Pierce wandered along the hallway outside the girls’ dorm rooms. Tylum was in class and he was bored.

“Who knew being a pet would be so dull?” The human muttered to himself as he trudged past one of the bedroom doors. He glanced up to see if he could determine whose bedroom it was.

It was Rhionne’s, he realized, and it was open.

Pierce swallowed nervously and his stomach turned. She was inside. He could go talk to her. He should go talk to her.

As if against his own will, he felt his legs move to take a step closer to her door. A second later he took another, then another… soon he was standing at her threshold.

Rhionne was sitting in a chair in the middle of her bedroom. In one hand, she held a large block of wood, in the other a sharp looking knife that flashed with reflective light with every cut she made in the wood. At her feet was a drop cloth that cut the splinters of wood she sliced from the log, some that were as long as Pierce was tall.

Pierce’s eyes widened as he took in the intimidating sight of the giant princess carving away at the wood in her hand. Her brow was creased with concentration and she peered intently at her work, as if completely tuned out from the rest of the world.

Except then Rhionne looked up and her green-grey eyes met his own. She smiled and waved him in.

“Hello, Pierce.” She greeted him. “What are you up to?”

“Oh uh…” Pierce muttered self-consciously. “Nothing really… just sort of bored, thought I’d see what everybody else was up to… And uh, your door was open so…”

“Oh well, please come in. I wouldn’t mind the company!” Rhionne enthused brightly.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Pierce cautiously approached the seated princess, conscious of the massive pile of splintered wood at her feet. She had stopped carving for the moment, thankfully, so he didn’t need to worry about falling wood shavings the size of two-by-fours at the moment.

As he approached her feet, the princess leaned over and lowered her open palm to the floor. Pierce took the hint and climbed into the palm of her hand. Unfortunately, he was unable to prevent his face reddening at the contact with her soft skin.

Oblivious to his reaction to her, Rhionne raised her hand- and it’s cargo- into the air and held it parallel to her shoulder. Pierce carefully climbed out of her hand and sat down next to her neck. He suddenly found himself surrounded by her soft hair and the scent of her shampoo… and he found it very hard to think clearly.

Pierce shook his head and took a deep breath to try and banish the fuzzy state of mind. Meanwhile, Rhionne had returned to her knife and carving. Pierce watched for a moment in silent fascination as the knife easily slid along the smooth surface for the length of the piece, before another splinter was flaked off and feel carelessly onto the drop cloth at her feet.

Pierce cleared his throat and Rhionne’s head twitched slightly toward the sound.

“What… uh… what are you making?” Pierce asked quietly, desperately hoping his voice wouldn’t crack.

“At the moment? A stick.” The princess chuckled. “Eventually I’m sure it’ll turn into something more but for right now I’m not really sure what that is.”

“Do you do a lot of wood carving then?” Pierce’s curiosity had been piqued. He hadn’t realized that he and the princess might have something in common, though he wasn’t at all upset by the idea.

“Sometimes.” The princess shrugged with the shoulder that Pierce wasn’t sitting on. “Not as much as my mother, but she taught me a little bit about it.” Rhionne pointed with her free arm to a shelf above them, which held a number of wooden figurines.

“Wow…” Pierce muttered. “Those look really good.”

“Thank you.” Rhionne smiled.

“Never would have figured woodcarving as the hobby of a princess.” Pierce muttered, and then cringed as he realized how that statement might be taken.

Fortunately, Rhionne laughed. “Guess you haven’t met many Jotnar, then.”

“No…” Pierce said, confused. “I have not.”

They sat in silence, broken only by the sound of Rhionne’s knife scraping against the wood.

“So, uh, being a princess… must be pretty nice…” Pierce spoke, desperate to fill the silence somehow. “I mean, you get to order people around or whatever…”

“Well… it does have its moments, I guess.” Rhionne muttered self-consciously. “But I don’t ‘order people around’”

Pierce realized he made a misstep and cleared his throat. “Uh, right. Of course not…”

“Actually…” Rhionne said with a shrug. “Most of my family’s power is symbolic. Really, the Floor Leader, the representatives and the senators make most of the decisions.”

