensation amplified and also muted.  He saw colors he had no name for, saw entire star systems flow into, combining, disassembling, away from one another like holograms or projections.  He’d never felt so small before.

Then her warm arms folded around him and he felt Nova drawing him into an embrace like nothing he had ever felt.  There was resistance only at the last second, a seemingly weak, fragile barrier that separated his consciousness, his being, from hers, delicate as a single pane of glass.  And she was warm.  So warm, blazing like sunlight, heat spilling out from every inch of her.  He rested in it for what felt like eternity and yet no time at all when she finally released him to resume floating, side by side as they viewed the alternate plane before them.

Why am I here? He asked.  Why bring me here?

To thank you, was her reply.  Again, it was not so much words as he felt the intention of her thoughts coalescing into words, feelings, sensations that had no other definition than what they were.  Speech without speaking.  Emotions clear as light, as dark and complex as the sea.

He chose to not question it, instead marveling at what he was seeing, endlessly grateful for what she had shown him.  Then something changed.  One of the planets before him took shape, becoming more and more distinct by the second until he felt like he could reach out and touch it.  It was as big as a basketball before him, a dark orb dotted with towers of brightness.  He looked to Nova, who merely nodded.  Her expression had turned sad, melancholy, but when he drew his hand back, wary of it, she pressed a paw to the back of his and pushed his fingers toward the planet’s shape.

He did not so much touch it as he fell into it, through it, channeling his perception through the touch of Nova against his non-skin.  The world expanded before his eyes, growing to full size in a matter of seconds and no time at all, almost as if he were descending through the atmosphere.  The speed of his descent almost made him worry of burning up, or smashing into the surface as it rushed toward him.  He did not dare flinch however in fear of missing a single second of it.  Continents grew, expanding, stretching out.  The tower of light closest to their fall expanded into a colossus of unknown material, from which shown a beacon of purest radiance.

Countryside blossomed into view, roads, rivers, mountains, plateaus.  A city.  He saw a rolling plain stretching out for miles surrounding it, a lone tree, a single hill rising above it all directly beneath where they would land.  He flinched as it all rushed up at him, closing his eyes at the last second.  But he did not strike the ground.

Warm grass tickled his back, poking through his skin but not painfully.  A tree of unknown species towered up above, its flowering leaves cast dappled and dancing shadows across the hill upon which he lay.  Something touched his hand, his paw.  He looked to the side.  A male, huge and powerful, strong and confident, gentle and warm, lay beside him.  He was the spitting image  of Chandler, but also Joey, and Phoebe as well.  His lion's ruff rippled in the warm breeze.  The eyes, glowing bright blue, sparkled with some hidden joke.  Kenny sat up, looking around.

He was atop a hill, overlooking a vast field of long grass, tall standing stones, and beyond: the city.  It was like no city he had ever seen before.  The buildings were arches and curves, domes and pyramids.  Winged shapes of ships flew slowly overhead and everywhere the eye could see.  They had sails of light that fluttered in the breeze, extended from their sides like the fins of fish swimming in the ocean.  The nearest one sailed closer and someone atop of it waved down at the pair of them on the hill.

The male beside him waved back, letting out a rolling sound from his chest that to his ears sounded like a rich laugh, full of life and joy.  His limbs were patterned in black at the ends that faded to a glorious golden coat, striped across the elbows, shoulders, and throat in similar ebony colors that rippled like obsidian and shimmered like oil.  Atop his head glittered an implant just like Nova's, but every few seconds, the glowing outline of a star-like diadem floated above his hair.  A crown.

Down in the fields, small forms played and pounced in and out of the tall grass or onto the rocky outcroppings.  The sky was azure, purple, orange, and yellow, striating in shades and tones that Kenny had never even known were possible.  He was seeing colors that the human eye could not even fathom, swirling above him like clouds.  There was no sun that he could see but everything was perfectly lit and detailed.  Instead, the light came from the city itself, shining like a beacon.  It came from the people driving the ships, from the children playing in the field.  It shone from the grass, the trees, from every living surface in various, glowing radiances that colored everything in the most wonderful hues imaginable.

