#odyssey

"I love you guys, but I want to give my mom and dog a hug and smell the forest again, and see the leaves change. I want to catch the breeze in the hills. I want the smell of rain on earth mingling. I.. I missed home"

an admission

"We're going home first." He reassures Gwen, "We don't have a ship yet, or a map, or a destination..."

"Well, the stars themselves are a map, of sorts."

"I'm sure Ivan missed you. And Muppet, too." He nods to Thistle.

Citrine is exploring the in-flight entertainment menu on the screens on the back of the chairs.

A nod , "yeah, home. And you guys were great, and will be even more amazing. Star trods and such" A chuckle "I told you so... still makes me happy to say it. warm fuzzies"

"The stars themselves are a destination, really."

Eye-roll.

"Yeah yeah, vengeance is yours."

"Do you think Fornax is doing okay?"

"Delicious delicious vengeance" A look at her friend "Fornax is probably getting spoiled"

"Oh! I hope so! I hope Marigold kept his mp3 player charged..."

"I was not sure how long you'd be busy with the Saining and all that, so I plugged it into the wall socket. I certainly did not expect your- our - absense to exceed a day, but if anything, he might be tired from listening too much... but I do not know if Bookwyrms do tire of reading."

"Oh poor guy, what if he got tired of the same book over and over again?"

"It's a good playlist... but yeah, we'll owe him some good reading time."

"Well, some of those audiobooks are like 35 hours long. Heck, the Wheel of Time saga alone"

"Dune."

"The spice must flow"

Art smiles. "I wonder if he recalls all that he has heard - or read. He could be as good as a navigational computer if he reads star charts..."

"Oh." He frowns a bit. "Harder to parse those with audio. Maybe someday, though."

"Maybe someday" A nod

"Maybe we could make a VISOR, like Geordi?"

"Careful, he'll start out as your navigator then switch to engineering"

"Not a bad thing!"

"I thought you were our engineer." A grin to Thistle. "Slash / Captain."

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to grab some Z's and dream of starships before we land."

"We have a good 5 hours on the flight... pleasant dreams. I'm going to watch the stars when they come out. It's the closest I've been!"

A chuckle "i'm gonna text folks then probably catch some zs myself"