Family from Beyond the Stars, Ch. 14 (Patreon)

CH. 14Our Song

Kenny's return and reuniting with the cubs was a joyous ordeal that lasted for almost three entire cycles.  Nova smiled to herself as she watched their children wrestle one another for the opportunity to snuggle up against and around their father.  Games were seldom played, for what was more important to their brood was to bask in being together again, a Family whole once more.

At first, it had been nonstop purring and rubbing up against any spare inch of Kenny that they could reach or manage.  After that it had devolved into minor spats over who got to give him a hug or get scratches from him, all of which quickly were resolved in the interest of not upsetting him.

Even so, it had taken the cubs time to get over the experience.  Every time they awoke from their pods, they would rush over to him and the process would start all over again.  Sniffles and mewls would eventually brighten back up again, but Nova couldn't blame them for it at all.  Trauma hit her species differently, harsh emotional damage etched into their minds more vividly than a physical scar ever could.  It was going to take the cubs time to get over waking up and not seeing Kenny there, over fearing he would be gone forever.

She didn't begrudge them of it, but she also couldn't lie to herself, however, that it was easy to not feel jealous.  Her own reuniting with her little Earthling had healed many wrongs and hurts in her mind, but, much like with the stem-vials, she knew that she could easily get addicted to their now nightly activities, if she wasn't already.  It wasn't even just the pleasurable sensations, or how he would cuddle into her afterward, trembling but glowing with joy.  There was a literal light to him now.

Kenny had offered to explain it to her, but she did not need him to nor would she ask him for such.  She had revisited those dark caverns of ice and lacquer within his memories several times, so as to save him having to relive them by recounting vocally the horrors he experienced.  There, in those dark, polished, chilled tunnels, she saw Kenny find and speak to the 'ghost' of her old mate.  She listened to them speak, looking into Brighten's eyes as he consoled Kenny, gave him the courage to never give up, and to do everything he could to come back.  To her.

She watched as Phoebe and Chandler patiently waited for their turn to get yet another hug from Kenny.  He was currently stroking Joey's throat ruff and his ears with a hand apiece, the large male draping his head up over his Daddy's shoulder and purring there.

The cubs were maturing rapidly.  Joey was easily as tall as Kenny now while they were both sitting, and bulkier across the shoulders than Kenny by half.   Chandler remained slimmer of build but he could wind his entire, lengthy, whipcord body around his Daddy, almost twice, if he wanted to.  Phoebe meanwhile was no taller than her siblings but her musculature was beginning to fill in more heavily; she would be a warrior like Nova, like her father had been.  Her brothers displayed signs already of an awareness of technology, one for tinkering and the other for handling the controls in the cockpit.  Their species all possessed skills in such areas, but specialists would far exceed these talents over time.

Kenny looked over at that exact moment and met her eyes.  Blue stared into blue, the glow within either redoubling as they shared a hidden smile.  Memories of the last few days came racing through her mind, shared by her empathic sensor.  It wasn't the carnal details though but instead the surges of adoration and affection with every touch they shared.  His smile grew, soft and shy, before he looked her up and down once then away.  His handsome face creased and flushed a tiny bit more red and his eyes looked a bit watery for a second before he buried himself into their son's fluffy shoulder.  Joey purred louder in response.

Nova looked away too, unable to keep the tiny spark inside of her from flaring up a bit more.  Ever since their first night together, it had refused to go away or die down entirely.  Even with Brighten it had never felt this way, like a shard of a star burning inside of her heart whenever she looked or thought about her little Mate.

At times, she felt almost guilty for it.  Loving Brighten had not been like loving Kenny was.  Her first Mate had instilled a respect and yearning to make her own place in a new world, perhaps some left over desire for glory or acceptance amongst a people she had always felt apart from.

But with Kenny, it was something very different.  She couldn't explain it, occasionally leaving her laying wide awake during the rest cycle, Kenny snuggled into her arms as she watched him sleep.  Perhaps that was the entire reason why.  There were no words that truly encapsulated the level of feelings she had for him, growing every day it seemed.  She knew no words that could convey them.  Even so, he seemed to understand.

