The extra year more or less boiled down to needing to explain why Jason was 23, not 24, on the supposition that he had a standard 9 month pregnancy. His sibling, I assume, is much less exotic…or, at least, involved a much less dramatic story. The “year getting the gametes to play nice” also explains why Jason is so dashedly unstable, physically speaking – his mom had to work her voodoo to make him look human, to escape notice. Given the “OM NOM NOM” style of Celeste genetics – it’s tendency to dominate, infiltrate, subvert, and mutually express on every other genetic material – she must have forcibly suppressed the Celeste side of things, and propped up her human genes (at least, phenotypically) as the default. This forced segregation also explains why, when his celeste-side shows, it looks like Veled (Well, a silver Veled, but, whatever) – it can’t get at the human DNA. The Dog form…I’d guess that’s where she pulled the Y-chromosome from, since neither Veled or Feneril have one (I think. With Crazy Feneril’s “do it yourself”-style body works in play, I make no bets).

Are you suggesting that the Year of Fear was really just the start of a longer, more secretive conflict? Also, what do you make of the fact that Jason’s sister is Djinned like he is?

Meanwhile, scouts are diplomats, sort of, so, the assault could have been grounds for war, so it was hushed up, V disappeared from Gabe’s life abruptly, and a force of Scouts was dispatched, sub-rosa, to bring Feneril in (or killed. either or). Daisy leads that team.

V gets out of the hospital, somehow knowing (probably because Crazy Feniril told her what she was going to do) that her attacker is “now” carrying her baby. V, being a good papa, goes to save the kid. Which leads to inter-Scout warfare, as V and everyone she can get to help fights Daisy and Co for possession of The Crazy. Daisy, of course, can’t say that she is under orders because this is a black ops (darn it). Feniril is being bat-$#it insane in the middle of it all. End of the year, Daisy and remaining surviving Co get disavowed because V was too good at getting help publicly to disavow her side of it, and Daisy was on a black ops (darn it). Feniril has Jasunny, and get’s good and lost in the chaos (Also, discovers he’s a danged mutt. lesson, do not cross Djinn Blood magic with Celeste Messiah nature – dogs happen). V, as a side note, has her planet stolen by her own religious fanatics (I’m thinking the Crusaders sacking Jerusalem), possibly because her planet was trying to get her to back the heck off…

No idea how Daisy’s arrest 25 years after plays in.

( Slow clap for dry humor. 😉 )

@Vulpis: Hell yeah! 😀

That just had to have added to all that potential awkward.

I mean, Veled was the scout of that planet and the Endless invaded the planet. So maybe Veled was hiding from the Endless for a time. Invading a planet, that’s bold.