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Nehara cy’Doomsday was stunning, a beautiful young lady, distractingly so, and her sweet smile suggested that she knew it.

Or that could have been decades of cynicism and time spent around Mike VanderLinden talking. The girl was young – she was still a student, after all. Might be older than Myst was…

Indeed. Luke shook the hand the girl proffered. She was wearing the school uniform of black-and-grey plaid, he noticed, with red-on-red accents and a very practical looking red utility belt. Cy’Doomsday, indeed.

He cleared his throat. “It’s rude, I know, but – are you Navajo?”

She dimpled, a lovely smile that – down, boy. Damnit, a woman almost three hundred years younger than he was should not be doing this to him. He was a happily married man! “Most people can’t tell. But you’re Seneca, aren’t you?”

“I am.” Centuries of practice let him manage not to clarify that with half. “You have a good eye.”

“I’m not sure you’ve encountered The Res?”

Luke tightened his wings to his back. “I’ve been on reservations.”

“Oh, oh, not that.” Both of her hands moved in soothing motions. “I’ve heard stories – both from Professor Lily and from people at home. No, no, The Res, that’s different. When everything started going bad, a bunch of the really active tribespeople started pulling in, setting up a safe place in the middle of one of the biggest reservations. They put the word out – and the worse things got, the more people came to live there. Then they just claimed more & more land.” She smiled brightly at him, and, this time, Luke found his interest academic rather than sexual. “Turns out all of what used to be Arizona is ours now. And it’s still growing.”

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