The King turned back to him, reaching out with a paw which he, or rather Nova, took.  The world spun all around him, back up into the void above.  The paws separated before they joined back together, holding three small orbs that barely filled their palms.  Within each floated the tiniest of shapes, a curled over form of a slumbering hexapod being without even dreams, without thoughts, but colors all their own.  One Red and Black.  One Blue and White.  One Gold and Bronze.  They were placed in an egg apiece, left to float there in fluid that glowed like honey.  They grew rapidly.  Upon the wall above them, two feline shadows leaned their heads together, pressing glowing foreheads against one another.  The outline of two crowns illuminated the room.

The sights, the smells, the sounds; all of it made Kenny's head spin.  He marveled in wonder as his view actually spun up and away from the field again, into the sky, and then looking down, watching the planet as it spun slowly in place.  It was the center of its own solar system, orbited by yet more planetoids and moons.  More towers of light dotted the surface, glowing metropolises, and cityscapes, each of which was richly and vastly different.  The largest moon spun slowly into view, casting a great shadow over the surface of the planet that had and needed no name.

It was a world of light, color, sound, and emotion.  Songs that were not songs could be heard, like an angelic choir resounding in his head in a deep bass note.  As the moon's shadow passed over each city, instead of dimming, it would light up even more in a rainbow of colors.  Each one was a tiny pinprick but also special in how it flashed or glowed.  They were living beings, every single one, each one completely unique and standing out amongst the millions around it.

Then, as the moon flashed before his vision once more, the scene changed.  The lights of the city were going out, replaced by the flashes of what could only be...gunfire!  Great beams of sunlight reached down onto the planet like the hands of God to lift up those desperate and tormented beings but too slowly.  For every city touched by those pillars of heavenly light from which flashed away shapes of starships that vanished into the cosmos, two more went out alone, their voices quieted forever.  Twinkling stars that were living souls were snuffed out in waves.  Screams, cries, roars, and yells echoed in his ears and his brain, rising into an avalanche of deafening noise, then silence, as the whole planet finally went dark.

His vision suddenly began to fall away again right as the dark orb that was the glowing jewel of its system suddenly shattered like glass.  The last thing he saw before darkness consumed his sight was a face in the afterimage of that exploding planet.  One eye glittered like ice from underneath a hooded helmet, the other orb was dark and empty.  Stripes that glowed like cold fire surrounded a scarred visage straight out of a nightmare.  A clawed hand reached out from that silenced world, reaching for him.  For a pod that just barely escaped its grasp and disappeared into the darkness of the unknown universe.  Three precious lifeforms, three lost royals.  Three Children.  Three Heirs.

Kenny jerked back into the hangar bay as Nova's tentacle left his collar at the exact same time.  He sat up, gasping for breath.  Everything was so quiet, colors seeming muted now.  His cheeks were wet and he looked slowly over toward Nova.  She had turned away from him, ears folded down, her eyes still shut.  The cubs lingered nearby, no longer smiling.  They somehow knew what he had seen.  She had shown them too, of that he had no doubt.  Only one sort of thing could cause their mother that kind of pain.

Breath exploded out of him a shuddering gasp and he hugged his arms around himself.  She had said that her home was gone.  She had said she was alone, that her cubs were all she had left.  He had had no idea how truthfully she had been speaking.  Perhaps he had dreamed, in his naive mind, that there was a hope she herself did not embrace.  Maybe there was a chance to reunite with a people of her own, he had thought.

He knew better now, and his heart broke into pieces, like the planet had, at that knowledge.  He needed no words, for her species did not speak with them.  They spoke on an entirely different level that transcended conversation.  Thought, emotion, shape, and above all, color.  Her colors had gone dark.