"I love you, Nova," he had said more than once.  Love.  It was a thing, a word, a feeling, and none of it she could easily grasp or understand, even if it was so easy to say in return and know how good it felt to do so.  Love on her home planet had been an unspoken thing, a knowledge of intimacy and closeness.  It was shared during the link, consciousnesses melding for mating or more.  But when she linked up with Kenny, it was not quite the same.

He had given her a name, something she had never realized would mean so much, since it contained within it all his feelings toward her.  She wanted to give him something in return, even if none of it would ever be enough to repay him.  She would simply have to find a lifetime's worth of such things to give back to this small, tiny little thing, this Earthling, that had given her a name, her family, and her Light back.

A memory, shared between them during one of their now many instances of the meld, flashed through her mind then.  She saw Kenny as a child, ultimately the most adorable and fragile thing she had ever imagined, looking up at the stars from his bedroom window.  She saw a faded image of a man and a woman standing beside him as they had just finished reading a story to him.  An odd concept.

"I want to go up there someday," young Kenny said.  "Up where the stars are."

His parents shared a look between them.  Neither wanted to crush his spirits but they didn't believe it would ever be possible.  Nova saw the way they lived.  It made no sense why anyone would be forced to live in poverty, a completely unknown word to her kind, while others lived in opulence and were allowed more freedoms and liberties but seemed not to treasure them as much.

She growled softly to herself as that starry-eyed Kenny had grown up; jaded, beaten down, scarred, hurting deeply at all times.  But he never lost the brightness in his eyes, the gleam of wanting more but giving of himself first to everyone.  She saw so much of her old Mate in him and new light as well.

She hated his planet, his people, the Humans that had ever treated her Kenny that way.  Cruelty for the sake of being cruel, a predatory planet even more savage than the one she came from.  The one called ‘Derrick’ especially caused her hackles to quiver in suppressed rage.  She had half a mind to return to Kenny’s ‘Earth’ just to pay this Derrick a visit…but Kenny also had a knack for sensing her surface-level emotions and intentions, and invariably soothed her anger back to calm.

“He’s not worth it,” Kenny would say, stroking her fur lovingly.  “And…in a way…I’m grateful to him.”  At her perplexed, incredulous look down at her little mate, he had chuckled.  “If he hadn’t ratted me out, then maybe none of this would have happened.  Or maybe it would and you would have destroyed my apartment trying to get the cubs.  I’d hate to have caused my landlord that kind of trouble.”

Kindness.  She would as ever be amazed by how much of it radiated from Kenny.  He had known so little of it himself and yet never failed to always try and put it back out into the world as if to make up for the deficiency in his environment.  Few ever returned his earnest feelings and hopes.

She saw the faces of a man, a woman, a tiny newborn child, prevalent in Kenny’s happier memories.  She saw the struggles of Kenny’s first mate, their daughter’s namesake, as she grew sick and eventually passed on.  And still, Kenny did not lose his light, for no matter how dark the world around him became, there was always some comfort for him in the stars.

Her eyes, through Kenny's, gazed back up at the swirling night sky, at the millions of twinkling dots of light so far away.  Up and away from a world that showed him so little affection.  But no matter how cruel, how indifferent, how alone he was over the years, he could always look at the stars.

Even in his wildest dreams, could he ever have imagined that he would not only finally find acceptance here, but a family?  Perhaps not.  But Nova was convinced that she would never let him go another day not knowing exactly how much they loved him.  No one would ever hurt him the way he had been again.

Her Kenny.  Her brave, kind, wonderful Kenny.

Nova's mind returned to the present and she saw that the cubs were finally giving their Daddy a moment's peace.  It seemed they had all gotten in their quota for snuggles today.  Phoebe and Joey wrestled while, to Nova's surprise, Kenny and Chandler were sitting in front of the pods.  Chandler was using his paws to expertly tap and cycle through various panel screens of text and displays.

