Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fire. Honor. Death.

In Valen’s name, what has he done?

Neroon slumps into the chair of the guest room he was offered in the Healing Temple of Sinuviel. Stares at the small table, carved of delicate blue crystal, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight coming through the curtains. Data crystals glitter like shards of ice in that light.

Over four years’ worth of letters lay within them. He always carries these with him. If anyone should find them…he will be dishonored. Outcasted? Perhaps—or never mind perhaps, say instead of course because every digitized document and holo-recording locked within those delicate, gleaming facets lays a brick in the road to what he has become, one more nail in the coffin, as they have so often said—and even if he is spared outcasting from the Warriors, surely he will be dishonored. Stripped, most likely, of the ranks he has fought so hard to achieve. Because of what they are to him.

Never mind that one is called to serve and serves so willingly; that one is a valiant warrior and leader, fire in her eyes and loyalty in her heart; that one is Anla’shok, devoted to the Entil'zha and to Minbar. Never mind that one is said by Valen himself, in the sacred scrolls, to be revered and honored.

They are not Minbari, any of them.

Not Minbari.

An affront to the purity of his race. He knows this.

Despicable, he thinks not for the first time, squeezing his eyes shut. Pathetic, that he still flinches from something that gives him such joy and comfort, out of fear of the reproofs of his Clan, his Caste, his people. That he should seek to hide from simple truths. That he should feel shame over those who have sacrificed so much for his world, and for his own sake. Where is his courage?

They are not Minbari. He cannot pretend otherwise. It does not matter that they have honor, courage, vision. It does not matter that they have all been shields against his grief at one time or another. 

Where is his honor? How long ago did he cast it aside?

Why did he not stop her from entering the circle?

As if I could have. The words bite like crystal-knives, thin slivers stabbing at the base of his skull. He has no image to put to the knowledge dragging cold claws across his thoughts. It all happened so fast, and he’d been nearly unconscious already from the pain.

He heard nothing but the sizzle of his own flesh; a distant cry of a woman’s despair in his own skull, echoed by something fainter, confused, a whisper of denial and grief that didn’t come from within him, and another echo, like a man’s shout and the breaking of glass; and the percussive thunder of door after door after door slamming open, the ground shuddering with it.

He felt only the sudden shock of impact against his chest, a single blow to break the shell of fiery agony screaming across his skin, the quick throb of ribs cracking like stone…

Why did you do this, little one? He lets his eyes open at last. The glint of the data crystals catches his gaze, reminds him of the countless messages, and half-promises, and violations of all that is correct recorded in their depths. Shadows and secrets and shame because half-human or no, she is not Minbari, and certainly neither are the others. I knew what I was doing. I was prepared to make the sacrifice for my people. Why did you prevent me?

Easier, to demand answers of a woman too desperately ill and injured to give them. Easier to try to stoke the embers of a pathetic rage rather than think the words clawing at his throat and prowling in his skull.

Vi drosh. I’m sorry. And by Valen, he is. So sorry for the last four years, for every cruelty he has inflicted on the four of them. For every tear he has torn from her, from them. All for his purity, for his pride, for his rank, for his standing in his Clan. For his refusal to believe that any Minbari, that all Minbari, can lie so thoroughly to themselves, to each other…

The last valsta does not, can never make up for what he has done. How he has dishonored himself again and again. Delenn was wrong to say she never questioned his loyalty. She should have. For where has his loyalty been? And where is it now, that he hides away in this room rather than be at the side of the one who risked her life for him? How is he such a coward, that he does not even contact the others?

Yet how can he even think to dishonor himself further by reaching for them? By going to her, sitting vigil at her side? The last valsta has been a dishonor, too. Shameful, perverse, obscene. The Shai’Alyt would tell him this, had the man known of it.

And he would be correct, even if he is wrong about so much else. 

Even Branmer would say it, were he still alive. Surely. And that is a wound no amount of rationalizing can heal.

So now Neroon sits, oaths and honor and duties betraying each other until all he can think of is the sounds—doors exploding open, flesh crackling like meat over a fire, a woman sobbing in denial and another gasping in desperation, a familiar shout muffled behind gritted teeth, his own voice rasping in his throat as he begs his people to stop their madness…and that moment of bone-breaking pain when something rammed into him with all the force of a Sharlin war cruiser and threw him from the blinding hot agony of the circle.

Dishonor, to go to her bedside now and wait for her to die of her inexplicable wounds. Dishonor, to stay away after all she has done, after he has made her and the others those three terrible promises that should never have passed his lips.

Three is sacred on Minbar. They are three, in their way. Three impossible triangles once woven together into one, and now they are broken apart once more.

He must send them the news of this.

He cannot bear to tell of it.

He is a coward with no honor.

Never has he been so lost as to the correct path. Is that not also shameful, that he does not know in his heart what is right to do in this moment?

Vi drosh, the words echoing in his mind. Vi’a drosh, ah’zha'aia. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my own heart.

In Valen’s name…what if she doesn’t survive this? What will happen to the other stars in his heart?

What will he do if she dies?

Chapter Text

Five standard years previous…

Amber and pearl and charcoal gray. Spirals in the sand, perfect and peaceful. They hold the gaze of Commander Jeffrey Sinclair as he sits gazing at the Japanese rock garden of Babylon 5, one of the space station’s few luxuries. Elegant curves cut into the smooth grains of sand, spiraling around the stones carefully placed in the appropriate locations. Sinclair has no clue how they decided what patterns to use, or what stones, or where to put the stones, but he finds the garden restful. He needs a little bit of restfulness before the circus of the Vorlon ambassador arriving in less than three days.

His link beeps.

So much for restful, ruefully. He taps it, tries not to sound irritated.

“Sinclair.”

“Sir, this is C and C,” Takashima’s crisp voice answers. Laurel, always in control,  always  keeping things manageable. “We’re reading a massive energy build-up in Docking Bay Seven.”

Confusion shoves the commander to his feet, propels him through the archway and down the corridor.

“What’s in Bay Seven?” Depending on the answer, they might be able to space whatever ship is building its energy before something explodes or the hull ruptures.

Are there people there or is the ship parked? Hell, he hopes there's no people. 

“It’s the World-Walker Gate, sir.”

Baffled annoyance and concern kicked him into motion; shock jerks him to a halt. He stares down at his link. The World-Walker Gate?

Every Babylon station has had one. Most of the largest ships in the Earthforce Fleet have World-Walker Gates, “just in case” according to the pencil-pushers back home (as if they have any control over where a Gate appears). They’re in every Earth embassy and many of the alien ones back home, and in certain Earth government buildings on the planet and on the colonies.

But none have activated since two decades before the Earth-Minbari War. Rumors in Earthgov have it that something about the war enraged or offended them, and they’ve refused to return to this universe to offer the aid and counsel usually given in the past few centuries. No one even knows where they went, because World-Walker Gates can’t be opened from this side. They can’t be forced, destroyed, damaged. They can’t even be moved.

They simply appear where the World-Walkers want them, and sometimes shift location so one ends up in a new place of power. The ones on the five Babylon stations shimmered into view the moment construction was complete. By then, the thing was familiar enough that a quick scan told the crew people they weren't hallucinating and the foreman was actually right about what they were looking at.

“Sir? Sir, should we dispatch security?”

The question yanks him back to the present. If energy is building around the Gate, that can only mean one is activating for the first time in thirty-three years. An actual Arrival? On his station?

“Send a small security team and Mr. Garibaldi but make sure they don’t enter the docking bay until I arrive.” They have no way of knowing until one comes through if the World-Walker will be alone. Lone World-Walkers are said to be trouble. Far more dangerous than the ones who arrive in groups.

According to Earthgov intelligence, the ones who travel in groups do so for several reasons, one of which is to keep each other in check and prevent them from overstepping themselves. A lone Walker has no such check-and-balance system.

“I’m on my way.”

“Yes, Sir!”

As he strides quickly through the corridors, Sinclair has to wonder: the number three is sacred to the Minbari. Is it coincidence that after thirty-three years of no contact, after never once intervening in the Earth-Minbari War the way they had in so many other wars, three days before a Vorlon ambassador is set to come aboard the last of the Babylon stations…the World-Walker Gate has at last woken up?

Kaitlyn Auhlukarad waits until her right-hand and best friend steps through the Door from the place many of the World-Walkers call Weyland-Yutani (even though it isn’t that similar to the fictional world of that particular film franchise, it makes the Walkers laugh), then she sketches the proper symbols in front of the portal.

The Door shuts with a soft, almost (or can she be imagining it?) grateful click. The almost constant tension of the last three weeks begins to drain out of her.

Another Quest finished, another World saved, and it only took two of them this time instead of an entire Cadre. The trip was almost restful…until the last thirty-six hours, where she was too busy fighting wave after wave of exceptionally bitey enemies to get any sleep. As soon as she checks on Trix and Charli, makes sure they’re sleeping, she’s going to sludge off to her room and collapse into bed.

“Thanks for backing me up, Shizu,” Kaitlyn calls as the other woman heads for the door leading to the rest of the school’s dorm floor.

Shizue "Shizu" Tempest, practically tripping over her own feet, waves and ducks into the hallway beyond. The dormitories—which aren’t real dorms, but actual bedrooms in the massive manor home that serves as the main School building—beckons with their delightfully soft pillows and warm comforters.

With a sigh that drags at her very bones, Kaitlyn collapses into a chair and presses the heels of her palms against her eyes. Colors explode like cheap fireworks across the dark of her eyelids.

Everything hurts. Everything. Being back at the School, back in this dimension, just makes the battle aches and the memories worse. Her veins shriek at the ice of her own blood, now devoid of the power that usually saturates every cell. This dimension doesn’t support that sort of power. She is distressingly, horrifyingly almost normal here. Only a sliver of her DNA keeps the frigid grasp of the mundane World at bay. Takes the edge off the pain of being in this particular universe.

She despises it. It hurts, and it fires her memory, reminds her too much of...

Well, whatever. A good night’s sleep and she’ll be ready for the next walk through one of the Doors that obeys her touch. She’ll leave this achingly heavy World that presses down on her skin with the weight of bruises and lies, and her blood will burn again. She’ll revel in the inferno of it while she helps save another World.

This is one reason she loves her job.

Sleep, though. The siren song of it calls to her as she drops her hands in her lap and glances at her desk. Sleep is necessary before she goes through another Door to anywhere. It doesn’t matter if the next World simply needs help setting up some tea parties in Hobbit holes, she has to sleep.

A quick scan of her desk shows her one of her favorite things—mail. Specifically, mail from some of her Walker friends who’ve all settled at last in their Heart Worlds. Definitely have to read those. Maybe before bed?

But first, her loves. Trixie and Charli. She drags herself out of the comfortable chair, which beckons her ass to plant itself once more and take a load off. Can’t do it. Have to check on the kids first.

Running a hand through the loose fall of brown and black curls tumbling down her back, smoothing down the patch of warm feathers at her nape, she heads into the hallway toward her kids’ room.

“I wish you would not do this,” Neroon murmurs, sinking onto the low couch. He gazes with a mix of irritation and fond exasperation at the great leader of his Caste, his Shai’Alyt.

His Shai’Alyt, more than anyone’s. It is a guilty, unworthy thought, for all its truth.

But Branmer does not look up from his oh so important documents. The faint glow of the altar candles only emphasizes the fatigue etched into his face. There is gray in his beard that was not there the cycle before.

“You are not well,” Neroon insists, because no one else will. No one else has the courage or the will to challenge the Shai’Alyt, or to caution him. “They should allow you more time to recover your strength before throwing you to these aliens—”

“I am fine, Neroon,” the older warrior says. He looks up at last.

The misty gray of his gaze strikes Neroon like a fist to the chest. It always does. He often wonders how the rest of the crew never sees this in him. How they never see the softness that spreads like blood across his face and fills his eyes whenever the Shai’Alyt comes into the room. And when the older warrior smiles, the way he is smiling now…

Neroon would cheerfully cut off his own hand to have Branmer look at him always in this way.

Of course, the Shai’Alyt can never learn of this.

With a sigh, the former priest rises stiffly to his feet. When Neroon tries to stand to go to him, Branmer gestures him to stay. Instead, his Shai’Alyt comes to him, sinking to the couch beside him.

They are off duty, and so do not wear the black leather gloves of the Warriors. Shocking vulnerability between soldiers, even though one was once a priest. Neroon allows his eyes to drift closed for a moment as Branmer rests his fingers, warm and callused from denn’bok drills, against the sensitive skin on the back of Neroon’s hand.

A small touch. More intimate than what Branmer usually allows himself outside the bedroom. Neroon is acutely aware of his pulse through his body, the beat of blood under Branmer’s fingertips.

“I am fine, ah Fi’sulara. Truly.” A slow caress over knuckles bruised from sparring earlier that morning. “Only a little tired. This diplomatic mission with the Humans is important, with the war now nine cycles past. You know this.”

The Humans. Torrbari, in the three Minbari tongues. Ver’min Shok, the Outer Enemy. The Humans can all be sucked into a black hole for all Neroon cares. They do not deserve to speak to any Minbari, much less Branmer. Putrescent, soulless things. They don’t deserve to look at him, much less be given the undivided attention of this man who is almost the equal of Jennimer, the man rumors say may be the next Chosen One in a cycle or two; the equal of the late, revered Dukhat, the last Chosen One, brutally murdered by the Earthers; perhaps even of Valen.

The warrior wants to argue. To remind his ma’fela that the Humans are brutal, cowardly, murdering aliens with no understanding of honor or duty or love, no matter what the Religious Caste leaders try to argue.

But the words my Star Rider echo in his skull. He sees the weariness and the shadows of pain in that familiar, beloved face, and he does not argue with Branmer, though he grinds his teeth until he fears he might crack a molar. He will do his duty and serve the leader of his Caste. He will obey the calling of his heart and stay at his lover’s side in all things and through all things, even this.

No, he does not argue, though a storm of worry and old anger rage in his breast. Instead, he rises to his feet as Branmer does. He studies his commander for a long moment.

“Perhaps you should rest,” he says, arching a brow. His lips curl.

Branmer rolls his eyes. “I am not so fragile as all that, Alyt. I can still command even you.”

He grins, and there is something rakish in it. “Oh? Command me, then.”

“Do you forget who you serve, Neroon of the Family Khon’vah of the Star Riders Clan?”

A slow shake of the head. “Never. So I say again, command me and I will obey.”

It’s a dare, and Neroon’s dark eyes lock on the soft gray of the Shai’Alyt’s in challenge. It’s a request, though he’ll never admit it. He needs this, perhaps. Needs the reassurance of heat and love-battle and wanting, proving his ma’fela isn’t as unwell as he so often seems.

Branmer can never know that, either—how much Neroon needs him. It is the nature of Star Riders, but the other man was not technically born to the Star Riders Clan, but to the Fane of his Religious Caste mother. He cannot be expected to know…and Neroon will never tell him. He can only challenge him like this.

Among the Warrior Caste, even love is combat. Winning is simply a matter of perspective.

It’s a command, and an answer to a challenge, when Branmer closes the scant distance between them to press a kiss to his lips. Neroon swallows a sigh. Branmer’s kiss is as familiar as Neroon’s own battle scars. An intimacy, so rare even here in the Shai’Alyt’s quarters yet still outside the bedroom. But his ma’fela keeps kissing him. Long, elegant fingers—the hands of a Warrior skilled with small blades—come up to brush along his cheeks, curve around his neck to glide along the sensitive edge where his crest meets his nape. A shiver of wanting whispers down his spine.

“Is this all you command of me?” Neroon asks, pleased his voice doesn’t tremble. Branmer is the only one still living who can flood him with weakness at a touch, a word, a glance. 

“What more would you give?” His lover’s voice breathes warm and soft across his lips. Branmer brushes a thumb along his jaw, the delicate curve of his ear, and Neroon fights back a frisson of awareness.

Whatever you command, ah’fi’aia.

He does not say this. It is too soft for this moment, exposes too much of himself. He is no poet, but a soldier. Instead, he nips at Branmer’s bottom lip. Murmurs, “You are Shai’Alyt. Surely you can figure out how to give orders to a single lowly Warrior under your command.” He smirks when the other man rolls his eyes.

Neroon allows Branmer to lead him into the candlelit sleeping chamber, to the bed angled at a daring twenty-seven degrees. Fitting, because every time he comes to this room, to this bed, every time he lies with this man, it feels like cheating death, or being reborn.

Branmer does this for him. And, he prays silently to the universe as he obeys the order to remove the chest-plate guarding his heart, let Branmer always be here to do it. To command him. To fight beside him. To love him.

Always. Forever.

Kaitlyn wanted to slip into Charli and Trix’s room, kiss their foreheads while they slept surrounded by stuffed animals, and then go to bed.

Instead she finds them both awake, dressed, and packing their little rolling suitcases. Trix, six years old and inhumanly alert this early in the morning, grins and bounces on the balls of her feet. Her teeth shine stark white against her golden-brown face. Her brown eyes sparkle like Mali garnets.

“Mommy! Mistress Nor says the Babylon Door is unlocking! We get to go, too, right? You said!”

Kaitlyn stares at her daughter for a long moment as her sluggish brain catches up with the words. The Babylon Door is unlocking.

The twisted, melted-wax scars on her forearms and shoulders tingle.

The Babylon Door. The Door that once stood open always, stationary in the back of the School’s astronomy lab. An ever-present invitation to those whose hearts yearn for the stars, beckoning them to step through into a world of beauty, wonder, danger, and threads of history begging to be tugged and snipped and rewoven.

Then, thirty-three years ago, the Babylon Door slammed shut. Locks written in light and breath flashed across the cool metal. A Seal of Barring scored itself into the cheap linoleum floor surrounding the Door, preventing every student and teacher in the Nor School for Wayward Ones from getting within a yard of it.

Only nine students have been able to even approach in the ensuing years. Kaitlyn is the only one who’s been able touch it. She carries deep scars from doing so too often.

Beside a vibrating Charli and bouncing Trix stands Yvonnie, the World-Walker that Kaitlyn prefers to babysit the kids when the other woman can be spared from her own Quests. Yvonnie had been checking over their packing and now looks up. The wide sunglasses she always wears in this dimension glint in the light from Charli’s TMNT lamp.

“Everyone in the Babylon Cadre who wishes to come is in the School. You and Shizu were the last to arrive. The rest are packing or have packed. The beasts are ready.” A quick hesitation. A trio of clicking sounds from inside Yvonnie’s oddly-shaped mouth. Then, “Are we going?”

Are they going? Memories flood Kaitlyn’s mind at the question:

—agony slamming through her fingers as she
drives her fist into the locked Door
while in her head, Minbari scream
and Dukhat bleeds out
in the arms of the young woman who loves him as a father
and Kaitlyn knows it’s going to happen,
in the next few breaths it will begin,
and her skin splits open in her desperation to make it not begin—

—Jankowski laughing about circumventing a cowardly alien attack
she knows him even then, his face, from Seeing him
from Seeing this
the fire and the screaming
so much innocent blood
and her fist ramming into the door,
beating on it with both bleeding hands
her blood soaking sleeves and shirt and jeans
while she sobs to please let her in so she can stop this—

—the Human woman with starlight in her mind
and fire in her eyes
sits broken on the floor
rocking back and forth, wailing
grief so like the kind Kaitlyn has known before
her fingertips and wrists chafed bloody
she rocks and keens her pain
staring at the body of a man with hair as black as night
clutching a silver, gold, and green pin in one fist
the edges cutting into her skin
she bleeds,
and she weeps,
and she screams
and Kaitlyn weeps and screams with her
because she knows this woman, and the man lying dead—

—the Human man lies beside a sleeping star
his life dripping out of him
lips pale,
eyes bruised with exhaustion and death,
bodies all around him
they might almost be sleeping
Not again, the words sobbing in Kaitlyn’s mind, not again, don’t,
he’s dying, inch by inch,
drop by drop,
to save the woman they both love
Prince Charming waking up the Sleeping Princess
but it’s not supposed to work like this,
he’s not supposed to die,
not supposed to die and leave them all—

—a Human with eyes the color of glacier ice,
beautiful and so impossibly warm,
with her white-blonde hair and fair skin
she’s the Snow Queen
and Kaitlyn knows this story will bite her like shards of ice and glass
but the woman loves her,
loves their starlit one,
until the day the monsters come
and kill her, shatter what’s in her mind and soul,
until there is nothing left but a program,
homicidal binary codes and fanaticism,
breaking the magic mirror that once reflected only love so profound
it made Kaitlyn hurt in the best way
now there are only shards and bleeding edges left—

—the young-looking Minbari man is called forward
his crest like blades of moonshadow in winter
giving respect and swearing service
to an older Minbari warrior who knew
that Valen’s blood had flowed in Dukhat’s veins
though others scorn this one, bearded priest who is a priest no more,
there is something there between these two
a knowing, and seeing that is almost Seeing,
a recognition she too has experienced before,
but a shadow is coming for these two,
coming for them before any others,
not Shadows but a shadow,
it has horns in the shape of a Minbari warrior's bonecrest
and jealousy like a poisoned blade in its heart
and Kaitlyn cannot See the true shape of it, the face,
cannot fathom when or where or how to turn the shadow aside—

—She has Seen these four so many times,
more than any others in all her years of wandering
Seen the warrior die in fire that burned her to look at it
Seen the prince die to save the sleeping princess
Seen the Snow Queen shatter into shards that cut to the bone
Seen the starlight snuffed out and left dead and cold—

—She throws her bleeding shoulder into the Door
arms and back and belly and legs pulsing with sharp agony,
feet slipping in the scarlet pool on the floor
and screams, screams, screams
when the Door finally grows impatient and hurts her for the trying—

“Kay!”

Yvonnie’s quick, sharp call yanks her out of the memories of Seeing. The taste of blood is in her mouth. The stink of ozone burns the inside of her nose, deep, threatening to trigger a migraine.

Kaitlyn sucks in an icy breath and shudders as small arms circle her waist. She looks down at Charli and Trix, who press their cheeks against her hips and squeeze her, trying to ground her the way they learned to do in class. She lets out the held breath. Forces in another. Lets it out, then takes another.

She accepts the small bottle of juice Trix offers, chugs it to get that taste out of her mouth. Electricity and failure and the metallic bite like new pennies. The juice is cloyingly sweet, a mix of cherry powder and Sprite. It burns the phantom taste away.

Those memories are old now. Charli and Trix weren’t even born when she Saw what was about to happen to the one she knows is called Dukhat and the ship called the Valen’tha.

But it was the only time in her long life where she’d Seen something like that, only to be barred when she tried to get through the Door. The only time she ever tried to use her power here, in this dimension. The blood loss nearly killed her.

It is the only time a Door ever lashed out at her. She has walked through hundreds, possibly a thousand. The way had never been closed to her before, and she’d never before been hurt for trying to go through.

“Mommy?” Charli looks up at her, xyr big brown eyes worried. “Are you back now?”

Are you back now? is the child phrase for are you done falling into Seeing? She strokes a hand over the soft poof of xyr curly hair. Brushes her fingertips ever so lightly over the downy feathers at xyr nape. She nods, forcing a smile.

“I’m back now. I’m going to go pack and I’ll meet you guys at the Door, okay?”

“Okay!”

As she walks out on slightly wobbly legs, she calls over her shoulder, “Don’t forget your Daffy doll, Charli! Trix, don’t forget to pack Scaredy Bat!”

