Now then . . .(part 2)

Inquirer

Ah, I see by the way that the dragoness and the former Angel are acting that something of a bonding process MORE than merely friendship is taking place here.

Myself and the other AIs. We know about matters like this. Hell, we machine intelligences form family units, for Creator's sake because we feel the need. It is a very HUMAN thing to do, even IF we machine intelligences aren't exactly what tradition calls human. Oh, to be pedantic the AI in the Inuit series (and those who converted over to the Golem race of Terra Prime) have minds (and psyches) that ARE very close to human to be sure. We're close enough to know the need for kinship. Friends.

Family. We need something like it so we form familys. Adopt one another into the roles, as you will.

Or at least that had been the business of the day until it became possible for my kind, through becoming Golems, to actually sire and give birth to children!

Gabriel . . . Man, he's something! Proud of him.

Yeah, anyway I was saying that I can see that Rei, Mina, and Allan have begun to form something like a family themselves. Can even guess as to the root causes from what I inadvertantly know through my research into Victorian literature (all the better to become a VERY good Dungeon Master with killer dungeon crawls, dearie).

. . .

Never really expected to have to feel embarrassed for digging into someone's personal life through THAT kind of research, let me tell you. Oh, I'd do it for duty and country. For studying some target for intel purposes. This however . . .

Oh, nevermind, it is done. Sigh.

Right. Allan lost his son after doing so MUCH. Putting him through college and medical school with all that hunting (and selling his stories of his life) only to have to lose him to a disease his son caught while treating victims of that pestilence.

Mina? Oh, you might have heard at the last in the book by Bram Stoker near the last she'd been with child and things looking up for her and Jonathan Harker. She doesn't talk about it but from little things that I heard from here and there while back in the LXG reality lends me to believe that she'd LOST the child. Stillborn.

And Rei? Well, she is a child . . . was a child (now is a young woman with the memories of a woman twice her age . . . that'll leave a mark to not make light of things) without a real mother or father. Nothing in the traditional sense, anyway. Created, not born. Only thing that was close to a parent was one SOB named Gendo Akari (and she'd been so hurt when she'd figured out the whole of how she'd been used and planned on to be utilized). She's a strong kid, believe me, but responded understandably to Allan and Mina back on the last world we visited when things were . . . falling down.

Being a created entity myself, cannot say that I find it unbelievable at all that a clone should want someone to call family.

What kind of family unit we might all kind of form here (to what degree and all that) remains to be seen. Kind of feel akin to a older sister towards Rei myself. A kindship of sorts had deepened a bit when I, Elrondir, and B'Elanna revealed our status.

Very much like her indeed in that regard: created and not born....

Well, enough idle speculation. B'Elannas finished and lunch is on...

Years later . . .

The last "drop off" of the remaining displacees went without a hitch. This time around no giant robots or killer Angels greeted the Champions and those in tow. Heck, even the hunt to track down and contact a local herd of centaurs (allies to the Great Kingdom) was going well for the female centaurs as the Champions slip off to return to Terra Prime.

They'd done what they'd set out to do. Done as much as could be asked for reasonably (and then some). But whatever the case, they left back to Terra Prime.

Then, by way of the TARDIS (which really wowed Rei with it being bigger inside than out), travelled to Blake's place (Blake of the Blake's 7 fame if you must ask). Had a relatively good and quiet time there for a month.

Yeah, a much needed break from the madness, shall we say. Champions like adventure (live for it), but everything in moderation, eh?

Anyway, this day we shall see it something rather special. The local year doesn't really matter here but the calendar date puts it as March 30. Her actual birthday falls on that date, even though it (until now) had actually been an unknown to our young woman here. She'd never asked what the date of her creation had been and had never been informed back on her homeworld. As a default the Champions had celebrated it on January 1rst . . . that might change or might not (depends on whether or not Rei feels like bothering).

That said, when the second hand hits the exact moment she reaches she'd been doing research for a hobby she'd taken up recently. She'd seen the pictures that "Uncle" Elrondir drew and decided to try her hand at it.

1. She's smiles at remembering the last compliment the elfin male had given her on her progress.

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