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In the slow, sacred silence after the UrSkeks were gone, she had lain for a long time listening to Jen’s heartbeat, and marveling at being alive.
She supposes the suns must have moved, or one of the podlings made some small noise, and the still moment passed. Then everyone was trying to talk to them and Jen, who of course didn’t understand any of them, tried to tell them that and failed because they didn’t understand him either. It was rather a mess until their scattered memories returned enough that they began to recognize Kira.
His look of relief and gratitude was something to treasure.
Then they’d decided that the ruins surrounding the Crystal were utterly unfit for any decent being’s home, still stinking of Skeksis as they did, it was better to go back to the podling’s lands, at least to decide what to.
Along the way, she fell into conversation with Aughra, who hadn’t been so much invited as she’d just... come along. She frightened the podlings a little, and Jen didn’t seem to like her all that much, but Kira could feel that he was thinking of something past, and trusted that he would get over it in time. Kira thought, after listening to her to talk for awhile, that she liked her. There was something about the way they both looked at the world from inside it, instead of outside like Jen, and if the things she felt were the distant ones in the heavens, well... did it really make so much difference?
“But... if the stars can show you the future, why didn’t you know which crystal, or to talk to Jen faster?” she asks, laughing a little inside, and knowing that Aughra sees it.
It’s fair enough, after all, since Aughra laughs at them. But they must look so young, to someone who has lived more than a thousand years. “No no no, not the future, not the future! Not what you do, not what Aughra does, stars don’t care about that, suns don’t know! Heavens barely know we’re here, why should they care what we do, eh? But we care, girlie.” She pokes Kira lightly, hardly seeming to notice her hand being swatted away. “We care, and try to know, to help each other and do what needs doing. Otherwise what are we, hmm? Skeksis, that’s what.”
She shudders all over, and Kira finds herself nodding in agreement. “I just don’t know what we’ll do now. I mean Jen and me.” she looks across the podlings, from her clan and from others, and finds him trying to understand what they’re saying. At least someone has thought to try and teach him, now.
She looks back and finds herself being watched in turn, old amusement in Aughra’s eyes. “Build, Kira. What else can you do.”