Their high, happy assurances that they would never forget such venerable stuffed companions follows her upstairs...

Chapter Text

Upstairs, Kaitlyn quickly dumps out her packed suitcase. She hadn’t yet unpacked from the Weyland-Yutani Quest, but black skin-tight clothes aren’t going to send the impression they need for the World beyond the Babylon Door. Weyland-Yutani was a miniature war, on foot, in the wild places.

A hunt.

The word brings a quick smile to her lips. She flicks her tongue over the tips of her teeth, incisors and canines, so many more in the deadly trap of her mouth than most other World-Walkers. Hunting. She is so very good at hunting. Trix and Charli, too. The question flickers through her mind if there will be anything to hunt on the space station she’s inexplicably being Called to visit.

Questions for later. For now, she reaches into her goblin-curated closet, yanks out the only clothes she thinks might fit the image she wants, and shoves them in her suitcase, careful to avoid solid neutrals like gray, beige, and pure white (they can pry her black pants and skirts from her cold,  dead hands). She packs spares of the traditional World-Walker uniform, including two dressy versions. Everything else is comfortable but gives a “classy” impression, according to Kade West, the man in charge of finding suitable clothes for World-Walkers in need. The man who was also the Goblin Prince-in-Waiting of the World known as Prism, exiled from the World of his heart to this mundane dimension by the woman who’d raised him from the age of ten.

I can just imagine if anyone on the station asks where I got my clothes, Kaitlyn thinks with a quick smile. She tries to forget about Kade’s adoptive mother; thinking of her makes Kay feel viciously bitey. How would that even go? “Oh, do you like them? A goblin prince made them for me.”

Do they have goblins in the world of Babylon 5? Sometimes the Technologicae Worlds, the ones where science reigns, carry traces of magic, or the Fantasticae Worlds carry traces of highly advanced tech. But those are rare. Even rarer are the Worlds that blend the two. And the goblins of Prism are a social class, a culture group, not a race. Kade is as Human as most World-Walkers.

Unfortunately, because this is an Arrival, Kaitlyn also has to put on the traditional cream-colored tunic and jacket over black pants and brown boots. She loves the pants and boots but dammit, she despises wearing anything this pale; washing out gore from pale fabric is a pain in the ass. And knowing what she knows of what’s about to happen on Babylon 5, before the next fifty-odd hours ends, her tunic and coat are probably going to be ruined.

But at least most of the blood will be hers. She can live with being the one to bleed this time.

Sinclair’s quick stride brings him abreast of Garibaldi. His chief of security isn’t wearing a flak jacket, but he’s tucked his clutch piece into his belt to have access to more than one weapon. Sinclair can’t fault him; he’s done the same. A squad of fourteen security guards stand—in uniform, not riot gear—outside the doors to Docking Bay Seven.

This is one of those rare times the commander can’t tell the difference between anxiety and excitement in his men. With World-Walkers, the two emotions mix together into something heady and dangerous.

“What do we got?” He asks.

“They haven’t come through yet,” Garibaldi says. “Not a peep or a poking head.”

Strange. It took him almost ten minutes to get down to the docking bays. What’s happening? Is the Gate, rather than opening, preparing to vanish? What will that mean for the mission of Babylon 5? Will the other governments consider it a condemnation from the heretofore silent World-Walkers against the station?

Even the Minbari honor the World-Walkers. Sinclair bites back a grimace. Even though they’ve never had contact with one, their sacred texts talk about how they are more like Minbari than any other race. They cannot lie, they have honor, they seek only to serve. Only the lone Walkers are dangerous; even the Narn and Minbari scriptures say this, despite neither race having ever been visited by either kind. At least as far as he knows. The Centauri know them. The Abaai, the Drazi, the Vree, the Markab, the Brakiri, the Streib, the Gaim, the Hyach, even the Vorlons know about World-Walkers and hold them in esteem. If the World-Walker Gate vanishes, what will happen to Babylon 5?

“Is the energy still surging?”

“Yes, Sir,” Garibaldi says, checking his holster. “Not sure what’s happening but it’s atypical from everything I’ve ever heard.”

Sinclair nods. From all available reports, World-Walker Gates are supposed to power up quickly, open up, and disgorge whatever World-Walkers decide to come through to this universe. He’s never heard of one just sitting there in Power Up Mode.

After five minutes of nervous tension, his link signals.

“Sir? The energy in the Docking Bay is spiking.” Takashima again, brisk and efficient. Despite the unusual situation, it doesn’t seem to faze her. “It matches what we have on record for the moment just before a Walker Gate opens. I think they’re coming through.”

Sinclair glances at the nervous security men, then at Garibaldi. Michael raises his thin brows in a What’re you gonna do? expression. Sinclair taps his link.

“Roger that. We’re going in. Emergency procedures in place if it proves to be a lone Walker.”

A brief hesitation from Takashima. Then, “Yes, Sir. Be careful.”

His mouth twists into a rueful smile. Careful. He doubts being careful will help this situation. On the bright side, if it is a lone Walker and they blow up the station, he won’t have to worry about Ambassador Kosh’s arrival.

“Let’s go,” the commander says sharply. Side by side with Garibaldi and flanked by the security guards, the docking bay doors whoosh open and they step forward into the bay.

Eleanor West, Headmistress of the Home for Wayward Children, watches from the doorway of the astronomy lab as the Babylon Cadre get into formation. Nomadic World-Walkers hold a special place in her old heart; they are more rule-breakers than other Walkers, refusing to let the whims of the Doors keep them from doing good. Refusing to abide by the third rule of the School—no quests.

She embraces Kaitlyn, her thin arms stealing easily around the shorter, plumper woman. Eleanor smiles when her old student takes a deep breath of the familiar dandelion-and-ginger-snap perfume the headmistress always wears.

Miss Eleanor looks at her. Kaitlyn, one of her very first students. The only one of the very first class of the School who still lives, though Shizu is nearly as old as Kaitlyn, and they are both older than Eleanor.

It is tradition, to send off a Cadre with an embrace to the leader. The School is more than a School, of course. The students and former students are more than classmates and peers. They are not always friends—sometimes they are even deadly enemies. But there is a connection between them all, forged by the Doors and the oppressive disbelief of the World so many of them were born in. Neither love nor hate can sever that link.

This is not always a good thing.

“There’s time dilation in the Babylon Door,” Miss Eleanor reminds her.

She nods. “I know.”

That means the five or more years they'll spend on the other side of this Door will not be five years here, in the World of the School. They don’t know how long it will be. Four years? Three? It is one of the oddest versions of Doorway time dilation they’ve dealt with, but all the Cadre are willing.

Kaitlyn goes to stand in her place in front of the Door. Ten other people flank her—nine is traditional for a Cadre but Charli and Trix don’t count, they’re too young, so they are nine and two tagalongs—when the symbols on the Door flare and fade. Now there is only something like a submarine hatch or a steampunk-style door, but in shades of gray and blue instead of warm brass and copper. The darkness beyond the small window set in the Door begins to waver and twist. Stars flicker in the depths of the blackness.

Kaitlyn wedges the tip of her tongue between her top and bottom teeth and bites down until it hurt.

She—fucking—hates—space.

She has no idea why a Quest revolving around a space station would Call her. She’ll go—of course she’ll go, she’s never refused the Call before and she’s not about to start now, despite any vertigo or casadastraphobia—but why did it have to be space? She’s already working with serious handicaps on her power and now she has to hold herself back even harder to make sure she doesn’t break anything important.

The knob, a brilliant white metal too beautiful to be mere silver, twists. Soft light like starglow emanates from the words carved into the top of the frame: Be Sure.

Every single Door has those words somewhere: be sure. No one who’s ever walked through a Door knew going in what the words meant. And everyone who’s come back with it figured out has a different explanation.

Be sure. She was sure twice before, early in her life, and had her heart carved out, leaving her to die of it.

Only she didn’t die, not at the first wounding when she turned nine years old for the second time, and not at the second wounding when she turned fourteen for the third time.

Instead, when she turned sixteen for the third time, she became a different kind of Walker. And now she is always sure, because she knows what’s coming, what’s wanted, and what she’ll do about it.

I survived the Trial of Between, she reminds herself. All of us did. That's why we're allowed to be here. I survived the Trial of the Compass and the Trial of Between. I have survived wars upon wars. I can handle outer space. I have to...for them.

Faces swim through her memory. All the people from the Babylon mission who will die or be lost somehow if she and her Cadre don’t do something, don’t protect them. Don’t pull the threads of their fate.

Susan, the names etching themselves on her heart, Marcus. Talia. Neroon. Kosh. And the others. So many others. All the people she’s Seen.

“Okay,” she calls as everyone assembles around her. She gives Miss Eleanor a last, adoring look. The wrinkled old face creases with the other woman’s smile. Kaitlyn nods to herself. “Off we go like a herd of galloping turtles.”

The others laugh as the Door swings open.

Garibaldi stares at the group standing in front of the now cooling World-Walker Gate. He’s seen the Gate before and a cursory glance tells him it hadn’t changed—a reinforced quantium-titanium alloy door that seems to go nowhere, inscribed with glowing script no one's ever been able to decipher, and the words Be Sure written in Interlac at the top, etched into the metal somehow. In the three-hundred-plus years World-Walkers have been coming to this universe, they’ve never explained what Be Sure meant.

He wonders if maybe, finally, he’ll be able to get an answer out of them. Maybe not the adults, but they’ve brought two kids.

Kids? World-Walkers don’t have kids. Not unless they stay and have some with residents from this universe. They never Arrive with children. Neither of those kids can be older than seven. And are those cat noises coming out of the two crates being held by one of the other Walkers?

Forcing himself to take in the details of the entire group instead of just the bizarre pair of little kids, Garibaldi counts. There are nine if you don’t count the munchkins, eleven if you do.

“Three children,” Jeff says softly.

Garibaldi blinks. “I only see two.”

“The older one with the two little ones. She can’t be more than ten or twelve—”

“No,” he contradicts. His commander looks at him. “That’s not a kid. She’s just…possibly one of the shortest women I’ve ever seen. She can’t be much more than five feet, if that. Fiur-ten, maybe. The kids are hers.”

Interested, Sinclair asks quietly, “How can you tell?”

“They’re not letting go of her.” He tips his chin in their direction. “They’re not scared to be here, they look really excited, but they’re not letting go of her jacket. And she keeps smoothing her hands over their hair; that's a parent gesture. Also, look at her glasses. You ever see a kid wear glasses that professional?”

Sinclair nods. “And the others?”

Garibaldi studies them. The two adults sticking close to the woman with the kids, a Black person almost as short and a Japanese woman over a foot taller, can’t be more than thirty. Two other Black women, both with lighter brown skin than the others—older; maybe forty at most?—stand behind. A young, wiry, white kid with brown hair and a tan, looking barely old enough to graduate high school, stays close to the woman with kids, too; she's the second-tallest in the group, despite her youth.

One woman, cream-white skin and Black features and tightly-curled golden-blonde hair, wearing sunglasses and fingerless brown leather gloves, that hair tied in a braid that reaches past her knees; twenty years old? She has one hand on an assistive dog harness, and a huge bronze canine sits patiently next to her. Another person, about the same age, ebony skin, bright smile, curious gaze darting everywhere, a waterfall of long black braids covered by a beautifully-patterned blue and white silk scarf, wearing a glittering pendant at her throat—the only one of the World-Walkers wearing any kind of jewelry.

The final Walker…

Michael isn’t sure that person is Human, and it sends pain spiraling through his temples to try and look closer. All he can make out is long, bone-straight, gray-white hair to her waist and a pair of extremely large sunglasses, despite the fairly low lighting in the docking bays. She's taller than all the others by a good eight inches. When she walks, her charcoal-gray boots click on the metal with sharp taps wholly different from the others in the Cadre. All eight fingers gleam with silver jewelry tipped in sharp points; the security chief wonders just how sharp. 

The group approaches slowly, and Garibaldi realizes with a small jolt that the short, chubby Black woman with the two children, who carries herself like the experienced captain of a warship right after they've been stabbed but they're trying to hide it, is the Cadre leader.

Is that why she’d been allowed to bring her family? Because she's the leader? He wonders if one of the others is her spouse. Maybe the weird one in the shades? She moves into a guard position near the two kids and the little girl keeps looking back and saying things, though they aren’t close enough to be overheard yet.

They all carry luggage, and the brunette—who’s wearing blue jeans, he didn't know Walkers can wear blue jeans—carries two crates with handles. Meowing noises issue from the shadowy crate interiors.

They brought cats?

…maybe they eat cats? Or worship cats? The Academy books never said anything about either thing, though…

The Cadre leader steps forward and offers a bright smile. Despite the healthy golden undertones to her brown skin and the cheerful expression, Garibaldi can tell the woman's exhausted, and there's sharp tension in her, like a taut wire; she's trying and failing to hide it, but only because his eyes are good. Another of the women flanking her, the tall Japanese woman with a thin scar under one eye, looks just as desperate for the sweet oblivion of a nap, but a lot less tense.

They all wear the traditional creamy tunic that falls to mid-thigh, with gold laces at the high neck, shoulders, elbows, and belled wrists. It looks as if they can unlace the ties at elbow or shoulder and the long-sleeved tunic suddenly becomes short-sleeved or sleeveless. Handy, he supposes. The jacket, a long spill of creamy white with no sleeves, falls to the tops of their brown knee-high boots. Fabric gathers behind their necks—hoods, quickly pushed back once through the World-Walker Gate.

Even the kids wear the outfits. He notices one of the kids holding a stuffed black bat and the other clutches, in small brown hands…

“Hey,” Michael says before he has a chance to think through why it might be a bad idea. A grin unfurls across his face. “Is that Daffy Duck?”

The kid blinks. Looks down at the familiar duck. Looks up at Garibaldi. Then with endearing solemnity, the kid nods and says, with a touch of a lisp, “Yeth. I like Looney Toonth.”

Do the Walkers get television broadcasts from this universe into theirs? Something he might be able to ask—later. For now, realizing he’s spoken before the introductions, he looks to the commander. A wry smile on the weathered face tells Garibaldi the commander isn’t angry about the accidental icebreaker.

“Commander Jeffrey Sinclair?” The Cadre leader asks.

Garibaldi hides his surprise. He didn't expect such a mellow, velvet voice from someone that short. Absurdly, he expected her to have a breathy little voice like a flute or a cartoon character. He also wonders how the Walkers always know the names of the people who meet them at the Gate. That tidbit was in the Academy books, just not the how.

“I’m Commander Sinclair,” the commander says. “This is my Chief of Security, Mr. Garibaldi. And you are?”

The woman holds out one hand. Something that might've been the point of a tattoo peeks out from the hem of her tunic sleeve; the mark is a strange gray-brown color rather than black, and a bit shiny. New?

“Kaitlyn World-Walker,” she says as Sinclair shakes her hand. She offers it to Garibaldi, who takes it. “I’m the leader of the Babylon Cadre. This is my second, Shizue,” the Japanese woman smiles and nods. “This is Namina, fae are my third.” Namina is only a few inches taller than Kaitlyn. Fae smiles at the commander and Garibaldi.

“And the rest of my Cadre—Orfea, Persis,” the two oldest women wave, “our journeymaid, Regan,” the girl in jeans ducks her head, “Luciera,” the one wearing the headscarf offers a little bow, “Diandra,” the blonde with the assistance dog offers a tight smile, “and Yvonnie.”

The Walker in the big sunglasses doesn’t react at all.

“And these are my children, Charli and B—”

“My name’s Beatrice,” the little girl holding the bat toy says. She's missing a tooth and her hair is styled in myriad twists tied off with elastic bands. Bright, multicolored balls a little bigger than marbles, and feathers the color of sunlight through amber, decorate the ends. “But everybody calls me Trix.” She holds out a hand for both men to shake. Amused, they do. She puts an arm around the other, smaller child. “This is Charli. Xe’re my little sib.”

“Welcome to Babylon 5, Madame World-Walker,” Sinclair says. “Please forgive the security presence, we had no way of knowing—”

“Oh, I totally get it,” she says with a shrug. Garibaldi blinks. He expects understanding; he just didn't expect such casual language. Aren’t World-Walkers supposed to be these wise, powerful beings? “Could’ve been one of our rogues. No worries. And Commander, I know this is technically a formal occasion, but I’ve been awake for over forty-eight hours and desperately need to lie down.”

"Mommy needs to use the sleep," Trix chimes in helpfully.

The Cadre leader makes a face, a mixture of adoration and exasperation and the strain of not laughing. "So do you and Charli."

Charli grins, hugging Daffy Duck.

“Of course,” Sinclair says with a professional smile. “There are quarters kept in readiness for a Cadre to come to the station. I’ll take you there.”

“Thank you so much. I’m really sorry,” she adds with a sheepish look. “I’m just so freaking tired.”

“No worries. Come on.”

“Yay!” Charli chirps as the group starts to follow Garibaldi and the commander out of the docking bay. “New house!”

Chapter Text

Sinclair has to admit, this isn’t what he expected.

There are four sets of quarters set aside in the Green Sector for a Cadre: Diandra and her assistance dog; the smiling Luciera; and the shy Regan all take one room without needing to discuss it. Persis and Orfea take the second; Sinclair gets the feeling those two are more than Cadre-sworn. Yvonnie, Shizue, and Namina take the third room. That leaves the largest set of quarters for Kaitlyn World-Walker and her two children…and their cats.

Which he didn't expect either.

With permission, he and Garibaldi follow the World-Walker inside. Her children rush around, shouting out the different amenities—Mommy, there’s a TV in here! Mommy, there’s a shower with water! Mommy, there’s two rooms! Mommy, you can see space!—while she sets the two cat crates near the door to one bedroom and drops her suitcase next to it.

“Babes, it’s late. Can you set up Spot and Grudge so they have food and stuff while Mommy talks to the commander?”

Relief floods her face when the children chorus affirmatives and begin rooting through the baggage, dragging the necessary bits into the room they decide is theirs.

Garibaldi clears his throat. “Spot and Grudge?”

“Look, I didn’t name them,” she says with a laugh and flops onto the couch with a sigh of deep pleasure. Sinclair notices, bemused, that her boots don’t touch the floor. “The kids did, after a pair of cats one of their aunts knew. Oh, man.”

She runs her hands through the thick mass of her curly dark hair and sighs again. Slips the black Coke-bottle glasses off her face and sets them on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry, this probably isn’t what you were expecting. I’d just gotten back from a three-week Quest when we learned the Babylon Door was opening and we only had about thirty minutes to get ready. I haven’t slept in almost three days.”

Sinclair smiles. Inwardly, he thinks, More threes. And...why Quests? In the Academy textbook in the unit on Walkers, it said they referred to their travels as Quests, but no one had ever been able to learn why.

“No worries, Madame World-Walker—”

“Oh gods, please don’t call me that,” she says with a slightly revolted laugh. “Kaitlyn works fine, Commander, I promise.”

The commander inclines his head. “Fair enough. I assume you’re here because—”

“Because we were Called, yes. We heard the Song of the Door.” She scrubs her hands over her face. “If the Babylon Door synced my Seeing up to the right time in your universe…did this place just come online?”

“Technically it came online a few months ago, but we’re finally running at full-steam, as it were.”

She nods, rubbing the heel of her palm against her temple. Sinclair glimpses another piece of the weird, gray-brown tattoo. It looks as if it runs down the length of the underside of her forearm between spills of shiny scar tissue, lines of symbols he can’t read and doesn’t recognize.

“Are the top ambassadors in residence? Delenn, G’Kar, Mollari? Kosh?”

“Everyone but Kosh,” quickly covering his surprise that she knows all their names. “He’s supposed to arrive in three days.”

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” she mumbles wearily.

Garibaldi chimes in, sharp with irritation. “How do you know?”

“Because I Saw a Japanese woman in your kind of uniform, standing in front of great round window looking out into space, frustrated that Kosh had come two days early just so he could be, and I quote, 'the mysterious Vorlon'. I’m assuming she’s one of your command staff.”

Slowly, Sinclair nods. “Yes, my second-in-command, Lt. Commander Takashima.”

So, she Saw Laurel, but doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know her name. But she knows his name, and the names of the four ambassadors from the four largest alien civilizations in the known galaxy. Why doesn’t she know who Laurel is?

“Madame World—” At her appalled look, he bites back the rest. Chuckles a little to himself. “Kaitlyn. We’ve never seen a World-Walker with children before—”

“It’s not usually done,” she says with a shrug. “World-Walker children of my type, their type, are extremely rare anyway. But Charli and Trix both heard the Song of the Babylon Door even before it opened, so I promised them I'd bring them. It's one of our most sacred laws, that we don't interfere with the Song of the Doors to one of our own. We are forbidden to interfere in another's Quest without their permission. And anyway, out of all the Worlds I’ve walked and Seen, Commander, this one is actually one of the safest.” 

He blinks at that. She shrugs, her smile inordinately fond.

“You just have to know where to be,” she adds.

“We’ve uh,” Garibaldi interjects, “we’ve got a school here. It’s small—one room, for diplomats’ children, businessmen’s families if they spend a lot of time here, that kind of thing. If you want, I could give them a buzz, let them know to send you the enrollment paperwork.”

She raises both eyebrows. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know this place had a school. But that explains…” She trails off, staring into the middle distance. Sinclair exchanges a look with Michael, wondering if she’ll finish her sentence.

She doesn’t.

“I’d like to be at the meet-and-greet for Ambassador Kosh tomorrow, please,” the World-Walker says instead. “I’ve got nice enough clothes so I shouldn’t embarrass anyone.”

“Can we come?” Charli rockets out of the bedroom and throws xemself against the back of the couch. “Please, please, please?”

“Not a cheesecake’s chance in our kitchen," xyr mother says, kissing xyr cheek. "You got everything set up?”

“Yeah!”

“Then go let Spot and Grudge out in your room and show them where everything is.”

“Okay!” Charli zooms for the crates.

She calls, “What the frack? Are you possessed or something? How do you have so much energy?”

But the child just grabs both cat crates and, unable to lift them, slides them across the carpet and into the bedroom. Kaitlyn drops her face in her hands.

“I love my children, but holy crap, they make me tired sometimes. Back in the World of the School, it’s like three in the morning.”

“We’ll leave you to get settled,” Sinclair says gently, rising to his feet. Michael stands with him. “Barring an emergency, I’ll give you tomorrow to get acclimated to the station, enroll your kids in school, that sort of thing, and contact you when Ambassador Kosh arrives. Being in the welcoming party will also give you a chance to meet the other ambassadors. And the day after tomorrow, I have some questions I'd like to ask you.”

“Understandable." She doesn’t seem concerned at the prospect of questions. Maybe she doesn’t mean to answer them. It isn't as if he can compel her; it's his understanding that she can leave this universe at any time. She adds, "Thank you, Commander. It was nice meeting you at last. You, too, Mr. Garibaldi.”

They shake hands, though the World-Walker doesn’t stand. As they walk back out, Sinclair glances over his shoulder to see her slump to the side, grab a pillow, and tuck her feet up on the couch. He wonders if she means to go to sleep right there, fully dressed and in her boots.

“Mr. Garibaldi?” She suddenly calls. Both men turn back to her. “If I were to pay you, how much would it cost for you to cook lasagna? I haven’t had a decent lasagna in the last…nine Worlds I've been to? But I’ve Seen you cook. You’re good.”

