"We're leaving, now" whispered Adria. "Now? Why?" gasped her friend Beng. "Because the Shee are, for good. Do you here the sirens?! The grendels are attacking! The Shee are cowards, they mean to leave most of us!" Adria yelled. The racket got the attention of Yellenga the Shee. "What's going on, you two are not fighting are you?" "No we're not I was just explaining to Beng why the sirens are going off." Yellenga looked shocked for a second then regained her composure, "Well Adria why are the sirens sounding, hmm?"  Adria exclaimed, "You know why, the grendels are attacking! And all you plan to do is retreat like we would from a swarm of bees!" Yellenga realizing the jig was up explained, "Ok fine, is that a problem we are taking you along to the planet with us?!" "No you aren't and you know it the life pods weren't grown for us this terrarium was and there isn't enough room, so don't bother lying!" Adria exclaimed. "There are other life pods I grew that can carry 50 norns and 75 ettins." Yellenga stammered. "Beng and I better be on one of those!"

On the new planet

Adria gasped, "It's beautiful!" Beng exclaimed, "It's huge!" After setting down on the planet the great Shee, a race of genetic engineers addicted to tea, ordered all ettins to gather building materials from the nearby forest. "You there get 24 others and collect dead tree branches for sampling! You ettins over there organize the gene plants as they grow, we'll need them all working by nightfall." "Someone get me some tea!" you there Norn can you work a DNA scanner?" Adria queried, "who me? Of course I can I'm an assistant to Yellenga." "Well, scan the flora around here and bring the results to me!" "Ok I'm on it! Beng, you stay here and help, ok?" Beng looked sad but there was nothing for it so he pitched in with the ettins where he could.

In the Verdant Forest, outside of camp

Adria was having fun scanning all the plants until she saw something... "Who's there? Is that you Beng, I thought I told you to stay at camp?" She turned and saw another Norn! But wait it didn't look like any Norn she had seen! "W-w-who a-are you?" she stammered. "Me Lanzo, who you?" said the strangest norn she had ever seen, being just slightly bigger he (was he a he?) was all green and was almost invisible in the forest. Adria replied weakly, "I'm Adria." Lanzo, who apparently was not scared in the least said, "Me go with you?" Adria suddenly had a burst of joy; she had just discovered a new type of Norn, "Ok!" So she starts heading for camp.

Back at camp

"Who's that Adria? What's that?" Beng pointed at what he thought was a comical looking Norn. "This is Lanzo. Beng?" "Yes Adria?" answered the still giggling Beng answered. "Tell me where Yellenga is." She commanded, her voice scornful at the way Lanzo the verdant Norn was being treated. "Growing plants at camp center." He replied vacantly, still staring rudely at Lanzo. "Come on Lanzo." An angry Adria barked at the native because he seemed to think that Beng was engaging in a staring contest. "Me follow" Lanzo acknowledged.

Camp center

"Yellenga!" Adria shouted over the din of camp. "In here and WHAT is that!" Yellenga the shee shrieked in her unnaturally high voice. "We'll talk inside." Snapped a now very angry Adria. Entering the small plant-building the noise of outside immediately subside. "Ok now what is that, some kind of Norn?" Yellenga doggedly asked. "Yes it is a Norn, a native to the forest I think." Adria supplied. "You mean that there are norns on this planet? That's amazing! Quick, scan him!" Yellenga was amazed; there were norns here! "I already did, I mistook him for a plant." Adria sheepishly admitted. "Good download his genome on my computer, and give Margoll his scanner back." "Sure."

Camp Center

"Hey Margoll I've got your scanner!" shouted Adria over the din of camp. "Oh, where have you been Norn, it's been 3 hours! What were you doing?" Unbeknownst to Adria or Margoll Adria was an experimental Norn with greater intelligence (hence the clarity of speech), stress, and authority ever exhibited by a Norn, and the stress was building and churning like a great chaldera of raw anger.
"Stop bugging me! Look I was scanning like you said and I found a native Norn so I took him to Yellenga for examination! It took a long time to find her, and then even longer to find you so get off my case!" The anger seething through Adria was only comparable to that of a Grendel's rage, but that was not the surprising part because like most Shee Margoll barely ever paid attention to what norns said. "You, you speak like a Shee! Your grammar and syntax are impeccable, how do you speak so fluently child?" His surprise was not unfounded, for most norns rarely get past 'me hit food' and 'me eat norn'.
Adria herself was shocked she herself had not noticed the difference between her and other norns.

Yellenga's Biolab

"Yellenga! Why have you not told us of this? This is pure blasphemy! A super intelligent Norn, why I never... I didn't think it could be done." Margoll ranted fuming at what he thought for a moment was an abomination then all of a sudden, a blessing. "Margoll of course it can be done, why look at ourselves. We are highly intelligent are we not?" "Well yes Yellenga, but-" "No what I mean is if nature did it to us why can't we do it for something else? It really wasn't that hard anyway..." Adria at this point could withhold herself no longer, "Look it doesn't matter really, I here now. No changing that, but I do have one question for you. Am I the only one?" Yellenga regaining her composure answered calmly, "The only highly intelligent Norn? Yes. The only enhanced one? No."
Margoll was silently getting suspicious about how many there really were but kept his cool. Adria on the other hand was stunned. Neurons that no Norn had ever had before were firing at an incredible rate. "Well who is it?" Although at the back of her mind she suspected she knew who it would be. Yellenga drew a deep breath and slowly replied, "Adria there is only one enhanced norn other than you. You probably would of guessed this with time and thought but I must warn you, where you were designed to be intelligent, your companion is just that, the perfect friend." The young shee knew she did not have to mention a name Adria was bright enough to know instantly. "So Beng was created just to be a friend? Or were you really meaning 'pet'? You think you know what is best for us just because you created us don't you? You have no idea of our potential do you? Your kind hasn't created anything really aside from living things twisted until you have got exactly what you want hadn't you? If you really wanted what was best for us you would let us run free and just observe not make us into slaves and pets! That's why your kind hasn't made us to our full intelligence, you were afraid, afraid of what we might become!"
At that moment Adria's brain was struggling to remain conscious but her rage had gone to a fever pitch and caused her brain to shut down in all but vitals. "Is she dead" Margoll asked, not really know if he wanted her to be or not. The things Adria said laid open wounds the Shee thought were long healed. These were the same things the Banshees had said before they left Albia on their own taking with them the grendels that the banshees were so devoted to.

Home +5 yrs.

After Adria woke up she pleaded her case that the Shee stop twisting life to their whims and explained with clarity that astounded the entire Shee population. They conceded that the norns, ettins, and even grendels should control their own destiny. So Yellenga genetically intervened in all new Norn and Ettin eggs to bring their intelligence to a fully sentient level. (It was deemed that grendels were hazardous enough with out any great intelligence.) Holistic learning machines were set up to give the newborns a full vocabulary. (Indeed that part worked to well, they spoke better than some Shee) Two new settlements were drawn up one for norns and the other for ettins. With the help of the newly discovered rainforest norns the twin settlements were soon bustling. The norns content prospered. But the ettins' love for machinery had not died. Overnight they retrofitted existing shee living machinery to drill deep into Home's crust where they found a surplus of ore. Their city as they called it came alive with newfangled metal machinery. But the grendels were not laying back either a Grendel mother managed to land on the surface of home. The once pristine dream was slowly becoming a nightmare.