| abstract
| - Landing Pad - New Alhira - Demaria - A large area of ground has been flattened out and filled with thickly poured ferrocrete; yellow lines and blinking lights mark off landing pads, taxi lanes, and runways. A large building that serves as the small spaceport's terminal sits at the edge of the area, opposite the tall flight traffic control tower. Service crews stand by to help people through the decontamination corridor. To the west, far past the outskirts of the spaceport, lies the blunt Stubtooth Mountains. Silvereye stands outside the militia hangar, look at the contents of the screen on his datapad with a neutral expression. Lightpaw comes padding into the landing field, a rather offended-looking lizard being dragged along behind her on a leash. It's a rather brilliant shade of purple, and about the size of a small cat, and the collar and leash are a brilliant pink studded with rhinestones. She makes her way right over to the Battleclaw, and stares him up and down. "Why," Inquires the little Demarian, "Haven't you taught me how to shoot people yet?" Silvereye keeps looking at his datapadd as if he thinks the kit is talking to someone else. He flicks his tail in minor annoyance until some memory seems to be triggered in his head. The Battleclaw blinks, looking around his datapadd and down at Lightpaw. "You've got to be kidding." "You promised me you would teach me how to shoot people, I remember. Maybe because you're old you can't remember things anymore." Lightpaw suggests charitably, with the long-suffering expression of a youngster used to dealing with the failings of the aged. "This is my lizard Stupidhead. Do you like him?" Silvereye snorts lightly, dropping his datapadd to his side. "I'm not old." He protests weakly with the force of someone who has realized that, yes, he is getting older. Nevertheless the Battleclaw examines the lizards. "He looks alright to me." The Demarian replies with a shrug. "But why did you name him Stupidhead?" "Because he's stupid." Lightpaw replies sensibly. "But you're changing the subject. Can I shoot someone now?" She gives the lizard's leash a tug, and it hisses weakly, rather resigned to its fate by now. "Can I have your gun?" Then, as an afterthought, "Please." Silvereye shrugs his shoulders, holding up his palms as if to apologize for something. Then he pulls his jacket open, letting Lightpaw see that he's not wearing a weapon. "Sorry. I don't carry a gun with me, so, I can't really let you shoot anyone with it." "You're not a very good Battleclaw if you don't have a gun to shoot people." Lite says with a long-suffering sigh. "Do you...have a stun gun?" She perks up hopefully, tail twitching. "Or maybe a big knife? It would be okay for -now- if you just had a knife. Though I don't want to stab someone and then they bleed on my dress." Silvereye shakes his head. "Sorry. I don't have any of those." He concedes with a slight shrug. "I work with the stuff in there." He gestures towards the militia hangar with his thumb. "And, no, you can't work with any of that either. Maybe in a few years." "I'm plenty old." Lightpaw says with a small frown, stomping a foot. "I'm...almost eighteen." She says this with authority, though even a cursory glace would show that she's far, far from it. "But I don't need your stupid guns anyway, I have lots of guns at home. I bet they're better than your stupid guns anyway." Silvereye quirks a brow in amusement, his tail swishing lightly. "Really? Why don't you get someone there to teach you how to shoot if your guns are so good?" He doesn't take any challenge in her words serious, evidenced by the light grin on his features. "Then you can come to my militia and show us how it's done." "Maybe I will! Maybe I should be the Battleclaw. I bet I could do a better job, you don't even have a gun!" The Demarian kit says excitedly, apparently entranced by the idea. "Battleclaw Lightpaw! Uh huh, I bet I could do it good." Silvereye actually laughs a little bit at the kit's suggestions and her portrayal of herself. "You have your priorities screwed up, kit." The Battleclaw replies. "You don't want my job. The want the job I had. Then you get to carry a gun. I like you, come back in a few years and we'll see what we can do for you." "Uncle says I have responsibilities..." She draws out that last word like a curse, looking disgusted. "That I gotta learn mathematics and stupid stuff like that because one day he'll make me take over. I don't want to. He's a stupid moneylover anyway, he won't wanna give it up. I wanna be in the militia and shoot people!" Silvereye hmm, his expression settling to a more neutral bent. "I haven't shot that many people." The Battleclaw confesses. "That's not really what we're about. I mean, we *do* shoot people but we don't shoot them just to shoot them. That's why I think you've got to be a little older. But you tell your Uncle to let you do more stuff. I never learned a lot of that stuff either." "He doesn't listen. He just nods and says 'uh huh' and ignores me." By this point, the lizard has fallen asleep. Some of the purple is starting to fade, it seems he was coloured, most likely with a child's drawing markers. "He's a Stupidhead. He just gives me a nanny so he doesn't have to pay attention to me. Can I come live with the Militia?" Silvereye holds up his hands in another 'nothing I can do' gesture. "I don't know if that'd be a good idea, I mean, you said you had better guns than we did so what if your Uncle comes after us? I want to help you, but, I've got a militia to look after. We're still a little small to have a real academy anyway." "I don't really have better guns. I was lying." The kit says with a hint of asperity, as if that should be obvious. "Duh. Fine, if you don't like me, then I'll just run away. Again." She tugs on the lizard, dragging it a few inches. "I'm going to run away to...to Sivad, and