Lelle and Celce were Highland Scottish, married, elderly, both kind and philanthropic, but rejected decades ago by their families, for they were too accepting of outsiders. They were relatively wealthy but had little to spend their wealth on. They lived on a six acre island holding that neither had the will any more to maintain and if the truth be told were merely waiting to die, for life had had little of any value to either for decades. Celce had reluctantly accepted that her undeserving family would inherit what she and Lelle had had worked so hard for for their entire lives. Lelle wasn’t prepared to allow those who had been so hurtful to the woman he had loved for so long to inherit anything and had long saught a way to prevent them to inherit aught. If the worst came to it he had established in his will that dozens of powerful charities should inherit his wealth. Cerce had recently rewritten her will to reflect his.

Then purely by mischance Lelle and Celce had on a visit to Glasgow met Vimastte. Vimastte was homeless and a desperate older teenager. Lelle was tougher than Celce and more willing to take chances, so he’d said, “Come home with us, Vimastte. Maybe we can aid each other. At the least we can assist you off the streets and food will never be a problem for you.”

As Vimastte became their daughter Vimastte had realised how poor, despite appearances, life was for Lelle and Celce. Eventually she’d admitted there were others like her in desperate need and to her surprise Lelle and Celce had insisted on her assisting them to find those others and to bring them home.

Lelle and Celce had for years prepared against difficult circumstances. They’d, as a result of their poor beginnings, preserved and stored food, which they both knew was stupid for they had over a decade’s worth of food they would never eat before they died, yet they couldn’t prevent themselves and had carried on. Canned, pressure jarred, frozen, salted and dried, food they grew for no reason other than that they grew food for something to spend their time on, and now retired they still continued in their futile endeavours. Their families had rejected them for being different half a century or more before and they knew their lives were essentially worthless. Yet still they continued in their futile endeavours, for they couldn’t help themselves because it was what they believed was sensible to do.

Vimastte had brought meaning to their lives, and her nearly threes dozen friends brought more. To Lelle and Celce’s delight the huge store of food they had amassed started to decrease and their food growing and storage abilities started to have value, and their new children started to maintain the way of life they had learnt from many generations past.

Lelle and Celce lived in a huge house thirty miles away over the water from their nearest neighbour in a sparce settled area that they had renovated and extended years before. Before that was, their biological children had turned their backs upon them and left for the mainland. Lelle stopped drinking to excess, though he started finding the time to brew the feed for his large home made still so that his family of nearly three dozen could now enjoy a drink in the evenings with their traditional singing and dancing. Celce rebecame the housewife she had been decades before and with the help of her new family the house became spotless and without a cobb’s web to be seen.

Lelle and Celce, both nearer to eighty than seventy, began to feel younger. In a conversation over dinner one eve on the matter Vimastte admitted, “Mum, Dad, we are not Earth folk and your age regression is due to an ability of ours. We came here as a result of a failure of our ship and we are looking to eventually repair it. We know we can do that, but it will take probably three years more. This place, Earth, has not been kind to you, and we would like the two of you to leave with us when we go. We were all orphans on our way to what here would be referred to as a university for orphans. An institution specially set up for unfortunates like ourselves who had lost all their family where we would be cared for in a loving environment. The meteor shower that caused our ship to crash on Earth killed all the crew and most of the four hundred orphans aboard. Those few of us that survived were lucky and much to our luck and joy we were all taken in by you. We no longer need the care of any others, for we have the love and care given by you and none can replace that.

By the standards of our folk we are nowhere near fully competent as adults of our intergalactic community, but we all wish to be, and to achieve that we must leave to be fully educated at home. We wish to grow to be adults, but…” There was a long pause, “…we love you and do not wish to leave you behind. It is difficult for us and we accept it will be difficult for you. It will be three years at least before we can leave, so we all have time to consider things. What makes it particularly difficult for us to leave you was your acceptance of us as we are. As a group we four hundred were all what Earth society would consider to be members of the LGBT+, though for us the matter is somewhat more complex than that. That was to us amazing, for few have ever been that accepting. Once back with our own folk we can have matters arranged so we are physically what we are mentally and none else will ever know, but to accept us and love us as we are is something none of us can consider anything but worthy of the greatest respect and love. We can arrange that you never age and will love us for ever as our Mum and Dad. It is our greatest wish that you will desire that too.

After a long pause Cerce said, “There have been many incidents that what you have just said explains. Yes, we will leave with you for there is little to keep us here. Even our own biological children have rejected us because of our tolerance of others different from us. How much of what we have here will we be able to take with us? I ask because here we are relatively well off. We have enough food and income to look after us and you all without any privation. I wouldn’t like to think that, at the least, I wouldn’t be able to feed you all. I am your mum, and I can’t help but think like a human mum, despite being a mum being a relatively recently learnt concept, which means the most important thing in my life is the well being of my children.”

Qrenqe, Celce’s youngest son, said, “Mum, we can take the entire holding. As deep down under the ground level as we will to take. Sister Mrendiq says if we take down to four hundred metres [1300 feet] we can include all useful water sources and drainage. She said that the only thing that will be problematic is the climate, though we shall be able to manipulate that to a considerable extent too. We can copy the annual temperature and precipitation distribution and subsequently amend it to your desire. You have said many times that you have no real friends here. However, it is our belief that both you and Dad will be able to find such when we leave.”

Aliffa added as she smiled, “All of us have fun dancing on Saturday evenings, what we have learnt to call Scottish Country dancing, and then having supper before the final hour’s dancing. It is our belief that many others will enjoy that too. I am not trying pressure you, Mum, or you, Dad, merely trying to present what you have to offer.”

Quessique said, “The clothes worn at traditional Scottish Country dances will be powerfully attractive to all species. My sisters and I love the clothes we girls can wear, but the lovely clothes worn by men too will be as irresistible to our females as they will be to our males as anything we have ever come across before. I know many will have to be adapted for many species out there, but the allure of special clothes to be worn for each and every sex for a dance will be irresistible and that they will be expensive will make the matter of considerable prestige. Even the species with fives sexes will be excited by the idea.