As the sun set, Harmoni and Fleck headed for the stables, to help with the horses. The stable hand who’d shown them what to do was gone for a few days. It would just be the two of them while he was gone.

Harmoni opened the door to the stables, and her heart stopped. Hay and straw littered the floor, both in and out of the horse stalls. It was on some of the fences as well. Horse poop and mud had been spread around not just the floor, but smeared across the walls and rubbed onto door handles as well. It made everything sticky. Grain had been knocked over in places, and gear like the saddles had been taken off the walls. It looked like someone had even tried to break some of the equipment, they’d just failed rather badly.

Harmoni’s jaw dropped, her body shaking slightly as she took in the sight. It was beyond a mess. This was a disaster that someone had to have purposefully done.

Fleck couldn’t pick up the scent of who, over the horrid smell, but he could guess.

Harmoni could guess too, but that wasn’t important. She drew in a deep breath and clenched her teeth and fists. She looked at the mess, a new determination in her eyes, even if it was born out of desperation.

They had to get this cleaned up before someone came in the next morning. They would be blamed for not cleaning it. She and Fleck were the only ones cleaning this place until the other stable hand came back. They were the only ones who could've failed at the job. Even if the adults believed someone else caused this mess, they’d still say it was Harmoni’s job to clean it.

Unfortunately, she was right. Good thing they were experienced in cleaning. Ferren had liked giving them unpleasant tasks, and even without that, some of those pools could get rank.

Now where were the buckets? He couldn’t use smell to find those right now, funnily enough.

After spending entirely too much time looking for buckets that were supposed to be in the downstairs closet, they found two in the upstairs loft. One was for scooping waste into. The other was for cleaning water.

Fleck started shoving muddy straw into the waste bucket. He could use his wings and tail to get it in even without a shovel. Though he was barely breathing against the smell. He would want to wash off after this.

Harmoni technically agreed, but she was too worried about the stables to care about that right now.

There was a pump outside. She filled the bucket mostly with water, then tossed some soap in. There were small soap bars in the cleaning closet. Luckily those hadn't been removed. They were so inconspicuous whoever sabotaged her probably hadn't even noticed. They were supposed to dissolve in the bucket. Harmoni bounced up and down slightly, waiting for that to happen.

It took less than a minute. She knew that from the times she wasn’t in a hurry. But it felt so painfully inefficient now.

“What’s this? More cleaning? What’s the point of going to an entirely different planet if you’re just going to do the same thing as always?”

“Get out of the way Evin!” Harmoni shouted. She grabbed the bucket and moved towards the stables as fast as she could without spilling half the water. Normally, she’d ask what he was doing so close to the school. But all of her time and focus had to go into this. “Now’s not a good time!”

Evin, annoyingly, followed her. She could hear his footsteps before he stopped at the doorway. He leaned against the frame and whistled.

“Someone doesn’t like you.”

“Yeah! I got that!” Harmoni shrieked.

She started scrubbing the saddles, reins, and other equipment. When one was clean, she hung it back up.

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“Still, whoever it is isn’t trying very hard,” Evin continued. “If they really wanted to make your life hell, they could’ve walked off with the sponges. I would’ve poked holes in both buckets, personally.”

“I don’t care what you would do!”

Fleck was pushing the full bucket of waste towards the door. Harmoni’s own bucket of water had gotten pretty gross.

“You still want to be a better person?” Harmoni asked. “Dump that bucket in the compost.” She jabbed a finger to the bucket Fleck was holding.

And if Evin didn’t want to help, he should get out of the doorway. Fleck wouldn’t be considerate of him.

Evin raised an eyebrow. (And Harmoni could actually see enough of his face to tell.) “You realize I can’t clean, right? I’d just create a new mess of slime behind me.”

Harmoni dug a hand into her scalp, ignoring how gross that had to be by now. “That’s why I asked you to take stuff outside and not step foot in here!”

Evin didn’t immediately respond, except to blink in surprise.

Harmoni had wasted enough time on this. She turned back to her work.

Fleck was going to shove past Evin, but as soon as he was close enough, Evin yanked the bucket out of his teeth and walked off, saying something about how Harmoni’s nice girl act only lasted as long as it was convenient for her.

Well that was annoying, but Fleck would take the help. There was a chance Evin was just going to walk off with the bucket. But if he was feeling that immature and petty, Fleck could track him down.

He ran up to the loft. There was still some salvageable hay and straw. He started pushing them into two separate piles. When Evin came back with the bucket, he’d dump more of the not salvageable stuff in.

It continued like this for a bit. Fleck got a lot of the physical grime out, either in the bucket or just sweeping it out the door. Just flapping his wings shoved small bits of dirt and muck forward.

Harmoni scrubbed the items and the building. Then she put things back where they belonged.

Evin would empty the buckets, both of them, and refill the soap one.

Harmoni wasn’t sure how much time went by. A lot. It went from sunset to night, and just kept going. The sky got darker. It got hard to see in the stables. It must’ve been Evin who eventually lit a lantern hanging by the door.

She hadn’t seen him do it. Everything around her was just becoming a blur. But there was no one else around who could have.

Then it was over. Harmoni scoured the place, but everything was clean. Everything was back where it belonged. The horses weren't directly effected by this, even if they were a bit shaken up, and Harmoni had made sure they had clean food and water. The barn had less straw, hay, and grain than they should. But Fleck had saved what he could, and they couldn’t do much about the rest. The stables were not only clean, they looked better than usual.

Harmoni drew in a few ragged breaths. Her legs wobbled.

Fleck lay on his belly behind her, keeping her upright when she nearly tipped back.

Evin leaned against the entrance again, arms crossed. If he was tired, he was doing a good job hiding it. He smiled smugly. She couldn’t see the whole expression, but she saw enough changes in his face to tell.

"Thank you," she said.

Maybe she'd regret it, but he had helped her. Carrying those buckets might be the easiest task, but they were still enough to keep a person busy.

Evin actually looked thrown for a moment. He opened his mouth like he was going to say one of his usual obnoxious comments, closed his mouth, looked at the floor, and then apparently recovered. “This happen to you often?” he asked.

“What do you think?” Harmoni gasped.

Technically the answer was no. She was isolated here, compared to Xentron. Clearly some people didn’t like her. But they’d mostly dealt with that by ignoring her. So far.

“What were you doing here anyway?” Harmoni asked. “Want something from me?”

Evin shrugged. “Actually, I was planning to rob their cafeteria. Or ask Rasha to bring me something, if I saw her. It's not all about you. It was pretty funny to watch you panic though.”

And yet he'd helped her. And he hadn't given a reason. Not even something like testing if it made his slime go away. If he had a reason, an excuse, surely he'd jump to use it.

“The cafeteria’s probably closed now,” Harmoni said with a frown.

“Which will make it all the easier to rob,” Evin pointed out. “I can still get to that.”

He turned around and started walking to the castle. “Goodbye.”

Harmoni stopped leaning on Fleck, and stumbled to door. But Evin was gone by the time she got there, and she hadn't asked why he’d helped them clean.

‘Speaking of cleaning,’ Fleck thought.

He sniffed under his wing, and grimaced. He should really get to the river.

The castle did have running water, but Harmoni might join him at the river first, rather than trekking through the castle and leaving a trail of mud and. . .worse, behind her.

And they should hurry. It was clearly late, and she had classes she’d have to wake up in time for tomorrow. And the days here were shorter than on Xentron. . .

Harmoni sighed. Well, better get to work.