Michael blinks at her. Then he huffs a laugh and gives her a slightly bemused grin. “I’ll let you know. You like bagna cauda pasta?”

“Never had it,” she mumbles, snuggling the pillow. “But I know you’re good at making that, especially…” And then she closes her eyes and seems to drift off.

Neroon bites back a snarl when Branmer’s communication unit signals from the little alcove he uses as his private office.

Of course it is the honor of the Warrior Caste to serve. Of course it is. But Neroon is in the middle of serving Branmer, carefully digging the ball of his thumb into the older man’s foot and watching him go limp from the shan’hela. The Shai’Alyt always relaxes after a deep-tissue massage; it helps with the ache that has settled like a pernicious shadow into his muscles after falling ill last winter. This particular method is something Neroon learned from his cousin when she’d gone into service as a healer, and Branmer’s illness makes it especially useful.

“Hush, love,” Branmer says with a chuckle. Neroon finds a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Pretend you are a novitiate in a temple for me while I tend to this.” Sitting up a little, he calls, “Audio only, speak.”

It is not ill news that comes. It is nothing they even need to be concerned with at the moment. Branmer has only been informed because he is the Shai’Alyt of the Warrior Caste. It is his right to know that after over three decades of silence, a World-Walker Gate has opened, disgorging a full Cadre. It is his right to know that they now dwell on Babylon 5, that paltry peace offering between the Minbari and the bloodthirsty aliens that incited the Holy War a decade ago.

According to the report, the Cadre has only been aboard an hour or so. Only the Ingata’s nearness to the station on her way to her next destination allows for such quick message delivery.

When the message ends, the unit turns off, Branmer lies back again and Neroon begins kneading the muscles in his ankle and calf.

“What do you think of this? The World-Walkers?”

The younger warrior shrugs, focused on his task. “The Ver'sim'aiae have never come to our world or any of our colonies. Our people have had no dealings with them at all. We only know of them from the Norsai and from Valen. This mean nothing to the Minbari Federation.”

“We have always honored the World-Walkers,” the Shai’Alyt reproves gently. “They are written of in the Valenic scrolls. Valen himself named the Ver'sim'aiae friend and ally, prophesying that they would come to Minbar when the ancient enemy returned, and prove shield-mate to all three Castes. It is even said that when the Nine of the Grey Council are in gravest danger during the Great War, a World-Walker will come to their aid."

"Then why did they not intervene to save the life of Dukhat?"

Neroon fails to swallow the knife-edge of his fury. He has thought of this often, for several reasons. Because of childhood dreams, and wartime casualties, and because he had friends and kin in service to the Chosen One and the Nine when the humans struck that first blow. Because in the war that followed, the humans proved themselves without souls or honor.

"At least two of the Grey Council were killed when the cowardly Torrbari attacked the Valen’tha unprovoked. Our leader, the best of us since the time of Valen, was murdered in cold blood. Was that not 'gravest danger?' Yet the World-Walkers did not come. Why do they come now, but not then?" 

Branmer’s sigh pricks his temper, but he waits for the other warrior's answer. They rarely agree on spiritual matters—even now, when Branmer is priest no longer—but he respects his commander's point of view. The man he loves is clever, kind, and quick both to learn and to apply the learning. Neroon genuinely wonders if Branmer can explain the World-Walkers' absence. Surely if anyone besides the universal travelers could explain, it would be him. 

“I cannot answer you, save only with musings,” Branmer says gently. “The World-Walkers may have had just cause for allowing the war to begin, to go on as it did. They are not gods, Neroon. The Valenic scrolls say they cannot change all things to their whim. There must be balance to what they change, whom they save. It may have been forbidden them to intervene. Or perhaps it may have been beyond their power.”

Neroon does not reply immediately. He does not want to argue with his ma’fela when Branmer is finally loose enough, relaxed enough to sleep, after dinner and lovemaking and the shan’hela. He needs his rest if he is ever to get well of this shadows-damned illness that’s plagued him for the last cycle. He will not contradict his commanding officer, will not go against the leader of his Caste.

He will offer no unnecessary hardship to the man he loves.

“As you say, priest.” It is an old jab that has no bite to it anymore, which is why he uses it now.

The older warrior chuckles, indulgent, full of a tenderness rarely seen since he has joined the Warrior Caste. “Perhaps you will have a chance to ask one of them, now that they are on Babylon 5. The station is on the tour schedule, though towards the end. Perhaps they will still be there when we arrive.”

Neroon cannot twist his mouth out of a sneer at the thought, though he tries for Branmer’s sake. The Shai’Alyt laughs again.

“You will see, Neroon. I have a feeling you may find them more deserving of your respect than you might think.”

“Perhaps.” But doubtful. After all, World-Walkers are all Humans, are they not? Inferior, honorless, cowardly. He has no use for them or their evils.

Outside the World-Walker quarters, Sinclair turns to Garibaldi.

“What do you think?”

Michael makes that face he always does when thinking, as if he’s sucking on a piece of slightly sour hard candy. He glances at the door, then nods slowly.

“I think the Academy textbooks don’t have the whole story on these people.”

“Definitely they don’t.” The two men begin to walk back toward the command office. “She’s been to several other Worlds before this one from what I gathered, so she has at least some experience, if they made her the Cadre leader. Her bringing a pair of kids and a pair of cats along makes me want to assume she isn’t dangerous—”

“All World-Walkers are dangerous, Jeff,” Michael interrupts. “During the terrorist bombing in San Diego back in the day, a World-Walker literally held up a falling building with his power until everyone in the way could get out from underneath. A World-Walker prevented the assassination of the Earth-Alliance president fifty years ago by jumping onto the flyer aiming for her, punching through the hull, and ripping the pilot out of his seat and throwing him overboard.

"You telling me someone who can do all that isn’t dangerous?" He adds. "I mean, you’re dangerous. I’m dangerous. We’re all dangerous. Hell, an extremely determined, pissed off goose is dangerous. Her being a single mom whose feet dangle off the edge of her chair doesn’t mean she can’t absolutely ruin your week. I just don’t think she plans to hurt anyone here. The Cadres have never been a problem for us, only the lone Walkers.”

“You think we can trust what she says?”

A hesitation, barely there. “They say that when a World-Walker says, ‘I think’ or ‘I believe,’ there’s a chance they’re wrong. But if they tell you something is, then it is. They don’t lie. They won’t answer half the time—they’re as mysterious as Vorlons—but they won’t lie outright. So…we’ll see if she’s right about Kosh. We’ll see if she has anything to say about the other ambassadors. And we’ll see if she and her subordinates are worth anything in a crisis.”

Well, Sinclair thinks as they part at the office entrance, that’ll have to be enough for the moment.

“You think Kay’s still awake?” Shizue Tempest sits cross-legged on the floor, watching Namina and Yvonnie unpack their things. She hasn’t brought much. She doesn’t own much that she travels with, save her uniforms, her no-mask, her portrait-crystal, and her sword. To be honest, though, she doubts the sword will do her much good in this new World, unless they get into a scrap on a planet.

“I doubt it,” Yvonnie mutters, tying up the silky, sparkling cords that will serve as her bed. The quarters only have one bed, so Namina and Shizue share. Yvonnie has made a hammock for herself, which comfortably fits the parts of her she keeps hidden under layers of illusion-work. A series of clicks crackle behind the woman’s teeth before she adds, “She looked like an undead flesh-eater by the time we all chose our lodging.”

“Zombie,” Namina corrects gently. “The word is zombie.”

More clicks, then Yvonnie smiles, showing all her needle-like teeth. She is the only member of the Cadre who isn’t even remotely Human. “Undead flesh-eater.” She slides off her massive sunglasses. Her slow, relieved blink looks normal enough, but it echoes, clicking like her teeth. "The children are asleep."

Namina laughs. “Of course they are." Then she sobers. "Think we’ll be able to pull this off?”

“Kay hasn’t fucked up a Quest since before Trixie was born,” Shizue reminds her. “She's been fine since getting therapy. And she’s got more experience than the rest of you combined. Besides, this isn’t going to be that difficult if we can just convince everyone to trust us. Which most of us won’t have a problem with because,” with a bright grin, “we’re all just so stinkin’ cute! Just gotta get out there and make friends.”

Yvonnie gives a chittering growl. “Such a simple task.” The sarcasm can drawn blood from stone. “Garibaldi trusts no one. Ivanova trusts few more, and she is not even here yet. We do not know this Takashima or this Dr. Kyle who wants to see us tomorrow. And the ambassadors…”

“We all have our tasks,” Shizue says, sobering. “Big and small. We’ll get this done. We always do.”

But the other woman makes a small noise, like claws tapping glass. The two Humans look at her questioningly. Yvonnie climbs into the hammock, folding her six legs under her body and letting her weight settle into the soft, silken cup of it. She sighs.

“There are people in this World that Kaitlyn has Seen more than once. The same series of Seeing, over and over and over. Four of them. It is rarely our way, to See so. Even more rare, to See so many in this manner. Only Lucy has Seen even close to this, those two Minbari who will come here one day. It worries me. I dislike not knowing what things are, what they will be.”

Namina flops onto faer side of the bed. “None of us like that. It's why we all became Hunter-Walkers. But we have our tasks: Lennier, Marcus, Susan, Talia."

"Delenn," Yvonnie adds, "Neroon, John, Londo, G’Kar, Byron."

"Arthur, Kosh, Tannier, Rastenn," Shizue says.

"David," says Namina, "Kalain, Peter, Simon, and Michael.”

“Right,” Shizue whispers.

Yvonnie nods. “Right.”

“A tall order,” says Namina softly.

Shizue sighs. “Nineteen names. The largest target list we’ve ever been given.”

"It shall certainly be a job," Yvonnie says.

For a long moment, there is only silence. Finally, Namina says, “Okay, this is getting depressing. Let’s go to bed. We got shit to do in the morning.”

In moments, the lights have gone out, and there is only the pearly radiance of Yvonnie’s sleeping hammock and the amber glow like firelight dancing through the marks on Shizu’s collarbones and shoulders.

Chapter Text

Kaitlyn wakes on the couch in her new living room and groans. Her shoulders and back ache and the flesh there is tight with strain from keeping herself contained in this close-but-not-exact meatsuit. If she fell asleep on a bed, on her stomach, it would be better, but she was so tired last night.

And her dreams. Did she like them? She isn’t sure. She barely remembers them, except…

—her fingers running carefully
through a waterfall of soft, thick chestnut hair
and skimming over the most beautiful skin, scarred from battle;
pale callused hands,
so careful with their strength,
smoothing over the planes of her bare back to find secrets and rouse fire;
the rough caress of a beard against her collarbone,
and gentle lips whispering poetry at her throat,
the soft scrape of blunt teeth against the artery, making her pulse race;
words of wanting and love trapped behind her own teeth,
and she shows her teeth even though she knows she mustn’t,
flexes her claws and her other secrets;
slim white fingers twining with hers,
with theirs, too,
spinning them together, echoing back everything—

The jingle of a tiny bell. The soft thump of a small body impacting cushioned furniture. Kaitlyn comes out of the memory and twists to see Grudge flopping onto the back of the couch, tucking his paws under himself to make a brown striped cat-loaf. The dim living room lights glint off his collar tags.

“Hi, Grudgy-Grudge-Budge,” she mumbles and scritches against one cheek. He purrs, eyes drifting closed in feline ecstasy. “Did you wake up the kids already?”

“Mommy?”

She looks over at Charli, who holds a box of cereal. Xe knows better than to make xyr own bowl of cereal—again. Not after the last time, when xe left the milk out while Yvonnie slept and Kaitlyn showered, and it wasn’t discovered until the milk spoiled. Not to mention the half-finished bowl of soggy cereal she found the next morning.

She remembers suddenly about the shower. There is a shower with real hot water in these quarters. She craves the heat and the drilling fingers of water, driving away sleep and loosening muscles. The sweet stimmy feeling of water needling her skin, hot and wet and soothing.

“Go get your sister and I’ll make you two some breakfast, okay?”

“Trixie’s in the bathroom.”

She rolls off the couch and cracks her spine. “Awesome.”

It takes mere seconds to slip on her glasses. She kisses the soft poof of Charli’s hair when xe comes to her for a good morning hug, careful of hidden things. Runs her fingers through the feathers at xyr nape, then climbs to her feet. Surely in her own place she can let loose a little, stretch out comfortably, unfurl? Surely she can pull the illusion from the children?

But no. She has no idea what kind of surveillance they have in place. And she’s used to keeping curled up tighter than she likes most of the time anyway. Too many missions to too many Worlds where people would freak the fuck out if they saw and understood the full legacy of her blood.

Instead she ruffles her own feathers and cracks her back a few more times before heading into the kitchen.

There is a stack of utilitarian bowls in the cupboards, along with other dishes. A box of cereal, a bowl of basic fruit: apples, pears, oranges. A gallon of milk in the fridge, some bottled water—yech!—and bottled juice, some lunch meat, a small loaf of bread. Basics.

There have been no World-Walkers in the Babylon universe in over thirty years. These things are fresh. The commander? A spark of concentration, a flicker of silver light tapped to her wrist; she makes a magical note to ask him about it later. He said last night he has questions. She’ll see him sometime today. It’s a kindness if he arranged it. His people had to scramble to get it done before they arrived in Green Sector, if he arranged it.

Kindness, she thinks to herself. So soon, there is kindness, and courtesy. She sends up a quick prayer to Azyraph, god of courtesy, and Marjay of the Wolf Sisters, goddess of kindness. The commander is both courteous and kind; unsurprising. She saw these things when she Saw him. His kindness, his courage, his cleverness. She also Saw his cruelty, rare though it was in the Seeing. Can it be tempered out of him? Is it her task to do so while she is here? She wonders.

She wonders about Dr. Kyle. She’s only Seen one event with him, and it won’t happen for a little bit. But she has to take herself, her children, and her Cadre to him today for medical appraisal, the same as any other new patient; they’ve done this before. Can he be trusted? She wonders that, too, because she has not truly Seen him but the once. He will do whatever it takes for his patients, that she did See. But they are not his patients yet.

So…how to gain the measure of him?

When Trix finishes washing her hands in the bathroom and comes out, there are two bowls of cereal just sugary enough to pass muster and Looney Toons on the television unit. Kaitlyn kisses Trix and Charli, happily munching the contents of their bowls, and trudges into the master bedroom so she can strip and fall into the shower and lose herself in sensory bliss while she slowly begins to acclimate to all of these changes.

She has things to do today. There are always things to do on the first day. This is why the first day is always her least favorite. But at least she’s done this often enough that she has the scripts memorized.

William Cole heads for the Yed’oore shuttle port that will take him from Minbar. Sech Turval warned him that it would likely do little good, but he has to try. His brother is still back home on Arisia, even if their parents are dead. The mining colony where they grew up is still full of innocent people who need to be warned about the beings that are coming for them. For all of them.

He glances back at the Anla’Shok training facility, the beautiful spires and stained-glass windows. To his surprise, three figures stand outside the wide doors carved of cobalt crystal. If he squints, he can just make them out: Sech Turval, the meditation sech from the Religious Caste; Sech Nashenn, the junior denn’bok sech from the Warrior Caste; and Sech Barenn, the foraging sech from the Worker Caste. He stops, stares at them. They’re watching him; why?

In unison, they bow to him. William bows back, though the sight of the three old Minbari teachers unnerves him. He’s already said his goodbyes, so why do they come to see him off? Why do they not come closer?

A Human steps out of the training center; she is not Anla’Shok. She doesn’t wear the uniform or carry herself the way the trainees or graduated Rangers do. She’s a small thing, shiny black hair in two pigtails. She wears a very colorful candy-pink tunic, chocolate-brown trousers, licorice-black boots.

She looks his way and waves. It’s such a Human gesture, so foreign on Minbar, that William laughs. He has no idea who she is or what she wants with his former teachers, but it’s been a long time since he’s seen such a carefree smile on a Human face.

He bows to her, too. She offers a truncated bow in return. There’s something sad in her sloe black eyes, he realizes, but turns away from it to head for the shuttle port. He has to go to Arisia. He has to warn Marcus. Mysterious dark-haired beauties with cheerful smiles and sad eyes can wait until he’s done at least that much.

“You are certain it is necessary to let him go on this journey?” Sech Barenn asks in heavily-accented Standard. He looks at the Human woman in the outlandish garb who has come to the Anla’Shok training center only this morning, through a Door that was not there the day before. “It fills me with foreboding.”

“Time is a loop and we’re all tying pretty ribbons with it,” the Human says in a sing-song voice. She fiddles with a bracelet on her golden-tan wrist, a series of small flat pastel disks on an elastic string. “Life is a checker game and we’re all trying to get kinged.”

Barenn, Nashenn, and Turval exchange long looks. The journey wasn’t the Human’s—the World-Walker’s—idea. William came up with it all on his own. But the sechs didn’t want him to go. There are other missions, they told him. Other places to combat the dark. But the World-Walker Gate opened inside the training center, the World-Walker came, and she bade them allow Anla’Shok Cole to attempt to warn the world of his birth.

They all wonder if this was correct to do. She is…not as others are. They are not quite sure if she is even sane.

“He’ll bring another,” the woman says. Her voice is no longer a soft croon; she is eerily clear. “This will help save the lives of countless others and send a new Ranger to where he belongs.” She turns away from the street, aiming for the entryway.

“Su’zha Ver'sim'aia,” Nashenn calls. The Human turns back to the Warrior woman, wrinkling her upturned nose a little at the title of Honored World-Walker. “Where will you go now?”

“Home,” she says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve done my bit and Eleanor-Ely is waiting for me. I’m the corner piece. Kaiti-Kay-Kaitlyn has to make the frame and fill in all the other pieces and everyone knows that’s dangerous, dangerous, don’t do that, dangerous, because questing makes the heart grow fonder, and fond hearts breed big starts and bleeding parts.”

She ducks into the building before any of the teachers can respond, leaving them to wonder if all such travelers are as strange as Sumi World-Walker, who is even more nonsensical than a Vorlon.

“Thank you all for agreeing to see me this morning,” Dr. Benjamin Kyle says, studying the group of people who’ve just walked into his MedLab.

Nine adults, two children. They are all Human…aren’t they? They look it, except for the gray-haired woman, the tallest of the lot. Something about her screams alien. Not alien as in from another planet, but alien as in absolutely on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. Dangerous. More dangerous than a World-Walker ought to be.

But he needs to get things such as their base stats, blood type, and medical history logged into the system now, while he has a moment to get it done. Things pop up so quickly on Babylon 5. It’s like bureaucratic Whack-A-Mole.

The short Black woman in front smiles. Instead of the traditional World-Walker uniform, she’s wearing loose black trousers tucked into black knee boots and a burgundy tunic falling to mid-thigh. He wonders if all World-Walkers wear similar clothes, if it is their traditional garb, because only two of the group aren’t dressed similarly – the young white woman in a white tunic, denim vest, and blue jeans, and the slightly older young white woman with the assistive dog.

That woman is dressed in shades of gold and brown. Fingerless brown gloves adorn callused hands; she is the only one wearing gloves. A vest-shirt shows a few inches of lightly scarred, milk-white belly and a pair of clavicles marked with a pattern of symbols that darken the flesh beneath to a golden tan. Almost like scar tissue, or the mark of a brand. She also has the longest hair of them all, a silver-white braid nearly as thick as his wrist, falling past her knees. He wonders how long her hair is unbound.

“We know it’s important for your files, Dr. Kyle,” the short woman says, and sits in a chair. “We’ve done this sort of thing before on previous Quests. I’ll go last, with Yvonnie and my kids.” She gestures to the strangely tall, gray-haired woman standing behind her. The alien one. One of her oddly-jointed hands rests on the youngest child’s shoulder. “Regan,” the leader adds, “why don’t you go first?”

The girl in the jeans steps forward and Ben takes her into an exam room.

She doesn’t balk at the blood draw, answers all his questions. Her name is Regan Lewis, she can heft a fifty-pound bale of hay (he tells her the station doesn’t have anywhere to store hay and she looks a little disappointed), she is a week shy of turning eighteen, she has the calluses of an archer, and she’s nearly six feet tall.

She has only two of what the EarthForce medical textbooks refer to as “unique skills”—the ability to speak to certain types of animals, like ungulates (the station doesn’t have any sort of livestock, so he doubts this will be useful) and low-grade emotional empathy.

When he gets the results back from her blood scan, he offers to write her a prescription for estrogen and progesterone.

“I’m fine,” she says with a shrug and a smile. “I’ve known I’m intersex since I was eleven. I like me this way. Are the rest of my numbers good?”

“Just fine,” Dr. Kyle says. “Iron, vitamin B, vitamin D, everything looks good. You have exceptionally good cholesterol.”

“Unicorn meat,” she replies with a grin.

He blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind,” with a laugh. “We done?”

It is immediate, visceral, and terrifying. The moment her feet take her through the security scanner, the ravenous waiting calm of some inhuman presence catches Lyta’s mind, wrapping it in psychic webbing as sharp as razor wire. Holding her. Something old. Something tired and watchful and hungry.

What are you? Let me go! She shouldn’t speak to it, she knows this. She has no idea how she knows, but if this thing wants, it can grab hold of her mind, shatter her barriers, and pulverize her brains to so much pink and gray jelly. Please…!

Hush. A single sharp, clipped syllable. No harm to you. Surprise. That’s all.

Slowly, the needles driving into Lyta’s brain slide out, leaving her skull throbbing and her vision sparking with coronas of black, white, and vermillion. The presence releases her.

She shouldn’t hit the thing that nearly left her catatonic but as the spikes withdraw, pain and panic flare to life. She’s exhausted from her trip through hyperspace, hungry, shivering with the coolness of the station’s air system. Suddenly, she is out of fucks.

Who the Hell are you? She slaps at the retreating presence with her mind.

A soft hiss. The feel of slapping something hard, chitinous, and scarred. The presence is suddenly there, right there, crowding her thoughts, shoving at her mind.

World-Walker. Servant to the leader of my Cadre. Who are you?

I… She has no idea what to say. World-Walker? There haven’t been any World-Walkers for over three decades. But this mind, whatever it is, isn’t Human. Isn’t alien, either. She’s touched the minds of Minbari and Centauri telepaths. Scanned the minds of Yolu and Gaim and Narn. This is something wholly different. Predatory. Beyond the nature of the universe as she knows it. Lyta tries not to whimper. I’m the commercial telepath assigned to the station.

Surprise, then. Shock and…pleasure? This thing, this World-Walker, is pleased by her answer. She tastes recognition from its thoughts. It knows her. Has it Seen her before? They studied the World-Walkers at the Psi Corps Academy. She knows about the phenomenon of Seeing, even though no one native to this universe understands how it works.

Lyta Alexander, the presence breathes. Every word has clicks and edges sharp enough to cut bone. Ally. Friend. Soon…but not yet. No fear of us, little Lyta who burns. We will protect you when it comes. We will help you through the burning and the fear. We will protect him, too.

And then the presence is gone, and she sags against the cool metal wall, trying to get her lungs to expand enough to take a breath. The station spins around her. Artificial gravity? Or the adrenaline draining from her blood?

It doesn’t matter.

Servant to the leader of my Cadre…

There’s an entire Cadre on the station? Then she’ll have to find out who they are. If she does, if she can learn all their names and faces, she can guarantee she never ever catches the attention of whatever the Hell that was ever again.