Silently, Nova stalked over to loom above the two of them.

"Wow, Chandler!" Kenny said with a touch of awe in his voice.  "How did you figure out how to do all of this?"

Chander preened himself smugly, lifting up onto his hindpaws and now using his upper arms to display his tech-savvy even more.  Planets belonging to their current star system, all of varying size, color, and shape swiveled across the screen.

Kenny was enthralled as their son showed him a massive gas giant, currently floating outside the bay window, whose swirling clouds contained an ever-cycling torrent of acidic rain and electrostatic activity.  These would occasionally spout off in huge geysers as the pressure built up too high, up and away from the planet and forming cyclones of circular energy around the planet before dissipating.  These particulates would harden immediately and fall back down into the clouds they had come from.

"That is incredible," breathed Kenny.  Noticing Nova above and behind them, he looked up at her.  His eyes, bright blue and iridescent, shone with eagerness.  "Have you seen how good he is at this?  Chandler could be a scientist or an astronaut!" he praised vocally.

Again, their son preened himself, spiky mane ruffling and making small metallic rings as the hardened tips clicked against one another.  Tiny arcs of electricity flickered across his bright-red mane, thus illuminating the color of his golden-metallic coat more.

Nova grinned, nodding once.  Leaning down, she gave Chandler a fond lick on the top of his head, producing a yowl from him as he tried to mask his obvious enjoyment of her similar praise.  A mental spark jumped between the two of them as their eyes met.  Chandler took the hint to go play with his siblings for a bit, leaving her and Kenny with a moment of privacy.

Looking up as Chandler raced off, Kenny at first looked confused before he glanced at her once again.  Immediately his eyes went wide as she plucked him up with a tentacle and curled up around him, rubbing her jaw against his face several times.  His voice broke in a heavy chuckle, arms automatically wrapping around her and nuzzling right back.

"Hey..." he murmured, voice dropping to a low soft cadence.  He inhaled deeply of her scent and she purred hard around him.  "You okay?"

'Better now.'  She rumbled against her Mate and licked his face several times.  Their eyes met and she thumped her large head down against his, enjoying the pressure, the warmth, and the feeling of his mind practically melding with hers even without forming the link.  It was a gentle exchange of intimacy and he always seemed to enjoy it.  'Nova needs Kenny time too.'

"I'll always have time for you," he assured her.  "Don't go getting jealous of our kids now."  He chuckled teasingly and their eyes opened at the same time to stare at each other.  His expression softened again, laughter dropping away.  He saw her hidden thoughts twinkling there behind her orbs and her small smile.  "Hey now, I know that look.  What evil plans are you formulating?"

She grinned wider.  There truly were no secrets any longer between them any more.  He seemed to revel in the openness.  'Is Kenny happy?' she asked.

His brow furrowed slightly.  "I'm happier than I ever would have believed I could have been."  His little hand lifted and stroked along her cheek.  Her eyes fluttered and she growled at the touch, so soft and warm.  "I...thought of a song," he whispered then, getting her attention after several long seconds of him just gently stroking and petting her cheek.  "I...don't want to sound corny or anything but it could be... ours?"

Nova cocked her head slightly to the side.  'Ours?' she queried in echo.

Kenny flushed.  "On...on Earth, there is this...super cheesy ritual where when two people love one another, they sometimes have a song that...always makes them think of one another, of things they've gone through.  To me, that's what songs are, capturing moments in time and giving them a beat, a rhythm, like coloring a memory.  So when you think back to those moments, you hear that song, see that person."  He looked away.  "It's silly."

She growled, cutting him off before he defeated himself once again.  She hated how often he did that in the past.  He had so much to share with the world but devalued everything he had to offer, assuming, correctly in his eyes, that nobody else around him would want to listen.  She wanted to listen.  'Show Nova our song.'  She emphasized the signature word.  'Nova may  have one for Kenny too.'