Kenny crawled slowly over to the slowly shuddering Nova and, knowing it was the only thing he could possibly do, even if it wouldn't help, pressed his forehead down against hers firmly but gently.  He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths and his hands reaching for her cheeks.  He stroked the fur there, his touch light and soothing as he began to sing.

It was no great ballad, and his voice was no lyrical wonder, often screeching and off-tune.  The cubs always were happier when he sang though.  And all he wanted to do was help this lonely Queen who had lost everything but the memory of her mate and his immortalized face within three beautiful, bright children.  She had lost it all to a being who hungered only for conquest, even at the sake of destroying his own world.

Not all children loved their Father.  She loved hers least of all.

Color returned slowly to Nova.  Her face, torn by grief, anger, loss, and fear, slowly calmed.  Her stripes lit back up like the smoldering tinders of a fire coming back to life.  Her brow furrowed against him, ears lifting, but her eyes remained closed.  Even so, she reached for him.

One huge arm dragged him slowly into her embrace, pushing his face against her throat.  He went willingly.  Her grip was firm but without hurting him.  They shared a deep inhale.  Soft white noise whispered past his ear as her maw opened, the vents on the side of her neck opening with a flash of green light before closing once more.

Their eyes opened and Nova sat up, bringing him with her.  His feet touched back down on the floor of the hangar and their eyes met again.  Her smile was sad but grateful.  She blinked at him once, then extended the tip of her tongue and brushed his forehead, pushing his hair back up and out of his face.  The scars there were revealed but for a second.  A soft yowl at their side made them both turn.

The cubs were sitting on their haunches facing the pair of them.  Chandler looked displeased by the open show of affection between the two of them but the light of secret approval glimmered there.  Joey pranced softly in place, rosettes spinning and blazing brightly, all the while his goofy smile beamed up at them.  Phoebe, meanwhile, just blinked, soft and slow, at her mother and Daddy.

She looked so much like Nova, but also like her Father.  She would have been a Queen, just like Nova.  Her brothers would have ruled alongside her.  She seemed to know that, having carried that authority with her ever since she had hatched on Earth.  She might as well have been a Disney Princess.

Kenny smiled down at his kids and then back up at Nova.  "Thank you," he whispered softly.  She looked back down at him.  One ear cocked up slightly, the barest acknowledgment of what he had said but also curious despite how emotionally exhausted she was after that ordeal.  "For showing me," he explained.

Nova blinked once.  Her eyes had yet to return to their normal luminescence but he saw himself reflected in them.  A closed-off heart dwelt there.  She had known no kindness, no warmth, and no joy for far too long.  He had to change that.  He couldn't change her past, but she still had her children, and he would do everything within his power to make her smile again.

He reached up wordlessly to her implant and touched it.  His wrist blipped and he abruptly saw a list of sorts spring up before his eyes.  Soft sounds, bits, and pieces of the music he had shared with her, came to his mind and he happily 'scrolled' down to find one.  Nova allowed him, arching an eyebrow.  The white display circle flashed into being around one dark pupil.

As soon as he had made his selection, once again the sounds of music began to come from both Nova herself as well as the hanger bay walls as well.  He didn't pretend to understand how it worked, but that wasn't what was important.  Rapid-fire drumbeats began to echo all around them, soon accompanied by strumming, face-paced strings.  It was one of the happiest songs he knew and he often had used it to distract himself from the plagues and pressures of a world that had never seemingly wanted him.  He could have picked a better one, but Nova didn't need comfort.  She needed distraction.  Nightcore was good for that.

As the singer began, he echoed the appropriate "Woo-hoo!" and began to back up from Nova, bouncing as he moved and lip-syncing to the music.  The cubs watched him in fascination, as did their mother.  He pranced and bobbed as well as he could, walking first backward, even throwing in what little of a moonwalk he could perform, and then spinning forwards.

