Lessy knocked on the door of the small house, and found she was a bit more nervous than she’d expected. It was silly – but still, it had been a while, and she felt more than a bit self-conscious about that fact.

It wasn’t that she’d been avoiding it – far from it, she’d very much wanted to stop by. But her schedule was ludicrous, and only getting more difficult by the day. But it had been over two Earth years since she’d last done this. She chided herself – she should have done this some time ago….

The door opened, and a short woman with red-brown skin and short-cropped hair opened the door. “Hello? Can I help you?”

“Hi. I’m looking for Moze Kaewon?”

“Oh! You must be Lessy. Come in! He’s just cleaning up a bit, he asked me to make you at home.”

Lessy looked around the great room of the house; it appeared as if a gallery had exploded. There were paintings and sculptures, musical instruments and papers, drawings and doodles strewn about haphazardly. It wasn’t dirty, but it was cluttered. Every bit of space seemed filled.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t….”

“I’m Jacina. I’m a writer. Of course, I’m nowhere near as good as your mom, but I do okay.”

“Wait – Jacina Pantik?”

“You’ve heard of me?” Jacina said, with a shy smile.

“Are you kidding? The Short March is brilliant!” Lessy said. “I’ve read it four times. Have you thought about getting it published in the wider Empire?”

“Well, obviously, that would be nice,” Jacina said with a chuckle. “But not many publishers on Avalon distributing galaxy-wide.”

“No,” Lessy said, “but I know what my mom thinks of your work. And she knows some people who know some people.”

“I…your mom…read my book?”

“More than once.”

Jacina beamed at that. “Well…that means a lot. Really. I always worried it was kind of awful, but didn’t want to say anything.”

Lessy smiled at that, and chuckled. Writers had the most fragile egos in the galaxy.

“So is it just you and Moze?”

“Nah, Selen and Panat are both painters, they live upstairs, and Blin is a musician, she’s actually at a gig. We share rent, share expenses, and share profits.”

“Nice,” Lessy said. “Smart way to run it.”

“It is. Besides…we were all pets at one point,” she said, gesturing to a chair. “It kind of works out well. Selen is good with numbers, Moze and I are good with writing and reading, Panat is really good at tending house, and Blin…well, everyone likes Blin, and she tries really hard. It makes it so that as a group, we can muddle through.”

“That’s really great,” Lessy said, with a smile. “I’m glad you found each other.”

“We are too.”

A door opened down the hall, and a familiar voice boomed out. “Is that Alesia Nonahsdottir I hear?”

Lessy got up, and gasped; Moze was hardly recognizable. It wasn’t just the fact that he was wearing clothes – a simple pair of pants and a bright pink shirt – but he carried himself entirely different than he had when Lessy had first met him. He stood straight, and walked in with an easy gait. His eyes had always been lively, but now they seemed more focused, more careful in choosing a target. He beamed, as he pulled her into a bear hug.

“It has been too long!” he said with mock indignation. “How are you?”

“I’m great. You…you seem to be doing well.”

Moze laughed. “I am,” he said. “I see you met Jacina. Our scribe.”

“I did. She was telling me a bit about your home here.”

“Best commune on Avalon!” he said.

They talked for some time, about what they’d been up to. About Lessy’s travels on Earth (she left out her relationship with Yoshi – it just didn’t seem relevant), and about Moze’s success as an artist.

“I’m trying sculpting now,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate. Liberation sold for a good amount of money, I hear. It has paid for my bills for some time.”

Lessy smiled; she actually knew who had bought Liberation. She’d been a bit annoyed that it hadn’t been her, but then, she was never going to be able to outbid Pryvani.

“So I hear you’re up for Secretary of Education?”

“Only if Sophia Kramer decides to retire,” Lessy said. “Still not sure why President Haerst wants me, in particular, but….”

“I still think my painting is…well, it isn’t what I want it to be, not yet. But people seem to like it, so I’ve learned to believe I’m good enough,” Moze said, with a shrug. “Perhaps you should believe that too.”

“I probably should,” Alesia said. “My mom never thought her writing was any good, and my dad always worries he’s missed something critical in every one of his inventions….”

“And I still think the shade of red I used in my last painting is just slightly off,” Moze said.

“And that’s silly. Solitude is beautiful.”

“You’ve seen it?” Moze said, with a bit of surprise.

“Well, it’s in the new collection at the Ekmekshi Museum, I had a chance to tour it before it goes up next week. Are you going to attend the premiere?”

Moze shook his head. “I hate going to those things, but I suppose I must.”

“Well, I’ll see you there. The Department of Education is partnering with the Ekmekshi on this showing, and Sophia tells me I need to show up, even if she changes her mind and doesn’t retire.”

“Well, if you will be there, I will be there,” Moze said.

After a while, Jacina retired to her room to write, and Lessy sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” Moze asked, sitting forward.

“For not stopping by more. I helped get you free and then…I mean, obviously, you didn’t need me, but still….”

Moze smiled. “You helped free me. Of course I needed you! I’m glad you did not see me much until now. It took…it took a long time for me to get over being a pet. Some days I still think I have not. I…I am still embarrassed at how I was when you first met me. And I wasn’t much better when you stopped by after I got here.”

Lessy put her hand on his. “Moze…why would you ever be embarrassed about that?”

