The promise of meeting other freed X’hondrians was more than Kir could have hoped for when they left Earth. Part of her had hoped, of course, but she was cautious not to get ahead of herself. Even now, she worried what she might actually find. She doubted it would be a trick or a trap at this point, but her mind conjured imagined scenarios that spiraled into worse and worse fictitious nightmares.

 

Lyris zipping past with a rush of wind trailing behind her helped Kir bring her focus back to what was right in front of her, what was real and in her control. She almost complained as they got to the bottom of the stairs when Harrison took his hand back. Kir swallowed it, though. It was ridiculous for her to cling to him like a security blanket. If she wanted to, she could have rendered the mind of anyone who threatened them permanently incapacitated. She didn’t [i]need[/i] protection.

 

Looking at the boots laid out for them, she watched for a moment as the others strapped themselves into theirs. They were clunky things – effective, quite likely even efficient. The blocky look was perhaps more a culturally relevant design choice rather than a matter of the technology lagging behind sleeker, more modern devices, but it didn’t stop her from having to carefully set her face into a placid expression to avoid curling her lips with displeasure. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them or found them abhorrent in any real, tangible way, but more that the idea of [i]needing[/i] such a device made her feel distant from herself. It felt like a failure, a personal betrayal of her own body. Kir hesitated for a moment before shaking herself out her head again. She couldn’t seem to stay present since arriving. Too many things were happening all at once: the terror of the forced landing, the confrontation with the Dvergr, being forced the face the toll captivity and slavery had taken on her physical body, the possibility of meet other X’hondrians who could have been in either worse or better condition and she couldn’t decide which outcome she preferred because of how she would compare it to her own.

 

Harrison jumped right in, of course. It was funny to watch him forget his own abilities. The armor could fly, but his attempted recovery made it all the more endearing. He was so excited for the experience it didn’t [i]matter[/i] that he could fly already. He wanted to experience Dvergr anti-gravity boots for himself. It was admirable - or maybe a better word was inspiring – the way everything in the wider galaxy was new and exciting to him. He was like a child experiencing the world for the first time, learning and growing, though perhaps not quite so infantile and worrisome. If anything, she felt like the child grasping at the barest shred of security.

 

As Lyris finally rejoined them, her futile search finally reminding her of X’hondrians’ capabilities, Kir found herself tipping her own head back to look up at one of the structures build into the ceiling of the cavern. It was similar to the others, but there was a clear architectural influence that was obviously not Dvergr. There was that and the pinpricks of alabaster against the dark stones like stars or angels moving around, ducking in and out of the openings.

 

That was just the motivation Kir needed.

 

Finally, hesitation became action. With a stubborn scowl, she inhaled slowly. It took concentration and far more effort than it should have, squeezing her fingers into her palm until her nails dug in painfully before her feet lifted just off the ground. Exhaling, she smiled triumphantly. It would be difficult, and she doubted she could maintain the levitation for very long, but it was something.

 

“I’m fine without the boots,” Kir announced as she swayed unsteadily above the ground.

 

If she’d considered it much longer, she would have done the polite thing and stayed with the others, but she’d waited too long already. Her wellspring of patience had finally run dry, and she darted upward. It was an unsteady flight like a child taking their first steps – thrice he nearly lost control and started to lose altitude before catching herself and sweeping back into an upward arc. As she neared the top, she caught her lip between her teeth and whistled a four-note greeting.

 

Much like Kulning, a whistle carried much farther and louder than a shout or telepathy. While X’hondrian’s had excellent night vision, even it had limits. A whistle could tell others where you were, who you were, if you were injured, or simply call children home from play. Families has a melody that was passed down generation to generation that formed a foundational part of their connection to identity from a young age.

 

The sound bounced and echoed off the cavern walls, amplifying and dissipating as the building above seemed to spit out a few dozen X’hondrians. Shouts echoed down unintelligibly, but a few whistled responses rang out as Kir tried to close the final distance between them. She could feel the last of her energy draining, but she thought she had enough to get there.

 

She didn’t, and as she started to lose altitude, she realized she couldn’t slow her descent, either. She began to panic as she felt several pairs of hands lift her back up – several of the X’hondrians having dived in to save her.

 

“You’re okay. We’ve got you,” an older woman assured as they brought her up to the edge of the building and gently planted her feet on solid ground again before the others began to crowd around to get a look at the newest X’hondrian refugee among them.  

The echo of repeated greetings and welcomes was almost overwhelmed as she looked through the crowd for any familiar faces. There were enough X’hondrians when the empire invaded that it was impossible to know everyone, but know? Who knew how many still survived? It pained her to find nothing but strangers, even though no X’hondrian was truly a stranger - just a distant friend you didn’t know well. It was a way of thinking that led to greater empathy and solidarity, but also greater collective trauma and grief. Looking past the overwhelming mass of bodies now, she searched for the familiarity of Zev, Lyris, and Harrison.