He danced like he never had in his life, for once not just for himself but to try and entertain.  No matter how stupid he looked, he would make them all smile.  He used every ounce of his privately trained skill, throwing in hip thrusts, John Travolta style pointing and bouncing, even rapid, robotic flailings of his arms to the rapping lyrics.

Then the chorus began and he sang right along.  As it fell away again, he immediately spun back to point at Nova and the assembled cubs.  The three small felines lit up with beaming smiles and immediately formed a single-file line right behind him as he turned back around to strut to the beat, waving his arm as if conducting a train.  One glance behind him as they walked showed him that the cubs were, one and all, bouncing on their paws to the beat and following behind him in perfect synchronization.  Nova watched it all with a bewildered but open-eyed expression of amazement.

Then she began to move.  At first it was a bob of her head to the beat before her stripes started to catch up to it.  Moments later, to his absolute joy, and a chorus of approving yowls, she too joined the dancing train.  All of them lent their voices to the "Woo-Hoo"s and "Yeah, yeah"s.  Even if a majority of them didn't even know what the words they were emulating meant, they were all having fun.

The song seemed to never end as if playing on repeat as they made an entire lap of the hangar bay.  As the beat fell away, Kenny spun on one heel and began to dance as he had been before, performing a small solo before he spun again to the side and pointed at Joey who was right behind him.  Ever the clown, Joey strutted forward perfectly in step, throwing his paws out to the sides and prancing in a small circle.

He leaped forward and yowled back at Phoebe.  She followed his lead, pouncing to where her brother had just been and then performing a perfect backflip in place.  She caught her tail in her teeth and rolled her shoulders with all the energy and confidence of a popstar, tentacles waving like a belly dancer’s arms, then released her limb and made room for Chandler.

The prankster had been waiting for his turn and flowed into an actual, coordinated dance maneuver that displayed every amount of his skill and flexibility.  He even spun on his front two forepaws like a breakdancer.  As he came to rest in a perfect, one-paw handstand before flipping up in a cartwheel, he rolled expertly out of the way.  All four of them looked up at Nova expectantly.

At first, she looked nervous and shy, but as the beat blazed around them, she gritted her teeth and rose to her full height.  In the seeming spirit of Micheal Jackson's Thriller, she used all four upper paws to sway her upper body from side to side.  It did wonderful things to her form but Kenny had only eyes for her face.

She swiftly gained more confidence as her children cheered her on and she started to move herself as any Human might have.  Her species didn't have a word or an action for Dancing, but it seemed that moving your body to music was universal.  She switched it up after that, switching from biped to hexapod at the drop of a hat and the spin of a single paw.  She even matched her muzzle to the lip-syncing, looking for all the world as if she truly were the one singing for the passion she put into the performance.

The cubs joined in.  It became a family concert, all of them moving, bouncing, leaping, and prancing with no mind for anything else but the joy they all felt to be dancing together.  They performed coordinated leaps and tumbles as if it were second nature.  Perhaps it was.  Music was the language of their soul, even if they had never heard it before.

Kenny clapped along, loving each and every one of their styles, from Chander's street performer style spins, to Joey's goofy full-body bounces, and Phoebe's startlingly showgirl-style sways of her hips and shoulders.  Nova meanwhile had any and all styles at once, not using just one but them all exactly as she wanted to.  Her eyes shone brighter than they seemingly ever had and her smile always glowed down at him.

The concert went on for what felt like hours, songs coming and going, until, finally, the cubs were barely able to move.  They still obviously wanted to keep dancing, but their limbs shuddered from exertion by this point and their eyes were drooping.  Nova's implant finally shut off, and the music went with it.

The cubs yowled in sleepy protest but at her and Kenny's laughing insistence, they all eventually trudged to their pods and curled up there.  In short order, they all floated in their gel-beds.  They had never looked so peaceful and happy, and that was saying something.