“I was…I was stupid,” he said. “I spoke like a jabbering fool.”

“You were uneducated,” Lessy said, “and that isn’t your fault. You were never stupid.”

“I was compared to you. You were…even now, I don’t know how to put into words what I thought of what you were. You were so much more than I was. I felt even smaller than I usually did.”

“Moze!” Lessy said, wiping a tear from her eye. “How…why would you ever think that? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ever make you feel that way.”

Moze laughed, a kind and cheerful laugh. “Oh, Lessy, you didn’t. You never talked down to me. That is what surprised me. What made me confused. Because you were smarter than me, but you didn’t act like you were. And when I told you I was scared, you didn’t laugh. You said it was okay to be afraid. When I was most frightened, when being a free human seemed much too hard…I remembered that.”

He smiled. “I wish I had been born free. Had met you free. But still. I am glad I met you when I did.”

Lessy sighed. “Moze…I wish I was half as deserving of your praise as you think I am.”

Moze smiled, and stood, and offered Alesia a hand. “Would you like to see what I’ve been working on?”

“Absolutely!” Lessy said.

Moze led her back to his cramped studio. He had a number of paintings in various stages of completeness. His work was assured, confident, and beautiful. She paused, and looked at an impressionistic work that showed Pryvani’s compound, sitting on its mountain above Atlantis. She could see tendrils of light playing back and forth between the two, as if they were connected by an intangible cord. It was subtle – it could be easily missed by a hurried viewer. That made it all the more powerful.

She turned around, and looked at the sculpture he was working on – and her jaw dropped.

“Moze…is that….”

“It is supposed to be you,” he said, with a sigh. “I’m not certain….”

“It’s amazing,” she said. “It…did you do that from memory?”

“Even when I was a pet, I had a good memory for images. For how things looked. You…I think I remember telling you that you were pretty when I met you,” he said with a half-groan. “I didn’t…that was not….”

“Moze, it was a nice complement.”

He sat down, and regarded the sculpture. He’d tried to make it look like her, that day – but he kept running into the problem of how he remembered her. She had been more than a woman. She had been radiant. She had spoken to him like he was a person. Not a fellow pet. A person.

Pretty. Ha. It didn’t begin to cover it.

“You probably still think I’m foolish,” he said. “Making art about you and that time.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Because…I should be moving on. Doing realistic work about Avalon, painting the city.”

“You’re an artist,” Lessy said. “My mom doesn’t write about Tuaut. You should paint what you want to paint.”

“It’s just…I feel so much like I am still the fool in the cage, sometimes. I mean, I still have trouble with numbers, Lessy. I still…it gets confusing sometimes, having to figure out things on my own. I know, you don’t understand that – you’re so much more together than I am, and….”

“Stop it,” Lessy said, softly but sternly. “Do you know my mom’s story?”

“I…I had heard she was a pet, but….”

“She was most definitely a pet. Bought in a store not much different than the one I met you in. I’ve seen the paperwork. My dad was a lab assistant, but really, he was a pet too. My mom was about as old as you were when she was freed by my Aunt Loona. It took her a while, but she managed, with the help of a lot of people, to build a life for herself. And even then…she stayed with Loona. So did my dad. Loona helped them make the transition as easily as they could, but they’ll be the first to tell you that despite all the advantages they have, it has been hard.

“You’ve done more, faster, than they did, Moze. I mean…look at what you’ve created! Look what you’ve done! You’re making beautiful art, art that speaks to Avalonians – you aren’t in the new exhibit by accident, and you don’t have three works in it by mistake. You have a house, a career, friends!”

“You have all that, and more,” Moze said.

Lessy looked down, just for a moment. “Moze, the day I met you…I remember thinking about my mom. Niall Freeman – Sorcha’s dad – he was purchased in the same pet shop you were. If someone other than Naskia buys him, my mom never meets him, and if by some miracle she had still met my dad…well, I would have been born a pet. And I remember wondering if I had been born a pet, like my mom, or my dad, or you…if I could ever have done what all of you have managed to do. And the truth is, I don’t know.

“I was born free, Moze, or at least as free as a human in the Empire can be, but that doesn’t make me special, and it doesn’t make me better. It makes me lucky. What you and my parents have done…it makes you special. I’m proud of you, and you should be proud too.”

Moze smiled, cautiously. “Alesia…thank you. I just….”

“Moze,” Lessy said, kneeling beside him. “Don’t ever think – not for a moment – that you owe me anything at all. I was fortunate to be in a place where I could help free you. And if I’d been the pet, and you’d been in my shoes…you would have helped me.”

Moze covered his mouth; he nodded. Alesia stepped forward, and pulled him into a tight hug, which they held for a good long while.

“Now,” she said at long last, “I know I said I could only drop by for a bit, but…well, would you like to grab dinner? I’ve still got a pretty decent credit at Rixie’s.”

“Didn’t you say you needed to meet with Sorcha tonight?” Moze asked.

“Sorcha’s blown me off lots. Turnabout is fair play. She can wait a few hours. Don’t you think?”

Moze smiled warily. “Yes. I would like to have dinner with you. But are you sure we can get in?”

“Absolutely,” Lessy said, standing up. “Alex will get us a table. Promise. Now, you’re going to have to tell me about that painting of Pryvani’s compound….”