"What is it?" Karr asked quietly.

"Nathan," Karen got out in a choked voice. "He looks just like Nathan."

There was a long silence. The little boy looked up with innocent green eyes and babbled something, then fell asleep, sucking his thumb. A tear escaped Karen's eye.

"Name him Nathan, Mom," Kerra suggested. Karen nodded silently and ruffled the baby's mohawk.

"Welcome to Albia, Nathan," she said quietly.

-

Phoenix gazed into her amethyst necklace, lost in contemplation. She was thinking about all her adventures throughout her life, but most prominent was a memory of the poison rain. It rose in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to keep it down, and played itself out before her eyes.

She saw herself, staring in horror from the safety of the bridge, at the body of her mother, who had died just seconds earlier from the poison rain. She felt her father tugging at her hand, begging her to come to the cellars - the rain was flooding the bridge. She felt the cold poison falling on her head as she and Eliot ran to a lift and got to safety in the cellars, before the deadly liquid could take its effect, and then the way all time had seemed to stop as the stasis field closed around her.

"Phoenix?"

Phoenix jumped and turned around. Kerra was standing there.

"Oh, hi Kerra," Phoenix said.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"Fahr got sick," Kerra said with disgust. "I guess your immune system can't be all that great after being stuck in a little tiny cave for most of your life."

"Guess not," Phoenix agreed, making a face.

"Right now, I've got him hooked up to the life support machine I made."

"A *life support machine?* He's that bad?" Phoenix was horrified.

"Hey - I *said* his immune system wasn't good!"

Phoenix shook her head. "How are you *powering* that thing?"

Kerra beamed. "Lemme show you," she said. She climbed up the central pole in the treehouse, and then climbed above it, pointing towards a branching bit of metal, sticking up from the Grendel tree. "See, that's the receptor thing. It picks up electromagnetic waves from the sun, and translates them into pure electricity, which is then transmitted down to the life support apparatus, powering it. Get it?"

Phoenix looked confused. "Sorta," she said. "A little."

"Well, that's how I'm powering it." She shimmied down again, and Phoenix jumped right after. "He should recover soon - that baby is, like, my Magnum Opus."

"Your what?"

"Magnum Opus. Greatest work, or something like that."

"Oh," Phoenix said, and wondered if those stormclouds she had seen on the horizon meant anything bad.

-

"Boop!" Kerra swore as Nathan ran off with her amethyst, giggling. "You bring that back!"

When it became clear that Nathan was not going to give it back, Kerra got to her feet and ran after her baby brother, grumbling to herself all the while. Finally, Nathan decided he was sleepy and fell asleep in mid-run, snoring away on the floor of the temple. Kerra took the amethyst from his grasp and put it back in her hair, and then picked up Nathan and turned around, heading for the kitchen. Suddenly, she felt raindrops on her head and looked up. Dread seized her as she saw the stormclouds - the last storm she'd seen had been the poison rain.

The fear was short-lived, however. The poison rain had felt deathly cold, and strangely alien. This rain was the normal cool, fresh rain Kerra was used to. Satisfied, she continued into the garden, and suddenly something small and hard hit her on the head. She swore, and looked around. It was hailing.

"Hail? Oh, that's just fighting dirty," she muttered, and ran at top speed to the kitchen, where she tucked Nathan into his crib. She then perched on the table by the door and peered out as the hailstones got bigger and bigger. In disdain, she pulled her mover out from under the table and started fiddling with it. It was her latest obsession - it seemed that her mover could never be perfect enough, some aspect of it could always be improved. She was in the middle of adjusting the speed control when a Forest norn with a Ron head entered the kitchen, looking frantic.

"Miss Kerra! We have a problem!"

Kerra grumbled and wiped some lubricant off her hands. "First, what is it you New Generation norns have with titles? I've told you time and time again - it's just 'Kerra', not 'Miss Kerra'. Second, what's the problem?"