Kenny looked, at last, back up at Nova, both of them standing side by side as they watched their kids quiver in their little dreams.  She blinked down at him, smile radiant as sunshine, before she leaned down and pressed her muzzle against his cheek.  Her rumbling purr shook his whole body, rubbing the tip of her nose against his throat and face, and she only started to finally move away after giving him another soft lick with the tip of her tongue.

Entirely on instinct, body too tired to recognize the danger of what he was doing, he caught her muzzle with his hand and pressed his lips to her furry, scale-studded jaw, having to stand on tiptoe to do so as she had leaned back, almost entirely out of reach.  Her whole body froze at that touch and their eyes met.  She blinked, rapidly, pupils long narrow slits.

Then reality crashed back down around Kenny as he realized what he'd done.  His eyes went wide and his mouth fell open.  How audacious could he have been?!  Her nuzzles and licks were entirely normal for a creature like her to express fondness.  What he had done was, at best, a mildly confusing gesture that he could laugh off, if she hadn't been staring down at him in absolute shock.  She knew what that meant somehow.  A soft rumble came from her, rattling the floor beneath him.

Oh boy, now he'd really done it…

"N-Nova I..." he started to stammer out hurriedly, voice panicked and higher than it normally was, which was already pretty up there.  He had started to slowly back up from her as well, hands up placatingly.  "Look, I'm s-sorry it was just a slip of the...I wasn't thinking, honest!  I'll never do it~"

'Kenny.'  She cut him off as a tentacle slowly encircled him from behind, keeping him from continuing to move away.  Then she was leaning forward and down again.  Her eyes didn't blink, her jaws parted slowly.  Hot breath and a flash of blue muscled maw greeted his eyes.  He tried not to flinch.  She hadn't hurt him all those times before.  But he also hadn't just kissed her during those times.

On the edge of his vision, he saw a swirling cloud of celestial energy pass by the window, distorting the colors of the room and casting their features in strange, harsh shadows.  It was like an actual thunderstorm had rolled in front of their ship, dark mood-lighting now flickering across the entire area.  Every now and then, those ominous clouds would be punctuated with actual flashes of brighter color like bolts of lightning that lacked the retort of thunder behind them within the vacuum of space.  Then her tentacle tightened around him more, locking him in place and forcing his full attention back onto her.

"Nova?" he whispered up at her as she hovered over him.  His hand lifted shakily, daring to hope, to trail lightly across the line of her muzzle.  She stiffened at the touch at first, but before he could lower it, she was then shoving her furry face against his hand, making him rub back and over her jaw.  Her eyes softened and began to drift closed.  She leaned in closer and he felt himself doing so too.

Her vastly larger mouth tentatively brushed his again, just as he had earlier.  She simply pressed her muzzle against him, huge head filling his field of vision, hair hanging around them both in a rainbow of hues and shades, almost dancing all on their own amidst the midnight black of her fur.  It was not just the heat of her but the pressure, light at first but growing more firm and confident the longer she remained bowed over him, staying flush with him and tickling his skin with her fuzz.  Slowly his eyes rolled up into the backs of his skull as her scent washed over him, stronger than ever before.  And it was warm, so very warm.

He felt like he was burning from the inside out, starting at his face and blazing all the way to his fingers and toes.  He was almost becoming light-headed from it at the outpouring of emotions, confusing and powerful, that swarmed into his mind.  Her species did not kiss; in her memories she had never done this with another being.  This was entirely for him.

He didn't mean to start crying and he certainly didn't mean to startle her with it to the point that she finally pulled back to see why he was suddenly shuddering against her and making those pathetic gasps for air.  His cheeks were wet and he looked quickly away from her, utterly mortified.  He wanted to apologize but he was too afraid to.  That had been the single most beautiful moment in his life, and he had ruined it by being…him.