“Sounds a lot like the British royal family.” Pierce said, nodding.

“What do you mean?” Rhionne asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Well… the Queen of England and her family. I mean, really the Prime Minister is running the country over there… the Royals are kind of like a tourist attraction sometimes…”

“How do you…” Rhionne muttered confused. “Wait, Pierce… where are you from?”

Pierce’s brow creased. “Uh… Canada?”

There was silence from Rhionne.

“You know, on Earth…”

The princess gasped in surprise, which almost dislodged Pierce from his perch on her shoulder.

“You’re from Earth?!”

“Well… um… yeah.” The human muttered… hadn’t anybody told her?

“Pierce, it’s very illegal for you to be here… does Tylum know?!”

Pierce chuckled. “Yeah she does. I guess the story is a bunch of smugglers abducted me and who knows how many other humans from Earth, but they didn’t get any further than Titan station before the cops or whoever stopped them. Anyway, I guess they decided that since they couldn’t send us home… because of the law… that they would… um… sell us.”

Rhionne was quiet for a long time. “Oh.” She finally whispered, quietly enough that even Pierce was hard pressed to hear her. “Pierce… I had no idea. I thought you were from Archavia.”

“Nope.” Pierce said, awkwardly shrugging his shoulders.

Rhionne carved another splinter from the piece in her hands. But it seemed to be more an automatic action, because her eyes seemed glazed over in thought.

“So… you have kingdoms on Earth?” She finally spoke, her voice quiet and distant.

“Some. Some kingdoms, some republics, some that are dictatorships. There are a lot of types of government on Earth.”

“Interesting…” Rhionne muttered. Another long silence fell between them, lasting several seconds as Pierce raced to find a way to keep the conversation going.

“Do you think you could show me some of the carvings you made?” Pierce asked.

“What?” Rhionne seemed to snap out of a trance. “Oh… um… sure.”

The princess rose up to her feet, moving cautiously so as not to dislodge the human seated on her shoulder and made her way across the room to the shelf where a dozen or so small wooden figurines were displayed.

Rhionne offered her hand to Pierce, who stepped into her palm and was lowered down onto the shelf.

He slowly walked among the figurines, which were more like wooden statues to him, and marveled at the amount of intricate detail the Princess had managed to achieve.

Most were of animals. Pierce recognized the shaar that Tylum had shown him earlier, though the beast was not nearly as fearsome rendered in wood as it had been as a hologram.

“These are really good.” Pierce called up to her.

Rhionne giggled. “Thanks.”

“Have you been doing this for very long?”

“A few years.” Rhionne responded as she began to clean up her equipment and the mess she left on the floor. “My mother showed me the basics and gave me my first set of tools. She tried to show my brother and sister how to do it, but neither of them seemed particularly interested. I liked doing it though.”

Suddenly a loud beeping noise interrupted them.

“Oh no…” Rhionne yelped, glancing at the timepiece on her wall. “I have to get to class!” She pressed a button on the clock and the beeping cut off.

Without really thinking about it, Rhionne gently snatched Pierce off the shelf and grabbed her bag. “Do you want me to drop you off downstairs?” She asked the human in her hand.

“Uh yeah.” Pierce muttered, still trying to adjust to the sudden change in position. “That would be fine.”

“Great.”

A moment later, Rhionne was quickly thundering down the stairs. She stopped at the bottom and carefully set Pierce down by the wall.

“Thanks for keeping me company, Pierce.” She said down to him with a wide grin on her face. “It was fun, but I really have to get going.”

“Right. Bye. See you later.” Pierce called out as the princess whirled around and dashed out the front door, leaving Pierce alone by the stairs.

Pierce stared after the Princess for several minutes after she’d disappeared from view. He was certain that he must have a dopey grin on his face, but couldn’t really bring himself to care. After all, there wasn’t anybody around to see it anyway.