Kenny's eyes shot open wide and he beamed all the more.  "R-really?" he asked, hesitant but hopeful.  She blinked once.  With her permission, he reached into her mind with his and accessed the 'library' of songs she had stored within from his phone.  He found what he was looking for and her inner display lit up in one eye as the music began to play.  She recognized it immediately.  A good choice... a perfect choice.

Automatically, soft low tones rang throughout the hangar.  The cubs paused in their play, looking around to see their parents snuggling in tighter together to listen.  The words made less sense to the three children but they wisely just let their Daddy and Mother have that moment, just the two of them.  Chandler feigned being sick at their adorable display but was quickly hushed, via being sat upon, by Joey.  Phoebe looked on joyously.  She only hoped to find a man like Daddy someday for herself.

Kenny sang along to the words as the song truly started going.  He looked up into Nova's eyes as he did, meaning every single one of them.  Within his eyes, his mind, he opened up to her completely and her tentacle, on queue, brushed his throat.  Instantly her vision fell away, as did his.  They went beyond memory, to a dark place of pure thought and imagination.  Colors, images, thoughts, and feelings raced around them in shrouds as they came and went.  The link.

She and Kenny looked at one another across that dark expanse.  They were close to the same height now, and yet not, made possible by the mental landscape.  They crossed to one another, all sounds in that place composed of the notes of the song.  Each lyric echoed around and within them, a hidden concert for two.  She looked within him and saw the music echoing to solitary moments of his life.

Shunned by society, looked down upon, bullied and hated for no reason other than he was somehow undesirable by their foolish and petty standards, she witnessed his suffering and the scars it had left behind.  Even now, those scars were slow to heal.  Those people had not seen the unrequited love burning, yearning, inside his chest, the hurts he felt but never voiced, the joys he refused himself for the sake of giving them unto others.

What friends he had, true friends, he never tried to bother as much as he could have, worried that his mere presence upset or angered them for having to intrude on their lives.  She saw a cruel man spout vile, hateful things to him that had taken her Kenny a long time, even now, to truly overcome and see for the lies that they were.  She also saw real friends, the man named Austin and his mate, their child who Kenny used as a screensaver for his phone.  He had never met her but his love for that little pink bundle was obvious.  His was a golden heart.

But with her, when Kenny looked at Nova, even from the very first time, when she had no longer been trying to space him or kill him through negligence, she knew that he saw her as something truly beautiful.  He respected her, idolized her, adored and worshiped her even when she had no time or patience for him.  That had been his lot in life and he had accepted it, if only to be a part of her and the cubs' lives.  Her guilt over that washed between them before he seemingly brushed it away, enveloping her once again in his unending love for her.

Their song continued to play.  Kenny sang the words of the refrain directly to her as if they truly were his own thoughts.  For they were.  He would cross the vastness of space for her, would brave any dangers, if only to see her smile again.  He could not fathom, however, that it wasn't any grand gesture that made her so happy, no sweeping declaration or heroic action that had healed her pains.  She would show him the truth.

Instruments played as their mental projections became as comets of pure starlight, blazing with individual and unique colors all their own.  They blazed away into the dark void of their shared mental landscape, darting around the shapes of planets, careening around glittering stars, appearing, disappearing, and reappearing where they wished in a dance that pounded to the beat of their song.

They came to rest again as the music died down slightly, paws and feet flat on the featureless black floor.  This time, Nova sang the words to him, even if she had no idea how to say them other than how they sounded.  She knew what they meant, and that was all that mattered.

Through her eyes, Kenny saw everything she felt and experienced when she had been forced to leave him behind on that frozen planetoid.  Her raging emotions were all there; her fear, anger, sorrow, he saw it all, felt them all as vividly and for the exact reason she had.  She had once again been forced to leave behind the man she loved.  His regret and guilt was obvious for making her experience that again but she touched his spiritual cheek, lifting his eyes again as she continued to convey the message of the song to him.

He watched, further, as she dropped back down to the doomed planet to find him despite the dangers she faced doing so.  He watched her hunt through those frozen caverns and tunnels, her only goal to find him again and bring him back to their family.  She washed away his terrors and nightmares that he still struggled to overcome every time they threatened to overwhelm him.  He was safe.  He was hers.

