The morning crept in slowly and with great dignity. It filtered through the ornate windows into her bedroom. She woke and completed her usual ablutions. It was all part of a flow, long term, as inevitable as the tides.

She spent the morning tending to her garden, the soft life forms, so short lived and beautiful each had it's own thing to say about life and the universe. She could hear them after a fashion, she could intuit their state.

Her garden was happy and aggressively alive. She enjoyed the feel.

The Elauhir didn't have hospitals as such. They had networks of healers who'd respond to calls. Her skills were just becoming adequate to her mind.

As with her gardens, the flow of a living being's life force was a sort of music to her and she was beginning to be able to hear it.

It made her an excellent healer by the standards of the day. She quietly wondered if her age was starting to tell for finding the standards of the day a bit low.

A boy came running by. Like bright flower, he was brimming over with life, and need to live now and all the way. She smiled at him, enjoying the feel. The young were shallow and simple but they were direct and honest as well.

"What errand speeds you so?" she asked, her voice conversational.

The Boy slid to a halt. One doesn't ignore the voice of the elders. Especially if punishment is not to one's taste.

"Ma'am." He bowed, properly with good form. She was disappointed. Boys didn't need to be so proper and polite. He explained his haste. "A Starship has come! It's filled with humans from another planet!"

She blinked at him slowly. "Well that's certainly important, isn't it? On your way."

Bowing again, but sloppier, he turned and sprinted away.

A Starship? Filled with humans? The consequences of this were too horrible to contemplate. Obviously the boy was mistaken. The young were prone to exaggerate to suit their own need for excitement. And that boy definitely needed some excitement in his life.

She calmly walked back inside.

The frame of the communications screen was hand polished white pine, with carved filigree in a pattern Earth eyes would label Celtic.

The panel was dark. She didn't program the device to show life forms or try to match the surface of her living house. The self deception inherent in this bothered her.

She tapped the thing and then tapping commands slowly, with grace and precision, she placed a call to the council chambers.
She was long since done with her last stint n the council. But her age made her an elder of the whole race, something she traded on ruthlessly when it suited her.

A young functionary answered the call. He too bowed properly, but he needed to, since he was an aspiring politician. Her face grew slightly haughty to avoid the condescending smile that wanted to play on it. As if the council was the end-all and be-all of Elauhir life.

"I have heard a rumor of a starship." She said. "Explain."

The young man paled a bit. "It is true M'Lady. A ship in orbit, filled with ephemerals."

She considered for several minutes as the interconnections sparkled through her brains. Certainly Elauhir life would never be the same again.

A small voice whispered in the back of her mind "It's about time, too!"

She ignored this voice. It was growing more insistent as time continued. "Now is not the time." She sternly told herself.

"Who is in charge of managing this event?" She asked the Functionary

"Madam Leaethil, Sir Helientha, Madam Garelitha and Sir Maelisarth." He answered.

She nodded. They were not stupid people, if anyone could manage this situation effectively, they would do as well as anyone could. "I require information."

The functionary gulped again. He touched some controls. "They have downloaded to us a considerable amount of data. You have access to it all now, Milady."

"Thank you." Her acknowledgment was little more than a glance at the ground. The young man may well tell his grandchildren that he spoke with an elder of her magnitude.

"You taught your grandchildren how to hunt, how to move in the woods and how to pick locks," the voice in the back of head said.

"Now is not the time," she repeated with implacable calm.

-*-

The gathering of eminences was in a grove of trees which ate sound and offered a quite mood of reflection.

"We are doomed." Kealithar said quietly. "They are too many and they have too much technology."

"Certainly this is a crisis, but as long as we retain control of the ephemeral access to the surface of this world, we may yet prevail." Jejalithanar said.

"And what of the day when one of their battlefleets arrives in orbit? When will their pirates and bandits discover us? Will the fine mounted cavalry of King James and chariots of Queen Ishara come to our aid, then?" Kealithar said. His tone was unusually sharp.

"We must control them. We must manage them, or we shall surely fall before them." Menlithinar added.

"They number in the trillions. They seem quite chaotic and disorganized to me. And yet they equal our science and technical acumen. This will make management of them quite the task indeed." Zalanthiran said.

