"Hello," was the, rather sheepish, reply.

"She's quite not the mother Askani we heard about, of course" Cable added, with a little smile, "but she has that potential, the same mind, same spirit. She's adopted me as her sibling the way you did Hope."

Hope and Aliya were sisters by kinship rather than blood, it was not an uncommon ritual among their people and one he knew she understood.

"In that case," Aliya spoke with a nervousness that was unlike her and kept her eyes bowed as she reached for Tyler and took him off her husband, "would you like to hold your nephew?"