"The hail! It knocked out your receptor for the grenorn's life support! M--Phoenix is attending to him now," the norn stuttered. Kerra swore loudly and grabbed a sack of tools, and then followed him into the rain (by that time, the hail had stopped), and to the Grendel tree. Phoenix looked up with an anxious look on her face as Kerra reeached her floor, and handed the mechanic the destroyed receptor. Kerra instantly began work on the receptor, and within about five minutes, it was good as new.

"I'll always wonder how you do it that fast," Phoenix murmured.

"Yeah, well - I'll always wonder how you talk through your mind. We're even." Kerra wasn't normally this short, but this was a crisis. She did an analysis on the receptor, and swore colorfully.

"What it it?" Phoenix was worried.

"This stupid thing won't recieve anything from the sun," Kerra grumbled. "I specifically designed it to be able to--"

"It's the hail," Phoenix said.

Kerra was silent for a few moments as she studied the readouts on the screen if her handheld analyzer. "Wait a second...it'll receive, if it gets a massive charge of energy. But there's nothing we could use to cha--"

She was cut off as a crack of lightning illuminated the sky.

"Okay, I stand corrected," she said. "But it's too dangerous for *anyone* to put this thing back up."

Something clicked in Phoenix's mind as she stared at the receptor. Memories came back, of her first encounter with Methka. The Shee woman's voice echoed in Phoenix's head. 'Remember, you have the blessing of the Shee."

Phoenix cast a telepathic question towards her amethyst, which responded with an affirmative. Encouraged, Phoenix grabbed the receptor and scampered up the tree.

"PHOENIX, ARE YOU F***IN' INSANE?" Kerra yelled up at her. "IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" Phoenix bluntly ignored the mechanic's warning and got to the branch the receptor had been on originally, and reattached it. Then she climbed onto a slightly highed branch, making sure her left hand stayed in contact with the receptor, and then stretched her right hand upward. Then she noticed that the lightning was still trying to ground itself at the tower. Which was all very well and good - except it needed to strike the receptor. Phoenix suddenly thought of something and reached out with her mind, trying to call a lightning bolt to her...

-

"AAAAAAAIIIIIIAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

A chill came over Kerra as she heard the scream. She wasn't an expert at screams, but that had sounded like a death scream. But she refused to believe it.

"Phoenix?" she called. There was no answer, only an ominous boom of thunder. "Phoeeeniiiix!"

Still no answer. Kerra was now firmly convinced, and curled up into a little ball, beginning to sob. Then she noticed that Fahr's life support was softly beeping to itself - operational. Fahr's chest was evenly rising and falling, in smooth, controlled breaths. Phoenix's rash plan had worked.

Kerra buried her head in her arms, feeling cold. Her best friend in the whole world was dead. Gone. For the first time, Kerra hated her immortality. A long time passed as she sat there, the odd raindrop falling through the leaves onto her head, and finally the storm passed. Sunlight streamed through the branches of the tree, but sunny was far from how Kerra felt. The lift chugged up to her floor, containing Eliot and Sassy. Kerra felt colder - how would they take it?

"Kerra, what's going on?" Sassy asked. Kerra noted that she was fully reverted back to her old form. "We heard the scream, but we were afraid to come...you see, the lightning...it, uh..."

Sassy trailed off, seeing the pouty expression on Kerra's face. "Kerra, what's wrong?"

Without a word, the white-haired mechanic climbed up into the trees. There was a pause, and she slowly climbed back down, carrying Phoenix's empty body with her. She handed it slowly to Sassy, whose eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.

"I couldn't stop her," Kerra said quietly, her voice unusually solemn. "She went up and attached the receptor, and then got struck with lightning. It got Fahr's life support working, but..." Her explanation ended with a choking sob. "I'm sorry."

Sassy was sobbing quietly into the ruff of fur on Eliot's chest, the precious corpse of her child cradled in one arm. Kerra looked at the grenorn on life support and sighed.