Chapter Text

Regan sends in the next one, a brown-skinned young woman with her long, black braids wrapped up in a silver scarf embroidered with crimson lions. Around her neck hangs a glittering pendant, like a large diamond teardrop on a thin gold chain. Her hands have calluses too, but different ones. Dr. Kyle thinks of the differences between a farmhand and a ground-pounder.

Her name is Luciera ("Call me Lucy") Peterson, she has grown up and physically regressed twice due to going through Doors with fluctuating rates of time dilation, and she is the youngest of nine siblings who are all World-Walkers. Her unique skills are minor—some kind of healing ability, low-level; some small ability to boost the growth and efficacy of plants; and shielding. The Academy medical texts define shielding as the ability to create energy fields that deflect attack certain kinds of attack.

Are the textbooks vague on purpose? He wonders.

She is allergic to gold, sensitive to the cold, has medic training—this tidbit is offered in case he “should ever need my services”—and has a damaged right shoulder.

“Dislocated in a battle when I was eight the second time,” she says with a shrug. Her accent sounds vaguely English, but not. “We didn’t have a medic with us at the time except me, and I wasn’t conscious. Took the others a while to figure out how to put it back in. Tore a couple ligaments. I’ve learned to work around it.”

He scans the injured shoulder. A lot of scar tissue around the joint. Possible that physical therapy might help? He suggests it to her, and she nods.

“Would it help with the ache? It hurts if I use it too much, especially if I have to use blades. I can push through it, but it still hurts. I’d rather it didn’t.”

“It should. In the meantime, I’ll prescribe you a special Minbari tea I learned about from our ambassador. She says a friend of hers in the Warrior Caste uses it for pain. It’s gentler on the system than most of the painkillers I would give you for something like this. If it doesn’t work, let me know, and we’ll look into something less homeopathic.”

She grins, a flash of white teeth against brown skin. “Thank you.”

“Keep your right arm up,” Neroon calls to Branmer as their pikes crash against each other.

There is exquisite beauty in this. Branmer was a priest once, of the First Fane of Mirshai, but no longer. Now he is all Warrior, all Star Rider. He moves with such fluid grace, Neroon thinks as his Shai’Alyt ducks a blow and brings his denn’bok up in a lightning-strike to just touch his opponent’s hip. The blow is pulled enough, Neroon barely feels it. He has no idea where Branmer learned to move like flowing water, like leaves on the wind.

Branmer is so very beautiful, the way a sword dance is beautiful, though the Minbari haven’t used swords much since the time of Valen. Neroon is one of the few of the Warrior Caste who has mastered them and so yes, Branmer is beautiful the way a sword is, the way dancing with the deadly blades can be. His Shai’Alyt is a masterwork of a Warrior.

The next strike whips out. He barely catches it in a side block, surprised at the swiftness and the vibration shuddering through his arm from the blow. Branmer raises an eyebrow. There is both challenge and flirtation in it, something the older Minbari only allows himself in the privacy of his quarters, including his private training room.

Neroon grins, approving. “Good. You’re nearly back up to your old speed. Soon you’ll be able to hit like a Star Rider instead of a Parish Priestling!”

Branmer’s denn’bok snaps out. The edge brushes just beneath Neroon’s cheekbone. With fingertips instead of metal, it would have been a caress rather than a strike.

“And you’re nearly fast enough to keep up with me,” the other man says. “Soon I’ll be able to stop going easy on you!”

A clash of pikes, the clang reminding him just a little of silver bells or hammer strikes. His own father is Worker Caste; it reminds him a little of his father working in his forge. It reminds him, too, that Branmer is improving. The crew had begun to whisper about the long recovery time. Now they will finally be silent, and Neroon can relax a little.

“Are we sparring or dancing, Alyt?” Branmer teases. Then, dropping his voice, he asks, “Or something else entirely?”

Heat washes across the back of his neck. His spikes and the blue surrounding the front-spur of his crest tingle. He narrows his eyes, baring his teeth in a grin, and flicks the end of his denn’bok in a feint. Branmer goes to meet it. Neroon spins, his uniform coat snapping at the speed, elegant and sharp. Dramatic, and of course it's on purpose, to cut a fine figure for the Shai'Alyt.

He lightly taps the silvery staff against the back of Branmer’s thigh, just under the cheek. He has enough control that it doesn’t even sting; it feels like the lightest touch of a hand.

When the other warrior twists and lunges to strike back, Neroon dodges nimbly out of the way and aims another blow. Branmer blocks easily. Good. He’s getting his wind and his concentration back as well. Very good.

“Would you prefer to dance, priest?” Neroon asks, still grinning. “Isn’t that a little…hedonistic for your sort?”

“Never—” Pikes meet with a clang. “Known you to—” Block, strike, block, evade. “Concern yourself with my hedonism before.”

“For a priest to be so focused on pleasures of the flesh—”

Branmer steps into Neroon’s guard, catching a foot behind the Alyt’s ankle, hooking their denn’boks together so that his subordinate is trapped against him for just a moment. And for just a moment all Neroon can see are those beautiful eyes. All he can feel is the heat of Branmer’s breath against his lips, so very close, and the hard strength of his body holding him captive. His senses reel with it. He can break the hold at any time but in Valen’s name, why would he? Why should he?

“You like it,” Branmer whispers.

“Do I?” A challenge, even here. Even now. It is what love means for a Star Rider. But at the sudden flicker in Branmer’s lovely eyes, Neroon murmurs, “Perhaps I do like seeing you chase your own pleasure, ah’aia'hel.”

The Shai’Alyt’s ren’helas darkens from pale cerulean almost to cobalt. Exertion, some might say. Perhaps they’re right.

Neroon doubts it. He knows what such alluring color means.

He loves sparring with this man. His man. It isn’t just because he can see how well Branmer is recovering, although there is that. It’s because so often this mimics their own dance around each other, a dance that is a bit like verbal sparring and a bit like battle and a bit like a courtship display that no one else understands.

They’ve done this—sparred like this, every morning and evening, before and after their duty shifts, slowly increasing the difficulty at Neroon’s discretion—since Branmer was well enough to leave his sickbed. His illness has stolen much of his speed and strength; he’s out of trim, even after months of working with his executive officer and the few officers near to Neroon in rank. It wouldn’t do for the rest of the crew to realize how ill their commander, the leader of their Caste, had been.

How near, Neroon thinks with a sudden shadow drifting across his thoughts, the star of his heart came to dying.

Without warning, his ma’fela cracks his pike across Neroon’s shoulder, very close to where it joins his neck; only the padded and spiked pauldron keeps the blow from numbing his entire arm. Only the thick, padded collar of his surcoat keeps the pike from catching his ear hard enough to truly damage, or to chip the bottom edge of his bonecrest.

He bites back a yelp and staggers backward, gritting his teeth against the throb and the sting as well as the humiliation. A child should have been able to block that hit. He was distracted.

Branmer immediately collapses his denn’bok and reaches for him.

“Neroon?” His fingers are quick when they begin undoing the ties keeping the pauldron in place. “I thought you’d block it, so I put extra force behind it. I’m sorry; I did not mean—”

He covers Branmer’s hands with one of his own. He doesn’t know whether to be touched or concerned by the tremble in his Shai’Alyt’s fingers. Worry for his lover, or a sign of fatigue that should not be there? Has he pushed him too hard in this session?

“I was distracted,” Neroon says with a shrug. “It is no worse than other wounds I’ve taken from you while sparring.” He does not wish to share the sudden thought that distracted him. “I apologize for not respecting our time or your efforts, Shai’Alyt Branmer.”

Those gentle gray eyes study him for too long. Only cycles of experience enduring the penetrating gaze Branmer inherited from his Religious Caste mother allows the Warrior to keep from squirming.

“I would like to see if I have done you harm, Alyt,” he says with soft formality. More softly, he whispers, “A’rahan? Su’rahan?”

May I? Please?

In Valen’s name. He is a Warrior, a Star Rider, impervious to all things. Hunger, exhaustion, pain. But not Branmer’s eyes like the sea near Drogani after a summer storm, and not the tender way the other man whispers his title when he truly wishes something of him.

Only with Neroon does Branmer let himself ask for things, rather than order them to be brought or given over. Only with Neroon do his eyes go from the cold quicksilver of a pike to warm summer sea mist. Former priest, now a Warrior? Now the Shai’Alyt? He cannot allow anyone else to see what gentleness remains in him, or they will question the truth of his Warrior’s heart.

The reverse is somewhat less dire. Branmer is not the only one to see softness and kindness in Neroon, the Alyt knows. He cannot help but be gentle with the newest and youngest recruits, with children, with the soul-sick. What honor is there in being warrior-cold with them?

But only Branmer is allowed to see the true depths beneath the armor of Star Rider upbringing and training, and only sometimes. The part of Neroon that comes from his Worker Caste father. Only Branmer, and on very rare occasions Neroon’s own family, though he sees them little these past cycles.

This is why Neroon lets Branmer remove the pauldron, peel back the uniform coat and tunic collar, and probe what he knows will be a wicked bruise in the morning. There’s a small split in his earlobe; a few drops of blood well up. His ma’fela tenderly wipes them away with the edge of his sleeve, and no more rise. There is no harm to the crest as far as either man can tell.

“Vi drosh,” Branmer murmurs, gently caressing the edge of the bonecrest, the lightest brush of fingers.

Neroon’s mouth curves into a crooked smile. “Do not be sorry. It is my own fault. A good lesson for me.”

“A lesson in what?”

Why fearing death and shadows and the past is a fruitless endeavor. Why love like this is so often viewed as a weakness by the Warrior Caste, even by those who love has taken prisoner. Even by Star Riders, who treat love like an enemy and an old friend in one.

Branmer does not wish to hear such things. There is some of the Religious Caste in him still, in this small thing.

“Paying closer attention to my opponent.”

His mission in saying this is a success: Branmer laughs and unfurls his pike, and they begin their sparring again.

It is easy enough to get the medical histories of the others.

The only things of note are that Persis Demetriou is a trans woman and she’ll need Dr. Kyle to write her a script for her hormones, and Diandra Gale has albinism and that is why she has the assistive dog, because the albinism makes her legally blind.

The only thing remarkable about the dog is how huge it is; its shoulder is higher than Diandra’s waist, and she is not a short woman. Jorah, the dog, is as well-behaved as any doctor could wish.

It's only when he gets to the Cadre leader, her companion, and her children does Dr. Kyle have several questions.

“You will not submit to an examination?” He asks the tall, gray-haired woman.

She does not take off the impenetrable sunglasses that cover most of her face when she looks down at him and shakes her head.

“Then why did you come?”

“For Beatrice and Charli,” the woman—Yvonnie, the leader said—tells him flatly.

“If you are ever hurt while on the station…we may not know how to help you,” Ben tries to reason with her.

She doesn’t even shrug. “Then I will not allow myself to get hurt.”

He tries to press, and she shifts her weight ever so slightly. Suddenly it feels as if there is a lot less space in the examination room. Something hard and cold presses against the backs of his legs, against his elbows, like bands of steel. When he jerks around to look behind him, there is nothing.

“See to the children and my leader,” Yvonnie says. Every word seems to click against her teeth like bone on bone. “If I am ever so badly hurt that I require medical attention, Kaitlyn will tell you what to do…but I doubt it shall ever come to pass.”

Dr. Kyle glances at the leader, who cants her head. No help there. And something about this other woman, this Yvonnie, makes him think if he pushes any further, she might do something to him. Something it will take a very long time to recover from. World-Walkers are supposed to help people, but…well.

She doesn’t seem so dangerous when it’s time to draw blood from the two children and give them their vaccinations against the standard adolescent diseases.

Commander Sinclair has told him the World-Walker leader means to enroll her children in the Babylon school, so the vaccines are necessary. No, Yvonnie does not look so dangerous when she gently clasps one hand from each child. Their mother takes their free hands.

The children—a little girl and an enby about two years younger than xyr sister—are oddly stoic about the needles, mostly just shutting their eyes and squeezing the adults’ hands. The enby, Charli, sniffles as a tear escapes xyr control, but there’s none of the screaming hysterics Dr. Kyle often sees in children so young. They don’t even flinch at the blood draw. Their mother doesn’t flinch when he takes her blood, either.

Dr. Kyle stares at the results of the blood work when they’re ready. He slowly turns to the World-Walker leader. She watches him, a small smile curling her lips. When she cocks her head, her waterfall of loose dark curls spill across one shoulder.

For just a second, her shadow moves on the wall, and something seems to unfurl out of it. When Ben blinks, there’s nothing.

“Problem, Dr. Kyle?”

He swallows. “You have a mild iron deficiency—”

“I don’t, actually,” she says with a little laugh. “You’ve gotten my DNA results back, I assume?”

“Yes—”

“For my…combination, a somewhat low iron count is a good thing. If it was much higher, I’d start having a lot of problems. Trust me, I’ve been there before.”

Data percolates in his brain as he mentally records everything she’s saying.

“What sorts of problems?” The scientist in him is desperate to know.

“Exhaustion, chronic pain, brain fog,” with a little shrug and a smile. “My mother’s people call it iron fatigue. I'm also a bit more photosensitive than the average person. Ultraviolet and stellar radiation more than," she gestures to the ceiling, "this sort of lighting. And I have a few plant allergies."

When he asks her to list them, she says, "Sumac trees, aconite flowers, sloe berries, and verbena plants. You don't happen to have any on the station?"

They don't, and she smiles.

"Cool. Anything else?”

He isn’t quite sure how to say this. This isn’t something he has seen in any of the alien species he’s encountered before.

“Your bones…you know they’re—”

“Yes,” she says. “The same with my children. You can do more in-depth scans later, if you want to follow up on that.” She sounds as if she’s reciting from a script she’s memorized. Something about that tickles at his memory. “Anything else?”

"The...the dermatological abnormalities at the back of your neck...and your children have them, too."

At the term dermatological abnormalities, she looks...stung? Annoyed?

Angry?

But then her expression is smooth and warm again. She says, "They're not abnormalities. My mother’s people all have them."

"I see. I'll make a note in your file. Two other...potential abnormalities," trying to be tactful after the last misstep, "are your knees and hips. The tendons and ligaments around the joints themselves, there is a great deal of scarring. As if they were di—"

"Yes," she says sharply. Behind her, Yvonnie looms. Trixie looks to her mother, and Kaitlyn smiles at her, petting the child's hair. "I have bad knees, it's a genetic thing, and my hips were injured a long time ago. They didn't heal properly."

Ben can't think of any sort of injury that could leave decades-old scarring like that, unless it happened when Kaitlyn was born.

But he doesn't press the issue. Only makes a note in the children's files to keep an eye out for any issues with their knee joints in the future.

"Are you in pain?"

She laughs, a trill of incredulous delight, as if he's said something clever.

"Yes, actually. Always, for a variety of reasons. I wear knee braces, though, which helps."

"We have a technology called leg-stabilizers, they're a little less cumbersome than standard leg braces and allow for more flexibility, if you're interested. Technically as a member of the Babylon Cadre, you count as executive staff, and have free medical coverage."

At his words, she perks up a little.

"And I can write you a prescription for the pain. Non-addictive, no dangerous side effects—"

"My metabolism is pretty..." She glances at the children. "Eff-you-see-kay-eeh-dee—"

"Fucked!" Charli beams in triumph.

"Hey," Kaitlyn laughs, "what's the rule about spelled words?"

Charli claps xyr hands over xyr mouth and gazes up at Kaitlyn, mumbling something that might've been sorry.

"Goofy child," Kaitlyn says, smiling. To Ben, she says, "Anyway, point is, I metabolize drugs pretty fast. I don't think—"

"The blood tests will allow me to calculate the appropriate dosage, and we can tweak it if it isn't working for you." Gently, Dr. Kyle says, "No one should have to hurt all the time. I just want to help."

She stares at him for a very long time. A muscle flexes in her jaw. Her lower lip wobbles—just for a second. He wonders what she sees.

Then she swallows and nods, looking away.

"Thank you. Was there anything else?"

“You, um…you have a higher bioelectric signature than the rest of the Cadre. Ms. Shizue has one nearly as strong, but…”

He glances at the children. At Yvonnie, silent as a statue. The force of her stare threatens to burn him. The children’s bioelectrical fields are high, too. Higher than some of the adults. Ben jerks himself back to the moment.

“But your DNA, Madame World-Walker—”

“Kaitlyn,” she corrects. Her voice is gentle, and a little wet. “Just Kaitlyn, unless we have to be formal." She clears her throat. Blinks hard, twice. Focuses on him. Her voice is stronger when she says, "And yes, the blood tests show that my DNA isn’t purely Human. Neither are my children’s, of course.”

“Yes. Half. You’re—”

“Half-Human,” she says with a bright smile. It seems to ask what kind of xenobiologist he’s supposed to be, if he’s this flummoxed by her genetic makeup. “Yes. Charli is a little less than half and Trix is a little more than one-quarter. Is there a problem?”

No. Perhaps? “I do not recognize the other DNA sequences—”

“You wouldn’t,” she says. “My parents are World-Walkers, too, and their parents. What they are does not exist in this universe, but for the sake of your notes I’ll tell you—my mother is half-Human, half what is called Maleficarae. That’s where the thing with my bones comes from, if you’re interested. My father is half-Human, half Nyosvaratiu.”

“Your children…” Dr. Kyle trails off at the sharp smile and the sharper look in her gaze when she lays a hand on each child’s head and strokes their hair. Her hands move in an odd way, as if she’s carefully avoiding touching something in their hair.

“Beatrice is the same as me, though in different proportions. Her father was Nyosvaratiu. Charli’ father was an Ars Goetia. You don’t have those in this universe, either. Does that answer all your questions?”

The xenobiologist in him bangs on the doors to his mind, demanding to be let out, demanding to ask a thousand questions. He’s never heard of these species, of course. What does she know of them? Anything? Anything about their biology? Their sociology, their psychology? Is Yvonnie one of these species, full-blooded? Is that why she doesn’t want to be examined? Is that why she seems so subtly wrong?

He opens his mouth to ask—he doesn’t know what—but his teeth snap shut with an audible click at the look on the World-Walker leader’s face. If he asks her anything about these beings, he doubts she will tell him. If anything besides a World-Walker, a Cadre leader, looked at him this way, he would hastily begin penning his last will and testament. Instead, he offers her a tight smile and a little bow—just in case—and gestures her and the children and Yvonnie out of the room.

He is not sure if he should continue in this endeavor. He did not expect World-Walkers here.

The Valenic Scrolls speak of them—creatures from another universe, similar in body to Minbari but different from the neck up, closer to Centauri. Capable of great works, great strife, great healing.

The Scrolls have always been vague about them, save two things: that they will finally make contact with the people of Minbar when the ancient enemy returns, and that after the Great War against the Sher’Shok Dum, the Warrior Caste will find favor with the Ver'sim'aiae.

The Warrior Caste will be favored by those spoken of by Valen.

The scrolls even speak of the Shai’Alyt making allies of them, shield- and sword-mates.

Shai’Alyt Branmer has no stomach for war anymore, not after the loss of his brother on the Drala’fi and the surrender at the Battle of the Line. If he did, why does he now play peacemaker and diplomat?

A brilliant warrior once, a visionary, courageous. But he has returned in his heart to the Religious Caste. He wears the armor but cannot bear the weapons, as they say. Minsa’Hat Shakiri is right about this, as he is right about many things.

If they are to take the power of the Ver’sim’aiae, a weakling like Branmer will not be the one to do it. It will be a new Shai’Alyt, after Branmer’s term has ended…or when someone with the will to command the Ingata steps forward to challenge him for the position.

There is a new war coming. A new war with the Humans, he hopes, if he fulfils his mission and poisons the Vorlon ambassador.

Surely if the World-Walkers knew he is here—very few even among the Religious Caste understand what the scrolls mean when they speak of Seeing and Knowing, but it is known that the intergalactic travelers often know things it is impossible for them to know—surely if they Know of him, they would send someone to stop him before he has a chance to complete his mission from Shakiri and the Warmaster.

Perhaps even stop him themselves. Stop all three of them? Perhaps they have already learned of Khon’fi and Durah’linn’s presence on the station. Only he, of the three of them, possesses a changeling net. Perhaps the World-Walkers have his Clan-mates even now, torturing them for information.

Great healing, great works, great strife…

No. He will not think of this any longer. He is not afraid of these creatures that look so Human. Probably are Human, though more powerful than the rest of their foul breed. He is Nur’drala ra Vonilbok, Nur’drala of the Wind Swords. He is loyal to his Clan, to his Clan Elders.

To Shakiri, who should be the Shai’Alyt to come.

Shakiri and the Warmaster say to poison the Vorlon, even though Vorlons are revered by many in the Religious Caste. He will do it, and frame the wretched alien commander favored by that traitor Delenn of Mir. The one the Grey Council watches so closely.

He will bring his people, his Caste, back to the proper path.

There should never have been a surrender at the Battle of the Line, after the brutal murder of Dukhat and two of the Grey Council, even if they were only Worker Caste Satai. Not after the cowardly destruction of the Drala’fi by Sheridan Starkiller.

This time, the Minbari will ally with the Vorlons, as is proper, for only Vorlons are close enough to Minbari to be worthy of respect and friendship, though the Religious Caste’s reverence for them is sickening. Almost obscene.

And when the Vorlons go to war against the filthy Torrbari, the Earthers with no honor, the Minbari will not surrender a second time.

Perhaps, Nur’drala thinks as he configures the changeling net that will allow him to pass as the enemy, perhaps his mission is what will allow Shakiri to attain the rank of Shai’Alyt and secure the backing of the Ver’sim’aiae. 

Chapter Text

Just at the door to MedLab, Kaitlyn turns back to him.

“Dr. Kyle?”

A quick spark of hope flares in Ben’s chest. Maybe she'll answer his questions after all? He is so curious...

He tries to quash it. “Yes?”

“Three things. Does this universe have a neurotype known as autism?”

He raises graying eyebrows. “We do."

"Describe it to me."

"Well, I...”

Describe it to her? Why?

“Signs include differences in sensory processing and sensory needs, difficulty with abrupt change, unique perception of…shall we say, atypical physical cues rather than the ones non-autistic people usually recognize…” He trails off, wondering again why she wants to know. He saw no signs in her children.

Or is that why Yvonnie refuses to be examined?

Kaitlyn nods for him to go on.

“Er, well…to be very brief, often autistic people can exhibit intense focus, exceptional memory for certain subjects. It can be difficult for someone to get their attention if they’re in a hyperfocused mode, but that isn’t always true. They may have difficulty with verbal speech, but I’ve found that language accommodations can take care of that in eight out of ten cases. Eye contact can be difficult for them, but so many cultures consider eye contact rude, so I’m not sure it really matters, especially in a place like this…”

Dr. Kyle realizes there was a tension in Kaitlyn he didn’t even notice until she relaxes, now, at his answer.

It suddenly strikes him that not once in this entire two-hour period, not since she walked in the door, has she looked him in the eye. She is not meeting his gaze now; her eyes are fixed on his mouth, with only the occasional flick toward an ear or his hairline or chin.

He’s seen this trick before, in autistic patients who’ve been forced in the past to make painful eye contact.

How much courage must it have taken to ask this question, with a history like that? How much practice must she have needed for the conversation? He wonders how in-depth her conversational rehearsals are when she has to do something important. How meticulous are her explorations of possible scenarios?

He remembers how it sounded as if she were reciting from a memorized script.

