"The sun? At max speed... 20 minutes, maybe? Give or take five. Do you think you can last that long?"

"Do I really have much of a choice?"

Astra groaned as she sat back and closed her eyes again. Without Seth's avatar to take some of the burden off of her, the pain was returning at full force and with a vengeance. Her body kept twitching as arcs of electricity crackled across different parts of her, the static gradually increasing in her mind as if someone was turning it up with a dial.

As Seth ran off to get the ship ready, as they were currently just sitting above the clouds and waiting, and since Astra was busy dealing with her pain. Nixie was left alone to her own devices in the space ship.

With such an innocent smile on her face, so much so that a halo of pure innocence could form over her head, Nixie slowly stepped backwards through the door to the control room and immediately turned on her heels. The moment she was out of sight, her innocent smile turned completely impish and mischievous, as she darted into the bowels of the ship. Giggling to herself the entire time.

Her feet padded against the strange metallic floor of the ship as she ducked in and out of the rooms, seeing what each of them were and if there was anything fun to play with.

First was the Cafeteria, or Mess hall. There were some good snacks that she immediately pilfered and started to eat, but after that it quickly went down hill.

Engine room? Boring. Toilet? Gross. Bedrooms? Lame. Although why did some of them have bigger beds? Meh, probably for bigger people.

Idly munching on a box of fish crackers - which were actual fish, even smaller than a goldfish, that they caught from the ocean. They naturally had the physical consistency of salt crackers when dried out and that Seth kept in a wooden box - Nixie stepped into the next room of her self directed tour. She was initially bored with what she saw and was about to leave for somewhere better, when her eyes landed on a sword hanging on the wall.

Those innocent silver eyes gleamed with mischief as she stared at the sword, her mouth hanging open and allowing a waterfall of cracker crumbs to fall out, before she replaced the crumbs with another handful of crackers.

Cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk and happily munching, Nixie strolled over to the sword. She reached up, but despite the fact she was a big girl now, she was still too short, even when she stood on her toes.

Most kids would be dissuaded by this, but just like the cookies guard 6 kept on a high shelf, nothing was out of reach of the great and powerful Nixie.

Holding in her impish giggles, Nixie rose off the ground and just as her fingers brushed against the leather wrapped handle of the weapon, she was rudely interrupted.

"What are you doing?"

"MMMMF!"

Letting out a muffled scream, Nixie whirled around in the air to find Seth standing behind her in the doorway. His arms were crossed, his expression stern and worst of all... one of his eyebrows was raised expectantly.

"Dff, whmf urr ymm doimm hrr?"

"Swallow, then try again."

With a sheepish expression, Nixie forced the crackers in her mouth down her throat in one go, before putting on her innocent smile once again. However this one was strained with guilt as she bobbed in the air.

"Dad, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you... be piloting the ship or something?"

"The ship has an auto pilot, and my dad senses were telling me you were up to no good."

"Dad senses? Pfft, that's not real."

"Oh yes they are," Seth reached forwards, gently grabbing Nixie's ankle and slowly pulling her through the air, away from the sword and closer to him. "It's the mutation every dad gets as soon as they have a child.

We have the super power to know when kids are touching things they aren't supposed to. Thermostats, Tv remotes... Swords."

"I didn't touch it I swear!"

Nixie shot her hands into the air in surrender, which also meant she tossed a bunch of crackers into the air with her frantic movements. Seth watched the crackers fall to the ground and raised his eyebrow even more, causing Nixie to squirm in his grasp.

"Mhm... But you were about to, weren't you?"

She squirmed more, her face turning red as she curled up into a ball of shame, before attempting to divert the question.

"...How did you even find me?"

He let out a disappointed sigh and gave her an incredulous look, before glancing down at the crackers littering the floor once again. Nixie followed his gaze, seeing the fish shaped treats standing against the black metal.

She could also see between Seth's legs, and see the trail of crumbs that led from where she was standing back to the door, and presumably all the way down the corridor.

Drat! There was no way she could have avoided that. Clearly it was destiny, and absolutely not her fault.

Her eyes drifted away from her crumb trail, seeking anything else in the room to dodge the embarrassment, when she saw the rest of the items of the table. The items that she had initially seen, and which were utterly boring.

A look of disgust drifted onto her face as she picked up one of the items, pair of glasses that massively magnified her eye when she peered through them.

"What do you even use all this junk for?"

"Junk?! You call this Junk? Oh... that hurts. This isn't junk little missy, and it isn't a toy either."

Seth took the glasses from her hand before she could break them, as she was holding them by the very edge of the arm and letting them dangle between two fingers, and started to pick up a few other smashable objects.

He turned away, walking over to a cabinet on the wall and started to put away the items.

"I'll have you know, that this is what your Dad has been working on to keep himself. Not only is some of it very fragile, but all of them are very important and very very interesting. And what did I tell you about touching?"

Nixie whipped her head towards Seth, completely freezing in her movements, with a look of utter disbelief and bafflement on her face. She was frozen in the air, her hand outstretched and her fingers barely a hairs breadth away from touching the hilt of the sword.

How... How did he do that? He wasn't even looking!

She retracted her arm, nervously biting her nail as she seriously considered that he was right about his superpower. That 'Dad senses' were an actual real thing. This wasn't the first time he had done this either...

Did... Oh no! Did that mean he knew every thing she did? Did he know about the cookies?! But she made sure to hide them so well under her mattress, and that was the best hiding place! No one ever looked there!

As Nixie was considering a new hiding place for the things she had 'liberated' from their previous owners, hiding places such as inside of her sock drawer, Seth took something from the cabinet, closed it and turned towards her.

He smirked slightly at the guilty expression on her face and knew exactly what she was thinking. It was the same trick that Lea had pulled on him when he was young, as well as the twins. You just always assumed that when kids were being quite, that they were up to trouble.

It was an easy assumption to make, because it was usually right. But to their simple minds, it seemed almost supernatural. I mean, his senses were actually at the level that could be considered 'supernatural' to the old world, but that was besides the point.

In one hand he held a bottle of wine, something he was glad she didn't find (although it wasn't actually clear if it would have any effect on her) and in the other he scooped up a goblet made of blue crystal that sparkled like it had been doused in pixie dust.

The wine wasn't the truly ancient stuff he had found for his date with Astra, instead this was a basic brand he had 'liberated' from a store. It was called 'El Cheapo' and had a little picture of a duck in a sombrero on it. Although he didn't speak it, Seth was certain that wasn't real Spanish nor did he have any idea what a duck had to do with it.

But he didn't need it for the taste or price, so it didn't matter. Although he did spend a few nights dreaming of that duck. He held up the goblet to get Nixie's attention, before placing it into her hands.

"This junk, as you call it, is your Dad's work on a very special project. I haven't just been using this place to meditate and taxi around your mum. I've been using it, to make my own Requitals."

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