She turned and left the gathering with all possible decorum. For once the inner voice of madness and her true self were in agreement. The fear that gripped the Elauhir was disgusting.

-*-

She read for weeks in the information handed to the Elauhir by their visitors.

They had a conglomeration of worlds and nations, a Federation. It was an intensely human arrangement, with all members as equal partners marked by fractious debate and many votes.

The Elauhir had carefully disassembled many such conglomerations on Askene.

The problem was that such disassembling often resulted in wars of dynasty. And Askene was not as insulated from the wars of these space people as the city Elvend was from the wars of knights and footmen, cavalry and sailing ship from surrounding kingdoms.

But as she read further she read of the Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites. The different peoples fascinated her. It was their short life spans of course, this made them vulnerable to that subconscious, mass human tendency to try and make sure everyone was friends before their throats got cut.

There were people so strange as to surprise and delight her. The Horta, the Medusans, the Cetaceans.

As she read she felt herself bubbling more and more. Yet curiosity drove her on.

-*-

There was a gentle knock on the door.

"Hello?" She called Cheerfully.

Kealithar came in. "M'Lady the council would... oh, dear."

Sunshine stood looking at her old traveling clothing. Green tights, a leather jerkin, belts with compartments and pouches, Her sword, sharp and ready, her cloak was artistically mottled for hiding in the forest. Her bow, polished and newly tuned was ready to go.

She looked at the disconcertment on Kealithar's face and laughed. "Silly. Silly man, aren't you even slightly curious!?"

-*-

Sunshine marched into the Elauhir council, her boots clicking on the marble floor. "I'm here. What?"

The elders of the race of the Elauhir turned and looked at her with shock and dsappointment.

Menlithinar intoned "Ael'thot Belara Donmiago, your timing could not be worse."

Sunshine greeted the disadain with a cheery smile. "You've just discovered that we're a small patch on the greater universe. You've just discovered that this council chamber isn't the center of creation and it's got you about ready to wet your robes!"

The council members looked away with dignified disappointment. "She's mad again." Zalanthiran said.

"Maybe, but I know that fear has an antidote and that's knowledge. I'm going to go get me some." Sunshine challenged. "I'm not the only one. Even the Dark Ones mays well contact this Federation."

The reaction to her mention of their ancient offshoot and ancient foes shook those elders in the chamber.

"As the oldest among you and the least tolerant of your sad, self important, snotty attitude, I'm going to make a recommendation." Sunshine continued.

The elders of the Elauhir turned away, with visible discomfort.

"HEAR ME! Damn you!" Sunshine yelled.

They turned back some even wincing.

"Stay here and cry all you want. But don't break anything until I get back. If you're much cleverer than I think you are, you might learn a thing or two!" With that, Sunshine turned and marched out of the Elauhir council chambers.

Jejalithanar started laughing. "I really enjoy it when she does that to us."

The rest of the council wondered if it was his time for madness as well.

-*-

All the arrangements were made. Another Federation Starship was due soon. Sunshine would go to their diplomatic mission and request permission to accompany that ship and see the galaxy.

As she passed her home for the last time for the foreseeable future, she noted the carefully arranged and tended rows of plants, making a very firm pattern in the manner of an Elauhir Garden.

Sunshine was struck by the fact that while gardening she loved the plants but she never seemed to notice that they were battling her, seeking their own pattern, not hers.

The boy was standing near her home. He'd seen her and was afraid. She stopped next to him. "Boy, what have you heard?"

"The rumor says you're mad." He quailed. "They say you're going to try and go see the galaxy with the space-humans.

Sunshine thought about it. "Come here, boy."

She led him into her home. She took off her pack and her weapons while saying "Make yourself comfortable."

He perched on the edge of a seat and watched wide eyed as she started some tea.

The sunshine sat down across the table from him and said "Boy, pay attention now. I will impart some ancient wisdom to you."

He looked frightened but intrigued. It was a good sign.

"Have they told you of the Second war of the Raven God Darlu?" Sunshine asked.

He nodded "Yes Um!"