“You’re autistic,” he says.

She inclines her head with a smile. He wonders how much practice it took, how many years of training—willing or unwilling—to make herself so readable to someone who isn’t autistic.

“I shall keep that in mind next time you need to come see me. If there is any accommodation paperwork you need for the commander, I’ll be happy to sign off on it. Anything that needs doing in the exam room to make you more comfortable, I hope you’ll let me know.”

She blinks at him, clearly touched by the unprompted offer.

“Thank you, Doctor. And the second thing is, if you ever have a patient doing badly and you need to keep them alive long enough to fix them—maybe they’re hurt and fading too quickly for you to patch them up, that sort of thing—call us. One of us will come, and we’ll help.”

A blink of surprise. “What can you do?”

Luciera has medic training and that small healing ability, but that won’t help in a situation like that. Orfea and Persis, the older women, have the same ability, but small as well.

He realizes Kaitlyn World-Walker did not tell him any of her unique skills. But Cadre leaders must have some, and her bioelectric output is so high...

Her smile is bright and warm.

“Slow things down long enough for you to save the day, hopefully,” she says. “Lucy, Orfea, and Persis are best for it. It will only buy you several minutes, maybe a few hours depending on the situation, but something is often better than nothing. The third thing is…”

She hesitates, eyes roving over his face. “You were interested in my bones.”

“I…yes.”

“In about a week, maybe, I’m going to need to come in for some x-rays anyway. You can do a more in-depth scan then. Is that okay?”

“I…of course, but…why?”

And why not right now? They have the time.

Her answer is not what he expects.

“I want to make sure I can trust you first, before I give away any more of my secrets. So hopefully I’ll see you next week.”

She studies him for a long moment and he doesn't know what to say. There's an odd look in her eyes. Lonely? Wistful? Happy?

"Ms. Kaitlyn?" It seems wrong not to use some sort of honorific. 

She shakes herself. Laughs at...him? Herself?

"Sorry. It's just...you remind me a lot of my dad."

And then they’re all gone, leaving him to wonder what secrets a bone scan will reveal that a blood test did not, and leaving him to wonder what sort of man her father is or was.

Sinclair is going over paperwork, but he can’t stop glancing at the clock. It’s almost time for him to go off-duty. Carolyn said something earlier about special new sheets…but Kaitlyn World-Walker claims the Vorlon ambassador will arrive sometime today instead of at his—her? their? xyr? faer? eir? nyr? jør? —notified time.

It’s the first test of her Seeing; he wants to see it through. He needs to know if what she tells him can be trusted to be accurate.

Restlessness jitters through his legs. What will it mean, if Kaitlyn’s words prove false? When a World-Walkers tells you something is, they’re always supposed to be right. So if she’s wrong…is she not actually a World-Walker? Rogue Walkers don’t travel in groups, that’s why they’re also called Lone Walkers. But only a Lone Walker will lie…

Frag it. He needs to make his rounds anyway. He’ll stop by C&C and check on things. Laurel knows to expect him around now anyway, at least on normal days where no catastrophes threaten. He’ll take a brisk walk through the station from his office to the command deck and see what’s toward. Help him work off some of this tension.

A Cadre of World-Walkers and a Vorlon ambassador—the first Vorlon ambassador he’s ever heard of—in less than forty-eight hours of each other. Sinclair prays nothing else drastic happens before the end of the week.

Kaitlyn sighs, grateful, when Luciera steps into her quarters with a large box. A stamp from the Zocalo shop it came from—Minbari, she’s pretty sure—decorates one side of the box with stars and swirls and three crossed crystal…staves? She can’t tell, but it’s lovely, done in a soft glacier green against the thin, light, white stone of the box.

“Thanks for not…making me…” She gestures toward the door, to outside her quarters, then slips her hands under her glasses to cover her eyes. “Ashylanthe, please turn this off,” she mutters to their goddess of—among other things—silence and rest.

Lucy laughs softly and sets the box down on the coffee table.

“You’re still overstimmed from the doctor visit and you’ve got the ambassadorial thing later tonight. It’s a trip to the market, I can handle it. Persis and Regan are food shopping, but this is more important for us. You were right, a Minbari Worker Caste shop had everything we need.” She taps the symbol. “Fi’irilmer, Starship Crafters? Have you heard of them? Or Seen anything about them?”

Kaitlyn pulls her hands down and resettles her glasses. Shakes her head. “You?”

“No,” Lucy says, “but…I have a weird feeling about them. Not a bad one. Just weird. Apparently they have very strong family ties to a Religious Caste Clan, the Fi’Domo, and a Warrior Caste Clan, the Fi’sularae? Both of them are really old, I guess, and really important on Minbar.” At Kaitlyn’s look, she adds, “Sanira, the woman working the shop, told me about it. Fi’Domo means Monks of the Stars and Fi’sularae means Riders of the Stars.”

“So Starship Crafters, Star Monks, and Star Riders? Interesting.” Kaitlyn thinks about this for a minute. “When I finally meet Ambassador Delenn, I’ll ask her about them. Or you can. She should be at the Hell-party tonight.”

It isn’t that Kaitlyn doesn’t like socializing—she does, up to a point.

It isn’t that she doesn’t like parties—she does…up to a point.

But the first few days after an Arrival are always exhausting, and she wishes the Babylon Door dropped them off a few days earlier, so she can have time to acclimate to everything (including being trapped on a giant, extremely fragile tube of spinning metal in the middle of space).

“Stick with her, she seems nice, based on what I’ve Seen,” Luciera advises as she starts taking the candles out of the box. The Minbari, masters of color and beauty, have managed to make each of the seventy-seven candles in this set a different but pertinent color to the needs she specified. “But don’t forget to say hi to Londo and G’Kar. Remember how they both are in the beginning.”

“I remember,” she says. She remembers how they all are, in the beginning. Even Delenn, who is capable of such compassion and such terrible cruelty when her wrath is kindled. Kay can’t really blame the priestess; she’s the same way. Everyone in the Cadre is the same way, even Regan and Orfea, although it takes a lot more to piss them off than the others.

She picks up a candle the color of a deep ocean that fades, ever so slowly, to a soft storm gray at the top. Gets up and heads to the wooden table she’s brought with her from the School. It’s carved at its hawthorn heart with a diamond, the symbol of the Doors, set in a web of other diamonds and connecting, spiraling lines. Seventy-tsix diamonds connect in a fractal pattern to the seventy-seventh at the center. She sets the deep ocean candle in one of the diamond depressions; it’s just big enough.

“Anira of the Bone Sea,” she murmurs. Anira, their goddess of the ocean, shipbuilders, the stars, hope, music, and battered spouses. Other things, too, but those are the things that Kaitlyn always thinks of.

“Kay,” Lucy says, offering a candle the color of blood fading to darkness at the bottom. “For Endythia of the Sepulcher.”

They set to work arranging the altar, a candle for all seventy-seven of the World-Walker gods: the Nine Wolf Sisters, the Vriket, the Guardians, all of them. It doesn’t matter what order they’re set in, as long as they have them all.

They are not a very ritualistic people, the World-Walkers, but their gods are important, and what few sacred ceremonies they do claim matter a great deal.

Midway through arranging the altar, Charli and Trix come out of their room, followed by Spot and Grudge. The bulky brown cat flops down to cuddle up against the warmth of the electronics panel underneath the BabCom unit. Spot darts in a blur of cream and orange onto the couch and curls up to do his best impression of a pumpkin donut.

“Mommy, can we help with the altar?” Charli asks, picking up a candle. It’s the shimmering green and blue and violet of the northern lights. Charli holds it up. “Kalatiren.” Xe pronounces the name of the King of the Northern Wastes with a little difficulty, being only four.

Kay studies the candle. Nods. It’s perfect for the god of, among other things, the aurora borealis. Lucy did well when she selected all of them.

“Mama!” Trix stops her in the middle of moving between the box and the altar to throw her arms around Kaitlyn’s waist. Luciera laughs when the little girl says, “You’re so mooshy and fun to hug! I wanna be mooshy like you!”

Kaitlyn pokes the generous curves of her own stomach. She’s built like a slightly slimmed down fertility goddess, or a Human’s barely-half-true interpretation of a mermaid (she’s met mermaids at School, they tend to be fat to deal with the ocean cold). She’s grateful for the rolls and curves she has; her fluffy tummy and fluffy other parts help with the vicious cold present in places like Babylon 5, though not as well as her friend Cora’s larger, elegant bulk. Kaitlyn has tried and failed to put on the kind of weight Cora has naturally, in an attempt to deal with aerial cold the same way her friend deals with frigid maritime currents.

“Next time you visit Grandma Mal, let’s see if we can work on that moosh,” she says, giving Trix a squeeze. “Did you stop me just to say I’m mooshy?”

“No.” Her emphasis makes it sound like nooo-uh. “We’re doing chores,” Trix says this as if it should be obvious and why is no one keeping up with her. “And making an altar. So you should be singing.”

“Yeah!” Charli sets a green and gray candle with silver glitter in one of the depressions, and adds, “Eavund Who Betrayed.”

“Eavund, the King Who Betrayed,” she corrects gently.

“Eavund, the King Who Betrayed,” xe says, enunciating with adorable determination. “And yeah, Mommy, you have to thing!”

A sigh, fond and only a little exasperated.

“All right, fine. You have a good point. We’re laying the altar, so we should have a song.” It is their custom to sing when sacred things are being done. “You start, Trixie-love.”

Trix is, after all, six years old. Old enough to find a Heart Door if she weren’t already a nomadic World-Walker.

Also because she is six, Trix can’t actually sing yet. At best, she can warble like a particularly earnest bird, but the tune is recognizable, and she knows all the words to “The Song of the Queens,” an anthem and a hymn to the group of the twenty World-Walker gods known as the Vriket. Sometimes Charli chimes in; xe knows most of the words, or at least other words that sort of sound like the right words.

“Wendy played fair,
And she played by the rules that they gave her!
They say she grew up and grew old…”

The computer systems are a cacophony when Sinclair steps into Command & Control. From the frazzled look on Laurel’s face, the rather boisterous symphony began moments ago.

“Lt. Commander?” He keeps his voice warm and relaxed. Easy to do when someone he trusts is running things, and he trusts Laurel Takashima.

Which makes him wonder again why Kaitlyn World-Walker knows what Laurel looks like from her Seeing, but doesn’t know the name of his executive officer.

Guerra, one of the junior officers currently at a workstation, interrupts. “Commander, Lt. Commander, we’re getting an energy surge at the jump point!”

“That’s impossible!” Laurel looks ready to keelhaul whoever upset her carefully ordered handling of the day’s arrivals. “There aren’t any more ships due until the day after…” Under her breath, so softly only Jeff hears her, she hisses, “Frag it.” And louder, “Put it on screen.”

The computer helpfully informs them in a voice he’s pretty sure is supposed to be calming (but isn’t), “Vortex active. Confirm incoming ship.”

The jumpgate bursts to life, opening a brilliant blue vortex in space. The ship that glides out of the tunnel…Sinclair has never seen anything like it. Soft greens like a jungle after the rain, shifting with patterns of amber and jet and even a few kisses of deep cerulean. It’s like sunlight dappling through leaves. The shape, the silhouette, he doesn’t recognize. He can tell by Laurel’s face that she doesn’t, either. But…

Are the ambassadors in residence? Delenn, G’Kar, Mollari? Kosh?

Everyone but Kosh, he told her last night. He’s supposed to arrive in three days.

He’ll be here tomorrow, the words full of exhaustion and…fondness? Jeff knows he was distracted last night during the brief one-on-one with the Cadre leader. Knows he missed things. Wonders just what he missed, what the missed things might mean.

“That’ll be Ambassador Kosh,” Sinclair says to his second.

She checks the ship signature she was given by EarthGov and tries not to say too many bad words in front of her commanding officer. “That’s a Vorlon ship, alright. Two days early. How did you know?”

“The Babylon Cadre leader told me. Looks like she was right on target.” He moves over to the BabCom unit attached to his own command station and keys in the code to connect to the BabCom unit in Kaitlyn’s living room. He needs to let her know Kosh is here, so she has time to prep for the meet-and-greet with all the station’s ambassadors.

When the screen switches from the neutral blue “Babylon 5 Comm Unit” screen, it takes him a second to recognize the little enby peeking up into the screen, clearly standing on xyr tiptoes.

“Hello?”

“It’s Charli, isn’t it?” Sinclair asks, smiling. “You like Looney Toons.”

“Yeth,” lisps Charli. “Do you want my Mommy?”

“Yes, I need to speak with her if you wouldn’t mind.”

The child looks over xyr shoulder at something out of screenshot. “One thecond. The’th putting up the door crystalth. Mommy!” Charli drops down until xe’s almost completely invisible. There’s the sound of quick running thumpy footsteps. “Mommy, the commanderth on the TV!”

There’s music in the background, he realizes. Humming and low, sweet singing. He catches the words Come with me, where the moon is made of gold, but the words stop when Charli calls for Kaitlyn. Almost immediately she’s in shot, running a hand through her curly hair. Her glasses are slightly askew.

“Commander? Is everything okay?” She blinks, and before he can say anything, asks, “Is Ambassador Kosh here now?”

“Indeed. That’s why I called. Just wanted to give you a head’s up and let you know the official welcome for the Vorlon ambassador and your chance to meet the other ambassadors is in two hours.”

“Cool!” Her smile comes quick and bright. It’s so odd to hear her use such informal language. Something the command staff will have to get used to, probably. “Can Shizue and Luciera come, too? They have a lot of experience with political parties.”

For some reason, he doesn’t think that’s why she’s asking. The problem is, he can’t think of another reason why she would be asking.

“Of course. I’d like a chance to get to know them, as well. See you in two hours.”

“Awesome. Thanks for the head’s up!”

She’s already back to humming before she shuts down the communication.

She is not humming an hour and a half later, as she drops to the couch to slip on black compression socks. They’ll help with her nerves at the party. A quick glance over her shoulder tells her where her best boots are, the ones with the gold buckles.

“Charli-bob, can you get my nice boots?”

Xe darts for the black leather boots and tosses them over the back of the couch. A pair of soft thumps announce their arrival beside her. She quickly yanks them on and tightens the buckles while calling her thanks.

“Trix, I need my—” The request dies when the little girl brings the obsidian and amber pendant on its gold chain—three feathers stylized like flames in a ring of gold. Kaitlyn slips it over her head and lets her daughter help untangle her hair from the tiny chain links. That done, Trix hands her a ribbon that shimmers with the colors of fire. “Good girl.”

She ties the cascade of her hair back, tight. She takes a quick peek in the mirror to make sure she caught the feathers in her ponytail, too. Smiles, then looks at her kids.

“How’s I lookin’?” She grins when they chorus awesome! “Great. Yvonnie should be here right…” The door security chimes. “Now, I think. Who is it?”

“A very busy spider,” says a familiar voice. A pause, then, “Also hungry.”

“Come in!” When Yvonnie enters, Kaitlyn says, “All right, I told Yvonnie you guys can have pizza, but you still have to be in bed before nine. I know it’s a weekend, but still.”

“If we’re still awake when you get back, will you tell us about the ambassadors?” Trix asks, handing her mother a long spill of gold-embroidered, cream-colored cloth.

Kaitlyn sweeps it behind her and stuffs her arms through the sleeve-holes. “If you’re in bed and still awake when I get home, I’ll tell you all about everybody.” She hugs them both, kisses their cheeks. “Okay, please be good. You can watch a movie after dinner and work on your light sigils but only with Yvonnie in the room! Don't want anything catching fire!” Another pair of kisses. “Love you both. Back later.”

She mouths thank you to Yvonnie, who nods and sets her oddly long hands on the two small heads, careful of hidden things.

Then Kaitlyn is out the door and meeting up with Lucy and Shizu, both in the same formal wear as her own. The only difference is their pendants—Lucy’s is the same tear-shaped diamond she always wears, and Shizue’s is a round, blue glass disc threaded with fingers of black, scarlet, and gold—and Luciera’s headscarf, silver and scarlet silk embroidered with gold leaves and flowers. Each of her long, dark braids is tipped with silver and garnet beads.

“Wow, you went super fancy,” Kay says, studying the beautiful braids. “I just went with a ribbon.” Is she supposed to be fancier? No. No, she vowed ages ago never to make her discomfort worse, never to set up false expectations in the people indigenous to the Worlds she visits. Otherwise, they might expect her to act like…like…Kade, who’s very good at impersonating fancy-shmancy, extremely boring grown-ups.

“I want to make a good impression on Delenn,” Lucy murmurs.

Kaitlyn quirks a brow. “Why her specifically?”

A hesitation, long enough to raise both of Kaitlyn’s brows. Finally, Lucy says, “It’s not going to happen for a while—three or four years at least—but by that point, she and I need to be friends. I don’t know why, other than it will help save a life or lives that will be dear to me by then, but I Know it.”

Kaitlyn nods. Sometimes World-Walkers learn what they need to know through Seeing, but sometimes it is something else, a Knowing, an unshakeable understanding of the truth of a thing. For whatever reason, Luciera and Delenn need to become friends over the next few years, or something will happen that shouldn’t happen. More than likely, as time goes on Lucy will get stronger, better information. Hopefully.

Sometimes this small sense of Knowing is all they’re given.

There is a Knowing among the Cadre now, which is one reason—though not the main one—that Kaitlyn is not attending this diplomatic event on her own. Something is going to happen to Kosh. This, they’ve Seen: the Vorlon in his encounter suit just inside the disembarkation area, lying on the ground in agony that cannot be seen through the shell protecting him, his life ebbing away. Something will happen…and they are not to interfere with it happening. They are only supposed to manage the fallout.

“Any idea why we can’t…” Shizue trails off. She detests not stopping things before they happen if it’s at all possible. She also dislikes the sense of isolation here on the station, far away from her family in their World, a World that is not her own but is still more familiar than this one. It makes her edgy. Kay relaxes a little, seeing Shizu has brought neither her sword nor her no-mask.

Shizu looks up and down the hall, then snaps her fingers. A small point of pale blue light hovers over her extended index finger. She hastily sketches a symbol in the air.

“The…problem comes from two fronts,” Kaitlyn says when the symbol has faded to faint blue smoke. “If we accuse or expose either one now instead of later, no one will believe us. We’re too new. We just got here yesterday.” Thanks for that, she adds to the Babylon Door. She gets no sense as to whether it heard or not. “And if they don’t believe us, that son of a bitch in Drogani will do everything he can to see us dead."

She tries to push aside the memory of Seeing, the beam of light that is starfire and solarflare together, burning her eyes to even look at it, and the Warrior willing to die for his people who steps inside it, willing to sacrifice himself for a woman he doesn't even like...leaving behind a snow queen, a heartsick Ranger, and a warrior with starlight in her soul.

“Besides," she says, forcing her mind away before she can fall into the vision, "none of you can get past the security in place to get to the docking bay without revealing more than is safe for us about what we all are. Except Regan, who probably can’t get in at all.”

Regan is only with the Cadre as part of her journeymaid education, part of her Trial of the Compass, to see what being a nomadic Walker is like. She hasn’t actually made the choice and undergone the Trial of Between and the Walking Ritual yet.

“You could do it,” Lucy points out.

Kaitlyn shakes her head, then has to push up her glasses. “Only if I want to risk blowing a hole in the deck and get all the people nearby sucked out into space.” She shudders. Why does it have to be a tin can in space? That’s even worse than a tin can under the ocean. “Besides, we’re going to need the others, the command staff and the ambassadors, to see what’s at play here. They won’t believe it if we just tell them, and we’ll make enemies if we try.”

“There is a hole in his mind,” Luciera says, sotto voce. Shizu and Kay nod.

“We also need to establish ourselves,” Kaitlyn adds. “We can’t prevent this if we tried, and we can’t warn against it without turning multiple governments against us. We have to protect G’Kar, and we have to protect our relationship with the Minbari. All we can do is damage control after, which will show the commander we can be trusted to help him when he needs us.”

It will also, she thinks but doesn’t say, give Kosh a reason to do what I ask about Talia when the time comes. Because she’s also Seen what Kosh does to Talia, and what the Psi Corps does to her. And she is absolutely not going to let it happen.

“All right, enough talking, let’s go before we’re late,” Kay says, and the trio head toward the docking bay and the assassin waiting to murder the Vorlon ambassador.

Chapter Text

Garibaldi checks the lay of his medals. All where they should be. He doesn’t have many so it’s easy for one to slip out of place. He doesn’t want to embarrass Jeff by looking like a slob for this shindig.

He hates shindigs.

He loves Jeffrey Sinclair like a brother, so here he is any-fragging-way.

Apparently, the World-Walkers don’t like parties, either—at least their Cadre leader doesn’t. Kaitlyn tugs quickly at the hems of her bell-sleeves, which fall nearly to her fingertips. Aren’t sleeves that long inconvenient? But she seems to find some kind of comfort in twisting the excess ivory fabric around her fingers, smoothing her thumbs over the edges.

All three women are dressed the same: off-white tunic with ridiculously long sleeves, almost as long as a Minbari Religious Caste’s robe-sleeves, the material slick and almost wet-looking with a satiny shine; embroidered sleeveless coats that fall nearly to their ankles; black pants tucked into black boots with gold buckles. The embroidery is different on each of the coats. Green silhouettes of willowy dancing girls dance across Luciera’s coat, with scarlet lions frolicking between swaying bronze trees. Silk-wrought violet flames burn, and multi-rayed stars like blue ice shine on Shizue’s.

Kaitlyn’s coat glitters with gold-rendered thorny vines, blooming pomegranate flowers, and skulls. Michael wonders what the Hell that’s about and if he should be worried.

He ambles over. Gives a smile and a nod.

“Madame World-Walker,” and he wonders again why her nose wrinkles just a little and twitches like a bunny's, “Madame Shizue, Madame Luciera.” The tradition is to call the Cadre leader thus, and address the others by their given names with the honorific. “Glad you could make it. The command staff will greet the ambassador, then we’ll escort him into the reception area. The other ambassadors are already waiting, if you want to head on inside.”

Kaitlyn mumbles something he can’t quite make out—something about eating her own arm—and forces her hands to her sides, releasing the scrunched sleeves.

“Yeah, that’d be…what we need.”

The little hiccup in the middle is quick, a blink of stuttered sound. Michael notices because he never fails to notice anything.

World-Walkers never lie. She was about to say something like, That'd be great, but her nerves make it obvious that "great" is wholly inaccurate. 

“You nervous?”

She wasn’t nervous around him and the commander last night. Wasn’t, according to Dr. Kyle, nervous during her first medical visit, except for something at the end that Ben said he couldn’t divulge due to doctor-patient confidentiality. So why nervous now?

The Cadre leader looks up at him, her gaze darting all over his face. It finally settles but there’s something off about the direction, like she isn’t quite looking him in the eye.

At last, she says very softly, “I don’t like crowds, I don't like party noise, and I don’t like having to perform.”

A blink. Garibaldi makes his sucking-hard-candy face, considering. I don’t like having to perform. He smiles.

“Yeah, not a big fan of political posturing either.”

She opens her mouth, closes it again. Shakes her head. When she smiles at him, it’s as bright as it was yesterday when she stepped through the World-Walker Gate. She makes an expansive arm gesture.

“Shall we go? It’s probably best if you walk us in so nobody gives us any crap. They haven’t met or seen us yet.”