She would never let him go again.

The months she spent in space, hunting and searching for her children, finding them again on Earth, meeting him and slowly learning to trust and open her heart again, even to such an unusual and tiny creature as he was; all of it they saw together and witnessed the significance of it all.  Before, apart, they had suffered and lost.  Together, they would find a new future.

Again they danced among the stars and colors, chasing one another's comet tails, racing back and forth, separating for moments before rejoining.  They embraced, paws and arms wrapping around one another as they spun slowly together in place, drifting there in weightlessness.  The song ended and they drifted back, out of their shared mind, and into their own bodies again.

Their eyes opened at once and Nova had to blink away several tears.  Wordlessly, she crushed Kenny against her furry chest, holding his small body tightly.  He returned the embrace wholeheartedly.  For a moment, all around them were soft sighs, small shivers, and warmth.  They broke apart eventually and met one another's gaze.

Both shone all the brighter now as they crossed that final threshold.  No more secrets, no more hidden pain or unnecessary suffering.  Whatever would come at them, they would face together.

'It is a good song,' Nova rumbled down at him.  She licked his face before she aligned her jaw with his and they shared an actual kiss, soft and tender.  'Our Song.'

Kenny stroked her jaw and hair as they leaned back once again.  "Can I ask...what other song you had in mind too?"  His voice was emotional and hopeful, not eager to end this little cuddle session and exchange of emotions.

She smiled.  'Not here.  Nova has a surprise for Kenny.'  She slid him off her lap, having nestled him firmly into it, and then plucked him up by the back of his livesuit, having since repaired the damage done to the augments.  She looked back at their quizzical cubs and gave a rumble, jerking her ears and head to the side.  They rose and followed after her.

Kenny swung easily in her teeth, no longer bothered much when she did this, but when she crossed over the threshold of the hangar bay, he noticeably balked.  "Where are we going?" he queried up at her.  She rumbled down at him teasingly and he huffed.  "The cubs are coming too?"  She rumbled again.  "Oh, okay!"  He called then to the trio of them as they lingered uncertainly at the entrance to the hall.  "Come on guys!"

There were a few yowls and then a soft padding of multiple paws after Nova's hulking yet silent tread on the metal hallway floor.  They came to the wall leading up to the cockpit and she wordlessly began to climb.  The cubs, obviously eager to come along, were quick to follow suit.  In the last few days, she had finally allowed them to venture with her outside their living space in the hangar and up the vertically-ascending hall to where she piloted the ship.

Trials on the ice planetoid or not, Kenny had been right that they needed to finally be allowed more freedoms and to learn more about the ship that was their home.  Reservations gone, Nova had immediately begun integrating her children into the ship’s securities, where she had discovered each of their varying talents, whether it be the weapons systems of Phoebe, mechanical engineering by Joey, or learning the complex minutiae of piloting for Chandler.  There would be no more secrets in their Family.

A short time later, they arrived at the landing, the cubs not tired at all.  She deposited Kenny on his feet again before she stalked forward, rising up onto her hind paws, and entered the cockpit itself.  She heard them following suit just as she was climbing up to the pilot's chair.  The four of them watched as she strapped herself temporarily in and whirled the engines to life.  She checked on their fuel level then, glancing down at them all, grinned wider and pressed a lever.

There came a massive hissing of pneumatic pressure valves from within the walls, and the chair slowly began to descend from its mounted position, upside down, against the ceiling.  Once her ears were just barely brushing the floor of the cockpit, the walls lit up with the multiple displays as everything whirred to life, Nova locked the seat in place, disengaged the cords from her spine, and climbed back down and out of it.  The chair remained where she left it in the center of the room.

Now back on the ground, Nova reached immediately for Kenny.  He balked at first as she easily plucked him up, turning him slowly upside down and carrying him towards the seat.  When he squirmed in her grasp, she lifted him higher for a second, licked his cheek, and gave a soft growl into his ear.  'Trust Nova,' she commanded.

