Upon Celestial Tiger: Chapter One

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A small, fast space yacht. The last owner named it Celestial Tiger.

Three small bedrooms (with bunks), one bathroom. Very small storage hold. combined dining/living area. Everyone's going to hate each other by the end of this road trip.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f11/19/46/08/46/small_10.jpg

(lol, go for it )

TIMESKIP - A day or two?

The Celestial Tiger continued her grand chase of the Family's new ship--well, they headed toward where they guessed the Family were heading, and kept sniffing for the trail of the ship. Eventually they might pick the trail up again, but whether they did or not, at least they had a general idea where to go.

The supplies were still pretty decent, but they were going to need to restock soon if they didn't catch up with the Family. The Tiger just didn't have storage space for such a large crew to travel for long without restocking.

Tala had eaten all the salad and was now living on nutritional bars. She had taken to sleeping in the main room once Helen had shown up, so Shane could keep an eye on his aunt and make sure she wasn't going to stab them while they slept. Not that that seemed likely now Helen had done so many useful things for them, and shown that she had Shane's trust, but Tala was cautious about these things.

Ethan wasn't doing well in the confined space, but he was learning to cope with it. He tried to stifle his bitchiness and be decent to everyone, because he realized that would make life better for everyone on this little ship, including himself.

Shane and Helen enjoyed the time to get to know one another again after so long apart. Shane learned a lot about his family line, both sides of it. Turns out his parents had secretly wed.

Rigel and Sawna did what they each could to stay out of the way as they traveled.

Ethan was kind of curious about Helen. He went over to her and sat down. "So you saw the actual star dragon homeworld when it was whole?" He asked. He remembered the image of it that Inari and Merith had shown them.

Helen nodded then chuckled "Pretty much every star dragon over 300 has seen it." She joked a little then frowned a little. So many young ones never had and now never would.

"Three hundred, huh?" That was a long time, geez. How did star dragons handle that much time, anyway? "Did you get to attend any of the royal ceremonies?"
He remembered the ball they had seen, and wondered if her ancestors, or maybe even Helen herself, had been there. Hmm, that had been a long time ago, hadn't it? Starr's mother had been the hatchling there, so it must have been.

Luka still found the whole room sharing thing a bit awkward but she did her best.
Sleeping in shifts worked well, having someone watch the scanners while she slept and make sure the autopilot didn't do anything stupid.
She'd never fully trusted autopilot.

She didn't mind being in a confined space with a lot of people though, in fact she seemed in fairly good spirits despite the room situation. She was flying! Her single favorite thing to do.

Swarm gathered together to listen to Ethan and Helen talk, fascinated.

Helen nodded "I was there for Princess Starr's debut and many other events at the palace, though I had to leave soon after to go to my sister. I also saw her mother and father's betrothal announcement. Princess Starr never did get a betrothal announcement."

Ethan looked up at the gathering Swarm. They really did love knowledge, didn't they? Funny little insects, he kind of understood how they felt about learning things.
"So you've seen Starr before." Ethan smiled oddly at Helen, "You'll have to tell us about how much she's changed since then." He imagined baby Starr, all shimmering blue and dark scales, about the size of a smallish rodent. The idea was strangely adorable. "You weren't royal yourself though, were you?"

Helen chuckled and nodded "As an infant I saw her, then at the station. Back then she was too little to even shift forms yet, a beautiful little dragon..." She paused then held out a hand, making an image of Starr as a baby dragon for them to see. "I am of the royal line, though distant." She said then grinned "I do not insist on the "lady" title."

A softer hearted robot would have looked at the image of the tiny dragon in adoration, because she was just so cute. Ethan was harder hearted than that, but his expression did soften ever so slightly. His odd smile returned, "Probably sensible to not insist. Most people here don't seem to like titles much. So Shane's royal too then, sort of?"

Helen frowned a little at that and dipped her head "That's more complicated." She said, making the image vanish then sighing "My sister, his mother was the elder of us, so the titles fell to her from birth, but she gave up her titles to stay with Shane's father. The titles fell to me as next in line, leaving Shane 'out of the running' so to speak."

"Oh." Ethan frowned at that, it was weird to him. "Is there anything people won't do for love?" He said dryly.

"Not really" Helen replied then shrugged a shoulder

"how did they meet?" Swarm asked curiously. "how common is it for Dragons to take mates of other races?"

"It is not a common occurrence, but it happens often enough." Helen said "As for how those two met, Lucille went to Terra on a scouting mission, as has happened for centuries. We like to keep track on what Terrans have learned and when and if we can show ourselves to them. She met Troy, they fell in love over time and secretly wed before the slavers came to catch her and me. We were lucky to be able to keep Shane hidden, though I had to hide his memories so he wouldn't get caught too."

"What happened to Troy?" Ethan asked. "Do the star dragons not approve of human-dragon pairings?"

"Troy died after I was taken away, Shane said in a raid or something" Helen said then shrugged and looked over to Shane where he was fiddling around with something on a tablet. "At that time, he didn't know Troy was his father, it was safer that way. We had hoped he would be picked up by a stranger, but instead he was taken in by the same family that helped out us."

"Unfortunate," Ethan said, glancing over at Shane as well. "That was the family that used him as some sort of bodyguard-servant thing, right?"

"Servant, bodyguard, basically like medieval whipping boy" Helen said, frowning then shaking her head "No changing the past" She said as if to convince herself.

"Jerks." Ethan looked over at Shane and raised his voice a bit so Shane would hear, "If you ever want help kicking their asses, count me in."

Shane blinked and looked up and over to the group "Um, what?" He hadn't been paying attention at all.

"Why were this group helping you?" Swarm asked curiously. "What was your deal with them?" "What happened to you after that?" They wanted to know EVERYTHING.

"We were talking about the people who raised you. If you want to get revenge on them, I'll help," Ethan told Shane. He looked curious at Swarm's questions, they were good ones.

Shane blinked then shook his head "We have far too much on our plates already to worry about them." Mob or not, he didn't see the benefit to going after them right then...maybe after androids and star dragons were freed, and they had gotten rid of evil keepers.

~
Helen chuckled and shook her head at the many questions. "After I was taken, I became a slave. Sorry, but that is not something I wish to speak about. The pirates here attaced the ship I was on with my master, actually ended up freeing about 35 slaves. The leader loved how I looked, so he kept me for himself for a while. I stayed because it's a good a hiding place as any and he did free the others for my word to stay with him willingly." She paused and shrugged "He eventually got bored of me, moved on to a new newly freed captive though I stayed and made myself useful to them until Starr then you came." She said, finishing her story and obviously leaving a bit out.

Ethan smiled oddly at Shane. "I'm not talking about running off to beat them up right away, just if you ever wanted to do that, we could. It's cathartic, or something."
He looked grossed out Helen's story, pirate guys picking up newly freed slaves was just creepy, okay?

"Oh" Shane said then dipped his head and shrugged a little "I try not to think about them too much really, right now we have so many other things to focus on that I can stay distracted from those kinds of thoughts."

Helen saw his expression and nodded. It was creepy, but it kept her hidden, it freed the others to leave and she got to learn the ins and outs of that particular station and more tech then anyone outside knew of, so she was happy enough with the final outcome.