Aisell gaped at the small form that stood on the stoop of her home. She rested her hand on the ground for support as the entire world seemed to flip sideways. For just a moment she couldn’t really hear anything but her own pounding heartbeat as it echoed in her ears.

“Luke…” She repeated, mind still numbed by shock. “You… you’re alive.”

“Yes I am.” Luke nodded, carefully stepping towards her. “And I know that you and I have a lot of unfinished business that we need to sort through, and there will be plenty of time for that later, but in the meantime-”

“I can’t believe this.” Aisell muttered, wiping tears from her eyes, having heard exactly nothing of what Luke had just said. “After all this time. I’ve been so worried… we’ve all been worried about you, and suddenly you appear out of nowhere and… Wife? Did you say wife?”

“Of course, that would be the part that gets through.” Luke muttered with a sigh.

“Lezah!” Aisell suddenly turned towards the inside of the house. “Get in here quick!”

Luke edged closer to Quendra and grasped her hand in his as the floor began to shake from the footsteps of several giants drawing nearer. He felt her stiffen as the subjects of her worst nightmares- Hair Like Fire, Tall as Tree and Seeks the Tribe, drew closer and looked down on them curiously.

Lezah was the closest. As she slowly crept closer, Luke watched as her face went from mild curiousity, to confusion, to surprise and finally into shock.

”Is… Is that… LUKE!” The ground shook again as the eldest Maris sister fell to her knees, hand covering her mouth. “He’s alive!”

“Yes…” Luke repeated, becoming exasperated. “I am but-”

“So this is Luke huh?”

Luke turned and was met with literally the tallest Titan he had ever seen. It became immediately clear why the youngest sister was known as Tall as Tree.

“Er…” Luke put an arm around his wife, as he could tell she was becoming extremely agitated. “Yes. You must be Aezhay…”

“This is amazing. It’s a miracle.” Lezah muttered. “Wait… who’s the girl?”

“Luke’s wife.” Aisell replied, and it was hard for Luke to judge her reaction from those words.

“Wife? But…”

“Okay, hold on a second.” A voice from behind the wall of Maris sisters cut in. “I think you all need to back up and give them some room. Otherwise she might just faint.”

The three sisters looked at each other, a little guiltily, and shuffled back a few paces. This allowed Luke to finally get a close look at the one the others called “Seeks the Tribe.”

“Thank you.” Luke nodded, breathing a sigh of relief.

“All right little man.” Aisell replied with narrowed eyes. “Start talking. Where have you been all this time, and who is she?”

Luke hesitated before glancing at Quendra. The redhead sighed and shook her head. It was obvious that she still had reservations about their actions, but recognized that they were far beyond the point of no return as far as that went.

“All right.” Luke sighed. “It’s something of a long story, but I’ll give you the Cliff’s notes version because we’re pressed for time.”

“The what?” Aezhay wondered.

“The short version.” Luke explained, smiling slightly despite the serious situation.

“Well, all right.” Aisell said, as she laid her hand on the floor in front of the humans. “But if we’re going to do that, squatting on the floor in the entryway is not exactly an ideal place for it.”

Luke knew immediately what Aisell wanted them to do. He glanced apprehensively at Quendra, unsure how his wife was going to react to this- but much to his surprise, and no small delight, he saw her square her shoulders and set her jaw before boldly climbing into the offered palm. After a second spent in admiration, Luke hastened to join her.

He only had a few seconds to situate himself before Aisell, slowly, rose to her feet. In spite of her earlier bravado, Quendra found herself clinging to Luke’s arm for support as the “ground” underneath them suddenly shot into the air. Luke didn’t begrudge her this, as travel by Titan was something that took some getting used to. Indeed, she was reacting far better than he had the first time he rode in a Titan’s hand.

Luke looked about the Maris’s home as they traveled back into the kitchen. He was surprised to see how familiar everything still felt to him, despite how long it had been since he’d left.

They entered the kitchen and Aisell lowered her hand to the counter top. Once Luke and Quendra had safely set foot on the solid wood, Aisell and the other Titans clustered at the other end of the counter.
Luke was grateful for this, because this way he and Quendra were not surrounded by them. He liked to think they had done this on purpose.

“Okay.” Luke began after taking a deep breath. “Here goes…”

*.*.*.*

Lesis Teronidia, Director of Regional Organizing for Titans for the Ethical Treatment of Humans, stared at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror and tried to regain that sense of rightness he’d previously had when doing his job.

The task was proving difficult.

With a sigh he exited the bathroom of the warehouse TETH was renting as they prepped for phase two of their project for the wild human tribe.