Kenny did as she asked, despite his nervousness, as she slid him into the seat.  "If you say so..." he muttered.  "Is it really okay for me to sit here?" he asked a second later, as if unable to resist having to confirm this.  She laughed, as did the cubs, and he relaxed somewhat.

She arranged the back of his suit's device with the cords meant to plug into them and once they had done so, a painless process that assimilated the ship's live feed into his HUD, she released her hold on him.  With him firmly anchored in place, Kenny hung there in the massively oversized seat.  His face began to rapidly become redder as he was still upside down, from the blood rushing to his head, and he looked over at her and the cubs in absolute confusion.

"So...what now?" he asked.  She gestured at the seat and he blinked.  He glanced down and warily tapped a foot panel.  The chair spun slightly in place, making him yelp and he was now hanging at an acute angle rather than straight up and down.  He fiddled with the controls, rotating and swiveling from side to side, until he was sitting right side up.  "Wow..." she heard him mutter.  "This is...different."

Nova came up alongside him then.  Her brand new, entirely mechanical tentacle, having since replaced it after having lost it in battle, plugged her own feed into the chair and together they shared an abrupt view of the ship's entire systems.  She showed him how the shifting system was accessed to switch between cannons and thrusters, how the stealth drive and the slipspace engine both worked, and how the ship cycled the necessary power through the engines.   She even had him make gentle turns and drifts from side to side using small boosters, located on all four sides of the warship.

Kenny was in awe as he looked out into the cosmos through the visor that flashed up across his eyes.  She knew that now he would be able to see exactly, with perfect detail, everything on the outside of the ship. It was a view she never tired of seeing, and she welcomed the cubs to also plug into the display and watch the bright twinkles of stars, passing comets with their tails of ice, and cosmic clouds drifted by them in the dark blackness that was the void.  They saw an asteroid field coming up and Nova touched Kenny's arm.

He seemed to take that as some sort of signal to get out of the chair and moved to do so, before she firmly pushed him back into place.  At his protest, she gave him a walkthrough of how to use all four-dimensional gyroscopic engines, locking them into thruster form.  He didn't need the added stress of having to learn how to fire the main guns, for now anyway.

"Nova, are you sure you wouldn't rather steer us?" he asked, obviously still nervous.  She licked his cheek and he seemed mollified.  "W-well...okay then."  He gave the forward engine a boost and they shot forward a bit toward the incoming asteroids.  Nova guided him through each transference of attention and steering as they skirted around the first of the belt's slowly spinning rocks, easily bigger than their vessel.

Even despite her complete trust in Kenny, Nova could not resist a small thrill of trepidation as they just barely lifted over the rim of that rotating sphere of super-hardened ice and stone.  The bottom almost grazed the surface before they lifted up and away from it at a rather clever use of the lower boosters.  She nuzzled Kenny's cheek again.

He let out a shaky breath.  "Okay..." he panted.  His hands shook on the controls.  His eyes scanned the list of available functions and reached up with one hand to toggle another switch, having noticed that, from the booster's use, they were beginning to drift off center to one side.  The problem was that he couldn't reach unless he let go of other controls he had hold of.  He glanced up at his hand and sighed.  "Uhh...little problem Nova," he observed.

She saw the issue as well:  Kenny didn't have the necessary number of limbs to properly pilot their vessel.  Driving it was one thing, but this ship was built for her kind, with their multiple arms and various extraneous limbs, to operate all the functions needed.

'Kenny is still doing well,' she encouraged him.  The cubs all yowled in agreement.  Chandler, seemingly inspired, carefully climbed up the chair, across the upraised arms, and nestled himself against his Daddy's back in the available space that Kenny’s small frame left available.  He lifted his arms and pulled the switch for his Daddy.  The engines hummed properly and their ship leveled out.

