your wisdom. I don't know how I made it this far in life without it."
His teeth flashed again at her sarcasm, the look in his eyes saying he enjoyed their banter. Kira wasn't sure that was a good thing. It was kind of like being the sole focus of a tiger. You didn’t know if it wanted to eat you or just maul you a little.
He leaned forward, his eyes half-lidded. "Try as hard as you want, but you'll never be one of them. They'll never fully understand you, not like we would."
This time her smile was dry and humorless. "You assume I want someone who understands me."
The playful seduction in his expression faded, and this time the look he gave her was strangely sympathetic. It made that tight feeling Kira carried around with her all the time worse.
"We all want that," he said simply. "We're not meant to traverse this life alone."
Kira lifted her chin. Maybe not, but that's exactly what she was doing. The time for companions had passed. She'd found a balance in her life. She wasn't sure she wanted to disrupt that for maybes.
"Kira, I found a flower you need to see," Jin shouted, zooming out from the underbrush and breaking the fragile moment. "It looks exactly like cat ears!"
Jin's flight stuttered when he caught sight of Graydon.
Kira was grateful for the distraction and rose. "Let's see this flower."
"I'd be interested in seeing what could so shock your drone," Graydon said, uncoiling as he rose.
Kira hesitated but couldn't think of a way to politely decline. "It's your ship."
He could go where he wanted
"Indeed, it is," Graydon said, with a small smile Kira couldn't decipher.
Graydon followed her as she ducked around trees and under branches as Jin zipped through effortlessly, his smaller size and ability to ignore gravity allowing him to take advantage of passageways they could not.
It didn't take long until they were standing under a canopy of tree branches dotted with thousands of small lilac-colored flowers.
Jin lowered to several flowers growing from dead logs on the ground.
"The azira aliri," Graydon murmured when it became clear what had so fascinated Jin. "I'm surprised he found them."
Jin crooned as he flitted from flower to flower like a giant hummingbird. He'd been right. They looked like cat's ears perched on round stamen, if one ignored the fact they were all bright orange and blue.
"They normally hide their faces when strangers near." Graydon’s shoulder brushed Kira's as he leaned forward. "They must not sense a threat from your machine."
"Jin has a way of putting people at ease," Kira said.
"You've named it?" Graydon asked.
Kira was silent for a long second as she debated the best response. It wasn't like she hid what Jin was, but she didn't advertise it either. Too many people had tried to call her a liar.
Jin wasn't a typical artificial intelligence. His metal body was more accident than anything else. He'd been a person once; flesh and blood like her. When he'd been hurt beyond healing, his soul had somehow ended up in that drone. While his outsides were metal, the thing driving him was as human as she was.
"He picked his name," Kira finally said. That was close enough to the truth without bringing up any sticky questions she'd prefer to avoid.
Graydon didn't say anything, turning his attention to Jin.
A small chittering sound from above caught Kira's attention when she would have joined Jin. She jerked as a small creature sailed from the branches to land on her shoulder.
"Easy," Graydon soothed. "It's a chaterling. It won't hurt you. It's just saying hi."
The chaterling stood on its hind legs and scolded her before settling down. The size of her palm, its fur was a light shade of blue with stripes of darker blue along its back and legs. Two mini horns curled away from its forehead, and long flat ears stuck out from its head.
Two pools of dark brown regarded her as it cocked its head, its tiny wings rising and then settling along its back. Its long tail whipped to circle her neck before it rubbed the side of its face against hers.
Kira held still, not wanting it to bite her. Who knew what sort of diseases it might be carrying.
Finished, it let out a high warble before springing from her shoulder, gliding the small distance to land on one of the azira aliri. The stalk containing the round bloom with the cat ears quivered, small bits of fluff burst from the center as the