“Lesis!” A voice called out to him. “Over here! Come look!”

He turned and saw a young woman with short, spiked, green hair waving to him. Lesis suppressed a sigh and jogged over to the wide open space where Ncaesi and Leny were waiting for him. One the concrete floor they’d marked out a large square space, roughly twenty five units on each side.

“What am I looking at?” He asked the two women, who seemed extremely proud of the empty space in front of them.

“Watch.” Ncaesi said with a grin. She tapped a few commands into the data pad in her hand and a moment later a large holographic projection appeared in the empty space.

“What do you think?” Leny asked him, throwing her arm around his shoulders.

“I…” Lesis frowned and studied the projected image. In the empty space they’d constructed a large glass tank, inside of which was a small village of grass and mud huts that looked like something from a bygone age on Archavia. Just outside the circle of huts were a collection of other ramshackle buildings and lean-tos, presumably for storage and workspace.

Just outside the “village” was a wide open area where a couple of holographic tupps frolicked near an artificial pond.

“What… what exactly is this?” He asked the two women.

“The new habitat we’ll be building for the humans.” Leny gushed excitedly. “Isn’t it amazing?!”

“It is… uh… impressive…” Lesis muttered. “But doesn’t it seem a bit, well, small?”

“What do you mean?” Ncaesi asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Okay, look, we have over one hundred humans, right? And you have…” Lesis did a quick count. “Sixteen huts for them to live in.”

“Well, obviously this is just a mock-up.” Ncaesi snorted derisively. “They’ll be able to build more huts.”

“With what?” He countered. “I don’t see any building material in there.”

“We’ll give it to them, of course.”

“And food? There’s not near enough space for them to grow enough food to feed a hundred humans.”

“They can grow what they can to show they know how.” Ncaesi countered. “And then we’ll give them more to supplement what they can produce. And we can give them tupps and such to hunt for meat.”

“Oh I see.” Lesis nodded. “And this?” He used the knuckles of one hand to knock on the holographic glass that surrounded the “habitat.”

“That’s there for their protection, obviously. We don’t want them wandering off and getting underfoot, and we don’t want random Titans snatching them and making off with them.” Leny rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Les… what’s your deal suddenly?”

“Well, let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Lesis replied. “We’re going to lock them in a glass box, in a habitat we built for them, where we’ll give them food and everything they need, and make every decision for them, while we let any Titan who wants to gawk at them? Have I got that right?”

“Er…” Leny bit her lip. “I suppose so…”

“Really?” Lesis snorted in wry amusement. “And what does that sound like to you?”

“It’s not the same thing at all!” Ncaesi snarled angrily. “We’re trying to raise awareness of what humans are really like. This ‘tribe’ or whatever can help to show the average public what humans are really capable of!”

“And if they refuse?” Lesis wondered. “If we dump them in this… this thing and they sit there and decide not to play our game, what then? Are we going to discipline them? If so, are we going to use one of the HOS approved methods? I mean, why not? We’re already using their equipment!” He angrily stabbed his finger at the vacuum devices the three of them had used to gather the humans.

“How dare you!” Ncaesi shouted.

“All right!” Leny interposed herself between the two of them. “Let’s just everybody calm down, okay? It’s been a long day and we’re all tired. Let’s pack it in and get some sleep, okay? Things will make more sense after some rest, I’m sure.”

Lesis and Ncaesi glared at each other for another few seconds, before turning and walking towards opposite ends of the warehouse.

“Grand.” Leny muttered, wearily. “Glad we could get that sorted out.”

*.*.*.*

“…And then we came here hoping that you could help us.” Luke finished his abbreviated tale and looked up at the faces of the women around him.

“Incredible.” Aisell whispered. “All this time, there’s been a human society living on our land and we never saw a single sign of them.”

“I had.” Aezhay spoke up.

“You had?” her sister responded. “Where?”

“I…” Aezhay shook her head in confusion. “You remember Fray? The human I had when I was younger? I know we all thought she ran away but… I remember, about a year after she disappeared, one night she came back. She told me not to worry about her. That she had gone to a place where people like her lived. She told me… that she loved me very much, but she wouldn’t be able to see me again.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?” Aisell asked, a bit of an edge to her voice.

“Honestly, because I only remembered it just now. I hadn’t thought about it in years. And for the longest time I just figured it was a dream. I was a little girl, after all.”

“I… don’t believe it.” Lezah muttered. “I mean I know what Aunt Niki and Uncle Oresak told us, but I never once thought any humans survived that day. I’d always hoped some had, but…”

“You speak of the Great Disaster.” Quendra spoke up. “The massacre of the Tall Man and the Angry Woman.”

