Nancy Bayan was someone Loren had only heard off from hearsay, mostly from Harmony being fangirlish and slightly stalkery. A Symbol of Honor—as they were called these days, since 'Righteousness' was pretty long and not as well regarded anymore—the woman was the leader of Faling Sky, both of whom Harmony was a big fan. Unfortunately for Harmony she didn't get to meet the woman. Immediately after ascertaining there were no more keres in the vicinity or hiding on the roofs, the vigilant flew off, leaving him to deal with an excited Harmony.

"Did you see that?-!"

"Yes, Hari, I was right here, same as you."

"She just—!"

"Yes, Hari, I saw."

"You don't even know what I was going to say?"

"Whatever it was, I probably saw it. I was standing right beside you, after all. Look, are we done here?"

Fortunately, Harmony's descent into fangirlism was brief. Unfortunately, she didn't suddenly decide she'd had enough excitement for one day and left to go to home. Loren knew that even though the encounter was brief, she wasn't in any mood to go to work. So of course, Harmony volunteered to help deal with the people who'd been injured by the attacking keres, forcing Loren to sigh and stay with her.

Maybe he could add this to his application for internships or something. It looked good when you volunteer to help victims of a keres violent manifestation, right? Pharmaceuticals were basically the armory used to fight Plague keres, if you thought about it.

Despite how briefly the keres had been able to rampage before being dealt with, they'd been able to inflict a surprisingly number of injuries. Loren found himself being put to work sterilizing wounds. Because the Plague keres were absolutely filthy, the people they attacked had either foreign fecal matter or polluted canal water in their wounds. With Flame, cooking oil, and antiseptic, Loren was able to sterilize shallow wounds, leaving the more experienced Flame mage who were part of the volunteers—he later found out they were members of the Lady Abalon the Loving Convent of the Goddess Yalta—to deal with cleaning, sterilizing and the preliminary healing of the those who'd had their eyes gouged out.

It was a struggle to keep a straight face as he worked. It wasn't the wounds, since he'd never really had a problem with wounds. Goddesses know he'd seen enough wounds on him and Harmony as they'd grown up. It was just red stuff leaking out from breaks in the skin, big deal. No, after a night of being up, running around and then being attacked, most of the people he was treating were sweaty, and he had to get his face close in to their wound so he could see it properly. That meant he could tell if they had, say, excrement in their wounds, unfortunately.

Fortunately, he only had to sterilize the wounds, using Life Flame to burn away foreign bacteria. Some of those he was treating, especially the few children who'd been injured, flinched as they saw the fire he was wielding, and he had to take a moment to demonstrate that the flame wasn't hot… or at least, not hot enough to hurt them. It was bullshit, because fire was always hot, but he'd learned his lesson from when Lily had gotten injured when she was younger. He could only perform local sterilization since he didn't really have the training or experience to go beyond that, but he'd been told that would be enough, since infections usually too root at the point of entry. Antibiotics could take care of the rest if need be.

The day wore on. The tents transitioned from providing first aid to distributing food, which nearly caused a rush since many people hadn't eaten anything since the night before. Loren found himself passing out packages containing rice—which from the feel of it was soggy and lukewarm—and what felt like a can of tuna. Well, he hoped it was tuna. It could be sisig. At the very least, the bland and canned nature of the food meant it at least didn't make him hungry.

They didn't finish distributing food until mid-afternoon, and by then even the blandness of the food wasn't keeping his stomach from growling and telling him it needed more fuel. It was only when it seemed like all the food had been distributed that he finally got to stop, stepping back from the distribution tables. Tiredly, he went looking for Harmony.

So of course, she found him.

"Hey, you done?" she said cheerfully. "Come on, Janine said we can go. They'll be letting people back into their homes soon, and there's not really much we can do to help with that."

"We didn't need to help at all," Loren muttered, adjusting his backpack.

"You didn't need to show up. I know you hate this sort of thing." The two of them started walking, weaving through the people who'd settled down in the middle of the road to eat. Temporary tables and benches had been set up, and while they'd initially arranged neatly, people had pulled them this way and that to make themselves more comfortable, making an obstacle course the two of them had to weave through.

"Yes, I do, but someone needs keep you from getting attacked by keres. I vividly remember the last time you decided to go traipsing off to a keres manifestation."

Stolen novel; please report.

"It won't end up like that! I have Symbolism now, I can use it to heal if I break something again. And hey, you didn't break anything at all this time!"

"And the reason you didn't use it this morning is because…?"

"I couldn't get in the mood."

He quirked an eyebrow at that. "Sounds inconvenient. Glad I don't have to do that to use magic."

"Oh, trust me, inconvenient is only the start of it." She sighed. "Thanks for having my back."

Loren shrugged, waving a hand dismissively. What was there to say? "Come on, let's find someplace I can eat my lunch, then I'm going back home to enjoy what's left of my day off."

Harmony frowned, looking disapproving, opened her mouth… then paused. She closed her mouth, looking thoughtful. "If you want, I can come over and cook dinner. Sara might appreciate something besides what you cook."