Kenny then reached for another, located near his feet, but again it remained out of reach.  Wordlessly, Phoebe and Joey took up positions in the leg rests, easily operating those switches, joysticks, and toggles for him.  The four of them took a little coordination to get it down, bumping the warship against several asteroids but doing no damage to the hull, before they managed a working, fast-paced but fluid system of exchanges.

Nova settled back to watch them as they flew their way around asteroid after asteroid, skirting between them and even darting through an opening right before it smashed closed.  The cubs all purred and growled in satisfaction.  Even Kenny seemed to be enjoying himself, visibly starting to relax.

"This is...fun!" he crowed as he took a bit riskier of a maneuver and spun the ship on its axis to avoid a trio of smaller asteroids.  They sailed easily around them.  Nova saw his face, lit up with joy.  It was like his childhood dreams were being fulfilled all at once.  She preened herself secretly, pleased at having had this idea.  "Do you mind if I...put the ship through its paces?"

She growled eagerly and hunkered down beside him.  'Take flight, my Kenny,' she rumbled into his mind and ear.

He wriggled happily and then gripped the controls with a firmer grip.  "Keep on your paws, kids!" he commanded.  They yowled eagerly and they all set their sights into their visors and the blackness ahead.  Kenny gunned the throttle and they shot forward in an instant.  They spun again and again, dipping and diving around and in-between the looming dark shapes of asteroids as big as buildings, as big as entire mountains in some cases.  Their ship blazed a humming path through the field, leaving behind a glowing after trail of golden radiance that quickly faded.

In the silence of the void of space, they danced amongst the rocky faces and bright, distant stars.  Without needed to be prompted, Nova loaded up the other song she had been thinking of since earlier, another perfectly suited song as Kenny continued his very first flight of their family vessel.

'This boy is electric...' she mouthed, wrapping her upper arms around him tight and snuggling in happily as they raced across the dark, glittering landscape of space.  It was joy and passion, life and energy, as they danced and dived, swerved and spun through the field and finally out the other side again.  They saw a swirling nebula up ahead, spinning slowly in place like an interstellar whirlpool of light and color.

Looming in front of the celestial body was an ominous cloud of crackling energy.  Lighting danced around and within it, lit from within by the flashing lights.  It was still just a cosmic storm, nowhere near big enough to actually be what she feared.  Even so, Nova's body could not help a shudder.  She had Kenny turn the ship away.  There was no fear here, only joy, and she would not let that dark shape ruin their fun.

Her father could chase them until the ends of the universe.  He would never catch them.

Nova set the ship into slipspace for them and they vanished into the sleeve of space-time.  The cubs all seemed eager to continue the flying lesson, and Kenny too.  The song blazed in their minds and hearts as she leaned her furry head against his in the pilot's chair.  He returned the gesture, sighing out in rapture as well as relief.  He seemed still worried by what they had seen, sharing in her fear for the moment, but she kissed his cheek once, distracting him.

'We are safe together,' she sent him softly.  'Listen.  This, too, is our Song.'

"Our Song," breathed Kenny.  They played the song one more time as they emerged back out of slipspace and resumed flying.  Their dance was not over yet.

Even once the cubs grew too sleepy and she carried them back down to their tubes to rest before returning to Kenny, they continued to drift in and out of slipspace, pausing to refuel and for her to instruct him more of how to pilot their ship.  There was much to teach and him an eager student.  They eventually ended the lesson hours later and returned to the safety and darkness of the sleeve, putting all possibility of another encounter with her father firmly behind them yet again.

They shared warmth and love again in their private quarters and held one another, panting and sweating, on his part, until they both fell fast asleep.  It was a simple life, and one Nova could have dwelt in forever.

Kenny, however, could not.  He would and could not allow his family to live in terror forever.  Something had to be done.  As Nova curled in around him, twitching occasionally in her sleep with a glowing soft smile on her muzzle, he curled in close against her.  He would never let her be sad or afraid again.  He closed his eyes, trying to desperately think of something, an answer to their dire predicament.

He knew what had to be done.  It would take a desperate plan but one necessary if they were ever to find peace for their family.  They could not run forever.