"Catch it, Maja! Catch it"!

The rainbow-haired girl leapt over rocks and logs, her playshoe-covered feet beating against the grass as she pursued a white dragonfly.

Wrench panted hard enough to make his cooling valve squeal from friction, though he kept running. Fury would have his armour for an axe blade if he lost track of Maja out in the woods. Perhaps he hadn't yet considered that their bubbly addition to the family had the energy of a chipmunk on crack, but he didn't want to argue with someone who had the temper of a wasp. Besides, he could kill two birds with one stone if he was lucky this time.

Also, dragonflies were fast.

Maja leapt up and down several times as she ran, trying to catch ahold of the dragonfly, a white stick of an insect with moonstone wings and eyes filling both sides of its equally white head. It was fast, but Maja was determined either way. That dragonfly needed to be returned to their pond, before the frogs decided to have it for lunch.

"Where's it going, Maja"?! Wrench shouted to her over the wind.

"Into the bushes"! Maja shouted back.

"Now's the time! Catch it"! Wrench shouted to her again.

The dragonfly zig-zagged a few more times, trying to throw its pursuer off its trail, but Maja was ready. The moment she slowed down, it slowed to a hover, and she proceeded to sprint forward and net it.

"Aw yes"! she yelled triumphantly, holding the net so the dragonfly wouldn't escape. "We finally got it"!

"Great"! Wrench applauded as well, though a little less louder because he was still panting. "Come on, let's get it back to the pond".

-

"Honestly, Maja, I didn't think you could run that far", Wrench mused as they walked back home.

"Pa taught me", the girl purred, checking on their dragonfly companion before looking up at Wrench again. "He can't beat me though. He gets tired after a few minutes".

Darn well, that's Fury alright, Wrench thought. Maja called Fury and Poisandra 'Pa' and 'Ma', but referred to call Wrench, Curio and the other outlaws by their names. The former didn't really mind it along with Fury, though that was hard to tell with the fact that he always had a scowl on his face and looked annoyed over just about everything.

Poisandra was marginally a lot happier, if not exactly depressed now. She had adapted well to the life of an Earthling housewife, with the chores split between her and Curio, but on some days Wrench could see sadness tracing every inch of her face, especially when she was with her daughter. And it wasn't the normal 'I worry for her when she's older' kind of sadness.

It was no secret to anyone in this mix-and-match family that Maja was turning out to look more like her father than her mother. Hell, she had his red eyes and flexible horns, though her hair remained the same candy swirl of moss green, inky black, bubblegum pink, cobalt blue and maroon it had been at birth. The last was evidently a sore point for Poisandra, besides the fact that Maja looked more...human.

Yes, that one, that was what had led to that fallout between her and Sledge years ago. He had insisted so fiercely that Poisandra had cheated on him with a human, and in turn she had denied it vehemently. Fury, Wrench and Curio had more than enough evidence that she was telling the truth, but how could you convince someone in the throes of anger?

Fury's decision to abandon Sledge had at least allowed Poisandra to be freed of his constant verbal abuse, but it hadn't relieved the heartbreak she had experienced on the night Sledge had forsaken her as his wife. Every night was spent alone, in a bed that was cold without the love of the one she had called her husband so many years ago. Forsaken over a child.

Their child.

Wrench was pleasantly surprised to see Poisandra waiting on the steps for them. The pink alien was dressed in a sleeveless lavender gingham dress akin to the one her daughter was wearing, with blue playshoes and white socks. When she saw the two at the gate, she got up to open it for them.

"There you are", Poisandra exclaimed, reaching out to hug her daughter. "Did you find the dragonfly"?

"We did"! Maja purred, holding up the netted dragonfly for her mother to look. "Its not gonna run off again now, is it"?

"That depends on the dragonfly, love", Wrench told her, internally wincing at the last word he used to address her for galaxy-knows-why. No one had ever tried to lay claim to Maja as their daughter, but somehow, using affectionate terms of address felt eerie to him.

Maja released the dragonfly over a water lily, watching as it caught a mosquito buzzing about and chomped on it in record time. A small yelp caught her attention, and she turned around to see her mother pulling Wrench aside to tell him something. She begin to walk up, but was interrupted by Fury calling her back inside. At first, she tried to come up with some sort of excuse, then gave up and went back inside, shutting the door behind her.

"What do you mean he has a new crew"!? Wrench half-yelled, now that Maja was out of earshot.

"I sent Memorella out for berries this morning, and she came back with a chip from a piece of armour", Poisandra explained, holding up the piece for Wrench to see. "It looks new".

Wrench took the chip from her and examined it closely. It had been broken off from a larger piece, but there was no doubt that it looked very much unlike Sledge's armour. It was a shiny grey, not the dun rusty brown that was the bounty hunter's armour, and on one side, a faint hint of blue could be made out.