The Many Facets of Home

Author's Note: Written for Yuletide 2015.

Original Author's Note: By the way, it says chapter, but this is actually a set of unconnected stories. (Well, they're connected in the sense that they all happen in the same continuity, but it's not a chaptered story.)

Niko: Turncoat

It began on a station.

It would have seemed to be a particularly unassuming station in the Dragons, one no more important than any other, but this one had reason to become a target. This one held prisoners of war. Not just any prisoners, either, but Ash S'tlian: not only brother to the Warboy, but also an important strategic advantage. EarthHub had a significant advantage in terms of numbers and supplies; all of Aaian-na's best assets had to be available to keep fighting their corner. If they couldn't win a war of attrition, they could fight smart instead.

Niko found the name Warboy more than a little distasteful. He spoke enough of the language of the Hub to know it was not meant out of respect, but it acknowledged that he could fight. Would fight.

Soljets swarmed over the concourse, a vortex of black uniforms and angry expressions waving their guns at Turundrlar and the threat it presented. The station trembled with fear, sending people flying into others and knocking them down, guns skidding from hands. Knocking them off balance, quite literally.

Smoke billowed around the area as chunks were torn from buildings, fires streamed outwards, a cry for help when it was already too late to save them. Civilians screamed and cried and ran, away from the flames, away from the threat, away from the soljets.

The soljets pulled themselves up and soldiered on, a smog of black creeping up on the highly visible white robes of the ka'redane as they fought to retrieve their people.

Niko observed. He could fight as well as any other, but he was the leader here and rescuing Ash while putting himself at risk of capture would simply be a foolish proposition, and Niko hadn't kept fighting for so long by being a fool.

It was because of this that he saw it. Some of the soljets at the rear started to become distracted, and then set off shouting. He was fairly sure they were swearing, but not at the striviirc-na. Not this time.

A boy skidded along the floor at some force, face-down and floppy enough that it was clear he was unconscious or worse, and visibly injured. The small EarthHub boy lay crumpled on the concourse, and around him the fight went on. One or two soljets had turned briefly to try and spot the perpetrator, but it would be suicidal to stop in the middle of an attack to change enemies and end up in a two-on-one situation. Besides, he didn't seem to be aiming for anyone else, so they turned back to fighting the striviirc-na but they didn't seem fully focused.

Niko would never quite know what made him do it, but he signalled over a ka'redan and said quietly, "Bring him here."

As a force, the soljets had paid little attention to the boy, but when the ka'redan scooped him up and it was noticed by several soljets they made their outrage clear. A few guns trained on her faltered at the realisation they'd have to shoot through a child to do any harm here, while many others remained oblivious as the battle raged on.

The boy's limbs hung weakly. Stealing a boy or stealing a body, Niko didn't know what would be worse in their eyes, and didn't particularly care.

Niko looked down into a pale, grimacing, pain-filled face. The wound was not only nasty, but dangerous. Still, he could see that the child was alive, for now.

"We will take him," Niko said quietly. Niko, who'd always been told that he had the body of a human yet the heart of a striviirc-na.

This was it. The beginning of Niko's new life, the beginning of Ash's rage starting to boil over and slowly form a deluge… here it all began.

Back on Turundrlar, he said, "Welcome home," to Ash without an ounce of sarcasm.

"Eja, I do not understand!"

Deference warred against frustration and lost as Ash paced up and down the length of the room. As the kia'redan bae, Niko's decisions were to be respected: no matter how odd they may seem, nobody would question him. As a ka'redan, Ash should not be questioning him, but they were also brothers and this was as much a familial disagreement.

Niko humoured him. "What do you not understand? He was sick. Now he is not."

"He is not," Ash agreed. "So why is he still here?"

"Would you suggest I return him to Chaos?" Niko asked flatly. Chaos was still in a frenzy after the dock bombings and EarthHub battleships were patrolling the area particularly carefully, as if they would go back for more when they had already got all that they needed and more.

"Of course not!" Ash gestured in frustration. For a man who loathed the Hub, he acted more like a Hub Human than Niko ever did: when he was very emotional, you could read his every feeling in the lines of his face, in the movements of his hands. The time he had spent in the custody of EarthHub had hardly endeared him towards them; it had just made the anger sharper and more targeted. "After he has been in our esteemed company? They would lock him up."

"Most likely."

"You aren't planning on keeping him here, are you?"

Niko didn't answer. He hadn't necessarily been thinking that far ahead, but he felt reluctant to part with the boy for some reason. It was just a gut feeling, and Niko rarely went against his gut.