Suddenly he heard a loud banging sound coming from the vicinity of the kitchen. He debated for a moment over whether to go check it out or not, but decided he was probably safe enough in the house, and quickly made his way in the direction the noise had come from. He entered the kitchen just in time to hear another loud noise.

There wasn’t a source for the noise in the kitchen, so he turned towards the side door that lead out to what was, essentially, the garage.

Pierce cautiously approached the massive imposing door, which had been left hanging open just a crack. He peeked inside and found a relatively large, but well lit, room. It was utilitarian grey and the walls and floor were made of something similar to concrete- which might have actually been concrete.

In the center of the room, the beat up old shuttle that the housemates all shared sat floating above the floor, held up both by its own mag-lifters as well as a metal cable harness as extra security.

From underneath the machine came a stream of words that Pierce had learned were not exactly appropriate for polite conversation.

His curiosity piqued, the human began the fairly lengthy trek across the concrete landscape, until he came upon the monolithic form of the shuttle. It was then he discovered the source of the cursing. A very frustrated and grease-soaked Titan lay on her back, fiddling with the undercarriage of the shuttle while a stream of foul language flowed freely from her lips.

Only hesitating for a moment, Pierce stepped into the black shadow of the enormous shuttle hovering above him. He approached Daz’s shoulder and tried to ignore the object the size of a city block hanging above him.

“What are you doing?” He called into her ear.

The giant woman started, crying out in surprise, before banging her head on a metal pipe.

Grumbling darkly, Daz looked down through narrowed eyes at the small human, rubbing her head where she’d struck it, leaving another grease mark on her face.

“Gorram… Pierce, are you trying to kill me?” She growled.

“Sorry.” The human said, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“Hrm.” Daz grumbled, laying back on the floor.

She had a number of grease smudges on her face and neck. Dark goggles covered her eyes and she wore a sky blue bandana in her hair to keep it out of her eyes. Her midriff was left bare by her shirt riding up, and Pierce thought he could almost see what looked like a tattoo peeking above the waistband of her pants.

“So…” Pierce tried again. “What are you doing?”

He couldn’t be sure, but he was almost certain he could see Daz roll her eyes from behind the dark goggles. “One of the stabilizers on the passenger side nacelle is off-set. I’m trying to see if I can get the ion thrusters to realign.”

“I have no idea what that means.” Pierce responded with a shrug.

Despite herself, the smallest of smirks appeared on Daz’s lips and she snorted in amusement. “Basically, it’s been flying crooked. I’m trying to fix it.”

“Ah.” Pierce nodded and sat down on the hard concrete floor. He watched Daz carefully and tried to follow what she was doing.

“Don’t look directly at this.” The titan warned before she ignited a (relatively) small laser and spot welded a number of weak points in the metal strut she was working on. Pierce, of course, looked away and only saw the red flashes of light as they were reflected off the ground underneath him.

“Okay. It’s safe now.” Daz spoke as she slipped the tool back into the protective metal sheath.

The two of them sat in silence as Daz continued to work.

“So you’re studying to be a pilot?” Pierce finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Yup.”

“Man that must be awesome.” He gushed. “Being able to fly between stars. I can’t even imagine how cool that must be.”

Daz shrugged. “My family doesn’t think so.”

“They don’t? Why not?”

Daz sighed. “I don’t know. They’re terribly ashamed of me though, and they’ve basically disowned me for choosing a profession that’s… well never mind.”

There was another long stretch of silence as Pierce tried to think of something to say. “So… you’re kinda the black sheep of the family then?”

Daz turned her head to look at the human sitting next to her. “I guess? I’m not sure what that means exactly.”

“It means you don’t really get along with the rest of your family.” Pierce explained.

Daz chuckled darkly. “Yeah. Sure. That definitely sounds like my relationship with my family.”

Pierce cleared his throat. “So uh… after you finish school… what then?”