It’s a valid concern, and a good point. So why does he get the feeling that’s not why she brought it up?

But he offers her his arm with exaggerated gallantry, feeling a little silly because her head doesn’t even reach his shoulder. Kaitlyn grins at their linked arms, then looks up at him.

“It’ll be good practice for Mary,” she says.

“Who’s Mary?”

A light laugh, and a shake of her head. The wisps of curl at the end of her long, simple ponytail brush against his few patches of exposed skin, tickling. “You’ll see.”

Wondering how often you’ll see is going to be the answer to his questions while he’s stationed here, he escorts Kaitlyn to the reception area, the pair of them flanked by Luciera and Shizue.

Delenn sees them first, and her wide eyes alert G’Kar. Of course they heard that a World-Walker Cadre has come to Babylon 5, but these three women are not at all what either ambassador expected. Especially the small, plump woman who walks in on Mr. Garibaldi’s arm, grinning at one of his jokes. Her teeth are very white against her brown skin.

Something about them makes G’Kar think perhaps she has too many. Or perhaps that they’re too long? They are different than the teeth of other Humans, though he cannot quite place how.

But there is an openness and a kindness to the woman’s face that the Kha’ri member is sure cannot be feigned. She will be easily manipulated through such compassion, for what else could she have for the plight of his people but sympathy?

“Younger than I would have expected,” G’Kar says in Delenn’s ear. She nods. The woman with Mr. Garibaldi is likely the oldest, and she looks no more than thirty or thirty-five. Younger than every prominent member of the command staff except, perhaps, Lt. Commander Takashima. The other two look even younger than she does.

Garibaldi brings the trio of women right to Delenn and G’Kar. To the surprise of both ambassadors, the three first bow to Delenn in the manner of the Religious Caste of the Minbari, forming a triangle with their hands, fingers of one hand tucked into the other hand, pressed just beneath the sternum; then they bow to G’Kar in the manner of Narn, fists pressed to their chests, closer to the throat than how the Minbari do it.

“Ambassador Delenn, Ambassador G’Kar, these are the representatives from the Babylon Cadre: Cadre leader Kaitlyn World-Walker,” the small woman smiles brightly, “her second-in-command, Shizue World-Walker,” the woman with the bone-straight black hair and a blue glass disc at her throat inclines her head, “and Luciera World-Walker.” This one is quite young, perhaps twenty or twenty-two. G’Kar isn’t as good at guessing Human ages as he wishes to be, despite how many of their females he has enjoyed in the past. “Madame World-Walker, Madame Shizue, Madame Luciera, this is Ambassador—”

“Ambassador Delenn of the Family Mir, of the Ninth Fane of Ardelfi, of the Religious Caste of the Minbari Federation?” Kaitlyn World-Walker says, like a question that is only asked because the asker knows they are correct but doesn’t want to offer insult.

Stunned, Delenn nods.

Kaitlyn turns to G’Kar. She has eyes like sunlight through the Human food known as honey, a deep rich golden-brown he has rarely seen anywhere but in Humans. Very similar to the golden-brown of his own skin in certain light. The lenses of her spectacles make her eyes seem just a little bigger than they truly are.

“And you are Ambassador G’Kar, son of G’Qarn who was a great man? G’Kar who is high priest and warrior-priest of G'Quan on Babylon 5? G’Kar of the First Circle of the Kha’ri, of the Narn Regime?”

He stares at her for a long moment. Words clamor in his mouth and heat flushes across his throat and along his audial membranes as she gazes back, the aim of her eyes just slightly off. Perhaps a bit near-sighted? But surely her glasses would correct such a thing? The question is an inane distraction because this Human woman knows the name of his father.

“You knew my…” His father has been dead longer than this Human has been alive, surely.

“I know of him,” she says gently. “And what I know of you, what I’ve Seen of your future…if you’re not a credit to him now, you will be.”

The Book of G’Quan speaks of World-Walkers. Speaks of a trio of Human women who fought on behalf of his people against the ancient enemy also spoken of in The Book. Fought that enemy, and died, for there were only three. G’Quan warns of the ancient enemy, and warns of World-Walkers who wander alone, and warns of World-Walkers who do not.

They are allies and friends and lovers, siblings and parents and protectors, unless they are not, the sacred text says. What does that mean? What does it mean, that this woman has Seen him in the way of Walker Seeing?

They do not lie. They do not even play the Minbari game of prevarication and half-truth. They will speak, or they will keep silent, and no untruth will pass their lips, says The Book of G’Quan.

He thought to manipulate her, to use her as a tool for his cause. He may yet try. But…

He asks, “Do you have a truth for me this night, Honored Walker?”

She turns to look up at Garibaldi, who looks torn between bafflement and annoyance. She looks to her companions, these two women who are also travelers between different universes. She sighs and pushes her glasses up.

“Yes,” she says, and a shiver tickles along both his spinal columns. “As you are now in this moment, there are times when we are so glad you have come here, like a song in our souls. And there are times, because of who you are now, when you break our hearts asunder…but it will not always be so. We anxiously await that day, G’Kar. You will be even more formidable then, than you are now.”

They are all staring now, the Minbari and the Narn and the Human.

“But there will be blood before that day comes,” Shizue says gently, snagging their attention. “Not now, but soon. We would try to appeal to your better nature, but you wouldn’t listen to us. There is too much in your heart to allow you to hear us.”

“If you’re ever in true physical danger,” the third Walker, Luciera, adds, “call on us. You will not always believe it, but we are your friends, G’Kar—ambassador, warrior, councilor, citizen.” A quick smile, there and gone. “Sir G’Kar the Red Knight of the New Round Table.”

He shakes his head. It feels as if someone has tossed him something beautiful and precious, a glittering ball of starlight caught in faceted crystal, and it is slipping through his fingers. Without understanding why, he’s bracing for the delicate crash of something shattering.

“I don’t understand.”

Kaitlyn—how can she be the Cadre leader? She’s no taller than a Human child, surely—sighs, but not as if she’s angry with him, or finds him stupid. Only as if she is a bit tired. She makes a scrunchy sort of face, and the odd feeling of portent vanishes.

“We know,” she says. “We get that a lot. Unfortunately, giving away much more would screw with the whole time-space continuum thingy.”

A muffled snort from Garibaldi. She looks up at him. He fails to hide his annoyed smile. “Space-time continuum thingy?” It’s obvious the man has questions, but even Humans have rules about World-Walkers and demanding information.

“Yep. Time-space continuum thingy. That doohickey-majiggy.”

There is somewhat less annoyance in the smile now. "Okay, but...thingy?"

“Hush up, Dodgers. And anyway,” she says, grinning, “don’t you have somewhere to be? I don’t want the commander to bust you.”

He flicks his eyes and his brows up, like a shrug done with the face. He nods to the ambassadors, shoots the three World-Walkers a speculative look, and leaves to meet up with Sinclair, who is no doubt going to meet the Vorlon ambassador when he disembarks.

Kaitlyn waits until he’s gone, then glances to Delenn. “Do you have any questions for us, Ambassador?”

G’Kar turns, still a little numb, and looks to the Minbari ambassador. She stares at the dark-skinned World-Walker and there is none of the skewed gaze he noticed when Kaitlyn looked to him. She looks Ambassador Delenn in the eyes, though it seems to hurt her in some way.

“You would offer me this?” Delenn asks.

The World-Walker shrugs. “It’s a special night. First time meeting you and all. Everybody gets a freebie.”

“Free…bee?”

“A free question,” Shizue says with a smile. It’s the sort of smile, G’Kar realizes, that ambassadors wear. It’s different from the smiles on the other two women’s faces. “No strings attached, no insults taken. A free question for each of you…well, for you two and Ambassador Mollari, who is not here right now.”

“He’s in the casino,” says Luciera, wrinkling her nose in annoyance. “Lost track of time, blargh.”

“Hey,” Kaitlyn gives her a gentle nudge, “you of all people can’t fault him. You’re practically time-blind.”

“I have ADHD,” Luciera says with a prim little sniff. “He is gambling and drinking. Possibly even wenching.”

“Hey,” this time Shizue nudges her. “Don’t knock wenching. It’s how I got Ramirisu to marry me.”

This catches G’Kar’s attention. He has never heard of a World-Walker coming to this universe who was already married when she arrived, though many in the past few centuries have stayed and wed those native to this place. “Oh? You’re married?”

“I am, yes,” Shizue says.

In unison, Luciera and Kaitlyn say, “We’re not!” Then Kaitlyn gives her second a playful shoulder-bump. “What number spouse are you on now?”

Shizue rolls her eyes. “Guess.”

“I lost track after twenty-four, enlighten me,” the Cadre leader says with a wry twist of her lips.

G’Kar cannot possibly have heard this correctly.

Durah’linn is not creeping—Wind Swords do not creep, or skulk, or sneak about—she is only moving carefully, purposefully toward her goal. This is the lift tube that Sinclair will take to reach the docking bays where the Vorlon will disembark.

All is in readiness. Her own Alyt, he who is commander and Clan Elder both, has given her what she needs to slow their enemy down.

A simple data crystal, cut from a more fragile mineral than the ones used by most races now. It will short-circuit the lift tube long enough to delay Sinclair and disintegrate from the jolt of the electrical current. A quick puff of air from a simply metal cannister will dissipate the particles that remain.

She will leave nothing behind—no fingerprints, no stray hairs like the putrid cowardly Humans, not even a single grain of crystal dust as a remnant of her tools.

It is not what Wind Swords do. It is not what the Warrior Caste does. If Shai’Alyt Branmer knew of what her Clan Elder commanded her, what would he do? But Durah’linn’s Alyt has spoken truly. Branmer is no longer worthy to be Shai’Alyt, or he wouldn’t spend so much time playing diplomat. They keep this from him because he no longer has the right to know Caste business, Clan business. No longer has a right to influence the policy of the Wind Swords.

She is loyal to her Clan, is Durah’linn. Just like her two compatriots, Nur’drala and Khon’fi. They are loyal to the man who leads their Clan, the man Durah’linn will gladly fall upon a blade for if he asks, the man she will willingly walk into the cold vacuum of space for if he asks. All this, she would do for him, because he has honor and will and vision.

So she slips the flawed data crystal, blank of any information save the simple virus, and cut in the Centauri way rather than the way of the Wind Swords, into the port near the lift tube controls. It’s late; only a skeleton crew mans the station so late, and no one cares about a Minbari woman dressed in—dishonor of dishonors, Worker Caste gold—as she seems to attempt and then fail to procure the lift tube.

Such things malfunction all the time, of course. By the time they even think to check for sabotage, for a virus, for anything, the virus will have chewed itself up and all the evidence will vanish.

The puff of the air cannister is enough to make anyone who is not Warrior Caste jump, a sharp hiss like a venomous reptile. The crystal is already disintegrating and the glitter of it swirls in the quick blast of air before settling on the corridor carpet and her own loathsome robes. They merely slide down the walls to settle on the floor; she shuffles them about with a quick sweep of her boot as she turns to leave.

She is careful to avoid physically bumping into the Human commander when she passes him several feet down the corridor, but she twitches the hem of her robe. It whispers against his pant-leg like a secret. He doesn’t even notice, paltry as his self-awareness is. Durah’linn catches just a glimpse of several glints on the ugly, gray fabric.

If by some miracle the Human filth manages to find a remnant of the particle near the control panel, now there is a little on the commander’s pant-leg as well.

Chapter Text

G’Kar cannot possibly have heard this correctly.

“Madame Shizue…forgive me, you have been married twenty-four times?”

How long do World-Walker courtships last? How dangerous is their job, that she has lost so many husbands at such a young age? What is the mourning period for such things? He isn’t sure if he is fascinated or repelled by a woman—a politically savvy one from the way she smiles and cants her head and does all the things that politically savvy people do to come across as unimposing and friendly—who has married and buried so many husbands.

“No,” says Shizue, and for a moment G’Kar begins to relax, until she continues, “I have thirty-two spouses.”

He looks to Delenn because if he has heard correctly, then the Minbari will—

“Thirty-two?” The priestess echoes. Her eyes are wide, blue as the light of a newborn star. It is, G’Kar has always thought, one of her best features, although he has always admired the elegant curve of her crest as well. “You had…have thirty-two spouses?”

Shizue grins, which surprises G’Kar because it is the first unguarded expression she has made since entering the room. Brushing back a wisp of that long black hair, she says, “In the World where my family lives, political leaders often make polyamorous marriages to secure trade and military alliances.

“My lord Rimuru is one such leader. Me, he married for love, before he became powerful enough to be sought for alliances. The others married us for other reasons—most of them. Some married us for love. My wife, Ramirisu, did for love. So did my wife Myulan and my husband Veldorra. For the most part, even those who came to us for politics have grown to love each member of our marriage.”

Luciera snorts. “Except you and Leon.”

“Leon can backflip off the highest tower of Castle Drearburh on the Ninth, as Kay likes to say, and shatter every bone in his body for all I care,” Shizue mutters. “I don’t know what Guy or Noir see in him, other than his cheekbones and that hair, but whatever.” She forces a brilliant smile. “Anyway, suffice to say, yes, I have many spouses. These two are single!”

G’Kar has to know, “Are the other members of your Cadre married?” He wonders what it would be like, to mate even for a single night with a World-Walker. They are Human, yes, but…not the same as the Humans he’s mated with before.

“Well, Persis and Orfea are married to each other and have a spouse back at the School,” says Kaitlyn. “You’ll meet the pair of them at some point. Zira won't be here for a year or so, she's doing a mission somewhere else right now, but she has two husbands. And Diandra—she’s really noticeable, just look for the woman with the really big dog and sometimes a white cane—is married and has three kids back in the World where her two wives and her husband live.”

Delenn is intrigued by the mention of children. G’Kar must confess, he is as well. The Book of G’Quan says nothing about any of this.

“And the other World-Walkers? Do they have children? Do you?” This directed at Kaitlyn and Luciera.

“Persis and Orfea have four back at the World-Walker School...maybe four? Maybe three. Or maybe five. I don't remember. I have two,” says Kaitlyn, “and Yvonnie—she’s also quite noticeable—has…” She trails off and looks to Luciera and Shizue, who both suddenly look extremely uncomfortable.

Finally, it is Luciera who says, “A lot. Yvonnie has a lot of kids. She’s…been around awhile. Kay’s the only one who brought her kids with her, though.”

This prompts the two ambassadors to request any available pictures. No one has ever seen a World-Walker child. 

Kaitlyn World-Walker carries a single image of her children in the pocket of her black trousers. In the image, she lies on her stomach, cheek pillowed on her folded arms. A little girl and a smaller enby lie half-atop her back, grinning. They are outside on a dark wooden table, a massive house looming behind them in the background.

There are other Humans—maybe Humans?—in the background of the picture: a pale woman dressed in black and white, sitting in the shade of the porch, her white hair streaked with five runnels of inky black; a brunette in the sun whose hair drips, obviously soaked, holding a turtle carefully cradled in her single hand; a young man with dusky golden skin and black hair playing on a flute that looks as if it’s carved of bone, leaning back against the trunk of a tree; a woman wearing a bowtie, hair woven into a long golden braid, sitting beside the woman in the shade on the porch, in the process of cleaning her spectacles; a child with curly, dark hair and a fancy black coat, with a scar slashing across her throat, sits next to the woman, looking up with adoration. A daughter, perhaps?

“That’s the World-Walker School,” Luciera adds helpfully, pointing at the beautiful building behind them. “The main building, anyway. The whole place's a lot bigger than that.”

“Who is the other child?” Delenn asks. “On the porch?”

“That’s Molly,” Kaitlyn says. “Her mother was visiting that day. She and my daughter Beatrice get along really well. She’s not a World-Walker, but her mom is. There,” pointing at the woman with the eyeglasses. “Dr. Jack Wolcott. One of our alumni. I’ve been to her Heart World, it’s an interesting place. Her wife is pretty awesome, too.”

All this talk of children brings a sudden, visceral memory bursting to the forefront of G’Kar’s mind, and he has to close his eyes a moment, swallow hard. He wants to wallow in the memory—his daughter, G’Ryka, as a tiny pouchling inside him, curled up small enough to fit in his cupped hands if he wanted, sucking on tiny fingers in her sleep—but Babylon 5 is not the place for sentiment. Thinking of G’Ryka reminds him he is a father as well as the ambassador, the warrior, the leader. He cannot allow this.

Very few even know of G’Ryka’s existence. Does the World-Walker leader? She didn’t mention his daughter when they were introduced, but perhaps that is only because she understands how…unwise such a revelation would be.

He thinks of the kindness he saw in her face, and wonders if it is that kindness that stays her tongue.

“Ambassador Delenn,” Kaitlyn says suddenly. “You never answered me. Did you have a question for the World-Walkers tonight?”

Given access to another question to be answered by those strange travelers who can sample the future, he would certainly ask another. He wonders what his colleague will say.

“Am I doing the correct thing?” Delenn asks softly.

G’Kar wonders in a vague, distracted way what that means, too focused on the way Luciera and Shizue look to their leader and say nothing. There is something odd in Kaitlyn’s face that wasn’t there even a moment ago. Anger? No, it is too soft, too full of love and apology where neither should be.

Suddenly the Narn ambassador wonders just what, by G’Quan, these women are. There is nothing but sincerity in the look—all of the emotions there are real, and honest, and true—but that cannot be, because these women don’t know him or Delenn, and yet look on both of them with love and grief in their eyes, as if they’ve been friends all their lives.

“Your personal path, yes,” Kaitlyn says, clipped. “It will be difficult, and you will lose much. More than you expect. But you are on the right path, like a migrating butterfly flying home. It will all work out in that regard, eventually, and you will gain more personally than you expect as well, although there are some who will try to take it from you.

“But in a few months, there will come a time where, if you behave as I have Seen, you will make me very angry.”

Delenn stiffens.

“You will not be the only one, then,” Kaitlyn says. “I will not harm you or the others involved for it, but it will be a mistake on your part. I tell you this because like G’Kar, we are your friends, though you do not know us yet. It is part of what we are, to know those who do not yet know us, and to love them before we have even met them.”

She nods to G’Kar, who cannot rid himself of the stunned look on his face.

“But unlike G’Kar, I will try to appeal to your better angels, as Humans here say—do not deliberately hurt the people I love.”

Delenn steps back, no doubt at the cold command from a face that has no ice in its expression. “I would never deliberately…if they are someone you care for, Honored One, I would not—”

“You would,” she says too softly. “I am asking that you do not. I’ll ask the others involved, when it matters, but it’s relevant to your question. So I am telling you, don’t hurt him. He won’t deserve it, even if you believe he does.”

“Who?”

Kaitlyn opens her mouth, and Shizue lays the very tips of her fingers on her shoulder. She turns to the taller woman. Shizue raises her eyebrows. Kaitlyn nods and turns back to Delenn, resigned.

“I can’t tell you,” she says with no little frustration. “It might cause problems for us all in the future. But I’ll warn you again, when the time comes. I—” The World-Walker leader jerks, sucks in a sharp breath. “Ow…” She glances down and swears. G’Kar looks too. Sees a spreading crimson staining running from her elbow to the hem of her sleeve. “Dammit, this is my best top!”

“You are injured,” Delenn says, reaching for her.

Kaitlyn World-Walker already grips her forearm, gritting her teeth. “Professional hazard. It’s a warning, I need to contact Commander Sinclair.”

When the blood of the sacred travelers flows without wounding, be afraid, for it is a warning of danger beyond their normal strength, says The Book of G’Quan. But there is only one reason for any sort of trouble to come to Babylon 5 now, with the Vorlon ambassador here. G’Kar knows this, he helped arrange things for that Varner Human, for the Wind Swords.

Does her blood spill now because of the presence of the Wind Swords assassins? Why? She was perfectly fine five minutes ago. Only now is there blood. Without wounding…What does that mean? Beyond their normal strength…

“Oh, fuuuck,” it’s almost a whine, and Kaitlyn makes an aggrieved face. “I love this shirt. Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

Shizue pats her shoulder. “Cold water.”

“When the buttered flying fuck has that ever worked?”

And then the alarms begin to scream.

He left without him.

Neroon still cannot wrap his mind around it hours later, as he paces back and forth in the docking hangar, bootheels coming down on the metal decking with a crack like breaking bones. Branmer left. Left, without anyone accompanying him. Without guards, without officers. Without Neroon. How can he have just gone off to the Dralbok without bringing someone along?

Yes, the Alyt knew that a meeting was requested on the other cruiser and that Branmer would go because the Alyt of that ship is Clan and Caste Elder, well respected among the Wind Swords, and there is no reason to refuse him. But Branmer didn’t tell him he intended to go alone until right before leaving.

The thought has Neroon grinding his teeth. He forcibly keeps his clenched fists swinging at his sides in the proper pendulous arc of a march rather than doing what he wishes and punching the nearest control panel. He is Warrior Caste. He is a Star Rider. He has honor, he has will, and he has more self-control than a cadet barely past adolescence fuming over a sweetheart.

Of course he isn’t angry that Branmer left the Ingata. He is Shai’Alyt, of course he has to leave the ship sometimes. It is his command, yes, and the current flagship of the Minbari military. That doesn’t mean all business, even all Warrior Caste business, is conducted here. Of course he must go to one of the ranking Clan Elders of the Wind Swords, who were of such help during the Holy War. There is no bad blood between the Star Riders and Wind Swords, no reason to refuse such a respectful request.

But he should have taken me with him, the Alyt snarls inwardly. Every step sounds as if he is stomping on Torrbari bones. He ought to relish that, but he is too worried about his commander. Or taken someone.

Because there are still those among the Warrior Caste who do not consider the Shai’Alyt to be worthy of his rank, worthy of his Clan, worthy of his no-longer-new Caste. Branmer knows it and Neroon knows it. Of course they will not harm him—no Minbari has killed another in over one thousand years, since the time of Valen. But that does not mean they will not heap their disrespect on him, weary him with their cruelty, treat him with dishonor.

What in Valen’s name does Shakiri even want?

He has to wonder. There are rumors that Shakiri has a pet alien somewhere, one who was of great help indeed during the Holy War with the honorless Humans. Perhaps a turncoat Human who understands the Earthers acted dishonorably when they attacked a non-engaging vessel and murdered Dukhat, never mind the countless innocents wounded or killed who were in service aboard the Valen’tha?

But no, the Wind Swords’ hatred of the Torrbari is well known, stronger than any other Clan. Not a Human, then. Some other alien…

Perhaps Shakiri wishes to show off this alien pet. Finally reveal it—him? her? them? He has no idea—to his Shai’Alyt, as he should have done (but didn’t) during the war.

Neroon always wondered why he didn’t, back then. It would have likely earned Shakiri the spot he wanted, aide and executive officer to Branmer. The Wind Sword leader didn’t wish it for Branmer’s sake of course, but to be the second-in-command to the Shai’Alyt. Shakiri had—has—ambition. Yet during the war with the Earthers, he never brought forth this alien supposedly in his employ, this alien that offered biological and chemical weapons to the Wind Swords.

Perhaps they are only rumors at that, and Branmer went to meet with Shakiri about something else. But what else? He didn’t see fit to share this information with Neroon before his departure.

The pacing is not helping to work the restless tension out of his legs and fists clenched so tight they seem to vibrate. There is a little satisfaction in the clang of his boots and the sharp snap of his surcoat whipping out behind him as he turns, however.