then I'm going to go live with the Queen and then you'll be sorry." Silvereye makes a slight face. "Have you ever been to Sivad?" The Battleclaw asks. "You can't have been, or else you wouldn't run away there. Nah, you want something else." "I have too been to Sivad! I've been everywhere EVER, even to Centauri and Tomin Kora and Castori and...and all kinds of places." The kit seems a bit agitated, tail-tip twitching. "I run away all the time, anyway, you can't stop me..." Silvereye nods. "Sure I can. I'm not gonna let a kit run away to Sivad. Altheor knows what the Sivadians would think of that. They have a weird view of Demarians." He pauses, "Besides. You can't pay for a shuttle trip." "Yah huh, I got lots of money, and I've done it before." Lightpaw says belligerently, jutting out her chin, ears going flat. "You can't stop me, you're mean anyway. Maybe I'll go to New Luna again an' get another ferretmonkey." "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can stop you. I can't just let a kit run away even if her Uncle is some stuck up noble." Silvereye replies. "And watch out...I heard it's some weird psionic snake spawning season over there...I'm not kidding." "Maybe I'll catch one then. I don't have a psionic snake." Lightpaw says thoughtfully, canting her head to the side. "Do they sell them, or do I gotta pay a person to catch me one?" Silvereye shakes his head. "These are the kind of psionic snakes that eat you." The Battleclaw replies. "You sure you don't want to be a biologist or something." "I dunno. I just like animals a lot. I have fifty six pets, you know." Lightpaw says, her uncertainty obvious. "That's a lot. Even though most of them are pretty boring. I got a big new cage thing for my ferretmonkeys, I have six of them." Silvereye nods. "So, why not spend more time with them?" The Battleclaw asks. "You could study 'em, draw pictures, even try to train a few of 'em to do what you want 'em to. Sounds like a waste if all you do is just look at your pets." "Cause I like to c'llect them." Lightpaw responds, as if that should be quite obvious. "I want to have lots and lots of different kinds. I want to catch a Castori next. They're cute, I bet they would make real good pets." Silvereye blinks. "No. Castori are sentient, you can't have a Castori pet." He replies a little firmly. "You can have a Castori friend but you can't have them as pets. It's not right." "What if they -wanna- be?" She replies skeptically, hands on her hips. The lizard gives a protesting hiss as it's roused slightly by the leash jerking. "I bet I could find a Castori that wants to come live with me and get good food and not have to do anything." Silvereye looks at Lightpaw equally skeptically. "Do you think you could find a Demarian who wouldn't want to be free?" He asks a little more seriously. "Castori are people, I'm sure you'd find one that would like to be taken care of but they've got their own hopes and dreams too, what if they want to leave?" "I will make them sign a c'ntract. Those are legal, aren't they?" She inquires, tail twitching again. "If they sign it, then they can't run away otherwise you have to get them and bring them back cause you're the Battleclaw and it would be breaking the law." Silvereye shakes his head. "It doesn't work that one. There are some rights you can't sign away. And even if you could, I wouldn't enforce that law." The Battleclaw replies with something of a smirk. "Sorry, it's not gonna fly when you've got an Underclasser running the militia." "There's no more class anymore except in people's heads." Lightpaw says firmly. "That's what uncle says, he says just cause someone is born with a name doesn't mean anything anymore, which is why I gotta find my own name when I'm big enough." She gives a little sigh. "That's why I gotta take care of the money and stuff when I get bigger, because it's my responsibility, an' he says it's not a right, it's a priv'lege, an I gotta earn it." This is rattled off easily, as if it's something she's heard many times before. Silvereye hmms, crossing his arms as he listens to what the kit has to say. "I might've pegged your Uncle wrong, then." The Battleclaw replies. "He sounds alright. Now I'm really not gonna let you run away." "He makes me learn numbers." Lightpaw says airily, waving her free paw. "So he's mean. I would rather shoot things and dance and find animals. He never has time for me 'cept to lecture me." The kit reaches up and scratches at her nose contemplatively. "I don't think he likes me very much. Nanny says to the cleaning lady that he just doesn't know what to do with me, and that he should be finding a female. I don't know why anyone would want him anyway, all he thinks about is money." "That's now what it sounded like earlier." Silvereye replies. "Anyone who thinks that their fortune is a privilege and not a right is worryin' about something else. Maybe you should try and get to know him better? It sounds like you're just different people. Ever tried to show him some of your pets? Not all at once, of course, that'd be a mess." "He's always working." Lightpaw replies a bit forlornly, though to moment of weakness is just that, a moment. "I take good care of myself. I go places all by myself, even if I'm not technically s'posta, I don't get hurt." A sigh, and the lizard is tugged. "But I should go otherwise I don't get dessert for not doing my numbers work." Silvereye nods slowly, listening with a bit of a grin to what the kit has to say. "Alright. I don't wanna make you miss dessert or anything like that. That'd be wrong." His grin widens a little bit. "Tell your Uncle that I said hello. And if you've really got an interest in the militia we could set something up." "Kay." Comes the response, and the elderly lizard is dragged along behind the Demarian kit as she heads back towards the city.
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