Kapitel 202: K: Echoes

"Do you think I find no value in one who has aged, or sympathy with creaking bones?" asked the one who stood behind her. "Am I not unimaginably old to you? My next planetfall will be my last, so I must find a planet that will be worth spending the rest of my life on."

She wanted to turn to look at the speaker, but the dream, or perhaps memory, held her in place. The long claws of the hands that were longer than her entire arm were enameled delicately in winding designs of knots in metallic colors.

"My last planetfall would have been my last if I had not destroyed it," the voice growled deeply enough to send vibrations through her. "It was a consequence of my failure. A victim of my own age. You are not the only one who cannot rewrite your own structure, and worries about the changes you have chosen to write into your children instead."