Her paw brushed the underside of his chin and she forced him to look up at her.  To his utter shock, Nova did not look upset, or angry, or disgusted, or even amused.  Her eyes blinked slowly down at him over and over, pupils wide and dark beneath the blue over-glow.  She leaned down again, smiling, eager to continue where they had left off.  He couldn't believe how beautiful she was, to be willing to share her closed-off heart with as pathetic, as inconsequential a being as he was.  He was nothing compared to her, but she saw him as something, more than something.  She saw him as everything.

Another lightning flash right in front of the viewing window made them both jump, briefly illuminating the entire hangar bay.  Nova looked up at it in confusion, which slowly gave way to alarm.  Then to terror.  Her pupils became such sharp lines of black that they looked like they could cut.  Her paws and tentacles fanned out and she looked down at Kenny only once.  Her voice blazed into his brain like an actual hammer blow.

'Kenny.  Pod.  Now.'

He did as she said, confused and bewildered by the sudden change of mood.  As he climbed in, barely missing the reclosing door and the liquid gel began to pool in the bottom, he looked out of the see-through panel.  Nova had since flashed back up and out of the hangar, disappearing into the other parts of the ship.  He heard the engines already roaring to life, the hull shuddering around him.

Just before they flashed away into the opening pocket of slipspace, he looked out the window right as the ship performed a rapid, 90-degree turn.  He saw the cloud, lightning flashing within those dark roiling swirls of cosmic energy.  They had just started to part.  Lights poured out from within, reds and purples and pinks.

The bladed prow of a ship, shaped much like theirs was, began to emerge.  Only this ship was nowhere near the size of their stealth warship.  Compared to Nova's vast size, theirs was closer to along the lines of a private jet, spacious but made for a limited number of passengers.  The vessel outside was monstrous, the equivalent of an aircraft carrier in comparison to the occupants it transported and the armaments it openly touted.  Dozens of glowing ports opened along just the single section that was visible.  A mental image hammered again into his mind even as his eyes drifted closed from the effects of the gel, lulling him unwillingly into sleep.  He saw that memory again.

A single, icy-blue eye glared out from beneath a hooded helmet.  A single clawed, six-fingered paw was reaching out to grasp at them, at the precious cargo floating in similar tubes to his own.  He saw a broken, shattered world, torn apart by the greed of a single being.  Endless lives of countlessly complex song, color, and life, snuffed out in an instant.

Again, unbidden, Kenny fell into memory that were not even his, left over by his connection to Nova.  He saw the King standing at the edge of a launch platform as the ship he, Nova, was on took off.  The ground shattered and cracked even as he stood there, watching the vessel lift into the air, engines powering up to full strength.  Tears stained his fur, Nova's fur.  The Children had already been sent away.  Now it was her turn, leaving behind her homeworld to the ravages of a tyrant, a usurper, and a demon.  The King, the Cubs’ Father, only smiled.  She would be safe.  That was all that mattered.  Then he turned to face a massive, glowing shadow slowly approaching him, outlined by purple and ice-blue stripes.

The Father roared silently outside the ship as it rapidly climbed, his shape growing distant and small as he rushed at the monstrous, multi-limbed shape.  He bore two brightly-shining bladed arms as he closed with his enemy.  He was a Warrior King, taller than even Nova.  He would not flee, even from a foe that towered over even him.  His family was safe, and that was all that mattered.

They were gone before he could see what happened.  But he felt it.  He felt the song end, the connection of heart, mind, and soul become severed.  The planet fell away, its surface as dark as polished glass that no light shone from or upon, before it fractured, shattered, broke apart.  The slipspace pocket opened, swallowing the warship.  It was not fast enough to avoid seeing Nova's homeworld explode into pieces that became as cosmic dust.  Only the darkness of space remained.  A massive shape hovered where it had been.  The same ship.  The enemy's ship.

Nova's Father's ship.  They were being hunted, and the Three Heirs were the target.

Kenny had never had a nightmare in the gel before.  But some things, some emotions, were stronger than even all the science in the universe.