“What do you mean?” Daz asked as she tightened a bolt on the under carriage.

“Well…” Pierce scratched the back of his head. “I mean… okay so you’ll be a pilot… you’ll fly spaceships from here to Tatooine or whatever, but… like what kind of pilot are you going to be? Military? Commercial? You gonna be a personal chauffer for some rich guy?”

“Definitely not that last one, that’s for sure.” Daz chuckled. “But, um, I don’t know. I was considering the military for a while but… well… I think I might get in trouble for insubordination a lot if I did that.”

Pierce laughed and Daz managed to grin.

“Yeah I could see that happening.” Pierce said, between bouts of laughter.

There was a sudden thud that shook the ground underneath him. Pierce looked out from underneath the shadow of the shuttle above him and saw a pair of massive brown boots making their way over to where he and Daz were.

Eventually, as the boots drew closer, Pierce was able to make out the rest of the giant woman’s form; at least enough that he was able to recognize Aezhay.

“Having any luck with her?” The blonde asked, leaning against the door of the shuttle.

“I think so.” Daz grunted as she slid out from underneath the shuttle’s chassis, her body narrowly avoiding Pierce as she passed. A moment later Daz climbed back to her feet and the two of them towered over Pierce, who was left on the floor.

“Do me a favor.” Daz spoke to Aezhay, while pulling the dark goggles off of her own face. “Hop in and try and start her up, I want to hear what it sounds like.”

“Uh…” Pierce tried to speak up, to remind them he was still here. But, before he could get a word out, Daz reached down and carefully plucked him from the ground, wrapping her fingers around him and lifting him up as she rose back to her full height.

“No problem.” Aezhay said cheerfully as she climbed into the control seat of the shuttle.

Pierce reclined against Daz’s fingers as Aezhay ignited the shuttle’s engine. There was a metallic whine as the shuttle sputtered to life. The two nacelle buds attached to the undercarriage briefly glowed an intense white, but then the light in the right side one strobed rapidly and the shuttle tilted, saved only from falling to the ground by the metal harness it was rigged into.

“Slag it.” Daz cursed. “All right Zhay… shut it off.” There was a click and the engine slowly petered out, the shuttle settling back into the harness with a small thud.

Daz walked around to the pilot’s side of the shuttle and peered in through the open window at the control panel.

“I just don’t know what’s wrong with it…” Daz muttered scratching her head through her bandanna, her voice tainted by frustration. “I know I’ve realigned it properly. I know it! So why isn’t she flying right…?”

“Well I-” Aezhay began, but was cut off when Daz held up her hand for silence.

“Just a moment, Aezhay.” Daz muttered, distractedly. “Let me think…”

The garage was completely silent as Pierce and Aezhay waited expectantly as Daz tried to work through the possibilities in her mind.

“I wonder…” The dark haired titan muttered to herself. “I only realigned the passenger side. It was the most out of sync after all… but what if the pilot’s side wasn’t synced right either… just not as badly?”

“That would mean that it’s the pilot’s side that’s causing your issue now, wouldn’t it?” Aezhay prompted.

Daz nodded, and slipped the goggles back over her face. “It’s worth a look.”

She bent down and set Pierce back on the ground again and then carefully slipped back under the shuttle.

“Hand me the magnograph, would you Zhay?” Daz asked, her voice muffled. A hand stuck out from under the shuttle.

Aezhay looked around the floor of the garage for a moment, before locating the requested tool. She quickly slapped it into Daz’s palm.

“Thanks.” Daz responded distractedly as the hand disappeared under the shuttle again.

Pierce watched her work for a moment, noting the way her tongue poked out of her mouth as she concentrated.

Shaking his head in amusement, he began the trek back to the door and back into the house.

After a several minute walk, he made it to the door. He’d just stepped over the threshold and into the house when he suddenly heard:

“Yes! It works! It’s fixed!” Daz’s voice crowed triumphantly. “I am all powerful!”