Always so dramatic, Branmer always says, with a smile. It’s true enough. Neroon often does these things to be dramatic, to catch the other man’s attention. To tease him, or lure him, or—rather pathetically—to impress him. Oddly enough, despite the other man being so very perceptive, it always seems to work.

Perhaps that is one of the things Branmer loves about him—his drama. His flare, as the former priest sometimes calls it, his theatricality. It’s a skill all good officers have, and one both he and the Shai’Alyt have honed during their careers. If Neroon lives long enough to retire from active military service, it will serve him in good stead when he joins the ranks of the warriors of law. The law is the law, but a good presentation can win a legal skirmish when things are muddied.

He wonders, suddenly, if Branmer will retire from active duty before then. If he does…he will no longer be Shai’Alyt, because the Shai’Alyt must be a serving member of the Minbari military. And if he is no longer Shai’Alyt, he will be Neroon’s commanding officer no longer. There will be nothing in the way of them marrying then, is that not so?

Branmer has ever been willing to give up being Shai’Alyt, now that the war is over and Minbar no longer needs a great general to lead the Warrior Caste in combat. He is willing to give up even his command of the Ingata for the proper courtship time, if it means eventually claiming Neroon as his mala, his husband.

Neroon is not willing to be the cause of his beloved’s career imploding like a dying star. For all that some say Branmer’s heart yearns now for temple rites and pretty prayers, he knows better. He knows that to leave the Ingata, to sacrifice his command before the proper time, would wound the other Warrior’s heart.

Besides, if they do this, if they marry as they will wish in the time that they will wish, the others will say—those who have always longed for an excuse to turn on the former priest—that stepping down from leading that Caste for such a pathetic, weak-hearted thing is proof that Branmer is not truly Warrior Caste, that he has only played at being soldier so that a member of the Religious Caste can poach one of their Warriors. That being in a relationship with one’s executive officer is unworthy of the Shai’Alyt, of any Warrior, because how can Neroon truly have consented when he dared not disobey an order from Branmer?

The Star Riders will not say this; they know what it is to love as only one who rides the stars themselves can love. But the rest of the Clans will spit this poison, and Neroon will not have it. Branmer has endured enough.

Shadows curse it, he’s supposed to be angry at his ma’fela for leaving him behind, not thinking of all the things he’s willing to do to protect him. How is he supposed to hold onto his indignity if he keeps thinking such things?

Softness, Neroon chides himself, though there is little heat in the word. Sentiment.

It is absolutely and devastatingly pathetic, how much he loves Branmer of the Fane of Mirshai, Branmer of the Star Riders Clan.

His mother, Cayathrun, is like this with his father. As a child, attending the primary school open to all Warrior Caste children once they are no longer trained solely by their Clan, the children from the Wind Swords and the Fire Wings mocked him mercilessly for his Worker Caste father and the way the great Caste Elder Cayathrun’s eyes softened from glacial blue to the gentle blue of the summer sky when she looked at him.

The Star Rider children did not mock; neither did the children from the Moon Shields and the Night Walkers. Enough Star Riders have wed into the other two Clans that they understand how it is when a Fi’Sulara falls in love, and their own Clans are sometimes known for…odd romantic quirks that polite Minbari do not speak of.

Such as the Moon Shield who left Homeworld to court and wed a Drazi two cycles ago, Neroon recalls, and shakes his head. Foolishness. To give up family, Clan, Caste, everything to wed an alien? For what reason? No real love could bloom between a Minbari and someone who is not and never will be Minbari. And they can never have children, never sully the purity of the Minbari race with alien blood (though apparently the Drazi are willing to breed with most other races). So why?

He tries to put aside thoughts of offspring, child Warriors like little blackbirds training with him and Branmer, fathers to a small platoon of feral little beastlings. He blames his scattered thoughts on worry and too little sleep.

It is still pathetic, that Branmer can tie him up in knots like this. If he thinks for too long about the weariness and fierce affection in the other man's eyes like sea mist, Neroon knows all of his outrage will vanish like fog when the sun rises. If he thinks for too long about the real reason he is angry that his Shai’Alyt left without some form of escort, there will be no bite in his voice when Branmer returns and Neroon delivers his report to his commander—the only real sign he will give of his displeasure.

Pacing is helping a little now, but only because he is losing his grip on his frustration. He once asked his mother if being in love did that to a person, or if there was something wrong with him, that he sometimes finds himself incapable of holding a nice, solid grudge against Branmer for small grievances.

She laughed and simply said, “Yes,” which didn’t actually answer him. Yes, being in love did that to you? Or yes, there was something wrong with him? She simply smiled and said, “Good night, my son,” and ended their call.

Branmer was surprised when Neroon told him that the Alyt’s quick temper came not from his Warrior Caste mother, who is actually gregarious and even friendly toward Humans (though Neroon cannot fathom how she can behave so, after the Valen'tha and the Drala'fi), but rather from his father. Anyone Neroon tells—people few and far between, usually his officers—are always shocked.

This is foolishness, he tells himself now. Stewing about this like some spoiled upstart Fire Wing fresh out of the Officers’ School, furious about being skipped over for a promotion. Except that isn’t why he’s stewing, so the admonition doesn’t stick.

Where is Branmer? Shouldn’t he be back by now?

When the docking alarm signals that a flyer is incoming, Neroon swerves like a homing hawk and strides into the isolation area. It’s hermetically sealed to prevent loss of atmosphere when a ship docks inside a Sharlin cruiser.

It is Branmer, of course. As executive officer, if any other small ship approached the Ingata, he would be told immediately. It can only be the Shai’Alyt.

The personal flyer lands with an inelegant bump that pricks Neroon’s temper for a reason he cannot define. Branmer learned to fly that sort of vehicle from his Religious Caste; where has his skill gone?

Neroon closes his eyes. Forces his mind to calm, seeks to center himself with a quick round of traditional meditative breathing. At his age, with his amount of practice, it only takes perhaps twenty seconds of breathing to settle himself. Muscle memory for the mind, his mother always says.

He is calm as any Religious Caste high priest could wish when he steps out of the isolation area to greet the Shai’Alyt…until he sees Branmer, and sharp concern shatters his calm.

Sinclair rushes to the downed Vorlon but has no idea what to do. He knows some basic human and Minbari first aid but this…this is beyond him. He kneels, realizes he can do nothing but summon medical help. He can’t even open the ambassador’s containment suit. Vorlons breathe a certain atmosphere; Jeff doesn’t know the details of it, but he knows enough to grasp that what’s in this room isn’t the right stuff.

“Sinclair to MedLab, we need a medical emergency team in Docking Bay Nine, stat!” He stares down at the mass of organic sheeting and shimmering fabric that make up Kosh’s bulk on the floor. He can’t even do anything to make the ambassador more comfortable while they wait for the med team.

“Jeff!” Suddenly Michael is there, and Sinclair can’t help the quick surge of relief even though he’s supposed to be Michael’s commanding officer. Supposed to be the one in charge. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, I’ve called for a medical team, they’ll be here as soon as they can. The alarms went off and I came in and he was just lying here!” Then he asks, even though surely his security chief doesn’t know the answer, “Why didn’t Kaitlyn warn us this was going to happen?”

She Saw Kosh arriving early, so why not this? Or did she See it and say nothing? Or, possibly more likely than the friendly newcomer simply refusing to share information with him, did she See it and think it wouldn’t happen for weeks or months or even years?

Garibaldi moves to touch the oddly slick curves of the containment suit.

“Careful, we can’t open that in here!”

“I know,” the security chief mutters. His gaze darts all over the suit. His brows furrow. “I can’t even tell if he’s alive or dead inside this thing!”

“He’s alive.”

Both men twist around to see Kaitlyn hurrying into the room, gliding like a shark through icy oceans, but it’s Luciera who sprints ahead of her and goes down beside Kosh in a quick, elegant drop-and-slide that makes the beads in her braids clink against each other. Her black boots leave a pair of scuffs on the floor as she runs her hands an inch above the encounter suit, biting her lip. Shizue and Kaitlyn crouch beside her. They look to Lucy, not Kosh.

“You’re sure he’s still alive?” Kaitlyn asks. Lucy nods. “Does he need you?”

“Yes,” Lucy says softly. “He’s going to need more than me once he gets to MedLab. I can feel him fading out.” She looks to Garibaldi and Sinclair. “Do either of you have anything sharp?”

Michael shakes his head. “You can’t open his encounter suit—”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Lucy says briskly. “Sharp thing, please?”

Jeff exchanges a look with his security chief, gives Michael a nod. For now, with the well-trained security officer and himself right there, he’ll allow this, whatever it is. Garibaldi hands Luciera his green rank pin. A quick pinch of the backing brad makes it pop off, revealing the point.

The three women exchange a glance—there’s something in it that says this is a familiar situation, that what they’re doing is old hat, they can do it in their sleep if they have to—and then Lucy flicks out her arm to roll back her long white sleeve and jabs the pin into her flesh. Her breath sucks in, a sharp hiss.

Sinclair stares at her. Why…? Then he sees the marks on her arm, gray-brown like the odd maybe-tattoo he spotted on Kaitlyn the night before. They’re symbols, he realizes. Not tattoos, though. Scars? Branding scars? But there are so many, neat columns up and down Lucy’s arm, thin and curving lines. Is it an alphabet of some kind? Does it say something?

She’s stabbed the pin into the mark closest to the big vein in her wrist, though not in the vein, he notes. She drags the pin along the mark, and he can tell it hurts by the way tears well up and spill over her cheeks. Blood wells up too, but not as much as he might’ve expected.

A shimmer of silver-green light shivers through the welling blood. Is this what Dr. Kyle and the Academy texts meant about bioelectric energy? Lucy twists her hand in a complicated gesture that looks as if it should make her wrist crackle like a cement mixer.

Instead, the other symbols on her skin begin to glow ever so faintly, like bioluminescence in the night. Silver-green like the glitter in her blood. Sinclair stares at it in wonder. He’s seen something like this once, when he went nighttime scuba diving off the coast of Barbados before the Earth-Minbari War, but…but not like this. The light curls around Luciera’s wrist, climbs over the tendons pressing against her skin and slightly swollen finger joints and the manicured nails.

It spills down Lucy’s fingers and drips onto the encounter suit. Pools there, shimmering like moonlight on lagoon water, before spreading out. Twining and twisting into shapes very similar to the symbols on her arm. A web of filigreed silver light swoops across the organic sheeting and tubing, over the fine black fabric, over the dull green ocular lens. It envelops Kosh, pulsing rhythmically.

“That’s his heartbeat,” Michael whispers, and Sinclair realizes he’s right—the pulse of light is monitoring the Vorlon’s cardiac rhythm, something neither he nor his security chief have any way of doing because of the encounter suit.

Luciera suddenly makes a sharp, gasping noise and hunches her shoulders. Kaitlyn immediately puts one arm around her waist and her other arm beneath Lucy’s as if supporting it. The commander notices the crimson soaking the Cadre leader’s sleeve. That is a lot of blood. What happened to her to make her bleed like that in the time she was with the ambassadors? A broken glass? A sharp jagged edge on a door frame?

“I’ve got you,” Kaitlyn says. “Use me for a boost, I can take it.”

“You sure?” Lucy whispers. "We're still adjusting."

The World-Walker nods. “My Seal’s already starting to come undone anyway so I don’t even have to slice myself open. Go ahead, get a boost. You have to keep him in the green until MedLab comes.” She shoots Sinclair a look. “You did contact MedLab, right? I mean, I assumed you did because you’re you, but—”

“They’re on their way,” he says. Use her for a boost? Adjusting?

Then he sees what it means, as a similar glow flares to life beneath Kaitlyn’s bloody sleeve, though the color is different—burgundy twined with deep emerald. Because of the blood? The fabric? Because of Kaitlyn? More light trickles over her hand resting just under Lucy’s and spills onto Ambassador Kosh. It shifts color when it mingles with Lucy’s. The pulse of the light-web grows stronger, steadier. Luciera’s shoulders droop as the tension eases out of her.

“Are…you two healing him?” Michael asks in a whisper. Jeff doesn’t know why, but it feels like they ought to whisper right now, even though the question ought to be ludicrous.

Lucy shakes her head.

“Not healing,” she says. Her voice is still ragged, straining in her throat. “Can’t heal something like this. Not strong enough, even if this wasn’t the adjustment period. Not skilled enough. Just slowing down the damage until help comes.”

Slowing down the damage…Does Dr. Kyle know Luciera can do something like this?

“Kay’s boosting my stamina,” she adds.

Garibaldi looks to Kaitlyn—Kay?—whose arm still supports Lucy’s. She doesn’t take her eyes off where Lucy’s hand lays atop hers, trembling a little, bleeding still. He asks, “You’re not able to heal him? Dr. Kyle said you were pretty powerful compared to the others.”

She shakes her head. “Not my forte. I can heal small things—scrapes, scratches, skinned knees. This is fine work. Too much minute control. I don’t have a talent for it, and I haven’t had time to learn to do it without talent. But,” she smiles, strained but still chipper, “I am powerful, and one thing I’m good at is linking up with people. Like a rechargeable battery.” Kaitlyn focuses on Kosh. The web shimmers like light on water. “Lucy, I think we’re good. Pull back.”

Even though the web of light doesn’t fade, the glow on Luciera and Kaitlyn’s skin does, dulling until it winks out and both women sit back on their heels. Kaitlyn presses the heel of her palm against one eye socket.

“Ow, fuck.”

“Migraine?” Shizue asks gently.

“It’s sure as heck trying to be one,” Kaitlyn mumbles. “How long did that take?”

Michael has an answer first. “Two minutes,” he says, brows almost to his hairline. “Feels like longer. Where the Hell is—”

But the arrival of the medical emergency teams cuts off his demand to know where the Hell they are. Sinclair stands and offers Luciera and Kaitlyn his hands to help them up and move them all out of the team’s way as they get Kosh onto a double-wide gurney. Both World-Walkers lean on his grip for a second, and he wonders how much of a toll their little lightshow took on them.

“Can any of the other Cadre members do that?” The commander asks, because whatever is wrong with their new ambassador, he wants every tool they’ve got at their disposal to make sure the Babylon Project doesn’t suddenly all go to shit.

Kaitlyn nods, then winces and presses her knuckles to her temple above the earpiece of her glasses. “Persis and Orfea. They’re almost as good as Lucy, and they have a bit more stamina just, you know, from practice.”

He looks to Michael. “I want them brought to MedLab. I want you two to come with me as well,” nodding to Kaitlyn and Lucy. “I have some questions and I’m hoping you can help the ambassador. Plus, I want Dr. Kyle to make sure you two are okay after…whatever that was.”

“In that case,” Kaitlyn says, “Shizu, go with Mr. Garibaldi. When you two get to Persis and Orfea, tell them what’ll be needed. And can you tell them to please bring me a comfy shirt? Use those exact words—comfy shirt. If they ask, tell them I got blood on this one.”

Shizue looks to Michael. He nods and walks off to follow Sinclair’s orders, the World-Walker falling into step half a pace behind him. The commander sweeps out after him and the medical team. He isn’t sure if he expects the other two women to balk at his brusque attitude, but they don’t. They follow him without complaint, except for Lucy muttering, “That thing was not sharp at all.”

Chapter Text

Dr. Kyle adjusts the atmospheric mix in MedLab 3, matching the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other gases to the specs given by the Vorlon government for Ambassador Kosh’s quarters. In one of the small office cubicles, Kaitlyn World-Walker is changing her shirt. The bloody white dress tunic and embroidered sleeveless coat she wore to the greeting reception both lie folded beside a stack of used surgical gowns in the bin for textile biohazards, waiting for sterilization. For her efforts at keeping Kosh stable until the medical team arrived, Ben has offered to get the blood out for her.

She will not let him examine the wound or wounds that caused the bleeding. All she will say is, “Professional hazard, f-focus on Kosh.”

She does accept extremely fast-acting painkillers for her migraine, though.

Persis and Orfea brought her a comfortable tunic, with the mid-thigh length Kyle and the other command staff who’ve met her are beginning to understand is her standard clothing choice. How many such tunics does she have? This one is the same cut as the one she wore to Arrive in, according to Commander Sinclair, though in a soft mossy green instead of the sharp creamy white of the standard World-Walker uniform. When she comes out of the office cubicle, she scans the room and her gaze lands on the other three World-Walkers before fixing on Ben.

“Dr. K-Kyle, do you wa—wa—need our help?”

At her question, the commander looks over. “Slowing things down? Like you did before?”

She nods. “You, you have t-to get the en—en—en…the suit open, but I’m b-betting you don’t know how. We certainly d-d-don’t…” She trails off, frowning. Slides both hands under her glasses and over her eyes. Takes a deep breath through her nose before blowing it out slowly through her mouth. Without taking her hands down, she says slowly, “I’m sorry. I’m h-having a lot of trouble…right now. Talk-talk-talk…words are hard, now.” The frustration in her voice is obvious. “Sorry. Lights…beeps. T-Too much. Lucy.”

Ben wonders if this is shock, a delayed reaction from helping the ambassador, the strain of whatever it was she helped Luciera do to keep his vitals stable. Then he remembers their conversation from earlier that morning.

Signs include differences in sensory processing and sensory needs, difficulty with abrupt change…They may have difficulty with verbal speech, but I’ve found that language accommodations can take care of that in eight out of ten cases…

He takes a few seconds to rummage in his desk drawer—it’s right at his hip and the atmosphere adjusters still need a minute or two—and pulls out a low-tech data PAD. It’s a cheap one, a keyboard and screen for note-taking, with a touch-pad if he wants to write with his finger or a stylus rather than use the keyboard itself. It has an autofill component as well, which will speed things up if what is happening is what he thinks is happening.

“Kaitlyn,” he says as Luciera scoots off her chair to move to them. He offers the Cadre leader the data PAD when she lowers her hands and settles her glasses back into place. “Will this help?”

She stares at it for a long moment, then takes it from him. Her eyes are wide and grateful behind her glasses. “How…?”

“Our conversation earlier today,” says Dr. Kyle.

Kaitlyn nods and begins typing, fingers moving so fast the click-beeps of keys being pressed melts together into a wavering mechanical drone. It’s not faster than her normal speed of speech, but it’s faster than what she was managing with her hands over her eyes. She holds out the PAD to the chief medical officer.

“‘You have to get the suit open,’” Dr. Kyle reads aloud for the commander’s benefit, “‘but I bet you don’t know how. We don’t know how. To buy you time, we can slow down whatever is happening in his body. Persis, Orfea, and Lucy are good at that kind of thing.’” Lifting his gaze to the vicinity of her face, he nods. “I would be most grateful.”

This time Kaitlyn doesn’t even say anything. She just snaps her fingers and points to the observation window most out of the way of what the doctors and other medical staff will be doing. Lucy gives her a quick squeeze around the shoulders; Kaitlyn bumps her forehead against Luciera’s arm. Then Lucy goes to stand at the window, bracing her hands against the glass.

Persis and Orfea stop next to Kaitlyn for a quick hand maneuver—Dr. Kyle thinks they might have hooked pinkie fingers for a second?—before the two older women go to flank Lucy. When they touch the glass, the light show begins.

He saw the silver-green web of light surrounding the encounter suit, which faded the longer Kosh was in the MedLab isolation room. He didn’t see how Lucy put it there. But he sees now: a bright, spring green glow flecked with bits of pink and purple, radiating along Persis’s hands; a golden aura like sunlight through thin clouds coming from Orfea; and the silver-green from Luciera.

The light spills out of their hands and spreads like pooling water across the glass. It twists into arabesques and swirling fronds like frost. Coils into symbols he recognizes from the marks on their arms. The light spreads until the glass glows like a low-watt bulb. Dr. Kyle wonders how the three women can see through the light to what’s happening inside. Can they see?

Kaitlyn taps Ben’s shoulder and shows him the PAD. He reads aloud, “‘This is just maintenance, so it’s easier. It doesn’t require breaking any Seals.’ Seals?” He interrupts to ask.

She flips her hand to shake back her sleeve, revealing the length of scarred, marked brown forearm and points to the delicate marks that look as if they’re branded into her skin. He’s seen the scars and the marks; knows they’re from different events, though she refused to tell him about the origin of what look like burn scars earlier during her first appointment. He assumed at the time the marks were similar to Maori or perhaps Inupiak tribal tattoos, though they look very different and aren’t in the same places.

“The marks?” Sinclair asks. “Seals. What do they seal?”

“P-Power,” she says, enunciating carefully. She taps the data PAD again and Ben picks up reading.

“‘They can keep that up for at least a few hours, but please make sure they drink something and maybe have a snack if you can. Like when people donate blood? Cookies or something. If they say they need a boost, get me or Shizue or Namina. If they start to look bad, tell them I said not to break any Seals, just ask for a boost.’”

He nods, fairly confident he understands. When Luciera came in with the others, blood leaking from her arm, the commander told him she cut herself on Mr. Garibaldi’s ranking pin because it was somehow necessary for whatever procedure the World-Walkers had done to help Kosh. This is apparently a different, easier thing.

He has a sudden thought.

“Kaitlyn, is there anything you can tell me about Ambassador Kosh? Anything I need to know?”

Her eyes flick nervously over his right shoulder; the commander is no doubt peering at her, studying her face, waiting for her answer. Doctor-patient confidentiality prohibits him from telling Sinclair that the Cadre leader is autistic, but he may have to discuss it with them both, if only so Sinclair doesn’t misinterpret anything Kaitlyn says or does. It’s obvious to his trained eye, though perhaps not to Jeff’s, that the commander is making the Cadre leader unexpectedly nervous.

She doesn’t use the PAD this time. Instead, she says slowly, “Not sick. As—as—as—hurt on purpose.”

Jeff’s voice comes sharp with demand. “Someone hurt the ambassador?” Kaitlyn nods, no doubt at all in her expression. “How? Who? Why?”

She shakes her head. “D-Don’t know. Have, have, haven’t Seen that. Only…” She points at Dr. Kyle.

“Me?”

She nods. “T-Telling,” and she points at the commander.

“You have Seen me telling Commander Sinclair that it wasn’t an accident or illness, but deliberate damage?” Ben asks. She nods. “Do you know what kind? Blunt force, projectile—” She’s shaking her head. Frowns, then her face lights up. She mimes drinking something, then grabs her throat and makes a choking noise. “Poison?” She nods.

“Doctor,” one of the physician’s assistants snags Dr. Kyle’s attention. “The atmosphere is approaching nominal density.”

“Good,” he says. “As soon as it’s pressurized, I’m going in.”

“Maybe not,” says Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima as she strides quickly into MedLab. Ben straightens, trying to ignore the indignation at being questioned in his own MedLab. “We just got a reply from the Vorlon High Command—” To his left, Kaitlyn makes a disgusted noise somewhere between a Drazi expressing their sinuses and a cat hurling up a hairball. Laurel blinks, then shakes her head and focuses on Ben and the commander. “The Vorlon High Command insists that the Ambassador’s encounter suit cannot be removed.” A sigh, then, “They claim it’s for security reasons.”

“No, it isn’t,” Orfea mutters from where she stands by the window. “It’s because—”

“At-dat-dah!” Three sharp syllables from Kaitlyn’s mouth are all she needs to silence the other World-Walker. She focuses on the commander, who narrows his eyes.

There is something there, Ben realizes. Not distrust exactly, but a testing. Kaitlyn is entirely sure of Jeffrey Sinclair, entirely sure of his character and morals, but the commander is not quite sure of her yet. She knows this and accepts it.