Ash must have seen something in his face. "Sraga!" He wouldn't order the kia'redan bae around, but he wasn't going to promise to agree with him either. "This is a bad idea. The Hub has taken so much from us, and still they try to take more! If you thought about it, brother, you'd see the kindest thing to do here would be to vent the boy out an airlock!"

He stormed out, leaving a rather pensive Niko behind.

Niko was there to watch the child wake.

The boy stirred quietly and his eyes took in everything. The moment he saw Niko was obvious, because he faltered for a moment, but fear dissolved like salt from his face. In the end he got up and he stared. When Niko didn't react, he went back to exploring.

Every Hub Human Niko had ever met had far too much to say, but the boy said nothing. It intrigued him.

Niko would have let him go on exploring had he not turned to the window, which may have been a shock a little too far, so Niko stopped him and the boy finally started with the questions. So did Niko.

Apparently the boy was running from a pirate named Falcone. This meant little to Niko, whose knowledge of EarthHub personnel was limited to information he might find useful such as the captains of the battleships who so frequently fought the striviirc-na fleet. Pirates were low down on that list: they could be a nuisance, but they were as much of a nuisance to the Hub itself too and they had interests that often weren't best served by a full-on attack on a striivirc-na fleet. He'd fought pirates before, but it wasn't his biggest priority.

The child's name was Jos, and he was clearly terrified of the striviirc-na. Niko's human face, covered as it was with intricate tattoos, was the only thing comforting him: it was as familiar as it was unfamiliar.

Lost on a strange world he didn't understand, Jos stared at Niko.

If this were EarthHub questioning a sympathiser, Jos would be confronted with everything that was wrong with being a sympathiser, being a traitor to your people. But that was not Niko's way.

He just asked "why?", sowed a seed, and walked away.

The idea came to Niko as Jos poked around on his slate – or perhaps it didn't come so much as awaken from its slumber slowly like a cat stretching in the sunlight; curiosity opening its curtains to another picture entirely.

He'd expected the boy to be a lot less receptive than this. He wasn't always happy about it, but he sat, and he listened, and he learned. In the absence of another choice, he was even beginning to learn ki'hade. Niko was beginning to learn that, when chucked into a sink or swim situation, Jos would always swim. He was too stubborn to drown.

He had the attitude of EarthHub through and through, but he wasn't as stuck in his ways, and his fear of the striviirc-na came from twisted folk tales, not direct experience. He'd spent a year being tormented by a pirate captain and was naturally distrustful, but simply showing him patience and kindness was beginning to wear down hastily erected walls that had entrenched themselves in his psyche. Slowly. Very slowly.

They weren't going to hurt him, they kept saying, and Jos seemed to be beginning to believe. Niko was beginning to believe, too: beginning to believe that there was a purpose to all this, to a boy who was slowly starting to sympathise but whose words and actions still clearly came from the Hub.

Niko felt like he was running out of time.

Around them, the war continued. Both sides suffered casualties, however being outgunned and outmanned made it clear what would happen in the end if things carried on as they were. But here was an opportunity, a bridge between EarthHub and Aaian-na, that could be used.

It would be a risk in so many ways, but it was the unexpected type of move that could really pay dividends if it worked out.

Niko watched the boy's frustration as he tried to read the words on the screen, but he didn't give up.

It reminded Niko that he couldn't give up either.

"Niko."

He turned and acknowledged the voice; a command in all but words. Truthfully, he had been expecting this confrontation.

"You have not introduced us." She didn't need to say who. She meant Jos, the child she'd seen him return from his mission to retrieve Ash with, who'd been pale (although not by striviirc-na standards) and unconscious and who nobody had seen since. Niko had spoken to her about what he was doing, but it seemed that wasn't going to be enough any more.

His mother knew they were running out of time too. And while Ash hadn't said anything to Niko on the subject since that first confrontation, it was clear he wasn't entirely happy with the arrangement. Niko hoped that his lack of discussion meant he was coming around to the idea. Ash would be an asset in training the boy.

"He is not ready," Niko said, but even as it left his mouth he was not entirely sure that it was true any more. It had been true, but Jos was now settling down and seemed to have realised the futility in running. Whatever he may have thought of Niko, he was the only familiar person on this planet. Jos was smart. He knew that.

His discomfort didn't go unnoticed, either.

"Is he not ready, or are you not ready?" His mother asked bluntly. He should have known better than to be anything less than honest with her.

"Perhaps a little of both. Still, leaving has to be on his own terms."

Enas was no fool. She knew that pushing him too far, too soon could lead to losing him.

There was no question of anybody else entering his room, not yet. It was Jos' sanctuary there, and to deprive him of it would seem cruel and would destroy the trust that Niko had been painstakingly building. Every action taken, every action not taken had to be carefully considered due to the filter of Falcone that permeated everything he saw, everything he thought.

