Kuravaan stepped into the crowd of Primoi that were hemmed into a circle in the center of the Indians’ portal room. “Parisat, if you would.” A moment later, all seventy-something Primoi were standing in front of the Aztecs’ house.

Omet leaned over to Horan and whispered in his ear. “If I tell Quet that these guys have someone who can just do that, will she flip her lid in a good way or a bad way?”

“You’re supposed to say something for the guests,” hissed Horan.

“Okay, right, sorry.” Omet slipped through the crowd and stood between them and the house. “If I could, uh, have all of your attention real quick? Yeah. Welcome to the home of the Aztecs, everyone! Not the prettiest front yard, but there’s not much to be done about that at this point, am I right?”

One Indian raised their hand. “Pretty sure you can just get one of your subjects trained as a landscaper, if that’s such a problem.”

“When we’re inside.” Kuravaan glared at the Primus who had spoken, then gestured for Omet to continue.

“Yeah, so, uh…” Omet glanced at Horan, who flexed his hand and wind-spoke the word ‘plan’ into their ear. “…So, to be transparent, our f– Domain has invited you folks here to do a bit of courting and convince you all that, given everything that’s been happening to us, it might do to establish a bit more long-term contact. I know it’s been a bit weird between us so far, but I’m hoping we can put our differences aside and work together to protect the people we love.”

They slowly stepped backwards and towards the front door. “So if you want, consider this whole event an olive branch from us to you. And with words out of the way, it’s time f–”

The front door flew open and Saralai stepped out, hair glowing with the light of the sun. “Look who showed up!”

Omet yelped and leapt away from the door in surprise. They covered their chest when they recognized Saralai. “Sorry, uh, wasn’t expecting anyone from that side.” They turned back to the Indians. “Well everyone, this is Saralai, she’s one of our Greek roommates who helped us set all this up. We can get into specific introductions soon, but for now, you… can…” They glanced back at Saralai. “…come in?”

Saralai nodded at Omet and stepped back inside, gesturing for the Indians to follow. “If you don’t mind.”

A moment before the first Indian crossed the threshold, Saralai waved at the band on the other side of the foyer, who quietly counted down from three before filling the cavernous room with the sound of calm jazz music. Aztecs and Greeks began to emerge from their rooms and descend into the foyer, greeting the Indians with wary openness.

Soon, the Indians spread out across buffet and drinks tables, with many taking a seat and engaging in small talk around them. Candles were lit across the room (with lamps in the walls still providing most of the actual light), and the room sank into the feel of a party.

At the back of the crowd entering the building, Horan shut the doors behind him and nudged Omet. “Looks like purple-you really pulled through, huh?”

Saralai approached the two of them. “Actually, Omet, I should probably let you know right away that the other Omet wrote this for you.” She handed Omet a folded-up sheet of paper.

Omet opened the sheet to reveal a note in their own handwriting. “M plus W asked for help, went to fetch with Quet, back soon…” They noticed a small frowny face at the bottom of the sheet, next to which was an even smaller ‘soz’. “…Okay? Any news from them since?”

“Not yet,” said Saralai, they only left an hour or so ago, I got put in charge while they were gone.”

Horan rubbed his eye. “Okay, yeah. This is one of those days, isn’t it?”

Omet began to pace nervously. “Okay, has it been a whole hour, or has it only been an hour? Should we go help them? We kind of assigned jobs under the assumption that Mark and Waia could do the dangerous part. Would I be making a rational decision he–? No, I wouldn’t.” They spun around and headed for the door. “I’m gonna go make sure they’re–”

Horan grabbed Omet’s shoulder and spun them around. “You are doing no such thing. You thought it was tough hanging around at the Indians’ place? They were accommodating you back then! Now you’re the one bending over backwards!”

“My sister and clone-me are potentially in life-threatening danger.”

“And the sun could explode at any minute, get over yourself.” Horan steered Omet towards the center of the party while Saralai drifted off in her own direction. “Your job is now to facilitate introductions between the two Domains and pair people up with adequate conversation partners, got it?”

“Kuravaan didn’t do that when we were at their place!”

“Yeah, because that was just a warmup and show of faith, pay attention.” Horan loosened his grip on Omet. “Look, those four are going to be fine. Mark, Waia and maybe Quet are an all-star cast for survival, and you’re more useful here. Just think long-term, okay? I can’t keep hyping you up forever, I need to change. Semi-formal isn’t going to cut it, and anything besides eveningwear is out of the question.”

Omet grumbled to themself, but continued forward with Horan. “Okay, fine, I’ll try and smooth things over here. But, uh, one quick favor…” They fished their notebook out of their back pocket and handed it to Horan. “Can you just pass this to one of my siblings and tell them that it’s from me?”

“…Sure?”

“Thanks so much. And please don’t look inside, it’s this whole thing, I’ll explain later.”

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Horan shrugged. “Alright.”

“Promise?”

Horan traced an X over his heart.

“Sorry for the secrecy,” said Omet, wincing slightly, “but it’ll either be worth it in the end or not matter. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later.” They scurried into the crowd and out of sight of Horan, sighing with relief.

They approached the half-dozen or so Indians watching the band play on their makeshift stage. They stood between two bystanders and cleared their throat. “Uh, hi, I haven’t really had the chance to get to know any of you. How’s the music so far?”

One of the Indians pursed her lips. “What is that? Jazz?”