"Are you going to make lasagna?"

She rolled her eyes. "You don't have an oven, and I don't want to try messing with some kind of jury-rigged substitute—" She paused again, looking thoughtful. Then she sighed. "Lor?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a stove yet?"

"Of course not. Why would I?"

"So what will I be cooking on?"

Loren held up a finger, a little tongue of fire flickering on the end of it.

Another sigh. "Well, it's been a while since we went camping in your yard." She frowned. "Actually, we should do that again! We can have Lily join us, and if we give her enough notice my sister and her girlfriend can come over too…"

"I'm pretty sure your sister's girlfriend doesn't like me very much."

"Well, yeah, you keep forgetting her name! How hard is it to remember 'Katherine'?"

––––––––––––––––––

True to her word, after the two of them stopped by the supermarket on the way back to his apartment, Harmony cooked them Menudo. Well, something menudo-like. Instead of pork, they used boneless cuts of chicken, but other than that it was basically menudo with cooking vene. Sara seemed very glad for the variety, hovering excitedly around Harmony as she cooked while Loren, needing to keep the cooking fire going, finally had time to take a break and get some reading done. He'd finally found an article detailing how to make ghost candles, and he was reading to figure out how to give his ghostlight Flamecraft better sound quality.

By the time Harmony finished cooking, Loren had finished making an improved Flamecraft, so Sara's voice was clearer and more audible as we had dinner. Of course, eating with Sara wasn't the same as eating with three people. For one thing, there was no point in having a third plate of food just for her. Yes, he knew that's how offerings were supposed to go, but he was a man on a budget, he couldn't afford to waste food like that! Usually, they took turns eating the food on his plate, with Sara taking the imbuement of the food on his plate until it ran out, then moving on to the imbuement of the rest of the food in the pot while he ate.

Harmony knew this, and couldn't help giving them grief over it.

"This isn't the how you're supposed to eat in polite company," she said, even as she let Sara take the imbuement from the Menudo on her plate to consume.

"Then it's a good thing you're the only one we're having over," Loren said.

"….so good… it's so delicious…I've missed this…" Sara moaned. Through the improved Flamecraft, her voice was much clearer, as if she was speaking to him in person instead of over the phone. Which was unfortunate, because at the moment she sounded like an erotic ASMR track. Certainly well above the vocal acting of a porn video. Hence why he was using the old version of the Flamecraft that had lousy audio rendering. After the first few bites she'd come down from the sensory rush and bene a bit more sociable.

"Ha ha," Harmony rolled her eyes with a smile. "Seriously though, when you have visitors you need to give Sara her own plate. You can just put it in the refrigerator—well, cooler thing—and eat it later."

"I know that. There's just no point doing it day to day."

"You have visitors, though."

"Oh please, if anyone doesn't count as a visitor, it's you. You've basically had the run of our house for years, I don't see why that should change now."

She quirked at eyebrow at him, then grinned. "So, does that mean I can use your shower? I'm all sweaty, mister 'Flame mages don't sweat, we just store up more magic'."

"You'll be borrowing my clothes, I take it?"

"Hey, you don't want me borrowing your clothes, they shouldn't fit me so well."

It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Fine, fine, I'll pick out something for you to wear." Joke's on her, he still had some of her clothes he'd been meaning to give back from when he'd borrowed them! He'd probably have to lend her his spare towel, though. They'd pretty much stopped using the same towel around high school, if only because their parents kept saying it was inappropriate. It's not like it's Indirect Bathing! Ugh, did this mean he needed to have three towels in circulation?

When Sara finally came down from her sensory high, she and Harmony started chatting about music and G-pop groups. The former had been a fan of the group AzureWhite, which Harmony was familiar with, gushing about the songs. They were also fans of the popular local singer Jaselle, who was apparently singing the theme song of the next Isigny animated movie, a two-parter based on the Kaiserin of Teutania. Loren let the sounds of their conversation wash over him as he washed the dishes, then got out the towel and clothes for Harmony.

"Hey, this is my shirt! I've been looking for this!"

"And you've found it," Loren said as he started putting away the Menudo that was left—there was more than enough for breakfast and lunch, and it might even stretch to the next day—into a sealable container to so it would fit in the cooler. Huh, he might need to buy a second cooler, or possibly get a bigger one.

"And these are my shorts!"

"Amazing. Surely one of those mysterious phenomena they talk about."

"Please tell me you don't have any of my underwear here."

"Have I ever borrowed any of your underwear?"

She opened her mouth—

"—outside of that one time in gradeshool when I tried on your uniform?"

"Hey, you were the one who said they was comfortable."

"And I gave them right back."

Out of the corner his eye, Loren saw Sara raise her eyebrows, which went up cartoonishly high on her forehead. He really needed to gather more pictures and laminate them. "Just go take a bath and go home, Hari."

"Yeah… about that. Can I stay over tonight? We'll need to wake up early and walk a bit to a street with public transportation if they still haven't managed to open the street yet tomorrow."