Sunny ran over to the laundry room and slid on the tiles in her sock feet. She shouted,"WOOOHOOO!" Rose caught her and swept her off her feet. "You'll knock yourself in the head like that." Sunshine said, "Ooh! OOH! Do the foot thing! Thena never saw it before!" Thena came over and asked, "'Foot thing?' What's that?" Rose sighed and stood Sunny on the laundry table. Rose got into a kick position and Sunny sat on the lifted foot. Rose lifted her into the air, while Sunny balanced and giggled. Thena went, "WOW! That is SO cool!" Lime laughed, "Seems like everything mom does is COOL! Gawd, Thena, you are SO star-struck!" Thena laughed. Sunny asked, "Hey,Mommy? Did you ever have an imaginary friend when you were little?" Rose almost dropped Sunny. "WHAT? Who told you that?" Sunny twisted around and stared in surprise. "What? You look funny,Mommy. What's wrong?" Rose levered Sunny down onto the table, and frowned. "It's a secret shame of mine." Thena asked, "WHAT? What's shameful about it? Human people have imaginary friends when small! It's part of growing up." Lime frowned. "My species, the Deva, are raised in creche and told that imaginary people of ANY kind are signs of madness. I would expect that Cyclops are pretty much reading off the same page on that." Rose asked Sunny, "WHY are you asking about that,NOW?" Sunny pointed at Thena and said, "She said she had one. I want one,too? Do they cost much,or do you just make them?" Rose looked surprised and burst out laughing. "You make them with your imagination. Children without a lot of friends make them to fill up their loneliness." Lime asked,"Were you lonely, Mom?" Rose nodded. "A bit. I felt different... like I had no one to confide in. So... I made up a virtual friend I called her 'Sounding Board' to bounce ideas off of. It was sort of stupid to do. When Other Cyclops children found out, I was ridiculed and I became the center of controversy. No Cyclops had ever done such a thing before. It's what brought me to the attention of the Oracle." Thena asked,"Oracle? Who's that?" "The Oracle was an alien machine-life that had accompanied Tyyee the white, Measure's mother, and Chalcilaloq, Toxic's mother, to this planet. Actually the Oracle was made by the ancient Althan-Krommium people. The same ones that built Shalmiraine. He thought my spontaneous creation of a virtual or imaginary friend was very creative and praised me for it. I didn't know why at the time. Apparently imagination is a very good thing for problem solving." Rose shrugged. Lime had the haunted look again. Rose nudged her and asked, "What's up? You have a funny look now." Lime said, "When I was a kid...a LOT younger kid than now! Don't smile like that! I did have one, too." Rose patted her on the head and smiled, "I don't consider you mad,love." Lime continued, "She was a little devil girl. I don't even remember her name. I was always in trouble and people said I must be listening to devils or something." Rose raised her eyebrow and asked, "Devil? Like an Asuran? Like the woman you found on that planet?" Lime nodded. "Yeah like her, except smaller. Y'know a little girl version! I thought of her when I found Ushas...the Asuran Woman. I hadn't thought of her for YEARS! Weird. That planet was pretty weird,too. Those lights...." Lime trailed off in thought. Rose prompted her, "'Those lights...?'" "When I was flying around, those strange lights, like torches followed me around for a while, and flew with me. It was pretty neat. Like in old recordings of dolphins swimming with boats? That acted like they had some kind of brains even if they didn't have bodies. It was pretty cool even if they were very weird. I lost them a little bit before I found Ushas." Lime shrugged. Rose looked very thoughtful and picked up Lime and hugged her. Lime protested, "MOM! Come ON! I'm not a little girl, like Sunny!" --TO BE CONTINUED!--