With the two Domains being split up into several teams, each dedicated to properly furnishing their own section of the pyramidal complex, things were progressing quickly. That did not mean that they were progressing consistently, however.

“Okay, let’s just…” Omet slapped their cheeks absent-mindedly. “This is probably supposed to be a big decision, so… What do you guys think are the pros and cons here? With each one?”

One of their brothers held up a length of frayed lace. “Con to the ‘classy’ style: We need to scrounge around our resident hoarder’s stashes for anything that even vaguely fits the aesthetic.”

Saralai pushed past Omet and ripped the lace out of the Aztec’s hand, wincing slightly at the resulting ripping sound. “Pro to us going for ‘classy’, we won’t look like a bunch of homeless people! Very high standards have been set by pretty much every Old World Domain–” She pointed to the assortment of other loose decorations that had been gathered, most of which consisted of old stage props– “and a human child’s birthday party don’t meet them!”

A nearby Greek cleared their throat. “You’re yelling again.”

Saralai sighed, closed her eyes, tucked a stray lock of hair back into place and looked around at the gathered Aztecs. “Point is, laziness is a visible thing. You can’t possibly have nothing for dedicated decorations stashed away, right? I know you people aren’t the type to bring other Domains over to play catch-up, but you aren’t a bunch of hermits.”

Omet shrugged and shook their head. “Nobody in the Americas ever really managed to set up a decent Down Below portal network, and–”

Quet raised a hand from behind Omet. “The Cree did.”

“...Yeah, okay, but they were an outlier. We’ve been the only Domain for hundreds of kilometers since the Mayans died out a century or two ago, and that one pan-North American get-together that the Haudenosaunee used to organize every few decades hasn’t been a thing for even longer, so…” Omet looked out the floor. “...Wow, there haven’t been many of us for a while, huh? We only really headed out to meet up with you guys because it had been a few years since we spoke to anyone who we weren’t related to.”

Saralai facepalmed. “I get your point, sure. Okay, just… We need to make this place look like we have a budget.”

“We don’t, though.”

“I said make it look that way!” Saralai took a deep breath. “Okay. Sorry. Pretend you’re trying to make, uh… Okay, work with what we have, a classic fallback. How do you guys think you could rearrange this whole sort of…” She waved at nothing in particular. “...house, I guess… if you wanted to take the Indians on a tour of the place and convince them to buy it? If you can’t make it fancy, make it pristine.”

The Aztec that Saralai had taken the shredded lace from shrugged. “Guess it’s better than scrounging. That’s a good word.”

“Quiet.” Saralai turned and left, dragging her hand along the side of her face. “I’m turning into Horan…”

Once Saralai was gone and everyone else was continuing their work with a better sense of purpose, Quet cleared her throat to get Omet to turn around. “Hey, I just came over to tell you that I’m finished with the food stuff. Also, speaking of Horan, uh, just out of curiosity, what’s the dress code going to look like?”

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Omet stiffened in an instant, but didn’t attempt to speak.

Quet looked away nervously. “I… Are you okay? Is there something here that I should be worrying about?”

“No, it’s…” Omet absent-mindedly worried at the hem of their cardigan. “I know you aren’t a fan of unexpectedly not-fun conversations, but how much do you think Horan– and Saralai, I guess– have the right idea about how to do all this?”

Quet stared at them blankly.

“Right, okay, going back.” Omet took a little bit too long to mull their words over. “I don’t really like talking about other people behind their back like this, but I don’t really think Horan is looking at this from the right angle. We’re putting all this work in to ‘impress’ the Indians, who are under the same threat of death as the rest of us. Old Worlders are weird, I know, but I’m under the impression that either they’ll say yes right away, or they aren’t joining us. This isn’t really something that you negotiate.”

Quet shrugged. “I’ve learned to just go with things. It’s like you said a couple hours ago, very few of us are experts at anything.”

“Yeah, but… I might need to go back a little further actually. Remember when we tried to celebrate Horan’s birthday, back in March?”

“You mean the time where I turned his sticker book into a starter glyph set? Or was this a different thing that I missed out on and I just misunderstood everything the first time?”

“...What?”

“There’s a precedent for it.”

Omet sighed and rubbed the back of their neck. “Yeah, I don’t think I was very heavy on the details when I asked you to make something for him. But you’re thinking of the right one.”

Quet shook her head. “There were so many clues that a stunt like that wouldn’t have worked, we should’ve picked up on them way before we made any progress.”

“I wouldn’t really call a party for him to be quite as doomed as you think it is, it’s not like Horan is the type to be naturally inclined to blow us off like that.”

Quet raised a hand. “Question: You were the one who organized that, was it meant to be a surprise party? Follow-up question: If so, did you actually tell him to be at the right place at the right time?”

Omet sighed. “Yeah, I– I did, none of us really wanted to be all secretive towards a new housemate, but he was generally the one avoiding talking about it with us, like it made him uncomfortable.”

“I’ll trust you that that was a reasonable inference.”

“I did also ask him about it later,” said Omet, “so that also helped the people who were still around come to a conclusion. He asked me to promise not to bring up what we talked about in his room, so I can’t really explain why I think he isn’t making the healthiest reasonings right now, but my bottom line is that I think he could do with a show of support when we all have the time. Knowing what seeing him in the presence of a Domain like the Indians is like, I’m sure Yellow came up with the same plan a while ago.”

“Something low-key, though,” agreed Quet.

“Oh yeah, absolutely. The guy deserves something less flashy than a party just for him.”

“Fast consensus, always a fan.”

“Always a fan indeed.”

An Aztec tapped Omet on the shoulder. “Hey, purple Omet, you mind helping us to duplicate some tables? Teca remembered that you can just sort of let us double up on furniture, and we need a platform for the band.”

Omet turned to face their sibling and lit up. “Oh, you’re so right! Bring me over right now, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. No need to distinguish which Omet I am when the other me isn’t around, by the way. I’m not a clone.”