Yeah, it just seemed to fit.
I also wanted to differentiate Queen from Malice, making her different than a less effectual Malice clone -- Queen can be unpleasant and a nuisance, but she's more like Jessie of Team Rocket, threatening but, in the end, ineffectual in her maliciousness. She may try to act big and heartless, but she really isn't.
Whereas Malice is genuinely evil and disturbed, only malicious doing things for her entertainment. I don't know if this coming across.
Anyway, two more chapters to lay down. The next book will be a Parker-heavy one, I believe.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Estelore's Burden
"
Aunt Estelore?" Saffa said.
"
Aunt Estelore? Are you serious?" Dino said.
"You never told us you had a nephew," Gaz said. Then she looked perplexed. "How does the star family tree work though?"
Estelore looked weary and worn. "It's not like your concept of aunts and uncles. Within a single galaxy, all stars -- despite being sentient or not -- are considered to be interrelated. True sentience in stars are rare. You'd have an easier time creating an all-shiny Pokemon team -- without cheating or events or the like."
"It's quite rare, we get it," Underseen said.
"Anyway, Freddie is the only other one of my kind that I had ever met."
He smiled cheekily at this.
"And he's a complete spoiled brat."
"Hey!"
"It is true, and you know it." Estelore said, very sternly. "Just because you
can do something doesn't mean you
should."
"Sixty-eight thousand, nine hundred." Freddie replied, flippantly. This wasn't a random number, it was an actual one.
"And that was in this century alone, Freddie," Esty snarled. "I'm getting tired of always having to clean up your messes. If you don't knock it off --"
"Cleaning up his messes? What do you mean by that, Esty?" Abby asked.
But Cloak's eyes widened as he understood immediately, having a mischievous neice of his own. "
That's why you have been gone from RAF for those long stretches of time. When you told us you were exploring the galaxy."
Estelore stood up straighter, shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes."
"What a burden to bear," Alic said, "alone."
"You ruin my fun!" Freddie whined.
"Your
fun is
malicious." Estelore snarled quietly. It was clear she was still more powerful than Freddie, but unlike Cloak and Shadow, it was not because of the age differential.
"It was just harmless fun!"
"Hey, when you're hurting people, that ain't harmless." Estelore said, wagging a disapproving finger at him. "What right have you to get people's hopes up and dash them after the first one touches your steller energy dome?"
"I'm not hurting anyone!"
"Giving false hope
is hurting someone, boy." Estelore said, coolly. "Especially if that person has a terminal disease or the like that they're hoping to cure."
Now Cloak was starting to understand such a desire for wish-granting, that it was more than simple avarice in some cases.
"Yeah, now I'll never be able to morph again! Stupid
tylee metal . . ." Abby complained.
"Shouldn't that reaction have ebbed by now?" Cloak asked, surprised.
"Say what?"