Without even seeing him, Enas had commented on how damaged Niko made the boy sound. When he'd mentioned the name Falcone, back at the beginning before he'd even researched the man, she hadn't been surprised. She knew his reputation, and had heard Markalan's firsthand accounts.

"You care." She observed, and it felt like it should be a rebuke, or a warning. But Niko didn't feel ashamed. This boy, who if things worked out smoothly might be sent as a sympathiser into the heart of the striviirc-na hating EarthHub and be at real risk of mortal peril, had the drive to survive.

Niko was the kia'redan bae first and foremost. His duty would always be to Aaian-na first, above all else. He could plan to send Jos out there as a spy guiltlessly, and still care.

Making steps to halt the war which was going to lead to ruination in the long-run had to take precedence over any feelings. Didn't it?

Niko enjoyed training Jos. It felt good to have a student; he'd never had the inclination before, but he'd become quite attached to the boy and he needed the best training for his potential to be realised.

Jos soaked up information like a sponge. He was intelligent although could be a tad lazy, he fought well for somebody with no prior training and he was willing to accept Niko's tutelage.

Although he was clearly still wary of the striviirc-na, he didn't shy away from looking them in the face any more, although the idea still seemed to make him uncomfortable.

The time raced by as they enjoyed each other's company. Jos also seemed to have become attached to Enas, who despite her words had become fond of him too.

Niko was uncomfortably aware that Ash would be returning soon, and it would be Niko's turn to go back to Turundrlar. He enjoyed his excursions usually and he still looked forward to it, but he felt a weight in his stomach at the realisation that he would be leaving his student behind.

He postponed the news for as long as possible, so it ended up being Ash who dropped the bombshell instead.

Niko had guessed that Jos wouldn't be happy, but found himself surprised at the way the spirit seemed to have slowly seeped out of him like sand passing through a sieve.

"What would happen to me if you died?" Jos had asked, voice cracking, the idea that the stability in his world was going to leave seeming to unbalance him in more ways than one.

Jos was a sympathiser. He'd fought Ash in ka'redan clothing and he'd opened his eyes to flaws in the way the Hub governed. But the small child with tears glistening in his eyes, who fiercely shouted as if he could physically push Niko away with his words, was all the reaction of a Hub Human.

Niko returned to Turundrlar visibly calm, every inch not just a sympathiser but the kia'redan bae, but the trip to say goodbye in the first place and the tear that tried to escape his eye in the captain's quarters were all learned from a Hub Human, too.

With Jos on Turundrlar across from him, Niko's words caught in his throat. It was a new experience for him, and not a pleasant one. He'd always been able to say what he wanted to before, but this time his heart was fighting his head and trying to stop the words from escaping.

Time was up. Niko needed some intel, and he needed it now. Jos was now fourteen, far from the young child he'd had picked up from a station. He spoke ki'hade fluently, he fought very well and even Ash had begrudgingly admitted he had some level of talent in comp infilitration.

He was also somehow less trusting, and had spent time trying to shove Niko away again to avoid getting hurt. Still, he'd jumped at the chance to come on the ship, a chance to spend time together and fix that fracture in their relationship.

Unfortunately, now Niko had to address the misconception. He couldn't afford to spend more time with Jos. He'd waited as long as he dared, but now he needed to move, and finally there was an opportunity to infiltrate Macedon's crew.

He knew that, yet part of him wanted to stay silent. There could be another way, another person, maybe they could last a bit longer-

But no. He was the kia'redan bae. Aaian-na had to come first. Niko believed that to his core.

For years, the boy had been trained for this, and he'd be very good at it. But it hurt. It hurt like the snap of a bone on the inside.

So he told Jos his mission, and he watched the wall of wariness start to go back up, the one that Niko's kindness had knocked down so long ago.

Niko had never anticipated being unable to let go. Somewhere along the line, a rescued child who had been a means to an end had become something far more dear. He didn't know when that line had been crossed, but he couldn't suddenly separate himself from the situation, and go back to how it should be. And he wouldn't want to.

He eventually commed his mother after dropping Jos off at Austro. It was a bit of a risk – a golden rule of comming was not to do it every opportunity that you got, but to wait until you had important information to pass on or it was appropriate to check in. It had major security benefits, for a start.

So Niko was cheating, but he felt his mother would understand. She would be missing Jos too.

"It is done," he told her, such a simple sentence for the emotional toil going on inside him.

A pause. "Are you okay?" Enas asked. It felt like she was breaking protocol, just like him.

"I will be," said Niko. And he meant it.