<span style="color: #FF0000">"But my ears make so much more sense!"</span>Sage groused.<span style="color: #FF0000">"Also, don't I look a lot more like mommy? And Daikon looks like daddy with funny ears."</span><br/><br/>====<br/><br/>Tarrok sat down on an empty seat, the hallway mercifully bare right now. Set Daikon down on his knee, still holding him snug and secure. Colony didn't have a whole lot of emergencies regularly, mostly routine medical. Gave them enough privacy for this heart to heart.<br/><br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"When I was about your age, kids like me were expected to fight. Pull our weight or else we'd be left behind or worse. My first mission was on a rock, don't even think it had a name. Didn't go... entirely to plan when we got on the ground."</span><br/><br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"Nobody gave half a damn when it was over. Most were too bloodthirsty to understand why I was crying for the dead. Others, I knew, were like me, once, but buried it under a calloused mask. So there I was, a bawling kid just leveling a cliff face and screaming at the top of my voice."<br/></span><br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"The universe was a big vortex of things I had no control over. Eventually, I figured to focus on the things I could do something about. Break down a choice between a lot of things into a bunch of little ones. Once I broke it down into things to do, things I could grab hold of, it made a bit more sense."</span><br/><br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"I couldn't change what I was, or what my people were. But I could scrounge together supplies to make a place of my own. Had enough strength to make people listen when I made a suggestion."</span>Tarrok decided not to mention how that first colony start up had ended. It was for the best.