"Well, they lied. Here's how it really happened." Sunshine began "I was a young woman, and I made myself outcast from Elauhir society. I made my living by sleeping with powerful human nobles and weedling their secrets out of them. Then I sold these secrets to rival nobles."

The boy's face went pale with shock.

"I was on the run. My mark, that's what we called them, marks, had discovered I was a spy. If caught I could expect torture and hanging - If I were lucky. I was in a scummy bar, laying low when a band of scruffy, criminal bandits and adventurers came into the bar. I seduced one of them and joined their party. I escaped the wrath of the noble. He was looking for an Elauhir woman, (they saw us differently then) with fine clothing, and a taste for the high life."

"As just another scruffy opportunist I escaped that city, and the angry King who pursued me."

"We went into the desert to complete a religious ritual on behalf of another Elauhir woman, named Ivy. There we met a psionic who told us of the rise of the Raven God Darlu and his followers, the Orsa. The Orsa were much more numerous then. Their hordes could cover a plain to the horizon and they wanted to kill and eat all of us Elauhir."

"We thought he'd cast a magic spell on us forcing us to find and defeat the return of the Raven God to our world. I blamed the rest of the party for this and let them know it at length."

Sunshine got up and finished preparing the tea.

"The Volcano Korsala blew up that year. We waded through knee deep ash, and past endless refugee trains of starving humans. We were tracked by Orsa war parties and agents of Scheming human Nobles who thought they could ride the Orsa uprising to power. We ran and we fought and we killed like animals, like bandits. Not because we were good and true, but because out there in the dark it was us or them!"

Sunshine handed the stunned boy tea. "Honey?"

He eventually shook his head and Sunshine continued her story.

"We fought at the Castle Rokenheim, not because we were making a stand but because the Orsa and their pet monsters boxed us in! If we could have fled like cowards and let them have that castle, we would have, but there was just no where to go.

-*-

"We were in the Castle of Queen Daria. We walked in like idiots and made ourselves at home, only to discover that evening she was working with the enemy and planned to capture us and find out what the resistance was doing."

"We had no idea, but that wouldn't have stopped them." Sunshine rose "Can I get you something to eat?"

The Boy looked at her for a long time and then managed to shake his head.

"Cor and I, (that was the one I'd seduced for my place in the party) Killed Daria's exchequer in his office in the bowels of the castle and made off with piles of gold. Cor insisted on going back for his magic sword, so I kissed him good bye and smuggled myself and my loot out of the castle by posing as a drudge. Autocratic humans almost never see the lower classes."

"It was a complete surprise to me when I discovered they'd managed to fight their way free of the castle and escape."

-*-

"So we managed to sneak through Orsa territory mainly by exterminating every Orsa we ran across, and the alchemist demolished the main temple of the Raven God Darlu, with every Orsa, Human and Dark One Priest inside it, to our minds, ending the threat of the emergence of the Raven God Darlu, then we only had to sneak out and join up with the human and Elauhir Armies as hordes of Orsa attacked us, Darlu or no."

Sunshine leaned back and took a deep breath. "It's been a long time since I remembered those days that clearly."

The Boy just looked at her.

"My Grandfather told me similar stories of the First War of the Raven God Darlu." Sunshine said. "Now, what does my account tell you?"

"Umm, that you really hate the Orsa?"

"Besides that."

"That war isn't anything like my teachers told me it was."

"What else?"

The boy struggled to catch up with Sunshine's point. "Ummm."

"That a lot of the glorious and noble history of the Elauhir isn't so much. They call people like me mad, but without us, the Elauhir would have been gone a long time ago." Sunshine said. "Don't take the exaggerated dignity and self importance of the Elauhir elders so seriously. The Universe doesn't."

The boy blinked slowly a new point of view opening in his head.

Sunshine stood. The honored caretakers of her home would clean up. It would be considered a horrible breach of dignity and etiquette, but they'd over look it because she was mad. "I'm going now." She started to put her weapons and traveling gear on.

The boy followed her out of the house. "Might I go exploring space and the human galaxy?"

Sunshine smiled at him. "Learn things of value to space explorers, boy, and I'll see you out there in a few years."

He grinned merrily.

Sunshine walked away from the city of Elvend with a light heart and her eyes on the road ahead.