Later that night, everyone had settled into their rooms. The matter of sleep was still a contentious subject for most, though. Waia had spent the remainder of the afternoon helping the cleanup efforts, disposing of Joey bodies and helping to bury the villagers who had died in the attack. Thankfully, nobody connected the dots between her and the lava-coated figure who had defended the village. Nor did they see her sneak away and throw Shades into the nearby woods. After an afternoon of chaos and labor, Waia easily fell asleep. But the other four weren’t quite as lucky.

Mark, Horan, Quet and Omet decided to split the two rooms the owner of the motel had given them: Mark and Horan in one, Quet and Omet in the other. They’d gone to bed early, all expecting to begin their trek to the southern volcano as soon as possible.

Horan woke up earlier than expected. Much earlier. It took him a moment to remember that the moon shining through the open window was a pretty good indicator of the time. Horan checked the other side of the queen-size bed and, sure enough, Mark was gone. The latch on the door was still up, the sliding glass door to the balcony was closed, and nobody was in the bathroom. That only left one way he could have gone.

Horan climbed out of the second-floor window and floated up to the roof. Sitting there with his legs dangling over the edge was Mark, staring blankly up at the night sky.

Horan landed next to him. “Figures you’d find somewhere lonely to sulk about your situation. Still upset about the whole impossible situation?” He waited a moment for a response, then sat down next to Mark when none came his way. “C’mon, talk to me here, dude. What’re we looking at? The sky? Yeah, no clouds, we est-”

“Didn’t think I’d ever see them again.”

Horan decided to close his mouth upon hearing that and simply took in the same view as Mark. It was surprisingly nice to see the stars again. Plus, without the light pollution of modern humanity, they were out in full force. A thick band of color spanned the sky, at its strongest at the edge of the horizon before stretching all the way to the other end. A hundred thousand pinpricks of light peppered the rest of the sky, as if they were scattered off of the band of the milky way. There was more color here than the sky had ever been graced with in years.

Long after Horan had lost track of time, Mark spoke again, still not taking his eyes off of the sky. “...Why exactly do you do it? Why is it that when you see someone having trouble with their lives, you feel compelled to step in? Even when it usually does affect us, you decide to head over and help the other people involved, even when that messes with us long term?”

“...That’s, uh… out of left field.”

“Humor me.”

“Well, it’s… I guess the same reason you bailed me out of Erlani’s prison, way back when.”

“I don’t want to sound dismissive, but I seriously doubt you have the same process that I had when I did that.”

“Okay, well, that’s my easy answer gone.” Horan thought for a moment. “...I guess it’s because I feel like I have to. After all, helping people around me was sorta my job for a good while, and that idea kinda stuck with me.”

“So you do it because you feel you have to? Even if it makes you miserable?”

“Hey, I’m doing just fine these days. Sure, I’ve lost…” Horan held up an arm. “...Kind of a lot of weight. Didn’t even know that could happen, but I guess that’s what happens when I take cheat days nonstop for four months. But who cares? I can pull off a more svelte look. Who says I’m miserable like this?”

“You do. At least, that’s what it looks like from here.” Mark looked away from the sky. His eyes were drawn downwards. Realizing how high up he was, he quickly scooted further back on the roof and elected to lie down, looking straight up at the sky again. “Remember when I first met you? You were all dramatic and everything, like you were a real big shot. Now you’re all quiet, you’re self-critical of yourself and all. It’s weird to think that the guy who yelled at the ruler of an entire Domain over where to find a changing room is the same friend of mine who got upset when he accidentally indirectly made a stranger have a panic attack. There’s no way you were just… like that before I met you. What changed? There’s no way you’re happy like this.”

Horan mimicked Mark’s position, lying next to him. This would be way more pleasant if they were lying back in bed instead of the stiff, concrete roof. “I… Yeah, I guess so. But we couldn’t really get along when I was like that, I’m just trying to fit better into my new life.”

Stolen story; please report.

Mark sat up on his elbows, awkwardly looking over Horan’s eyepatch and nose to see his one good eye. “Really? You’re doing all that for me? C’mon, I’m fine with all that stuff, it’s great to see that you’re really enjoying yourself. I’d go to a hundred stupid parties if it meant you would always have as much fun as when you do then.”

Horan looked Mark in the eye. The fact that he had to alternate between which of his eyes to look at made it even harder to read his expression. “...You’re serious? You’re not just messing with me?”

“Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious.”

“It can be hard to tell with you.”

“Touché.” Mark got to his feet. “Well, we still need those eight hours of sleep, and we’re not gonna get them up here. Back to bed.”

Mark slid down a drainpipe to reach the window while Horan glided through like it was nothing. Before heading inside, Mark took one last look at the stars and smiled. “Glad we answered my first question.”

Horan paused in the middle of getting under the sheets. “...Did we? I thought we just skipped over that.”

“Nah. I think I figured it out.”

-

Omet felt the urge to wake up out of nowhere. They blearily lifted their face from their pillow and blinked the sleep out of their eyes. Not only did their skin feel like it was rubbing against a shag carpet, but a button on their cardigan had been digging into their ribs. Maybe if Quet had taken an interest in tailoring instead of food, Omet wouldn’t have to sleep in their clothes whenever they roughed it.

Wait, no, thinking about clothes was pointless. Omet slowly focused their mind back to reality. Turning in bed, Omet saw Quet sitting on an armchair, staring at the table by the door with her legs tucked up to her chest.

Omet sat up, still trying to focus their vision from the blur of sleep. A complex grid of stones was arrayed on the table, with hair from Quet, Omet, Mark and Horan in a pile in the center. A green haze flowed from the grid of stones and sluggishly swirled around the hair, allowing the stones to familiarize themselves with the people the hair belonged to. Every now and then, the grid flashed with different colors. Dark blue, pale pink, orange and the same flickering rainbow sequence that the Joey souls had had before vanishing.

Quet’s half-closed eyes still hadn’t picked up Omet, so they decided to make themself known. “...You’re still awake?”

Quet was roused from her reverie. “Uh, yeah. Not tired, I guess.”

Omet squinted to see the hands on the wall clock. “It’s two in the morning, you’re gonna be exhausted all day if you don’t get some shut-eye.”

“Wow, it’s been four hours, huh? Time really flies.”

“You’ve been-” Omet lowered their voice. They didn’t want to wake anyone up. “You’ve been up for four hours?”

“Technically eighteen, if we’re talking about how long it’s been since I last slept. I’ve been sitting in this chair since right around 10 P.M., though.”

“Wh…Why?”

Quet shrugged and pulled her legs closer to her chest with her arms, not taking her eyes off of the magical display in front of her. “Couldn’t sleep. Tried, but couldn’t.”

Omet yawned and rolled out of bed, trying to figure out what Quet was thinking. Rarely an easy task, especially when their mind hadn’t yet kicked into gear. “Worried about the others?”

“Among other things. Today’s been crazy, and it’s a lot to handle. My head feels… like it’s full of bees. Except those bees are thoughts? That metaphor was awful, sorry.”

“No worries.” Omet staggered over and leaned on the back of Quet’s chair, looking over her head at the faintly glowing stones. “Worried something’ll go wrong overnight?”

Quet nodded. “We’ve only got so much time to get to them, and I don’t want to mess this up.”

“I don’t think you ever mess up your spells.”

“Then you clearly haven’t seen my experiments.” Quet leaned forwards and began examining the stones, pushing one back into proper alignment. It was already proper, but now it was slightly less likely to fall out of balance. “So much has already gone wrong today, I’m not sure I can handle one more screwup.

Omet let her finish tweaking her grid before responding. “Yeah, okay, I get what you’re saying. I’m worried about everything too. But your spells are fine, they don’t need twenty-four hour surveillance. Hey, isn’t there some kind of tea that helps people fall asleep?”

“Chamomile?”

“Right, that. How about you make us some? It’ll help you take your mind off of all the insanity that our life has become.”

Quet chuckled and pulled her belt of bags off of the bedpost. “I’ll see what I can do.”

While Quet sat on the ground and began rooting through her bags, Omet began to get back into bed. Now that their brain was functioning properly, they realized that they could have just taken their cardigan off before they went to bed to create less bulk. If they were a human, they probably would have died of heatstroke under so many layers of fabric. The window wasn’t even open.

Omet was pulled from their increasingly meaningless train of thought by Quet speaking without looking at them. “You know, of all the siblings to get stranded with in Hawaii during the beginning of the end times, I’m glad it’s you.”

Omet smiled and climbed into bed. “And I’m glad to hear it.”