Omet chuckled. “Yeah, it’s, uh… Hurat, the guy before me, he saw that a lot of us were entering a bit of a funk, like a lot of us were going through a rough patch, this would’ve been pretty much exactly a century ago. So what he did, is he just spent a month straight backpacking from here to San Francisco and back, checking out venues in every big city on the map. And he just tried to get everyone into some hobby or craft that he thought would gel with us. These four (and Hurat too, a little) got into jazz performance, I got into gothic literature, and in general, and the whole family actually started doing musical theater. Not sure how we got there, but it’s still super fun to do at public venues. We’ve even hosted a few shows at home, back when there were people nearby to come and watch. Hey, does anyone in your Domain do anything performance-wise? Music, acting, whatever, I’m just curious.”

The Indian to Omet’s left shrugged. “Strange thing to invest into.”

Omet smiled nervously. “Yeah, well, I think that that period was kind of the point where the whole family started to figure out what it–”

The Indian to the right leaned past Omet. “I think one of the pianist’s keys is broken, it sounds like they skip a note every now and then.”

“I think you might be right, actually,” said the one on the left.

“Oh,” mumbled Omet, “guess you’re in the middle of someth… Uh, I’ll go see what everyone else is up to.”

They scurried over to the buffet tables, where an Indian was busy covering his plate in bits of food that were usually reserved for dessert. “Hi, looks like you’ve spotted what you like here, huh?” They inserted a fake laugh for effect.

The Indian shrugged. “It’s a party, no need to follow that pyramid thing.”

“The…? Oh, right, the one for healthy diets. Yeah, a few people asked our resident chef, Quet, to add more of this kind of thing than usual, but she insisted that we maintain a more balanced selection. I guess it makes sense, we don’t know what you guys like.”

The Indian pointed to a plate close to the end of the table. “Are those gummy worms?”

Omet squinted. “Yeah, I think they are. Weird, Quet isn’t usually a fan of packaged food like that. I guess it’s already a minor miracle that we got all of this set up on such short notice, maybe a few people tried to chip in with their personal stashes. I’ll ask when she gets back from her… trip.”

“And how old did you say your Domain was?”

“Um, seven hundred,” said Omet. “Almost exactly.”

“Typical behavior,” muttered the Indian, heading off with his food.

Omet sighed, picked up a plate, and began to gather a meal for themself. While they drifted from table to table, they tried to listen in on a conversation that Saralai was having with two Indians nearby.

“And the thing is, said Saralai animatedly, “Back when everything was about presenting your products on that… What was it called? The thing that lets you use computers like telephones?”

“Inter-something,” said one of the Indians.

“I think so,” said Saralai. “When the inter-who-cares made everything shop-shop-shop, it just made those same people come out of the woodwork and act like it would be the brand new way to do business, like everyone didn’t say the same thing about magazine catalogues.”

“Humans and their screen-technology,” muttered an Indian, “makes them feel special.”

Omet tuned out the rest of the conversation and shuffled over to the couches surrounding the TV. They approached an Indian sitting in the middle of one of the couches and pointed at the spot next to her. “This seat taken?”

The Indian shook her head and shifted slightly to make room for Omet.

Omet took a seat and placed their plate on their lap. After a few moments of eating in silence, they spoke up. “So have you noticed that… technology, it’s… uh…”

“I couldn’t ask you earlier,” said the Indian, “but seriously, garden care isn’t out of the question just because there’s no more sun.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Omet, “you’re the one who asked that outside? Sorry, uh, I couldn’t really get a good look at you in the crowd.”

“M-hm.”

“But the garden thing isn’t really something that we’ve given much thought to,” said Omet. “We, uh… We don’t get out much these days. Maybe two or three major trips since the Nabbing, and those kinda tended on the unfortunate side…” They sighed slowly and let the cookie in their hand fall back onto their plate. “Things really have been getting worse with every new day, huh?”

“Wh… What do you mean?” The Indian shifted nervously.

“It’s just… I dunno, it’s self-centered to say that the world’s out to get us specifically. I saw firsthand what you’ve been dealing with when I showed up outside your house. But we certainly weren’t seeing armies of animal-monsters and invasions from the afterlife back when the sun still shone.”

The Indian shrugged. “Deus wasn’t useless.”

“I dunno,” mumbled Omet, “maybe. Doesn’t feel nice to think that that guy was the only thing keeping things together… Hey, how have things been going on your end with all this? Didn’t you and the Chinese come together to stop that Egyptian guy’s army last year? How did that turn out?”

The Indian got up and left, following a gaggle of her peers who had just split off from a congregation of Greeks.

“…Okay, right.” Omet went back to their food in silence.

A few minutes later, a few of their siblings sat next to them, holding plates of their own. “Well,” said one, “they’re as much of a nightmare as we predicted.”

Omet snorted. “No luck for you guys either, huh?”

“If they didn’t wanna be here,” muttered another, “they could’ve just turned us down.”

“Classic move,” said the third. “Digging into our food supplies. Don’t they know we’ve only got a few more months saved? Vegetables are hard to come across these days!”

“It’s not that big a deal,” said Omet, shushing their third sibling. “Just… humor them, for now. I’ve got a contingency brewing.” They noticed another Aztec approach the couches, stapled-together bundles of pages slung under her arm. “And speaking of…”

The Aztec gave each of her siblings a set of the pages. “You print fast, Xicat,” said Omet. “Can’t thank you enough, really. This is gonna be so worth it if things go wrong.”

One of the seated Aztecs examined the first page. “…Operation Netherworld?”

“Read through it,” said Omet, grinning. “It’ll be familiar to you all.”