“Massacre…?” Aisell muttered. “I suppose to you it must have seemed… But no, it was an accident. A terrible accident that our aunt and uncle never forgave themselves for.”

Quendra shook her head. “Enough of this. We are wasting time and every second we sit here, the people who took my tribe get further from us!”

“We want to help, Quendra.” Aisell explained. “But I don’t know what we can do. We don’t have any clue who took them or where they may have gone…”

Gae, who had been mostly silent up to that point, let out a sigh. “Um… I might.”

“What?” Lezah blinked. “Why would you…? Oh… oh no, Gae tell me they didn’t. Tell me YOU didn’t.”

“What?” Aisell asked. “Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t… well, I mean I never…” Gae stammered. “But… yes, I sent some evidence of the tribe to TETH. But that was back when I still believed in what they were doing! I just figured they’d make leaflets or something. I never once thought they’d kidnap the entire group!”

“You see?” Quendra snapped to Luke, pointing at Gae accusingly. “This is what they do, Luke! This is why we hide from them!”

“Hey!” Yamanu snapped from his place on Gae’s shoulder. “Don’t you talk to her that way; you don’t know what she’s done to help humans!”

“Do not speak to me, Pet!” Quendra spat. “Because of her, nearly every person I love has been taken from me, and I have had to sit here quietly while you all decide if you’re going to bother doing something about it. I will be silent no longer!”

“Quendra, calm down, please.” Luke whispered to his wife.

“No.” Gae shook her head emphatically. “Please, listen. I messed up, I know that. But I can make this right. I can find where they went.”

“You’d better.” Lezah sighed. “This family can’t afford any more bad luck.”

“All right.” Aisell sighed. “Us blaming each other won’t solve the problem, even though there’s plenty of blame to go around. We need to get moving.”

Quendra continued to glare defiantly up at Gae. “Very well,” She muttered. “But this won’t soon be forgotten, Seeks the Tribe.”

“We can reasonably assume they headed for Town.” Aisell said, standing up from her chair. “It’s really the only place to go from here. I’ll take Luke and Quendra and we’ll start heading in that direction. Gae, you call us with the location when you find it out, then you all come as quick as you can.”

Quendra stiffened at the idea of being anywhere near the Titaness, but after a moment she calmed herself. As much as she hated to admit it. Luke had been right, it seemed that the only hope Quendra had lied with the blonde Titaness.

But, oh, did that chafe.

Aisell laid her hand on the table and the humans climbed into her palm.

“And just how are you planning on getting into town?” Lezah asked.

Aisell only smiled.

*.*.*.*

The garage door rumbled open on rusty hinges. After a bit of groping, Aisell was able to hit the switch, causing the overhead lights to flicker, reluctantly, to life.

The interior was covered in several years’ worth of dust, which made their eyes water for a moment. In the center was a lumpy object covered by a formerly white sheet turned brown from dirt.

“Cover your mouths.” She told the pair of humans sitting on her shoulder, a moment before she carefully removed the sheet. Despite her care, a small cloud of dust was sent into the air. However, the object that the sheet concealed remained pristine.

Luke blinked and looked at it closely. It looked a bit like hybrid between a snowmobile and a motorcycle. Smooth metal painted a dark midnight blue, with a windshield made of tinted purple plexiglass- or something similar. Instead of tires there were small nodules.

“Whoa…” Luke breathed, impressed.

“My baby.” Aisell said proudly. “Haven’t had a chance to ride her in years though.”

She stepped across the garage to a small cabinet behind the machine. Opening the door revealed a black helmet with an opaque faceplate. She slipped it over her head and her face could no longer be seen behind it. Also in the cabinet was a jacket made of a material that at least looked like leather. She set the humans on the saddle of her ride and slipped it on.

“Okay.” Her voice was muffled behind the helmet. “Now where can you two ride? Aha!”

Before either of the humans could say a word, she’d popped open a compartment on the console between her legs. Luke peeked inside. It was cramped but covered in soft foam. It might not be the most comfortable ride ever, but it should be safe enough.

And at least it would be Quendra he’d be pressed up against and not, well, anybody else.

For a moment it looked like Quendra might protest, but her fear for her tribe overrode her sense of pride and she climbed into the compartment without comment, pulling Luke in behind her.

Once she’d made sure they were as secure as she could make them, Aisell started the engine, feeling a sense of pride when the machine roared to life without incident. With a twist of a dial and the click of a button, she engaged the engine and the machine floated gently off the ground.

Carefully she nudged it through the garage door and, once they were clear, she gunned the engine and soared into the sky.