Lexx leaned down to pick Maenae up and swing her up onto his shoulders, careful of his wings. “I’m sorry, Maenae. I’m going to make it up to you.”
He grinned and turned to walk away, waving to one of the watchers near the door to make sure they saw that he was taking Maenae.
“After I go play with ‘uncle’ Riley,… and you can call him that. Chel and I are spending the night on the station; we’ll have a good time! I promise.”
“We are?” Chel jogged after him, wondering if she had heard correctly. Behind her, both Zeta and Stealth had decided that since Maenae was no longer on the ground, they could come out. They ran to catch up, casting worried looks up at Maenae.
“Ship needs some adjustments.” Lexx brushed over the exact reason, not wanting to discuss it any further than that.
“I’ll watch your tail if you watch mine.” Stealth murmured to Zeta.
“Zeta think that not fair!” The sallomandyr responded in a huff, “Stealth got more tails than Zeta got eyes!”
“It’s a figure of speech.” Stealth hissed, backing her ears further and giving Zeta a nasty glare.
Maenae giggled and shouted, “Yay!” then leaned forward to squeeze Lexx’s head affectionately. “I love you, Daddy.”
Lexx sighed. He wished she would stop calling him that.
Chel sensed that Lexx wasn’t telling her everything. Something wasn’t right. Now that she thought about the events of the last hour. Lexx had left abruptly, but no one had come to him. There had not been a signal or anything that she had noticed. Then she remembered her wondering a few days earlier about if Lexx was somehow telepathic. That would explain a lot. She obviously wouldn’t hear anything said in that way.
“Lexx,…” She wanted to ask him.
“Yes?” He turned to look at Chel and for the first time, she noticed that there were two earrings in his left ear instead of the one. She reconsidered. Maybe later she would ask him about it. For now, it wasn’t that important. Whatever had happened, had been upsetting to Lexx. If she mentioned it, he might get upset again and she wanted to avoid that. “Nothing important.” She grinned and pushed the question away to ask later,… when they were back on the ship.