“They just don’t want us seeing what’s inside,” Jeff says.

Kaitlyn nods, clearly annoyed.

“That’s insane!” Dr. Kyle cries. He can’t understand it. What kind of secret could the Vorlons possibly possess, that they will allow their ambassador to die of whatever is wrong with him? Lucy and the others can only keep up their “slowing things down” for so long. Once they’re tapped out, what happens then?

“N-No,” says Kaitlyn. “Not insane. Reasons, but…” She shakes her head. “Ana—ana—ana…” She growls under her breath and snaps, “Control freaks!” Her fingers are knotted into fists so tight her hands shake. The effort it takes to make herself relax is noticeable. “S-Sorry. Stressed. T-Tired. Hurting.”

“Your arm,” Dr. Kyle says, remembering the blood. “Are you sure you don’t want—”

She nods. She is sure. When he hesitates, she rolls back the sleeve of her green top to reveal the marks on her left forearm, running from wrist to elbow. They look as if they’ve been cut open and been allowed perhaps a week of healing. There's the faintest traces of the dried blood that had been caked to her skin when she arrived. Seeing Kyle assess the damage, she jerks her arm and resettles the sleeve.

“Kosh,” she says.

So they focus on Kosh.

“He’ll die if we don’t do something,” Dr. Kyle says. “We can’t just—”

“You’re right,” says the commander. “We haven’t come this far to watch it all fall apart. Ben, as a doctor, you’re bound by your vow of confidentiality and that’s good enough for me.” He glances at Kaitlyn. “Do the Vorlons have any sort of treaties or agreements with your kind? Something that says if you’re allowed to see what they look like?”

“We’ve already Seen what Kosh looks like,” says Orfea in her lilting, almost musical voice. She flashes Sinclair a grin. “He’s divinely hot, to be honest.” Persis rolls her eyes at her wife’s salacious smile. “What? I’d tap a Vorlon if they were up for it.”

“Orfea,” Kaitlyn says.

Orfea says, “Kay?” with a smile before focusing once more on her task. It seems as if the moment of playfulness has actually boosted the complex diagram of symbols on the glass. Ben wonders if their unique skills are somehow tied to their emotions.

Ignoring the good-natured bickering, Sinclair asks, “Wait a minute. Do you know what he looks like because of what’s going on now?”

The four women look at each other.

“No,” Kaitlyn says. Something in her voice asks—warns?—not to inquire any further into this just now.

“All right, so we’ve got you four covered and Dr. Kyle—”

“Jeff,” Takashima interrupts, “I’m warning you, the Vorlons are deadly serious about security.”

“And we’ll give them security. Kill the monitors, stop all data recording. I don’t want any record of what goes on here. I’ll take full responsibility, and I’m swearing you four,” pointing at Kaitlyn, Lucy, Orfea, and Persis, “to secrecy about anything you see.”

“If we couldn’t keep secrets,” Lucy says gently, “we couldn’t be World-Walkers.”

Interesting, Ben thinks absently. Not wouldn’t, but couldn’t be, if they could not keep secrets.

“Jeff,” because even with help from the three Walkers, Dr. Kyle isn’t sure about this at all, “I…”

“Just do what you have to, Ben. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“No,” Kaitlyn says softly. Dr. Kyle notices her hands are steadier now, her eyes less wide. Her breathing is better and there’s less of a quaver to her voice. She looks up, almost but not quite meeting the commander’s eyes, “No. W-We will take responsibility. Together.” She gestures to Jeff, to herself, to her three companions. Kyle notices she doesn’t acknowledge him or Takashima in this. There's something a little stilted in her speech. Another script? “We will n-not abandon you if things get bad, Commander Sinclair.”

Only then does she glance at Takashima. She smiles brightly. “And Dr. Kyle w-won’t turn to st-stone.”

The Lt. Commander blinks, then smiles and laughs a little. “They said at the Academy that World-Walkers will surprise you with the stuff they say. You’re sure he won’t turn to stone?”

A quick flash of very white teeth. Dr. Kyle thinks Kaitlyn is a caring person. She’s here to do a job and wants to do it well. Normally when she smiles, he doesn’t mind. But this time, something about the smile makes him shudder. Worse, he has the distinct impression Kaitlyn isn’t actually doing anything. She’s not trying to frighten anyone. She probably has no idea that her split-second grin sends shivers down his spine.

No, he won’t turn to stone. The odd smile doesn’t spark that fear in him. Doing this for Kosh is safe, but the smile is not…

He shoves the feeling aside and goes to put on the scrubs, face-mask, and oxygen mask he’ll need once he goes into the isolation chamber.

She’s trying to help. Surely there’s nothing threatening about a quick little smile.

Neroon swallows any recriminations for his Shai’Alyt leaving him behind on the Ingata for this meeting when Branmer—paler than he should be, limbs trembling with strain, the breath wheezing in his chest, eyes glazed with fatigue that should not be there—opens the hatch of his personal flyer. The leader of his Caste steps slowly out of the sleek vehicle to the deck, only to lean heavily against it as if dizzy.

“Branmer!” He is at the other man’s side in an instant, one arm around his shoulders. There is a subtle tremble even there that he doesn’t like. The Star Rider braces his commander’s arm across his own shoulders. “Su E’ san?” Are you alright? But it’s obvious as soon as Neroon takes a moment to truly look, that his Shai’Alyt is not in fact alright. “You’ve had a relapse. You need a healer.”

“No, no,” the older warrior mumbles. He sounds exhausted. Positively shattered with fatigue. “I’m merely tired, Neroon. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

That isn’t true. Lack of sleep cannot be what has set the Shai’Alyt back so far in his recovery. Branmer was fine this morning after their sparring session, after a quiet breakfast together, after making the rounds of the ship to check in with the chief officers of his staff. A simple flight to and from another Sharlin cruiser, a meeting and a midday meal with the Alyt of that ship, should not have done this.

Why did the other Alyt not see what state the Caste leader was in? Why didn’t Branmer take any of his Warriors with him? Why did he not take Neroon with him?

Why do these relapses keep happening? This is the fourth one this cycle...

“Branmer…”

He trails off. Looks to the man he loves. Branmer’s face is ashen. The cerulean around the front spur of his crest is dull, almost gray. His skin is too cool to the touch.

“Please. Ah’fel,” softly, so even the surveillance cannot pick up his words, the depth of feeling in them, “ah’fi’aia…please. For me, do this. You do not look well. I have not seen you so in at least two months.” He thought they were past these relapses, after the first three each a mere month apart, but now..."Branmer—"

“I’m merely tired—”

“No,” he says earnestly. “It’s more than that.”

He is a Star Rider.

He is Warrior Caste.

He is Alyt-in-service to the Shai’Alyt of his Caste.

He is the eldest child of a Clan and Caste Elder, and he is Clan and Caste Elder in his own right.

Neroon of the Family Khon’vah of the Star Riders Clan, son of Cayathrun of the Star Riders and Zaca of the Starship Crafters, begs for nothing.

He begs Branmer, “Please come with me to the hela’mer, ah’fel.” Even more softly, “I fear for you in this state.”

The wheezing Minbari looks at Neroon, mist-gray eyes studying the worry and the pleading in the other warrior’s face. Reluctantly, he nods. Grumbles something about executive officers readying to mutiny and how as punishment he’ll make the Alyt sit evening and dawn rites with him for a full valsta, which makes Neroon smile a little in relief.

But the relief ebbs as they slowly make their way to the medical bay. It is so close to the hangar, he didn’t think they needed to call for a med-gurney, but by the time they arrive, Branmer is grayer yet, and Neroon must help him onto the bed—set at the standard Warrior Caste forty-five degrees rather than the Star Rider twenty-seven. Neroon doesn’t mind. Better not to tempt death just yet.

The last dregs of his relief drain away when he takes a step back to allow the hela’merae to do their work, and Branmer catches at his sleeve.

“Stay,” he mumbles. He blinks, frowns as if trying to recall something. He adds, “Want to hear your report…Alyt.”

No, he doesn’t. At least, that is not all he wants, but no one knows what they are to each other. No one knows that Branmer has named Neroon the star of his soul, the light of his heart. No one knows Neroon has named him the same. For the Shai’Alyt to take advantage of a subordinate (though there is no taking advantage, Neroon has ever been willing, has always wanted this nearly since the moment he met Branmer; it is the way of the Star Riders to love this way) would shame Branmer, would strip him of his rank.

The fact that his ma’fela asks him to stay now tells the Alyt that the other man is more ill than he wants Neroon to know.

He glances at the healer, who nods. Well enough. If Branmer wishes it, and it will do him no harm, Neroon will give his rather dull report of the empty hours since Branmer left for his meeting with Shakiri aboard the Dralbok, and stay with him as the hela’merae do their work.

Neroon refuses to pay heed to the fear, sharp as a crystal-knife, lodged deep in his heart.

Chapter Text

Exhausted, Kaitlyn still follows Sinclair to his office at his request. He has questions for her—he’s had questions for her since the Arrival yesterday evening. Now, with everything happening with Kosh, no doubt there are more.

Goody, she mumbles to herself. She shouldn’t be this tired. She knows she shouldn’t. But she gave Lucy more power than she intended when they worked to stabilize the Vorlon ambassador, and none of the Cadre have acclimated to this universe yet. For at least a few more weeks, any sort of serious working will drain them as if they’ve thrown out enough power to crack a planet in half.

Luckily, the commander’s office has a couch. Kaitlyn heads right for it and flops onto the dark leather. The air wheezes out of the cushions like sad, deflated rubber chickens. A few quick wiggles put her comfortably into position, her boots dangling off the edge of one couch-arm to keep them off the furniture. She waits long enough for her lower vertebrae to pop, then shifts again to get her shoulders and upper back in the right position so nothing hidden is cramped or smushed against her spine or scapulae. She closes her eyes. Pulls off her glasses and lets them rest on her stomach.

“Comfortable?” Commander Sinclair asks.

She can’t tell if he’s amused or annoyed. She always has this problem with people. Instead of fretting about it, she says, “I am, but if you want me to move, I will, and I won't be mad at you about it. I’m not trying to be rude or anything. I just feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

It’s easier to talk now that she’s not surrounded by blinding fluorescent lights, countless bustling strangers, shrieking-beeping machines, and the fear that Sinclair would make her Walkers leave instead of letting them help Kosh. She’s not hurting as much, thanks to the painkillers Dr. Kyle gave her, and the lights are the perfect dimness.

It also helps that she’s not looking at Sinclair. She hasn’t known him long enough to read him, and she hasn’t Seen enough to be able to read him, either. She is better with tone and the sound of a heartbeat and the taste of lies than with reading faces. She will do this interview with her eyes shut unless he insists otherwise.

“That hurt you,” he says. “Boosting Luciera in the docking bay.”

“Every time a World-Walker comes to a new World, a new universe, there’s an adjustment period. Our bodies have to acclimate to all kinds of new things—different air, sometimes; different gravities; different amount of space between the molecules, sometimes, though nothing super drastic usually. It can make casting difficult, which makes it take more energy, which makes it hurt more.”

“Casting?” He sounds merely interested, not angry.

“The light thing,” she says. “Casting our…” What did Dr. Kyle call it? “Casting our bioelectric energy outside of ourselves to manipulate the world around us.”

“And it can heal?”

She shrugs. It probably looks weird since she’s lying down, and she’s being careful of her back. “If you have skill or training with healing, then yes. I don’t really, but Lucy is really good; she just needs more training for big stuff. She can handle stab wounds and things, but not poison or serious illness.”

“Why not?”

“Serious illness requires a lot more power than she’s got. We’re talking like, leukemia or Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that sort of thing. And poison requires a knowledge of chemistry she hasn’t had time to acquire. The plan was, after her last mission, she was going to go to the Moors and apprentice with a friend of mine, Dr. Wolcott, but then the Babylon Door opened and we had to book it here.”

He doesn’t say anything. She wonders if maybe he’s surprised that she’s so forthcoming. Her policy is, has always been, to answer everything she can so that people get less pissed off when she can’t answer a thing—especially if she has the information they’re asking for.

“Why are you here?” Sinclair asks finally.

A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. For her, when she isn’t masking, it’s the same as a laugh.

“On your couch? Because I'm tired. In your universe? Because shit is already starting to get bad.” She gestures expansively, back in the direction of MedLab. “As you can see. This place is a magnet for trouble, will be for the next twenty-seven years at least. We’re here to try to minimize how much.”

“How do you plan to do that? It was my understanding that you can’t interfere in large-scale events.”

“Depends on the event,” she says softly. “Depends on what you mean by large-scale. For example, is Kosh being attacked a large-scale event? Maybe. We’re interfering. Trying to help.” She doesn’t say that they could have prevented the attack. There are reasons still in place as to why that option actually wasn’t one. “But our most common methods are giving the right bit of information at just the right time or preventing certain key people from dying at the wrong time.”

“Like Kosh,” he suggests.

She makes a noise that can be taken for assent, even though that isn’t who she means at all.

Kaitlyn thinks of the four faces that fill her dreams—the beautiful warrior with a secret in her past, the golden-haired winter queen whose mind is full of fracturing mirrors, the soul-sick Ranger with the heart of a knight errant, and the heartbroken warrior whose spirit will soon start flickering like a dying star, though she doesn’t know why or where he even is.

She doesn’t know yet what the secret is, where the mirrors come from, why the Ranger is soul-sick, why the warrior is heartbroken. She won’t know for a while. But she knows they’re destined for each other, that somehow they’ll save each other, and she’s going to help them if she can.

Like Kosh isn’t a half-truth or a dance-around either because there will be another attempt on his life in approximately three or four years. This, the entire Cadre has seen. They are already laying the casting groundwork to make sure everything goes according to plan at that time. Hopefully all nine of them, and Kosh, survive whatever will happen then.

“You and your subordinates are very...demonstrative with each other."

"They're not my subordinates," she says. "We're friends. We've known each for dec...for a very long time. And our...hierarchy? tends to be a lot more relaxed and family-like than what you're probably used to, being military. I'm the Cadre leader, but they're allowed to question me. None of us has ultimate executive power; it defeats the purpose of a Cadre. And," she adds, because he needs to know this in case it becomes a problem, like it has in a few of her past Worlds, "I am a demonstrative person, just myself. I always ask permission though, and never get upset about being denied. But I do like to touch the people I care about if they're okay with it. I need the contact."

"Your Cadre call you Kay, not Kaitlyn.”

The change of subject, without addressing the contact thing, makes her blink and turn to raise an eyebrow at him. He shrugs, inviting her to reply.

“It’s my nickname,” she says. “Kaitlyn is long.”

“It’s two syllables.”

“Your nickname is Jeff and Jeffrey is only two syllables,” she points out with a smile. To her pleased surprise, he grins and inclines his head. “You’re right that it’s not that long, but my full name is really long and it…You know how—well, actually, maybe you don’t know but maybe you do. You know how if someone calls you Jeffrey, it feels like your mom is getting ready to scold you about something?”

He laughs a little now. “I was raised by Jesuits in an orphanage, but I know what you mean.”

“That’s why in informal settings, just friends, I prefer Kay. Especially because, being a World-Walker, there’s always some shit about to go down.”

“You said your full name,” he says, surprising her. “Isn’t it just Kaitlyn World-Walker?”

Kay shakes her head. “We just go by World-Walker so people know who we are. We have family names just like you do, Commander Sinclair.”

“And your full name?”

She grins. “My mother’s people, the Maleficarae? They don’t share their full names with just anyone. I’ve known you less than a full twenty-four hours. You don’t get my full name yet.”

He takes this graciously. “How old are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she says. He wouldn’t; she knows this. No one ever believes her unless she goes into detail about time dilation and her first two Heart Worlds. It’s too late and the day has been too long for her to do such a thing tonight. “Let me build up some trust with you before I go spilling all my secrets, okay?”

Another gentle laugh. It relaxes her. She wonders if that’s the point, or if the laugh is genuine. He’s a kind man, a good man. She has Seen this. But he is the commander of Babylon 5 and he has to be cutthroat sometimes, too.

“All right, tell me something random.”

"Thank you for the groceries I found in my quarters," she says, and he laughs.

"You're welcome, but I meant a random fact about you."

“Like what?” She asks, smiling. She actually loves answering people’s questions as long as the situation is calm and friendly. It's one of the main ways that she gets to know people.

Sinclair thinks about this for a moment. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Eleven brothers,” she says, because it’s not a dangerous piece of information, “seventeen sisters, seven non-binary sibs, and two of my mothers are currently pregnant; I think my second father is, too, but I’d have to check. I’m the fourth oldest child and the oldest girl. Yes, we’re all World-Walkers.”

“All of you?” This obviously shocks him.

She peers at him out of one scrunched eye, trying to see if he disapproves. He simply looks confused and surprised. “All nine of my parents are World-Walkers, Commander. It’s a family thing.”

There’s a long silence. “All nine?”

“My first mother—my biological mother—has two husbands, a wife, and a spouse,” she says. “It’s a group marriage. My first—my biological—father has his own husband, a spouse, and two wives unattached to my mother. Paramours and metamours. The nine of them raised us as a group.”

“And your siblings? Thirty-six of you total, that's a lot. Are they all full-blooded siblings or half or adop—”

“We don’t make distinctions like that in my family,” Kaitlyn says, putting a touch of warning into her voice. It’s a trick she learned decades ago from her first mother. It’s one of the few vocal inflections she has down perfectly. “Among both my fathers’ and my mothers’ peoples, that’s considered an extremely rude question.”

“Ah. Sorry, I meant no offense.” There’s the sound of liquid pouring into a glass. “Would you like some water?” The commander asks.

He seems relaxed, no sign of tension. This is good, Kay decides. He doesn’t mind her setting some boundaries.

“No, thank you,” she says. “I never drink...water.”

Sinclair freezes. Kaitlyn forces herself not to smile. This always happens when she says that.

“Never?”

She shakes her head. “Water’s disgusting. Tastes icky.”

He sputters into his cup of water, and she realizes she made him laugh in the middle of taking a sip. He clears his throat. “Did you just say ‘icky’?”

“Yep!” A shrug. “Anyway, my father’s people don’t need water to stay hydrated. My mother’s do, but mixing the genes gives me a bit of an advantage. I’m mostly good with juice and milk, and soda when I want something sweet.” Her eyes flash open and she shoots the commander a look. “You guys do have soda here, right? Carbonated water, flavoring syrup, sugar?”

The commander grins. “We have soda, don’t worry. No tea or coffee?”

“I’ll drink tea if I have to,” she says, “but coffee is blegh. Smells wonderful, tastes grossgusting.”

He laughs out loud, a big deep laugh that brings a giggle out of her that she can’t help and doesn’t bother trying. Far more comfortable now, she rolls onto her side, facing his desk, and props her head on one hand.

“What’s so funny?”

“You have an interesting vocabulary,” he says, still chuckling. “You’re not at all what I expected based on the accounts in the Academy texts.”

She offers a shrug. “All World-Walkers are different. You should meet my friend Sumi; you’ll think your head’s about to explode after five minutes talking to her. On the flipside, her foster brother, Kade? Completely different from both of us. Sumi is bright and fast and a little manic, like…like a lightning flash made of hard-candy knives and spun sugar. Ms. Eleanor, the headmistress of the School, says in her Heart World, Sumi learned never to stop. Meanwhile, Kade is quiet and studious and…” She considers. Smiles. “Much better at holding still than Sumi is.”

“What’s a Heart World?”

Her smile drops. “It’s the World of your heart. The place y-you belong, that sing—sing—Calls to you on a fundamental level, heart and m-m-mind and, and soul. Every Way—Way—World-Walker at Ms. Eleanor’s School has at least one, though s-some World-Walkers at, at other Schools n-n-never did.”

Kaitlyn tastes rich chocolate-fudge cake and honey-cider and sugared rose petals on her tongue for just a moment. She bites her tongue until the coppery flavor of her own blood chases the taste away.

When the sweetness is gone from her mouth, she realizes the commander is studying her. Scrutinizing her face. She makes a point to focus on the dip just above his lips and under his nose rather than meet those penetrating, hurting eyes. Hopefully he doesn’t press on the wound on her soul that has split its scar and begun to bleed again.

She wasn’t expecting that hurt to come back. She wonders why it has. She tries not to think about it.

“Is Kosh going to survive?” Sinclair asks gently, and Kay is so very grateful he’s taken them off the subject of herself and brought her back to a discussion of the current problem.

“It depends on if Dr. K-Kyle can figure out the poison that w-was used, and has the antidote,” she says. “I don’t know what it is. N-None of us do. So we can’t help there.”

“Can you help us figure out who did it?”

Kaitlyn considers. “We haven’t Seen who did it. I only have a few words…actually, I didn’t have the words, Regan did, but she told me while I was changing my shirt up in MedLab. She was asleep and woke up from a dream of them and Knew they were important. She didn’t know anything was even going on until C&C directed her call to me from the reception hall to MedLab.”

“What words?”

She frowns. The words make sense, they have to, because this sort of thing is always right. But there is enough wiggle room in the definition of the words that she doesn’t know how they apply to any of this.

“The words were: fetch and fish, mirror mirror, trick-or-treat, and there was a melody in the background. We didn’t recognize it, but I can hum it for you?” When he nods, she flexes her jaw and her throat and mimics the melody Regan—who has perfect pitch and a beautiful soprano voice—sang for her. Sinclair frowns when she’s finished. “Do you know what it is?”

“Yes,” he says. “It’s ‘The Farmer in the Dell.’ What does that have to do with any of this?”

Kaitlyn shrugs. “No clue. I’ve never heard of that song before.” She sighs and flops back onto her back on the couch. “I was hoping this mission would give me a couple weeks to settle before crap started stirring.”

At that, Sinclair gives a sympathetic chuckle. “I can understand that. I’ve often…Kaitlyn?”

She’s sitting up before her brain catches up with her body. The skin on her arms prickles, but there’s no sharp slicing pain of a power Seal splitting open to give her access to more juice. Tingles run up and down her spine.

“We have to go back to MedLab.”

She’s on her feet, half-stumbling with tiredness.

“Why?” Sinclair doesn’t stop her, just falls into step beside her. Good. He’s not going to argue. He’s going to trust.

“I don’t know,” she says, hoping he doesn’t make her stop walking. If she loses her momentum now, as tired as she is, she might trip or run into a wall. “I just Know we need to get there.”

They don’t say anything else as they stride down the corridors, hop in the lift tubes, hop out and head for the doors to MedLab. It’s just as they walk in that a woman with short, bright red hair wearing black gloves—Lyta, Kaitlyn realizes, recognition making her stumble so that the commander shifts to half-catch her—turns to face them, gasping for breath.

Takashima is there; Kaitlyn absently wonders why she’s only Seen this woman once before, only learned her name after that, and how there’s another person as second-in-command when Susan is supposed to be here. The woman who is not Susan asks, “Who did it, Lyta? Who poisoned the ambassador?”

For some reason she can’t fathom, the words oh shit echo in Kaitlyn’s head. She hasn’t Seen this. None of her Cadre have Seen this. What is this?

Lyta yells, “He did!” She points to Commander Sinclair. “He’s the one! I saw it!”

Sinclair jerks back.

From behind them, still plastered to the IsoLab window, Orfea thunks her head against the glass and says in a lilting, exasperated sigh, “Well, fuck.”